Bobby_Davro - 9:13 pm on Sep 30, 2002 (gmt 0)

stuntdubl, I can see what you are saying, but this is half of my complain: it simply isn't possible to know the rules precisely, because Google doesn't tell anyone. Instead, we are left to guess from month to month what new rule Google has cooked up to update the index. Why are webmasters left guessing the reason for a site dropping out?

I also disagree that "the safest optimization.....is no optimization". Half of the work that I do for other people is making sure that sites meet all of the Google and Yahoo rules that I am aware of. So many sites still have hidden comment tags, hidden text, massive meta tags, browser incompatibility etc. and so I clean them up to make them acceptable. I do regard this as optimisation work since it is a prerequisite for not being banned! ;)

WRT to it being a shifty business...well there really is no need for it to be. Google can be as stable as they want it to be. This is the new world industry and we need to encourage it in the right direction. I don't believe that Google is helping this by proving unreliable and unpredictable. They are part of the industry, and are a large defining part of it. If Google is seen as unreliable by webmasters, then so is the web business, which in turn leads to job insecurity and slowed growth. What we will be left with is the group of people willing to take the most risks, but not those who require a stable income.

[edited by: Bobby_Davro at 9:18 pm (utc) on Sep. 30, 2002]