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SEO Site Review: http://www.sonirodban.com

by jfambrini
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello folks. This is John Jim Fambrini. I'm an ex-CIO now retired in beautiful Thailand.

I manage websites for two auto exporters here as a hobby. One of these auto exporters is Soni Group and their website http://www.sonirodban.com | Thailand top Toyota Hilux Vigo Champ Double Cab exporter used to be number 1 and number 2 on most Google searches from between 2001 till 2010.

In 2011 they remained on first half page on some searches and came down on others. In the past few weeks they have suffered a rout in their SERPs. Two weeks ago they were thrown on page 3 and 4. Now they are back on page 2 on many and bottom of page 1 on some queries. Their search terms related mostly to their best selling cars as Toyota hilux vigo, toyota fortuner, nissan navara, thailand pickup trucks and so on.

I know design has changed very little since 2003 so tips on design would also be appreciated but where we really need help is on what we are doing wrong in terms of SEO.

Design wise and organization wise it would help it were in a CMS. I really want to move it to Joomla so I have a greater selection of templates but we had moved our http://sonimotors.net | Soni 4x4 Toyota Vigo exporters in Thailand from static html to Joomla some 4 years ago. The site used to be PR3 but when it moved to Joomla PR evaporated and became zero. It took a few months to come to PR2, then became PR3 for a few weeks but crept back down to PR2 and has stayed there since then. Is there a Joomla conversion expert who can tell me how to avoid this scenario.

Thanks again for your time. Positive and negative criticism all welcome, no need to spare my feelings.

Thanks,
John
#review #seo #site #toyota vigo exporter
  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    I would guess the reason you lost some PR when you switched the other site to Joomla is that not all of the URLs were recreated. That would cause a loss in some external and internal linking, which would possibly bring about a drop in the PR.

    Just switching to Joomla (or any other CMS for that matter) in itself would not cause a drop in PR.

    As for your site, one glaring problem is you do not have the WWW vs non-WWW version of the site set to default. The site exists as both http://www.sonirodban. com and http://sonirodman. com. Search engines see each as different sites. You need to do a 301 redirect of one to the other.

    It looks like the WWW version has far more links coming in than the non-WWW version, so I would redirect the non-WWW to the WWW version.

    From a user perspective, the site is a mess. It hurts my brain to look at it. I would bet there is a bounce rate through the roof on the site. I would bounce if I came to the site.

    There is no clear navigation to the site. There are just links and menus everywhere.

    I would drop the Links page. Those things are useless unless you are going to link out to something useful. The links page here makes little sense. Looks like links are missing. I would just trash it and redirect the page to the homepage.

    The whole thing needs a massive cleanup. It just looks like someone vomited out the site.
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    • Profile picture of the author jfambrini
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      I would guess the reason you lost some PR when you switched the other site to Joomla is that not all of the URLs were recreated. That would cause a loss in some external and internal linking, which would possibly bring about a drop in the PR.

      Just switching to Joomla (or any other CMS for that matter) in itself would not cause a drop in PR..
      That was helpful. I will keep that in mind. Probably do a page by page conversion offline and then put the site onine with 301 redirects if I can figure out the best way to do this in Joomla.

      As for your site, one glaring problem is you do not have the WWW vs non-WWW version of the site set to default. The site exists as both http://www.sonirodban. com and http://sonirodman. com. Search engines see each as different sites. You need to do a 301 redirect of one to the other.

      It looks like the WWW version has far more links coming in than the non-WWW version, so I would redirect the non-WWW to the WWW version.
      How would I do this redirection? Is this something I ask my hosting company?

      From a user perspective, the site is a mess. It hurts my brain to look at it. I would bet there is a bounce rate through the roof on the site. I would bounce if I came to the site.

      There is no clear navigation to the site. There are just links and menus everywhere.

      I would drop the Links page. Those things are useless unless you are going to link out to something useful. The links page here makes little sense. Looks like links are missing. I would just trash it and redirect the page to the homepage.

      The whole thing needs a massive cleanup. It just looks like someone vomited out the site.
      Site is an accretion of content ten years in the making. With regards to it being a mess. Are you referring to its use of colors and graphics or the layout?

      Internal links have been placed because there is no menu and since most customers come to find more infocmation on vehicles we export they need links to those on the first page they land onto. My preference to go J oomla was for this earier menu creation and easier navigability.

      There used to be a lot of links on the page till 3 years ago but then we began monitoring who still had our links and we discovered that 99% of the people we had given links to had removed our link on their pages so we have now almost discontinued link sharing this way.

