- Why is the Site Strength Indicator giving my site such a low score when I'm doing so well in the search engines?
Keep in mind that it's difficult to customize the Site Strength Indicator to all niches, and it's very possible that a site could get a relatively low score yet still perform well with the search engines.
For example, you may have a fairly small number of links, so the SSI tool would give you a lower score in that department. However, if you've still got several high quality links among the links you do have, those will be helping you rank well (quality is always more important than quantity when it comes to links).
Since the SSI tool deals with raw numbers rather than evaluating the quality of each link, a site could score low even though it has great links (just in smaller numbers). Of course, if you had more links, or more .edu or .gov links, or a Yahoo directory listing, then you could be doing even better.
Rather than looking at the SSI tool in absolute terms as the final judgement over a site, it's much more useful if you use it to find potential areas for improvement. It's also very valuable when comparing your site with your competitors' to see areas where they might be outperforming you, and vice-versa. - Not seeing your known 'DMOZ' link? Here's Why...
This tool primarily uses the Yahoo search API, so it's only as good as the data Yahoo provides us. We've seen a few cases where a DMOZ listing was on a page that Yahoo hasn't yet spidered and, in such cases, it would not be reported in this tool. Regardless, Yahoo has spidered most of the pages that Google has and therefore is by far the best tool for doing such link analysis, so situations like this are pretty rare.
Going forward, we are working on also pulling data from Google's copy of DMOZ over at http://www.google.com/dirhp to compensate for the rare cases where Yahoo has not yet spidered the DMOZ page. Often, Yahoo will have indexed the link at this site even if it somehow missed it over at DMOZ.
Site Strength Indicator (SSI)
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Understanding your Total Score
0 – 19 : This site has a very limited search engine presence and is getting far less search traffic than it could if it increased its optimization. Building quality links is often the quickest way to improve search engine rankings.
20 – 39 : This site has made some progress in achieving rankings, but is still far below achieving its potential. Targeting long-tail keywords is your best bet for traffic at this level.
40 – 59 : While there is still a lot of work to do, this site is on the verge of breaking into the arena of major search engine exposure. Creating some viral buzz could be enough to push it into the big leagues.
60 – 79 : This site is a powerful presence on the Internet. In a small to medium niche it's likely dominating, but can still be beat with the right optimization.
80 – 100 : This site is among the most powerful and authoritative on the Internet. If this is your site, then congratulations! If it's your competitor's site, they're going to be very tough to beat.