DirigoDev - 3:29 am on Apr 26, 2012 (gmt 0)

@backdraft7 - At one point for about 18 months out of the 10 years we did minor tweaks - meta tags, H1 tag optimizations, and a little bit of kw alignment. It was slight because our writing process is difficult with lots of input from professionals. More resource was given to building it correctly right out of the gates. We've never built or solicited links. We successfully built great content that users and engines like. The content organically morphed into a few hundred thousand links. We are a top player in our category with near zero optimizations.

I'm not saying that we were not strategic. We’re very good at generating new content and newsletters -- this activity makes us money. The content ranks well and continues to do so. I’m with @nutmeg on this one. I think that she’s trying to say that some sites don’t optimize content or build links. I consider our sites in this category. We do cull over our content every 12-24 months to make sure that it is still relevant and up to date. And we take down content that does not provide value or becomes dated. Some of us just follow best practices and set our “north star” to doing what is right for the user. We’ve spent millions in an attempt to do it right and above board. There are far too many folks out there playing games.

Google is not my friend. They’re totally screwing with my livelihood. So far, so good - but we’re not out of the woods yet. Sales today rebounded to within normal for a Wednesday. Still, sales are lower than I want them to be – probably the economy… SEO sessions for the 11pm EST time of day are on the high side of my trend-line (by ~1k). Today is my highest bot activity day in history. This concerns me a bit because high bot visits typically precede times of sales instability. Conversions, time on site and bounce rate are with the normal range. I’m not seeing any movement with the big players in my industry. I feel like Google’s throttling us. They’re spreading the traffic in some grand democratic way to limit wealth. Communist #*$!s – they are… probably because Google is full of academic types. We’re in a period of digital Darwinism. Survival isn’t easy.