The Basics Haven't Changed

A reminder from times past

[austtr]

I was doing a bit of research before starting a new site and plugged a search into Google that I had not used in a long time. Sitting up there at #3 was a site I did SEO work on back in 1998. It was still exactly as I left it back then, no-one seems to have reworked it at all and it has virtually no links to it.

Despite all the new sites that have been launched in the meantime, all the gateways and cloaking and jockying for position, all the algo changes... the basic approach of good title, solid description, keywords (yes Martha, ... keywords!) bundled together with keyword-rich content, is still capable of delivering a very good result.

Reminds me of the old saying that the "The more things change, the more they stay the same"

[rewboss]

I once mentioned valium on my blog, which I make no attempt to optimize for search engines (it's a personal diary, I don't get paid for it). All of a sudden I notice a hit from someone doing an AOL search for "buying valium online" -- I came in at around 38. I mentioned on my blog that I was rather impressed and also disturbed that anyone would be reduced to trawling through at least 37 other sites looking for "buying valium online".

For months after that, I came in in the top ten for searches on "buying valium online" on a wide range of search engines (since when that site has gone down).

I'm not sure what to make of that.