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If you speak to all the best Internet Marketing Pros they tell you SEO is a waste of time longterm, everyone in the industry has lost their position at somepoint from what I gather - or am I wrong?
I want to hear from anyone who has had long term success with SEO say for 6 months or longer....
Ok scenario: What if there were only three advertising agencies in the world (or the US) and one of them had accentually 85% of the advertising market. Let’s say that company 100% completely knocked your teeth in and pretty much said you couldn't advertise with them. You’re DONE!
Second scenario: A new and revolutionary SE comes into the picture and everyone jumps on board of this promising SE. Life is happy....10's if not 100's of thousands of companies (most new) jump on it like they have all the other SE's. Then over time this new SE isn't new anymore and you wake up one morning to notice that Sh1t, everybody and their FREAKIN brother is using it or an affiliate of it. WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSDED TO DO! YOU ARE *$%#. Google is a monopoly and it shouldn't be that way. There should be a level playing field.
NFFC would simply say -'roll with the punches, take it like a man, do this do that' (or was that Brett, GG - can't recall!)
Anyway, er, take it like a man etc. etc.
What a sophisticated bunch we are!
Sorry - but I'm a cynical Brit. - it's in our nature to be cynical, and it looks like we've all been sh$agged!
GG is an anglophile, saw him in York a while back, with King Arthur - but that's another story...
Kind regards
[edited by: superscript at 12:56 am (utc) on Nov. 25, 2003]
Anyone not wonder about the possibility of removing pdfs when google started indexing them? about perhaps changing use of flash if the new MS update changes how objects are embedded?
Things constantly need updating, the latest BMW Boxer motorcycle may still be a "flat twin" but thats about the only thing apart from two rather than 4 wheels which they share with the initial boxer twins made when BMW first started in production. Users and their marketing channels required progress ....
for webmasters it is the same, users and (one of the channels to them) google may also require change - if google changed rules and you were or are now outside the new definitions ... and some sites were .... or at least are now you just need to evolve a bit!
I dont disagree with much of what has been said, if you have a site / business model which is broad and can remain broadly static yet still bring in relevant traffic during algo shifts thats fine, its possible it will be across a different mix of searches but if its still relevant traffic which converts similarly thats fine and dandy, not guaranteed however nothing is.
If it transpires that your contents may still be great but your architecture or navigation has caused you penalty you may need to change things.
It bothers me a bit that google make so many tools available yet GG expects people to ignore them and just build sites "for users" without any analysis of users searching habits .... well building sites for users AND their searchiong habits is what I understand Bretts Guidelines being about .... when webmasters can analyise the top 20 - 50 sites for any term and find some measurables on them .... link pop, PR, density, site pages, linking pages and anchor etc etc etc ... then many of them will.
Google provided these tools and they get the raw logs of users habits on them ... why provide the tools at all is a question I dont really comprehend if Google actually expect (as GG has suggested) that we should ignore this data and just build contents and sites as we think users want?
[well in fact I think I do know why they provided them - but thats another story and its too long for this typing session]
However more importantly "webmasterworld is damaged" ....
It has happenned before .. I clicked notify updates on this thread because I thought it would remain a "non update" thread and only have thoughtful long term posts .. I dont need an email every couple of minutes thanks ... I want the option to remove my choice to receive updates on something which I previously selected .. but changed .. is that option there already and I dont know about it? if not can some admin remove me from this threads update emails ...? pretty please ..
[edited by: Stefan at 1:15 am (utc) on Nov. 25, 2003]
The Internet is already full of irrelevant nonsense - it makes no sense to produce more and more nonsense in order to succeed.
There's no sense, no logic, no competence in what is being proposed.
Deliberately de-optimise in order to optimise?
Think, sleep, then think again.
Then consider - Mad?
Yes!
Goodnight
p.s. ref: NFFC stands for Nottingham Forest Football Club -I have lived in Nottingham - a fine city - but Notts Forrest are rubbish ;)
[edited by: superscript at 12:49 am (utc) on Nov. 25, 2003]
Please try to remember that this is not the "Florida update" thread. It's a question about what is the right thing to do long term and specifically, if "Google SEO" is it (the right thing).
