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Although I have only been a member for a little over a year, I have been reading these posts for about 3 years. I don’t remember having the problems that a good amount of you face in search engine results, and thought I would put my two cents worth in.
I have said this in the past. I truly believe that some of you are pushing the envelope to far on SEO and need to back off a little.
Many of you are not only pushing the envelope on what search engines will allow, but are pushing the envelope in many different areas on what the search engines will allow on multiple pages in a website.
Please show me a place on Google’s website or any other search engines website, that list how far you can push the envelope? There are rules that they post as guidelines, but not any rules on how far that “DO NOT CROSS” line is. Much less the rules on each of over 100 different main items a search engine looks at. Remember that each of these main items have many sub-categories and sub-sub-categories. The total number of all these categories can number over 1,000,000.
What happens when you push the envelope on many pages on a website along with pushing the envelope in many different areas as well. Then you see your listings drop. You wonder why and how to fix it. How do you know where the mistake is? The fact of the matter is you don’t. Even if you think you know where the mistake is and fix it. You have to wait for what could be months to find out if you were right. What if you were wrong and the mistake was something else, or it was a combination of mistakes? How many more months do you take before you figure it out? How much is this going to cost you or your client in sales?
When you try to ride on the edge of what the search engines allow and doesn’t allow. It creates a problem. Each search engine has it's own set of rules. All the search engines have to do is change the rules just a tiny bit and then you look like you have gone passed “THE LINE” that you are not allowed to cross. Then you get some sort of penalty, and wonder why and how do I fix it?
I think the best way of pushing the envelope is to try and find where the line is and take a step back. In this way even if the rules change a little your still OK.
I realize that many websites are spamming or your competitor has 10,000 pages and you only have 20. This may very well effect where you are being listed. But pushing your clients website to the point that there is a good chance of getting some kind of penalty, and then dropping so far in the listings that it actually cost the client in sales. This is not good SEO in my mind.
I just think some of you push the envelope too far and don’t realize it. Or worst push the envelope to get fast results for the short haul. Remember Optimization 101. How many of you went a little beyond where you should have?
I wasn’t trying to offend anyone, but there’s my two cents.
CygnusX1
It is frustrating to give someone good advice then have another person post a followup saying, "Yeah, yeah, I know. I've got it covered. But I have to use what is currently working to keep up." And then see the same cowboy posting in two months that all their backlinks have disappeared.
What is currently working will not necessarily work several months from now. The domain you're playing with better be expendable.
This applies to all good webmasters and seo's, but as martin said things change, google move the goalposts, how many people survived florida? Will there be another florida, no one knows!
Sometimes you have to push the envelope a little bit more to see what works and what doesn't and if you mess up, you change it back and try something new.
To be a successful seo'r you are going to make some bloody big mistakes, it is how you cope with these that makes you successful in the long run.
Bek.