      I have another site for review on the board: Thailand Car Pickup Dealer Toyota Vigo Hilux 2012 2011 Exporter New Used 2010 2009 2008 2011 Toyota Hilux Vigo new used Toyota Hilux Vigo new used on sale at Thailand top dealer exporter Mitsubishi L200 Triton Nissan Navara Toyota Fortuner Mitsubishi. This site is in Joomla. How would you compare sonirodban.com with it? I know it is keyword happy and I plan to have our designer rewrite it but take a look at navigation and menus and layout and give your advise.

      With regards to design we have limited talent in Thailand. This is why I want to move to a CMS so I have greater access to templates.

      Thanks again for all your invaluable advise.
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      Thailand Car Exporter | Toyta Hilux Revo Thailand | Thailand Pickup Exporter
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by jfambrini View Post

        How would I do this redirection? Is this something I ask my hosting company?
        Some hosts might do it for you. Usually the web designer does it. You have to modify the .htaccess file.

        Originally Posted by jfambrini View Post

        Site is an accretion of content ten years in the making. With regards to it being a mess. Are you referring to its use of colors and graphics or the layout?
        Yes, yes, and yes. It's all bad. I cannot find anything. I can barely tell what you do. You have about 3 seconds to catch someone's attention when they come to your site. When I pull up your site, I have no idea where to look first.

        Originally Posted by jfambrini View Post

        There used to be a lot of links on the page till 3 years ago but then we began monitoring who still had our links and we discovered that 99% of the people we had given links to had removed our link on their pages so we have now almost discontinued link sharing this way.
        I would completely discontinue link sharing that way. Waste of time. Reciprocal links basically cancel eachother out.

        The other site is pretty bad too. First thing you are greeted by is this.

        Thailand Car Pickup Dealer Toyota Vigo Hilux 2012 2011 Exporter New Used 2010 2009 2008 2011 Toyota Hilux Vigo new used Toyota Hilux Vigo new used on sale at Thailand top dealer exporter Mitsubishi L200 Triton Nissan Navara Toyota Fortuner Mitsubishi Pajero Sport from Thailand top 4x4 pickup SUV dealer exporter Soni Motors Thailand 4x4 diesel pickup SUV dealer importer exporter Nissan Navara Mitsubishi L200 Triton Toyota Fortuner
        It's awful. Just a bunch of keywords stuffed into the first paragraph. Forget SEO. Even if someone finds the page they are going to run.
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  • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
    Look, this is what you want with a wordpress blog attached, you are stuffing loads of gobbldygook in text every nook and cranny, not good...

    Whether you are looking for Mitsubishi Fuso FE71BB8SRDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FE73BE6SRDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FE84DE6SRDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FE85DE7SRDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FE85DG7SRDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FM65F F1RDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FM65F H1RDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FM65F M1RDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FN61FR2RDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FN62FM1RDH1, Mitsubishi Fuso FN62FM2RDH1 and Mitsubishi Fuso FV51JHR3RDHA, Soni Motors Thailand is your choice.
    Live preview for Website template #38522
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    • Profile picture of the author jfambrini
      Originally Posted by dmtaylor247 View Post

      Look, this is what you want with a wordpress blog attached, you are stuffing loads of gobbldygook in text every nook and cranny, not good...



      Live preview for Website template #38522
      Believe it or not but this is not gobbledygook. These are model numbers of Mitsubishi fuso commercial trucks. Since a customer will type this model number to find information on it we have to put all these model numbers in the page or the next guy who puts this information will get him.
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      Thailand Car Exporter | Toyta Hilux Revo Thailand | Thailand Pickup Exporter
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      • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
        Originally Posted by jfambrini View Post

        Believe it or not but this is not gobbledygook. These are model numbers of Mitsubishi fuso commercial trucks. Since a customer will type this model number to find information on it we have to put all these model numbers in the page or the next guy who puts this information will get him.
        Yes I can still see you rank well for many of these keywords but when Google crawls your homepage and sees these, keywords, keywords, keywords etc it just looks like you are stuffing them into a page.

        Users are searching for them but the text is not natural so it is gobbledygook. To be quite honest with you, no user wants to land on a page quite as complex and confusing like the one you have built, they want simplicity. They are not techincally minded and can't read text as fast as Data from Star Trek so you need to make it easy for them. You have built your pages for search engines and not users and Google has punished you accordingly.

        That's why you should make your homepage user friendly, you need to think about them first and "categorise" all of the model numbers under "make" and let users filter for or search for the information they require. The same with your backlinks, they want to be targeted and you shouldn't care about the anchor text only people clicking them and buying your products with ease.
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  • Profile picture of the author jfambrini
    Thanks to both DM and Mike. Points well taken, will get my team to redo this asap. Overoptimization will have to go. I'll look into conversion to Joomla without sacrificing the PR. Meanwhile will fix the current site. Thanks again for all the invaluable feedback. 'll love to hear from others as well.
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    Thailand Car Exporter | Toyta Hilux Revo Thailand | Thailand Pickup Exporter
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