Forum Moderators: phranque
Search engines evolve with time as we all well know. They try to adapt to changes in the web and to how people try to trick them. The ultimate goal of search engine performance is to point you to what you are looking for on the web.
Suppose, just suppose, a search engine makes some 'tweak' to its algorithms which results in the really good great and useful sites falling down in SERPs. Sure the search engine would like to quickly fix this up by altering its algo to better reflect the real quality of content on the web. So it will do its best to tweak its algo to bring the really good content back to the top of its SERPs. (Likewise if a change in algo brings scrapers up, it would like to alter it to bring them down again.)
You keep on running after every new hypothesis about how this or that search engine ranks your site or web page and tring to test it and implement it. You'll always remain uncertain about many of such hypothesies specially a midst contradicting and restuls from others and not everyone agreeing on a single things for many of those hypothesies. And when the time comes that people do agree on one having tested it widely and having reported consistent restuls for long, you just find a search engine changing its algos once more and turning the table upside down.
Sure running after such road is what many have been doing, are doing and will remain doing in the future. But there is another method to go, one that is "Evergreen" that does not change with time, requires to testing or hypothesies and is guaranteed to work. The simple method is: Follow the Winners.
Look at what well-performing sites are doing (those who get the high ranking, that get top listing in SERPs for common keywords, that get good traffic) and pick up in their same path.
For instance, if you find that the good site update their content regularly, then do the same with your site. If you find them using certain navigation structurs, then probably those structurs work well and so on. The simple way is: Follow the Winners.
That way you'll always be on the safe side. Google and other search engines will always try to keep really GOOD sites at the top of their SERPs and give them the high ranking they deserve. By following in their footsteps you can guarantee that no matter what changes take place to the search algos, you will always have a favorable treatment.
Even the highest rate sites have aspects on them that could be considered negatives. So obviously just copying everything someone else does is not the road to success. Also since you are just mimicing without understanding, your efforts are liable to be completely fruitless. I think spending the time to figure out and learn why certain things work and don't work will actually help you more in the long run than just looking at a succesful site and copying it.
"Standing on the shoulders of Gians" has nothing to do with copying them. It has to do with checking out what they have in common and using such same winning aspects. How they use (or don't use) meta tags, <H> tags, navigation structure for instance would help a lot.
