Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Any fool can slap their favorite keywords into the navigation, and millions do, and it doesn't work for them.
It depends whether you are talking money (competitive) keywords or just made up words / uncompetitive keywords. I agree with santapaws regarding the unique or made up words - you can be ranking in no time just by slapping them in the nav, title, h1, url, etc.
But... when it comes to the money making terms the theory still applies regarding the keyword in navigation but you also need an array of other SEO factors thrown in on top, i.e. high PR, matured inbound links preferably consisting of similar keyword anchor text as the phrases you’re targeting and for those links to be coming from similar themed sites, etc.
What I'm afraid *might* be happening with this update is that due to Google’s new more efficient file structure they are now digging deeper, scraping the very bottom of the internet barrel which is churning up lots of low quality pages (and in turn many more links) that once had to be disregarded.
So a site that has e.g. 3000 poor quality inbound links pointing to it is benefiting much more than a site with only 75 high quality links, which to me seems like Google has shot itself in the foot.
[edited by: tedster at 4:07 pm (utc) on Nov. 1, 2009]
As for now I am so depressed that I have even stopped posting new articles. I have taken a couple of days for myself. It looks like every time i get more visitors and something seems to move positively in my daily traffic, Google pushes me down...Am I so unworthy?
Thanks for your words and for the hope you have brought on this forum!
I have got to feel this will be a short term burble. In a perverse sort of way, I'm curious about what this will mean for search traffic. I honestly don't think the average searcher will want the Wikipedia page in this case.
After a couple days study, I'm thinking that some kind of semantic phrase recalculation is in play. The reason I say that is that this person is known by three names, but the search in question uses only two of those names - as does the Wikipedia page. If the #1 doesn't come back in a week or so, I do have on step I can take that might fix things, if indeed it is the 2-name 3-name issue.
I have taken a couple of days for myself.
Good.
...I have even stopped posting new articles.
Bad. Don't.
Keep adding articles at a sustainable pace and build a site for visitors. Forget about Google on a day-to-day basis. Let Google be Google and do what Google does. You build a visitor friendly website.
As for now I am so depressed that...
Don't dwell on what Google does. IMO Your goal should be to build a site your visitors (even if it's only 3) will like, find useful, visit again, tell a friend about, which IMO is a way better goal than the 'Google Dependence' it seems like you're after.
Your goal should not be to 'build a site for Google' and if you're getting depressed over what Google is doing or not doing with your site, then it sounds to me like you're building the site for Google and IMO that's really not the best way to do things. Get excited when you see repeat visitors and make adjustments when you don't.
Build your site to be useful, unique, informative, visitor friendly, easy to use, etc. and stop checking your rankings in Google. Whether you have 3, 20, 50 or 500 visitors a day if your site is truly built for the visitors who find it (however they find it) your goal should be to retain as many of them as you can. IMO Your first goal should not be to rank in Google and thereby create an absolute dependence on the algorithm of an entity beyond your control, which is what you will do if you rank and don't retain your traffic without a constant stream from Google.
Build a site for visitors and IMO if you do Google will figure it out and you'll have the best of both worlds, if not, personally, I think you'll have a tough time getting anywhere without a full blown network on your topic.
It is good to keep in mind, however, that the SERPs can be very unkind at the drop of a hat, so everyone should do as much as possible to prepare for the day that a SERPs slam happens. Diversify, save, scrimp, whatever...be as prepared as possible. It'll still hurt, but not quite so much.
My site is not "Made for Google" and of course i try to keep my visitors in mind as a first goal. I hold contests, giveaways ect as well as articles which are not keyword optimized, just for the heck of it, just because i think that are useful to my readers. The issue is that 80% of my traffic comes from Google and Google only.
Yahoo and Bing have ridicule figures to think about them seriously.
I have been told not to depend on Google.
That's simple to say but quite hard to achieve. OK, you could say that i have to invest, but the only thing i can invest on for now is my time. I am a private writer and do not have a huge budgets.
