What goes down...

?who goes up?

[DerekH]

I post to a number of special-interest mailing lists, and I suppose I've gained a reputation for being Mr Mischief and saying things that are, when the chips are done, rather simplistic but rather cutting and slice through the fluff.

So...
I've seen the most amazing amount of hand-wringing, towel-throwing-in, wailing, tooth-gnashing, world-will-end-today-ing as everyone has slid down the ratings.

Everyone?
Well, that's how it looks.
But who is going up?
Someone has to be! Can't all go down - it doesn't add up.
Are they smug, sitting in their air-conditioned offices, smoking cigars ordered via a neat cart-based online cigar-vendor (http://www.neat-cart-based-online-cigar-vendor.co.uk)?
Or are they working hard to consolidate and anchor their position?

===
Why say all that?
Because some of this forum seems to be devoted to people who want a free search engine and simultaneously want to dictate how it works.

If it's free, I'll be happy to work to its rules, especially if they promote good web pages.

Meantime, I suspect many people would be better off stopping wailing about sliding down the SERPS, and wondering who has taken their place and why.

One of my websites, a charity fund-raising site, has gone from seven to one in 160,000 for two keywords.
So count me amongst the people for whom GoogleGuy's suggestions not only made sense but were implemented, not argued about...
And I also went from eight to one on MSN and four to one on Fast.

So is it just me? Has EVERYONE slipped down? How so?
Nah - there are a lot of people who'd bubbled up the charts - seems that they're keeping quiet!

So why this constant, constant feeling that EVERYONE has lost out?
Is it only the losers who are whinging?
<mischievously>
DerekH

[Oaf357]

I haven't gone down. I gone sideways. Queries still bring up my site but those results also contain a few other pages that typically aren't in the results.

You're right. Everyone hasn't gone down. There are a few of us that haven't really moved at all or have moved up due to the long update process. We're the ones asking why it's taking so long to update, not what is the deal with the update.

[Mohamed_E]

DerekH,

Human nature!

Years ago the town in which I lived went through a revenue neutral property tax revaluation. That means that total taxes remained constant, anomalies that had accumulated over the years were fixed.

For months and months the local free newspaper (worth every cent it cost, I may add :) ) published endless letters to the editor complaining about the tax increases. Funny thing, those whose taxes had gone down (remember: total tax base was unchanged) smiled and kept quiet.

Forum 3 has, in spite of the best efforts of the mods and admins, come to resemble my town newspaper, publishing the complaints of the disgruntled losers and completely obscuring the true picture.

For every site that goes down, surprise, another site goes up. Those who go up have better things to do with their time than post here. Hence we only hear the whiners.

[dazzlindonna]

Here's my humble take on it all. I'm new to all this, and I worked extremely hard to follow all the rules and guidelines. I first made sure that my new site would have excellent content and would be useful to the users. From there, I applied all of the appropriate SEO non-spamming techniques that would be a) helpful to the users and b) search-engine friendly. Then, I set about getting good, high-quality links from related websites that are considered top-notch in my industry. Of course, all of this took lots of time, but I did it happily, and was excited and thrilled to see what the results of my labors would be in the big G. Well, my timing unfortunately, was abysmal, since I was ready with my new, wonderful site, with all of its nice inbound links from highly-rated and respected websites, just in time for G to decide it wasn't going to use the deepcrawl I had just gotten, or any of the backlinks to my site. Am I mad? No. Certainly G has the right to do what it pleases. Am I disappointed? Yes. I am an out-of-work web developer who was hoping to make a little money while looking for a job. But now, I wait and wait and wait and wait, while G does its thing. Just my bad luck, I suppose, but it is frustrating. My point is - in regards to this particular thread - is that new sites are the ones suffering the most (I think). Yes, some older sites slipped and some older sites went up in rank - some of those might be spammers, some may not. I am not in the position to really be able to say if the results are better or worse at this point. But for those of us who were hoping to get our new sites off the ground, we've been left in the dust. For how long? No one knows. In the meantime, my lovely little site waits... :-(

[Oaf357]

A very good point Mohamed_E. But even I was curious as to what was going on (even though my results weren't too terribly affected) because I was waiting on backlinks and new pages to get indexed. I, however, am one of the calm few (I guess) when it comes to the Google update.

I find that checking a few keyword(s) once a week and producing new content daily is better than checking all my keywords daily and producing new content on WebmasterWorld.

I just wish other people shared my ideals. Because I have to admit my participation is down due to the onslaught of whiners and complainers. I also have the opinion that forum 3 itself has lost some value for the same reason.

Google isn't the end all be all, visitors and customers are. If your marketing focuses on Google and your sales depend on Google then your livelihood depends on a privately held company that provides a means for random people to search the Internet for free. Doesn't sound like the best business model when you leave the word Google out if it, huh?

<edit>

Just an aside. Maybe SEP and SEO is looking in the wrong places or just not prioritizing their work right. Perhaps SEP/SEO should focus on other web sites in the industry and authority web sites and NOT SEARCH ENGINES. If you work links and good words from good web sites traffic will come and Google (and the lot) will follow. Perhaps, people will learn from putting too much importance in Google.

</edit>

[steve128]

DerekH
Nobody has "bubbled up the charts" they are back where they were in Jan/Feb/March... the whole point of the shambles?
Ok some freshies are "in"

If you read the posts?

Yawn, don't point me to some obscure search term

Please try to get it into your head the data is old!

[steve128]

Woweee your powers amaze me 160k results shown...oh dear results shown do not mean nothing, I can assure you of that

[DerekH]

steve128 wrote
Please try to get it into your head the data is old!

I know - no need to imply I have a comprehension problem <smile>

Yesterday, I posted in reply to someone to tell them the date of the cache entry on one of my home pages. Depressing, but not an insuperable problem.
DerekH