My site has been online for 8 months and noticed that Google has not ranked it, yet.

I see that my pages are indexed, and about half of them are cached. Last week or two, noticed that their spiders were crawling my site. Does this mean that my site is not up to par with Google's standards, since the site is not ranked?

I have been researching and trying to optimize the pages on a weekly bases, including submitting it to various SE and directories and wondered what else I might be missing. (Not listed with DMOZ, yet, I'm still waiting for them to review my site.)

I'm an ametuer, DIY who developed these pages by myself, so I know I have a lot to learn if anyone would be patient enough to discuss it with me. Please feel free to review my site http://HawaiianIslandWear.com and share your comments/suggestions with me.

Thanks in advance, for your help! hiw

p.s. please explain the difference between indexed and cached? thx

You seem to be using hidden text, for some strange reason....

I applogize for my ignorance in this area.... But I did not intend to have hidden text on my pages. How do I identify the hidden text? I assume this is not acceptable by the search engines.

Thx... hiw

I think glengara was refering to the hidden text (white text on white background) in the main menu on the left-hand side. I suspect this was for an aesthetic effect that doesn't quite work. Make sure the links are visible as hidden text is frowned upon by the search engines.

Try to make more use of heading tags (e.g. H1,H2) within the site to help the engines determine what the theme of a page is.

Also move the CSS into a seperate file and reference it. This will help to cut down the file size of your pages.

p.s. please explain the difference between indexed and cached? thxIf Google lists a page, it is in the index whether it ranks for its intended searchterms or not. The exception is pages where only the URL is listed. It usually means that Google knows about the page but hasn't indexed it yet.

If a page is in the index, and the page doesn't have a "no cache" tag on it, then Google displays the "cached" link with the listing, so that the page can be viewed without leaving Google's site. The same applies to other engines that operate a cache system.