simonuk - 2:49 pm on Apr 2, 2009 (gmt 0)

What most people fail to realise is they are trying to compete against websites that have been on the first page for years, have many quality back links and are so well established it requires pretty much the same amount of effort (and in some cases time) to get to where they are today.

I would be royally miffed if a 2 week old site jumped ahead of my 10 year old carefully crafted and loved websites :-)

It isn't impossible but a quick fix today could ruin your chances in the long term.

I noticed my main rival had revamped his site and he used a ton of underhand black hat tactics which did boost his site until Google found it. He's now nowhere to be seen and his 3 years of pretty high rankings for many search words have gone.

Motto is even long term sites can be hit if you cheat but if you really, really want page one position quickly buy one of the domains on page one ;-)