As ciml points out, (Google) SEO can actually be a business model - for SEO´s, or "Internet marketing types". It's true we had a window of considerable time; one that was so open that anyone could see it, and quite a lot climbed in. I said it quite a few times in posts here: It was too d*** easy.
Windows tend to close. New ones sometimes open. Still, if you want to sell widgets, concentrate on that - chasing windows will leave you with no time to sell any products.
If you have visitors coming in on "inferior pages" and these visitors don't buy anything, then that's not Google's fault. It's your site that just doesn't convert well. Make it convert better, that's what you should do - that, in turn, is no matter for a SEO, nor for a Search Engine. Then, if Google just doesn't send you enough visitors, find ways of getting that traffic, possibly alternative ones. As long as you earn more than you pay, you have a business model.
If your business model can't work without Google traffic - and that is true for at least some current business models, i know that much - then you'll have to invest what it takes to get that traffic, be it good content, shady tactics, plain advertising, SEO assistance, or whatever. It's a cost for your business plan. If you have matching revenues, then: no problem.
Otherwise, try reconsidering the business plan. I definitely don't mean to say "get out of business" rather, make all the changes you can to get less dependent on this one source. If it's possible to twist your business somehow, so that you can make a living with a less risky profile, then by all means do it.
I'm quite confident in restating that "Yes, Google SEO is a waste of time long term". That's simply not something you can make a living from long term, unless it's actually that thing you do for a living. Provided of course, that Google will also be around long term (which is not unlikely) and that SE's and "the internet" will also be what it is now, long term (which is less likely)
Does the shoe shop on the corner do it's own advertising? If yes, do their ads have reach in the millions? Are they among the Super Bowl ads(*) on TV? If yes, how much do you think they pay for it, and what is the price tag on a pair of shoes?
I recognize the mom&pop business thing. Yes i do, and i think the internet is a wonderful thing for such enterprises. I also think that there are several different kinds of businesses. Some may require more than others to become successful long term. Some may not even be long term by nature. Think about it.
/claus
[edited by: claus at 1:10 am (utc) on Nov. 25, 2003]
Yes my sites subpages rank for other keyphrases, but nobody searches using those keyphrases!
This site is a part of the wedding sector. 80% plus of searchers use a two word keyphrase to find this range of products.
The index page of this site ranked consistently from #3 to #7 for the past year. It is now nowhere to be found for this keyphrase.
This is the major issue many webmasters are facing after Florida. Their sites have gone from the rankings and they have no idea why. The google guidelines haven't helped because they've been followed to the letter. The site is clean HTML and CSS, uses descriptive Titles, Header tags, good internal linking, doesn't use keyword stuffing or irrelevant keyword h1 tags, doesn't have hundreds of crappy links from forums, blogs, but only links from related wedding sector sites and directories, most of which have requested the links due to being complementary sectors.
So please, someone do tell me...how can a site like this suddenly no longer be relevant when it is following every guideline in the book? If the google guidelines don't work longterm then what does?
I am perfectly happy with the site sliding up and down the rankings as updates happen, other sites appear and disappear, but to be absolutely nowhere for a keyphrase for no apparent reason...this can only be a filter of some kind that has been tripped, or the site would only have dropped 10,20,50 places.
If the google guidelines no longer protect us from update shifts, then long term, how are we supposed to achieve googles perception of relevance?
I don't agree with creating hundreds of pages of content...Our site has about 70 pages of content, which is all it needs. Other competitors have similar sites, and they are ranking well. I just don't understand what has caused this overnight disappearance for a keyphrase. If the google guidelines are missing something then I for one would like to know what it is so I can avoid it...
Specifically for the Florida update, it depends on how you fared with their most recent filter. Those doing the complaining have a valid complaint in most cases... those who are happy with the update, should consider themselves lucky that their particular market wasn't affected, and spend less time ridiculing those that Google slapped.
