40 replies to this topic

[Randy]

awww.... Sorry to hear that Beth.

Chin up and keep plugging away. My life experience tells me if you keep doing the right thing, eventually it pays off in a big way. The hard times simply prepare you to appreciate your ultimate success.

[Drew-z]

I'm afraid I was the victim of BOTH Gladys the St. Bernard and Google the Search Engine.

Beth, I certainly feel your pain.

I lost all the listings for dozens of clients and have been totally bewildered what to do. There is no figuring anything out as far as I can tell.

Of the pages / sites lost some where filled with keywords, others were totally imaged based and everything in between. Those at the top for "allinanchor" don't even make the top 200. Some are connected in a round about way from links, others share no linking correlation.

Go figure?

The thing that interested me the most about your situation is that you have a site that is no doubt in the search engine's best interest to rank high. The format is a text book example of being focused and rich with information. (It even looks like it might have been an example used in the Nitty Gritty?)

Beth, to me, rest assured it's them (G) not you.

My rankings have held strong on Inktomi and hopefully so have yours. That is at least comforting that something must be right.

The reality is the new search results on Google stink. I now find it inferior for any keyword search over Inktomi. G displays directory and high page rank sites that often are totally off based from the particular search.

Moreover, the burial of worthy pages means as a G user you can now longer trust a page doesn't exist when a keyword search is unsuccessful. In the past if something looked for wasn't it the top 100, then it didn't exist. At least, that's how I used to think. Now, i feel the need to try another engine to be sure. Well, naturally it only starts to makes sense to start at the other engine first. Other devoted Google users will follow suit sooner or later.

Competition in the search engine industry can not come soon enough.

Being dependent on whimsical gyrations of one juggernaut algorythm exposes the monopolistic powers garnered by G. Ghad help SEO specialists who are at the mercy of one all encompassing power they have no control over.

I think the most important thing we can do it spread the word on the poor quality of the new google. If they are going to screw it up, let the people know. Write articles, tell your clients and point out other search engines producing superior results to as many as possible. Spur on the competition (ohhh Ghad, I think this might be a veiled Microsoft promotion).

Focus the debate on quality, not that we lost our rankings. And remain confident it's them not you. At least as far as I can tell.

Good luck!

[Jill]

Unfortnately, when you're really only interested in one or two phrases, and they get tanked, you're pretty much sunk.

Beth have you looked at your stats lately to see if your visitors have dropped off substantially?

Jill

[Beth_C]

Thanks, Drew.

It's actually kind of interesting when I look at the Google results for my most important key word - exit interviews (singular and plural).

Previously we were always somewhere between 2 and 8 in rankings. A couple competitors were in there usually a couple spots below us or in the top 5-15. Now, any site which is product based is gone. Instead there are some cheesy articles about exit interviews - most of which are out of date or spread misinformation.

So what happens to the Human Resource Manager who is looking for exit interviews?

I think I'm going to have to start spreading the word among HR people to start using Teoma!

Jill, I was out of town so I'm not really sure about our stats yet. The best indicator is our requests for demos and it does look like those are way down.
Unfortunately we have always had more than enough business from Google so we have ignored your advice about not relying solely on Google.

I know people say it's not true but I can't help but wonder if it's push to increase Google ads before they go public. I mean really, if they are pulling out commerical sites in favor of information (even commercial sites with information) that leaves the commercial sites no other option but to buy ads.

Beth C.

[qwerty]

I had a prospect contact me yesterday, and I asked them to give me a breakdown of their goals for their site and the work they'd done themselves in optimizing it so far.

As it turns out, they'd done a pretty good job. They're in the top ten on every search engine for their most important kw phrase -- every search engine except Google, that is. And the reason they wanted to hire me was to improve their ranking for that phrase on Google.

I wrote back to them that, while I saw plenty of room for improvement on the site, the problem with getting ranked on Google wasn't one I could fix, since it was pretty clear to me that they didn't rank well there because Google's messed up. I told them that if improving their visibility on Google was all they really needed, they should get an AdWords account.

[Beth_C]

I had a prospect contact me yesterday, and I asked them to give me a breakdown of their goals for their site and the work they'd done themselves in optimizing it so far.

As it turns out, they'd done a pretty good job. They're in the top ten on every search engine for their most important kw phrase -- every search engine except Google, that is. And the reason they wanted to hire me was to improve their ranking for that phrase on Google.

I wrote back to them that, while I saw plenty of room for improvement on the site, the problem with getting ranked on Google wasn't one I could fix, since it was pretty clear to me that they didn't rank well there because Google's messed up. I told them that if improving their visibility on Google was all they really needed, they should get an AdWords account.

So how many new Adwords accounts is Google going to get?
I'm hesitating for now out of protest.

Beth C.

[BrianR]

I sympathise with, though don't agree with, the view that Google are trying to force commercial sites into AdWords. But, set that view aside for a moment, and think of it like this:

Google's organic search results are a mess right now, and might be for some while to come. If a user also concludes that Google's results are no good, then they have two alternatives: Try another search engine, or click on the AdWords.

Hence, at least in theory, qualified AdWords traffic ought to be increasing all the time now, so you might make some good money if you give it a try.

Just my tuppence worth...

BrianR

[Scottie]

It's a good point- the SERP's being so pitiful will drive more qualified traffic to the AdWords, giving a better value to the AdWords advertisers who are not completing with the free results.

[Ruud]

Google ate my high rankings that I have had consistently for the past couple of years and didn't even leave me 6 cents. In fact they didn't leave me anything at all.

I hear you. For very specific 3 and 4 keyword search phrases I've consistently ranked high. One 4 word search would bring ~250 visitors a day from Google. Now it is around a 100 if I'm lucky - but more often below it.

Above me for that specific search you can now find some major shareware portals and some online equivalents. Said differently: if you search for "free .... ..... download" Google currently thinks with 'free' you mean shareware ($$$) and with 'download' you mean 'use it online' .... None of the sites above me are optimized better than mine - the opposite seems true in some cases. They are however gigantic sites with litterally thousands of incoming links. Non-relevant links but that doesn't seem to matter, lol.

Ruud

[Jill]

Ain't nuthin wrong with using AdWords if it gives you a positive return on your investment.

I do understand the not using it out of protest mentality (now who's immature! ) but just think, for your keyword phrases, you could have 5c bids, and maybe pay a few bucks a day. One client to you is going to pay for that hundreds of times over, no?

Jill

[Randy]

Yanno, I'm not normally a contrarian, but my Adword campaigns have actually cost me less since December than they used to.

Don't ask me what that mean, because I don't know.

I already had the adwords for the single phrase on a single site that went AWOL from the Top 10 organic listings, and we're still selling as much or more on every site...

It's just simply that I haven't seen any increase at all in revenue from Adwords traffic. And the cost of doing business with Adwords has actually decreased. Of course I didn't change a thing. Didn't add to my Adwords account or detract from it.

I guess 2 + 2 does sometimes equal 5.