The_Contractor - 2:08 pm on Jun 11, 2005 (gmt 0)

Contractor, my site has….

Take it for what you will, but never judge anything by using the criteria of my site. The problem is everyone that looks at their own sites lets their emotions get in the way of what is really going on. I don't know your site, but there could be numerous things affecting one site's positioning. To judge the serps by looking at your own positioning will get you nowhere. To judge the serps requires that you know the industry inside/out and the top 100 sites which have been around for years and/or the newcomers (which hardly happens nowadays) that have gained positioning.

Concentrate your judgment on the other 99 sites in the top 100 and then you can see what's working/not, what "signals" are being adjusted etc.

I have spent 1000's of hours on my site so if I judge serps by my site I cannot do so clearly. By looking at what makes the others rise and fall you can more accurately judge what is being affected in "your" niche.

Can you please explain what you mean by this: "Often these cloak for Googlebot - not even good cloaking, change your UA to Googlebot/2.1 and you see all the keyword stuffed pages that the user cannot see without filling out multiple forms. 99% of this spiderfood/info pages will never be seen by users/visitors. "

Although I do not cloak anything myself, there are many "good" reasons for cloaking to make your content more accessible and many sites do this. There are also good ways to cloak – using only the user agent string to feed 99% of your content that is not accessible to humans would be considered stupid IMHO.

If you built your site "for visitors", then you won't be getting any from G, in which is the same boat we are find ourselves.

I have never found getting an attitude gets you anywhere – think clearly. If you built your site for visitors – keep building. It's when times get tough you see what a site is really worth to it's owner. Many sites are abandoned and never get updated again when they are hit by an algo change – what signal does this send the SE's?

Will I chase my tail on an established site to try to keep up with Google's algo changes – never, it's a losing battle and a game you won't catch me playing.