1st on some of my keywords

but how, due to the thousands with similiar websites?

[Andrew Thomas]

Ive just been indexed on www2.google, looked at 3 of my main keywords and to my surprise im 1st with two of them and at the bottom of the first page on the other, I realise this still may change.

The keywords ive chosen are fairly popular. Im new to this, and was wondering if it was beginners luck! and out of all the people on the net how comes i manage to get 1st on some of my keywords, id of thought id be on page 100 :)

Is it because most sites out there are not optimized?

or

Im lucky?

or

any other reasons?

[vitaplease]

Congratulations!

Good to hear some good news amongst the gloom of this dramatic Google update ;)

Is it because most sites out there are not optimized?

check the keywords with the overture bid tool to see if they are competitive. If you are in the 10 dollar cents bidding to be tops you just have an uncompetitive field.

[creative craig]

One of my sites is doing good at the moment, which is also a suprise to me.

It took a month or two before I even saw it listed on google and then that was only under the main URL for the site.

4 months down the line it ranks number one for my main keyword, and on the first page for 4 others :)

When I took a closer look at the pages last night, I saw that when I put the site together I had the keywords in the title, URL, at the top of the page and I had links to other good articles with in my site... back then I didnt even know what SEO meant, I made it that way cause I thought it looked good.

But thats not what I am gonna say to everyone else though ;)

[Andrew Thomas]

All my keywords are made up from the <title> too!

Although im not listed in www.google yet, just www2 and www3, I hope im not getting escited for nothing?

Should www.google.com be updated by now?

[aaronjf]

I am the webmaster for some 14 sites. I have been in a very large SEO campaing since most of the sites I am optimizing are over 100 pages. Over the course of the last year I have noticed one main thing. The titles really do effect placement a lot more than Google wants to let on. And the PR levels are nice nudges here and there, but I think they really over play it. For instance, I have a site that has been 1st for its keyword for 3 months. Now another site just like the one I am referring to has a much much higher level of PR, but they are 3 slots down from mine.

Personally I think Googles propaganda about PR is a load of Hoowy. I have changed titles in minor respects and seen 8 - 15 slot changes (sometimes not for the better) in a site form one spider cycle to the next. Change the title and by the next cycle it was back to its origanal place.

[martinibuster]

This is the disturbing aspect of this update. A search phrase I follow is being dominated by a cheesy FP site (I know because they're so amateur they put/left in the meta generator tag). I'm not sure that it is even optimized.

Personally I think Googles propaganda about PR is a load of Hoowy.

Back in 1998 they were indeed marketing how good they were in terms of their PageRank technology. Of late, however, I've noticed that they've been downplaying it.

[gmoney]

Andrew,

If you look at the number of exact matching pages in Google (i.e. type the “keyword” in quotes when you search on Google and look to see how many pages have an exact match in Google) you can get an idea of how difficult it is to rank for the keyword. If there are more than a couple hundred exact matches for your keywords then you did some nice work for a “beginner”. Actually, even a seasoned veteran would be happy with your rankings.:)

[Andrew Thomas]

gmoney,

I put my keywords in quotes, some of #1 were out of about 60 exact matches, but one that came #4 was out of 130 exact matches. Hope to improve on that next month, i'll keep trying

thanks for the help everyone