pay per click vs configuring site

trying to get away from relying totally on pay per click

[bobbles]

When things changed 18 months or so ago my site was one of those that suffered in many of its search terms. I decided to go pay per click which worked ok for a while. Then prices and costs started shooting up and I decided to go back to trying to get my site configured for rankings through other means.

I have found an excellent company (through recommendations) who have worked with me to produce an excellent updated site with all the bells and whistles needed....hopefully to start bringing in good page rankings on its own two feet.

Having been away from concerning myself with updates from the Google Bot, I have no idea when an update is due or even if there are updates in the old sense of the world. I wonder if someone could take the trouble of bringing me up to speed with things as they are now. Also, is Google still the " be all and end all" search engine to concern oneself with? Should I be looking at others as well? A reply in plain English will be needed for me as I have no technical expertise or jargon! Many thanks Jeff

[specter]

Hi Bobbles and welcome to the Webmasterworld,

If I well understood you'd like to know if updating are needed in order to keep a high ranking ,and if it is worth to have the site ranked also on other SEs over Google,isn't it?

If yes, I would say the following:

Actually Google is the maximum reference for the web search because its algorithm based upon over 2000 variables and its matching criteria makes it highly reliable and complete as returned results comparison to the others.

Near Google I would submit my web site also to Altavista and Yahoo (that concretely uses the same search technology...),wich share with it the first podium degree altough they're more roughly and unaccurate in the search (and even more easily trickables,that could be good or bed depending if concerns you or your competitors...).

Avoid absolutely to submit to each other SE over these because statistics show that over 85% of a web site traffic comes from these three main SEs.Don't loose unusefully your time and money.

As regard to the upgrade,after a good initial SEO work you'll have to perform a continuous monitoring of the ranking by means of purpose made softwares so that you'll can control the global trend and correct something if needed.
Upgrade periodically also your links network and increase them continously.

That's the best way for high ranking.

Ah!..keep in mind that results will be visibles only after months...be patient...

Regards

[bobbles]

Thanks for that, very informative. Are you aware if there is a Google update on the way in the coming weeks or is it difficult to judge when it happens?

[specter]

There isn't a fixed "expiry".
Approximatively Google (and the others) crawl the web monthly,but it could require even more.
If you have a web hosting with access to the log file of your site you can see when the "spiders" (the automated softwares that index the pages)visit your pages and you could to do your upgrading on the base of the last visit date.