1402 replies to this topic

[Jill]

What do you mean by creativity in SEO. Just would like to hear a thought on this.

LOL...Vijay, you obviously haven't been reading my 4 or 5 year's worth of SEO commentary.

Nothing's changed in SEO since I've been doing it. What has changed is the number of pages on the Web and in the engines' database, and the number of people who've learned how to do at least some rudimentary SEO.

All this means is that it's even more important than ever to create a site that is THE site to go to in YOUR particular industry.

Chasing highly competitive phrases has always been a cat and mouse game. Time is much better well spent doing other things and forgetting about the highly competitive phrases. If you get them, consider yourself lucky, but know that your position is always precarious at best. When you lose it, be thankful that you had it at all, and keep on truckin'.

Read through my past newsletters and articles and you will see that this has always been what I've tried to tell people. It's always been about hard work, dedication, long hours and creativity. And it always will be. Nobody gets rich by being lazy. (Well, I'm the exception, but most people don't! )

It's about passion.

It's about having a Website that you love and treat like your child.

It's about making your site be the best it can be...



J

[don1]

Jill, if I understand correctly you are saying that something is going on at google but stay the course, right? Things will return to normal. So, fact that we just got our forums ranked number 3 this week for a targeted keyword and now are nowhere to be seen may have been or is a fluke. BTW, the site that was number 1 is now down in the 30's but the previous number 2 is number 1 (IMO that is the one that should be in the 30's).

[Jill]

Jill, if I understand correctly you are saying that something is going on at google but stay the course, right?

Depends on what "the course" is!

Jill

[Peter]

It's about passion.

It's about having a Website that you love and treat like your child.

It's about making your site be the best it can be...

Now I know exactly how that feels. I love my web site so much, my wife sometimes gets jealous,..

Peter

[Jill]

My article from August 2000 - Common Sense SEO is quite appropriate for today's situation.

Jill

[Think Web]

Reduce the link hunting frenzy and go back to what was the natural linking methods which were there before Google and accept the fact that you are probably not going to come up for competitive phrases.

I'm willing to bet that commercial web sites will soon pursue link building with web sites that remain in the organic serps. It may not give them a direct SEO benefit, but it would give them the potential of gaining traffic from those sites.

Anyone want to pay me some money to place a link on my site?

[ImVickieB]

leanne I very much feel your stress and am living it as well I am too feeling that google is twisting that tweak knob just a bit to hard at the moment. (So hard that our sales have dropped about 40% since the dance started) I am just hoping that after this is all said and done, things equalize a bit.

I don't think things are done quite yet as all the spam listings at that I talked about in this thread http://www.highranki...p?showtopic=650 are still there, though my site is now in the #2 position.

Also for another pretty competitive term, http://www.google.co...pregnancy tests the number 2 listing is still the recipient of all the type of forwards from the post I previously made. That phrase used to list sales sites and now it is mostly "info" type pages. The ironic part is that they didn't show up for that term before the dance started even though many of the cloaked spamming sites were working hard to try and them them there.

One thing that has helped me out is that google may have removed my sales sites but because I have other info sites that are linking to the sales sites, the info sites are showing up instead. While I would much rather have people do a direct click to the sales site, I will take what I can get.

I know I shouldn't obsess, but when my income is drastically cut (my husband and I both work at home with 3 kids to feed) I tend to try and figure out where the next pay check is coming from, the stress level tends to go beserk. Yes, very pessimistic I know but I like to know where I stand and this up and down "there one minute, not there the next" results are really unsettling to me.

For the seasoned SEO's out there, the last time Google did a major algo change, how long did it take for the major moving to stop?

I know that I will be able to get back up there in the listings, after things stop and the analysis of the changes have been discussed. It is the point between now and then that is giving me stress!

Someone posted a while back about who ran to google to buy adwords. At that moment, I didn't but have been to both Google and Overture to get our site back into the listings. Me thinks that Overture is hoping that the dance doesn't end any time soon!

Regards,
Vickie

[powerofeyes]

Ok.

It's about passion.

It's about having a Website that you love and treat like your child.

It's about making your site be the best it can be...

This could be applied for our own sites. But a very big question does this apply for commercial SEO practioners. I will never say spam the search engine with your websites but again I would stress we are PHYSICALLY MANIPULATING THE SERPs with our efforts if we are like a webmaster who maintains large sites like a child, they how do you think we will rank high for good popular key terms(not very highly competative I mean to say good).
Till now I would say there was a formula to rank high in google but today everything has changed how, If there is a very big change how can we do a site which stays for life in search engines, that is my big question,
VIJAY.

