CRYING! ANYONE GOOD AT REMOVING LINKS?!

Hi Steve 

I've just posted 2 comments on your Facebook page, see how it shows up

Right, sorry for being slow on the uptake, have replicated your problem!

Ok, so now I'm really baffled. It's like the description tag of your meta data, or opengraph description tag has been hijacked. But looking at your home page, you don't have any markup and your description is: <meta name="description" content="Officially Licensed Retro T-Shirts"/>

It's only when you share on Facebook, it displays correctly on Google Plus.

Looking at other listings on the directory you cancelled from, they just display their normal description when shared on FB.

I don't suppose you can add any meta information if it's a vistaprint website? Have vistaprint come back with anything?

Anyone web peeps got any bright ideas?

You just said a whole lot of stuff there I don't understand!

However, no ,Vistaprint said they'd call me back, but it's the 3rd time they've said that in about 4 weeks regards separate issues and they haven't once kept to it!

If I update anything on Facebook I'll just have to leave off the www but I guess that's not the point 

Thanks for looking at it for me though.

Originally Posted by Kempres

“You just said a whole lot of stuff there I don't understand!.”

The meta data is just information search engines and social media sites use to read and understand your website.

If you rightclick your mouse and view page source (or similar words depending on browser) you will see a lot of gibberish and code.

In there will be a few meta tags such as below:

<title>KemPres Retro </title>

<meta name="title" content="KemPres Retro "/>

<meta name="description" content="Officially Licensed Retro T-Shirts"/>

This just tells search engines your website is called KemPres Retro and the description of your website. 

For some reason, Facebook is reading the description of your website from another source. If it was your own website, you could put some tags in your code telling Facebook what to display. Unfortunately this is one of the realities of using free or cheap and cheerful solutions. There's no substitute for having and being in control of your own website.

But would genuinely be interested if anyone could explain where Facebook is pulling that description from?

On one of your previous comments you said no free listing should ask for a link, I've come across, I'd say at least 10 who've said it's a must.

This is after spending about 45-60 minutes filling out the listing, adding descriptions, uploading pictures etc

It's after doing this and submitting that I was  taken to a separate page saying a link must be added to activate a free listing.

And that's 10 you should stay well clear of

It's an old tactic to build up a large linking profile. Directories by their very nature attract lots of businesses signing up. Some offer a reciprocal link, you link to me and I'll link to you, which even now, in the land of google penalties and ropey linking profiles,  plenty of sites still do it. Some simply demand a link back in order for you to have a free listing.

End of the day, the choice is up to you, it's your business.

Hi Kempress, from experience I would recommend that you don't waste one nano second on placing links in directories. I've spent thousands of pounds and probably the same in hours, because that is what so called SEO guru's told website owners that that is what the search engines wanted. Absolute hogwash, most links were of no use at all, Google changes their algorithms and then those who we're suppose to know about SEO just make feeble excuses because they were caught on the hop. Concentrate on your website and social media sites and getting everything right on them, anything else you hear just take with a pinch of salt. I certainly would waste my time again on a 'if you link to me I'll link to you'. Waste of time, waste of money and waste of a lot of sleep....

Hey Barney,

I'm certainly with you on the lack of sleep thing!

Regards money, I've not paid for any sort of directory.

Regards hours, I'm putting in a ridiculous amount right now.

Are directories worth it, well the traffic counter on my website says I've had 0 visits in 2 months due to online ads...

Some tell me it takes 6 months some tell me waste of effort...

Before this turns into a general directory bashing thread, (as we are a directory) that's not strictly true, as I can see you have had some click throughs from us.

You are displaying a Google Analytics code in the clear (for some reason) UA-50151694-1. So assume you are looking at your analytics's, and this will tell you exactly where your traffic is coming from. Search Engines, referrals, social media, websites, forums etc. 

You will also be able to see your bounce rates, see the user journey and get an idea what does and doesn't work. Don't just pursue one method of marketing and sit back. It's a continual process across a broad range of channels. Be selective, you don't want to be listed on a whole range of low value directories, but you do want to be listed on a number of directories.

These will give you something called "citations", Name, address and phone number. ie pointers to Google that you are who you say you are, regardless if you have a link or not.

But the main thing is make sure your landing page is the best it can possibly be, and you will get all this data from your analytics. If you don't understand or can't make any sense of it, then learn. It's one of the most important marketing tools you have, and it's free

If people land on your home page, and then bounce away, then the reality is people don't like it. If you have a low bounce, lots of pageviews and time on site, but people still aren't buying your products, then they like the home page, but something on the product page is turning them off.

Likewise look at the quality of traffic coming from different sources. If all the traffic from a particular medium just bounces and does nothing, but traffic from another source converts well, then you know where to concentrate. 

Generating and reacting to this kind of data is how you will move forward imho.

Can only go by experience, my old site has 20 trillion zillion links, no telephone calls, plenty of spam emails and nowhere to be found on Google. New site up and running 18 months not one link building  done at all, very little spam, constant phone enquiries and I couldn't ask for a better position in the search engines...