Having the advantage of a larger viewing area than some, I perceive 'Florida' as an update with two distinct characteristics:
The 'Florida Paradise' Update:
* I have several dozen news-related sites that have significantly improved after the latest update. Rankings continue to improve, regular freshtags (some same-day), and new articles going online (and to the top) in competetive 3 mil. search result categories;
* Several dozen commercial and e-commerce sites have continued to hold their own, or improve, despite G recently dumping an additional 1-2 million results in several categories;
* Several recently developed sites that for the prior two quarters would take several months to become stable in the SERPS, are now stable in a few weeks;
* Several sites that only maintain PR5 and PR6 PageRank, continue to dramatically increase in the SERPS in fairly competitive 5 mil. to 10 mil. search results.
The 'Florida Massacre' Update:
Out of more than 100 sites I manage, I have found only three that have fallen to the Google Florida-filter nightmare, and, for the sake of simplicity, will only focus on one:
* A commercial e-commerce site that has been online since 1996. Basic SEO, no tricks, just lots of quality content. The product line is in a fairly competitive market of 5 million+ total results, and there are a dozen competitors that we've been fighting over the top positions in Google for years.
While we all maintained solid page 1, sometimes page 2 positions throughout the many years, this latest update has literally wiped us ALL out!
There is not a single one of these websites that show up in the first 2 pages since -va dropped last Thursday. They have all been replaced by Amazon, Bizrate, dealtime, 'opinion' sites, and the rest are odd-ball throw-ins.
To make matters worse, Mine, nor the others even show up at all for our two-keyword phrase in the first 80 pages (800 results of Google using Google-100).
This is not a matter of sour grapes that, 'oops' we shifted to page 3, or even page 5. This is a serious problem that few see, but certainly affects the search results of the average user.
Obviously, if these results were only on my site, I would think it is an isolated problem. But, to wipe out a complete category of sites in favor of the 'mass merchandisors' tells me there is a much bigger problem we are dealing with.
[As a side-note, none of these sites are out of the index. Users just have to type in 'pink velvet widgets model 100,' rather than widgets - or to take GG's 'Cheesburger' example a step further, users must type in 'crushed apples with sugar and cinnamon,' rather than simply 'Applesauce.']
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While overall I think the Florida update is an improvement, that last 2% can be a killer to those of us that have to deal with it.
Steve
Please try to remember that this is not the "Florida update" thread.
That's right, they took that thread away by locking it. This one will have to do.
dazzlindonna says:
it would be nice to hear one of the authorities on the subject explain why adding -getyeroldresultsback after the dropped phrase shows our sites back where they used to be.
ROFL. We're approaching the point of no return. They can fix this bug, at which point we all erupt into a chorus of "I told you so!", or they can fail to fix it, which means more and more webmasters start asking questions.
There is a third possibility: crank the knob back slightly. While I concur that the affected pages were most likely preprocessed and preparsed for e-commerce optimization terms, I still think there's an on-the-fly dictionary that's consulted. If not a dictionary, at least an on-the-fly threshold variable that can be adjusted between zero and 100.
I think what might happen, assuming that Googleplex mid-managers care at all and can convince Sergey and Larry, is that we might start seeing the threshold variable get turned down a bit, or start seeing some terms purged from the dictionary, or both.
By the way, there is one person who has done a bunch of testing and claims, on some other forum, that most terms relating to the practice of SEO (in other words, the terms that SEO professionals might use to describe themselves on their own sites) have been excluded from the so-called "dictionary." This, along with all the diversity of BBS, would explain why WebmasterWorld and similar BBS sites didn't get hit.
If true, this means it was all carefully premeditated at the Googleplex. But who even doubts this anymore?
No use, Claus. Discussions about longterm Internet strategies will have to be led elsewhere. There were some points that I would have liked to comment, but I consider it to be hopeless.
[edited by: Newman at 1:32 am (utc) on Nov. 25, 2003]