So you will understand that what Google thinks about me is important and for a lot of people here too. Who says that it is not important well, i think he tells a lie.
That said, my sadness has left me and today i will start posting again because...that's the only think i really like, even more than my "real" job.
A few folks have commented on their Florida experiences and comments they got during the aftermath. I don't think that the advice they (we) got regarding not relying on Google was bad it was just a bit hurtful at the time.
In fact I think that there are two mental states that work.
1. Rely on Google organic but make hay while the sun shines. When you are going through a period of bad Google harvest do other stuff that will help you in the long term.
2. Don't rely on Google organic entirely but take accept that you will take a smaller return because you are going to have to spend big offline and on Adwords.
Actually there's a third way which is a mix of both. I think that most folks depression when they were relying on Google comes from the fact that they didn't realise they were making hay while the sun shone until too late.
Florida hit me really bad both financially and mentally but it is the best thing that ever happened to me. It was too important for me to give up on finding out why. So I kept at it until I got what passes for an understanding of what was going on. I decided to reduce my reliance on Google organic and to spend a bit more on press advertising and on Adwords. I had a bit of luck once I understood why and that was in large part generated by my involvement on this forum, often you make your own luck. I just happened to be here when GoogleGuy posted a method to contact him with case studies. I wrote mine up in a structured way with examples that were not just my own site. GG picked it up and sorted out my problem and I went back to #1 and apart from a period of a year after BigD when I dropped down for some terms to #3-5 I've stuck there.
One of the major reasons I've stuck there was all of the stuff I learned about analysing pages, backlinks during the months after Florida. It has all but paid for my $1.5 million home, my BMW motorcycle, small yacht and two new cars every 3 years. I'm also able to do a bit of charity work and help my folks in their old age.
The point is use the problems you are currently having as a learning experience, stick at it and if you learn the right stuff and use it in the right way you have a good chance of getting success. If you measure it in material things, possibly more success if you measure it in more spiritual ways.
Best wishes
Sid
see this result :
[google.com.eg...]
the site which grab my rss come ahead of me in search results
this site was taking my rss a long time ago, and I was coming ahead
but now - I think after caffiene came to reality - the spamy results are ahead of mine !
really results sucks at this time
weather caffeine or not !
This time is different. I know that I have not done anything wrong and bump! i got back in time when my traffic was small, i wore shorts and everything looked colorful...not fair, but that's life, it happens everyday...just i didnt think it would happen even here on the Internet! :)
how ever now I think Google is making a lot of changes this may be due to
1- holidays
2- new caffeine algorithms
3- a new Page rank update (unexpected)
i have other advice for you that won't be as easy but probably makes more sense.
You have a combination of Holiday SERPS/testing and Caffeine testing. You just need to sit tight or hopefully watch and learn from what you are seeing beyond just your SERPs.
Every year, people want to panic and jump of the SEO bridge around this time of the year. (late Oct to Early Jan)
There's LOTS of different stuff going on right now with SERPS and even I'm oversimplifying it by saying it's both holiday SERPs and Caffeine testing.
And unlike Florida fallout, which many SEOs still don't realize was because Goog didn't have the resources to adequately "organize all the world's information"
(which is why historically authoritative sites went missing or lost huge rankings for a long time),
at least now, any fall out of Goog restructuring their infrastructures and datasets isn't going to last nearly as long.
It sounds like you need to develop mental state #1 and make hay while the sun shines, because you don't know what storms tomorrow will bring.
Good luck
Sid
Everyone around me laughed when they saw the time I was putting in for pennies a day. But I'm glad I did one thing when everyone was laughing - I kept going. I didn't give up. I made sure I had a solid base and a diverse base of topics (17 in total).
I had two goals in mind when I first started the website - one had to do with the number of visitors per month and the second had to do with income. We came very close to making both goals this month - I suspect we will by April 2010. Overall, I would consider everything a success.
The point is, I didn't give up and that paid off.
< continued here: [webmasterworld.com...] >
[edited by: tedster at 2:35 am (utc) on Dec. 3, 2009]
