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The Google Strategy
Webmasters across the Internet were totally floored by what happened to their Google ranking recently. Those whose pages were ranked on top seemed to totally disappear, and many who had been ranked at the bottom were suddenly in the top 10.
So what caused this phenomenon? Simply put, Google spent a lot of time (and probably money) coming up with new ranking guidelines. In Webmaster speak, "Google changed their algorithm".
Why? you ask...Google, from the beginning has been more in tune with what people are searching for than any of the other search engines or directories. They have always seemed to be more in sync with the average surfer - in other words when you search you actually find what your looking for.
Well, apparently they just weren't satisfied. So they decided to make it even better.
On first glance I thought they had made a huge mistake, but as Webmasters began reworking their websites and pages to get back to the top ranking positions, it appears to me that their idea was right.
In case your wondering, I was one of the Webmasters whose site seemed to disappear! And let me tell you it was scary. I lost 700-800 visitors a day - and a lot of income.
I went to the Google site to try and figure out what they were looking for, and frankly didn't find much that I didn't already know, so I set about reworking my pages and website so that this couldn't happen to me again.
In record time, after evaluating and reworking and submitting my pages, they went back to the top. In fact, some that I could never get to the top are there now.
What I found was that although keywords are still a prominent factor and linking was important, that the relativity of the pages became very important.
In other words, the keywords and links really have to be relevant to the entire page - and to the site as well. Google likes everything linked internally. I'm sure the idea being that this ensures the "search results" will indeed provide what the surfer is really after - and that's their bread and butter.
The bottom line is that after going thru a very harrowing experience, my website and my profit line are all the better for it. In other words, I ended up with a better website, a better idea of what my visitors are really after, and long term I don't think this could ever happen to me again.
Google seems to really have come up with what people are looking for and is offering good web sites with rich content as their top ranking sites. This is good news for the serious webmaster.
I know that everyone is out there giving advice and speculating, not to mention the new products that have risen up to get you listed fast!
My advice - save your money, and put the elbow grease to work - you'll be all the better for it. And if your really thinking, it won't take long.
©2005
Diane Thomas is the editor of eBook Crossroads.com specializing in resources for writers, publishers and promoters of eBooks and Audio Books. She publishes a monthly ezine, the eBook Crossroads Insider, offering articles, tips, contests, free downloads and much more!
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Screwed: Is this an inevitability in the SEO World?
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We DO NOT add all submitted URLs to our index, and cannot predict when or if they will appear." - http:// www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/1.html#A2"Meta tags are not important anymore"Sure they aren't. If you don't want a decent ranking on MSN. The new MSN search places a lot of value on the keywords and description meta tags. Without these tags in your site's code, your ranking on MSN will suffer. Just as importantly, if your keywords and description meta tags don't use proper language, your rankings will suffer. The description tag is also what MSN uses as the visible description for a site in the search results. And of course, to prove I'm not the one blowing hot air, here is what MSN themselves say about it:"Site descriptions are extracted from the content of your page each time MSNBot crawls your site and indexes its pages... ...the best way to affect your site description is to ensure that your web pages effectively deliver the information you want to see in search results." - Click here to see the page this is found on. "Your Web Site Has Been Sabotaged" This one is truly unreal. I can't believe it's even been used as an excuse for why an SEO company hasn't achieved decent rankings for you. But alas, more than one SEO company has told potential clients of ours that the reason they are not ranking well, or why their search engine optimization campaign is not effective, is because someone else has been sabotaging the site. Some of the clients who have been told this are small businesses, like bed and breakfasts or pet sitters. 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