Forum Moderators: open
This is a terrific forum and I truly admire the wealth of knowledge that you have created here. However, as recent threads have shown, many of you are unhealthily obsessed with "how to beat" Google, to the extent that some contributors give the impression of being constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Every other new post is about pushing the rules to their limits in an attempt to creep a few places higher in the rankings. "can I cross-link?"; "am I spamming?"; "will I be banned?" (I hold my hand up, I've been guilty in the past too!). If webmasters' principle thoughts are always "how do I beat the system?" is it any wonder that the system (ie. Google) has to constantly change its rules? Whatever happened to good old fashioned content and marketing? Why spend every waking hour fretting about when the next update is happening and what new rules Google are introducing? How about some useful contributions for a change? Surely you would all achieve more in the long run if you focused on building brilliant web-sites with oodles of relevant information, great links, a superb structure, a neat navigation system and plenty of (legitimate) links to and from appropriate 3rd party sites.
Just a thought.
P.S Any ideas when the next update is due..................................................joke!
Also I think there is are genuine "is this spam?" concerns. One of the sites that I run is a database-driven site where the users find the content, as you might expect, via a tailored search form.
In order to get the underlying data indexed - and it's all good useful content that deserves to be indexed - I have had to put in some pages that I don't particularly want to distract my users with.
The temptation therefore is to use hidden or disguised links to the index and to make the dynamic pages look like straightforward HTML - not so much for Google (which can apparently cope with genuine dynamic pages) as for the other engines that can't.
This is not "spamming" in my mind, but there is a genuine gap between the ideal route through the site for my users and a route that is accessible to spiders.
But then after reading the many useful threads here, it becomes clear that some of the things that I might have decided to do would be regarded as spam, or cheating in some way.
The main site I run is (a small) part of a major multinational plc, and we are here for the long haul. I have no interest in playing tricks that will nudge us up a few places for a month at a time. However I am a frequent visitor because I need to avoid inadvertent mistakes that might be damaging to our long-term positioning.
cheers, and best of luck
Henry
It's going pretty well jimmydubs. Among all the hysteria there are people working away at expanding and enhancing their online presence, quietly making money.
It's important to be accessible to spiders, as Henry puts it. If the engines can't understand what the pages are about then they won't rank them well, if the pages don't use the same kind of language that people searching use then they won't connect to those searchers.
A lot of people think that they can find some secret method of being number one. Well methods do appear now and again but the sites using them don't tend to last long.
the person that is asking could be a novice still, and could be looking for honest answers. they could be intermediates, looking for something better. they could be experts trying the "next best thing". see my point? everyone that visits here regularly is trying to learn. the only way to learn is by asking questions. the questions and answers that are generated b/c of it are even helpful to the non-posters here at WebmasterWorld, who just read everyday and might not want to post. i could go on and on, but i think my opinion has been pointed.
But more recently the site has included areas of business and marketing as these subjects have become more and more intertwined with SEO.
In fact, in a recent thread, Brett asked for suggestions for new forums and a dedicated marketing forum was one of the more common suggestions.
But I agree - a lot of people put too much focus on what the search engines can do for them, rather than what they can do for their business.
Scott
a lot of people put too much focus on what the search engines can do for them..
Too true. In another forum there was a post by someone that had only about 10 low priced products to sell on a crappy site, but was prepared to spend over $1000 for some outfit to make up doorway pages for them.
IMO, some priorities are getting misplaced here.
My personal belief is that if SEOs reversed the amount of time they analyze rankings and spent the same amount of time analyzing their logs to figure out better keyword phrases to target, the world would be full of richer SEOs. :)
Of the entrepreneurs who hang out at Webmaster World, I'd guess that many if not most come from technical backgrounds. Such people are attuned to the idea of finding technical solutions to problems, and--just as important--they're likely to find it easier (and certainly far cheaper) to optimize for search engines than to create or buy content.
It's worth pointing out that there are different approaches to search-engine optimization, and not all SEOs resort to tricks that may result in penalties from Google. SEO is like accounting: Some practitioners work within the rules, and others get hired by companies like Enron. :-)
Webmasterworld is a great resource and if some seem a little too focussed on the $$'s... so it goes. It helps people like me get our sites at the top of the serps.
Agreed .. even better if you can find your competitors logs and utilise the KW bounty within :)
I do think many people neglect their logs though--there's tons of useful ways to improve a site in those logs.. :)
I agree. One of my most popular articles came about when I noticed that readers were searching for a keyphrase that was mentioned in passing on one of my pages. I had a "Eureka!" moment, wrote a quick one-page article on that topic, and have been getting 75-100 additional Google referrals per day ever since.
I maintain servers and our ecommerce software at a web design/hosting company. I recently ventured into ecommerce with my own site. I have a technical background but no experience designing/optimizing a site for the web. Thank god for webmasterworld and those "is this spam", "cross-linking", etc...posts you alluded to. For the experienced they are obvious but for a lot of us new to this they are valid questions that help us learn from past mistakes.
I agree with your content and marketing points but with Google the king it's critical to a new site to not make the mistakes I almost made and get indexed. Mistakes like soliciting links from any and all sources based on the belief that "the more links the more popular".
Let's face it, a lot of mouth's get fed based on clients PR so some obsession should be expected.
P.S GoggleGuy is right on.
My personal belief is that if SEOs reversed the amount of time they analyze rankings and spent the same amount of time analyzing their logs to figure out better keyword phrases to target, the world would be full of richer SEOs.
Okay, so I've been combing my logs and I found a search for "1900's mental patients pictures". Hmmmm, now how can I make money from that? I actually don't sell any 1900's mental patient pictures (not yet anyway). :)
and I didn't even optimize my page for that phrase...