[compar]

I'm willing to bet that commercial web sites will soon pursue link building with web sites that remain in the organic serps.  It may not give them a direct SEO benefit, but it would give them the potential of gaining traffic from those sites. 

That of course is only true if the current state of affairs persists. I think most of still believe that we will see a return to something much closer to the SERPs and keywords situation before this current thrashing started approximately a week ago.

Edited by compar, 22 November 2003 - 01:52 PM.

[Peter]

how can we do a site which stays for life in search engines, that is my big question,

You can not! Just like there is no food that you can put in your child and then wait until it is an adult and starts taking care of you.



Peter

[powerofeyes]

Well-written, keyword-rich copy

From your own news letter Jill. This is what has turned the table down now. Many good SEO practicioners have lost the game just because of an higher keyword density. So do you think you were wrong on that article that was written way back.
Today google doesnt seem to like too much keyword density atleast before this update they appreciated it,
what do you say about this,
VIJAY.

[MakeMeTop]

With all due respect, Vijay, if I knew (and I'm not saying I do) - I certainly am not going to go on to the internet and publish my findings on the perfect Google algo

Nor is any other professional SEM.

All I will say, if you are looking for an out-of-the-box cookie cutter solution for quick fixes, they only worked on Google because they let it happen, who knows why. Now they won't.

Basically, you are looking for an answer to a question that doesn't exist anymore - what is the Google algo. As this varies per phrase, you will not get an answer.

This week I've had another 1000 page site indexed and in the rankings on Google, that showed up on INK, ATW and ASK last week. All pages rank well, all drive focused traffic, none have tripped any filter (as far as I am aware). Now, if you think I'm going to tell people what I did - dream on. Unless you pay me, of course

But for this commercial SEO, it is business as usual - only more so

[Leann_Pass]

Boom you're done.

Jill, this is where I think many problems occur for many people....the truth is you are never done.

How many times have you heard SEOs advice like this:

Put your keyword phrase in your Title.
Put your keyword phrase in a Header tag.
Put your keyword phrase in the first paragraph.
Put your keyword phrase in links pointing to your page.

I will tell you, as for one of the 2 major terms I lost.....One was in the title, tags, headers, 1st paragraph and thoughout the page.....

However, one of them -website designer- was not in the title, not in the headers, not in the description, in fact it only showed up once side by side on the whole page. It is in a few links, but not most. It ranked #2 and then went POOF....It wasn't due to the method being to old and tired.

Now, possibly it just wasn't optimized enough! I don't know....but it was for a good while. My point is that the pages that stand for competitive terms are optimized in numerous different ways....I don't see a real definite on that being part of the culling process.

I still believe the competitiveness is a bigger deal, because of the culling of commercial sites more than the specific way a site is optimized.

(PS-I have now included website designer in my title....but it was not there before this update, the title I did change because I had planned to anyway.

[Scottie]

I know I shouldn't obsess, but when my income is drastically cut (my husband and I both work at home with 3 kids to feed) I tend to try and figure out where the next pay check is coming from, the stress level tends to go beserk. Yes, very pessimistic I know but I like to know where I stand and this up and down "there one minute, not there the next" results are really unsettling to me.

If you are counting on Google results to make a paycheck, you really need to be budgeting for Adwords or some other form of marketing. You just cannot depend on free listings to pay the bills- my husband and I both work from home with 3 kids as well. I would be in a constant panic if the status of my Google listings impacted money I needed to live on.

On the article for a directory- that is just one idea! The last paragraph states to find out what is useful to your customers and give it to them. In the case of this site, a directory is what people were asking for. A good example would be the vaccuum cleaner store we talked about in this linking thread.

When you create a site worth linking to, it's much easier to get links. Now it looks like rankings are going to go the same way- purely commercial sites are going to have a harder time getting a free ride in the editorial listings. Maybe Google has finally found a way to reward resource sites. It makes sense to me, anyway.

[ImVickieB]

If you are counting on Google results to make a paycheck, you really need to be budgeting for Adwords or some other form of marketing.   You just cannot depend on free listings to pay the bills- my husband and I both work from home with 3 kids as well.  I would be in a constant panic if the status of my Google listings impacted money I needed to live on. 

That will be in the plan from now on, but for the past 2 years, our rankings have been consistently high and we didn't need to pay for listings. Why pay for something when you can get plenty of targetted potential buyers for free? I do realize that times are changing and, from this point on, so will our business plan.

Edited by ImVickieB, 22 November 2003 - 02:36 PM.