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Google SEO longterm?

         

layer8

8:57 am on Nov 19, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member




I had a site, SEO was done, was in top rankings for about 2 months then overnight for no reason site was positioned way down the rankings. All practices were ethical and it seemed no point or logic to this what happend to me.

If you speak to all the best Internet Marketing Pros they tell you SEO is a waste of time longterm, everyone in the industry has lost their position at somepoint from what I gather - or am I wrong?

I want to hear from anyone who has had long term success with SEO say for 6 months or longer....

Jakpot

8:49 pm on Nov 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



mfishy:

Jakpot
You are either; a) gloating or b) suggesting that the numerous webmasters who were affected by the recent update do not have good content.

hehe, buckwors that's pretty silly. read my post. It is useless to say my sites are doing great because I have great content. Many sites aren't doing great that do have great content. His post was not helpful, that was my point.
We are having record Google referal days on mnay sites. I would imagine what most people are tryiong to figure out is why some pages have inexplicably dropped -when they have great, relevant content.

"My site has remained unaffected. I have great content and followed Brett's steps"

Posts like the above are insulting, and quite patronizing to those who have built great sites that are suffering. Get it?
The only type of post that is more useless is the one where someone says, "I have not noticed any changes". If that is the case you are obviously only looking at a very select number of pages/queries and any input is simply irrelevant.
I have had many members sticky me what are obviously class sites that have suffered - many have never even sought out 1 single link but have organically achieved all of them through wonderful content.

Please at least quote me correctly per my post:

Designing a High Search Engine Rankings Page By Brett Tabke, June 1997.
I followed Brett's advice and guidance in developing hundreds of web pages. I did not seek out links, just registered in search engines and directories. The pages are simple and strictly whitehat.
Most have survived the top 10 in the SERPs for competitive
keywords/phrases. Some in the top 10 have less than PR4.
I have no idea why so many folks pages are taking a SERP
hit nor really why my pages survived.

I suppose making good content using Brett's guidance is the key.

I sincerely hope all can overcome the disappointments

I know lots of folk are struggling but as buckworks wrote:

Reactions like this are why we seldom hear much from people whose rankings are stable or improved.
It's too bad, because there might be valuable lessons to be learned if people felt more freedom to say "My sites are doing okay and this might be why."

Sorry you got your feelings bruised.

typein

11:10 pm on Nov 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Google.com itself is a waste of time. With this latest update over the past 4 days many of the relevent sites have *gone* vanished, all that is remaining are a few of the top sites, the rest are rubbish *sub domains* and irrelevent sites.

I am not going to waste any more time worrying about Google, there are other search engines out there. And if people like me get sick of trying to sort through the rubbish on Google what do you think the public will do? they are not all stupid.

Thank God for the *Type-in* domain name.

Gabor

11:22 pm on Nov 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Google returns truly bad results lately. I can't believe this is happening to what I thought was the best search engine. Sooner or later there will be a negative repercussions for google, unless they fix this mess.

Focus on your website and business plan - don't worry about any one search engine. You have to be able to have a valid business that is not at the whim of a search engine...

sidyadav

12:22 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Google returns truly bad results lately.

I don't know what your meaning by "Truely",
The results are still good and Google is still the best search engine in the world.

And if it did return bad results, it will still be the best search engine in the world because those "bad results" of Google are better than the "bad results" of any other engine.

and also, a dis-agreement about this thread, why would SEO be a waste of time? If you don't want to do it, don't do it, but if you will do it, the only person its gonna benifit is you.

Sid

Dave_Hawley

1:25 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)



I think the hundreds of negative posts by SEO's after the latest shuffle proves that SEO is a waste of time.
[webmasterworld.com...]

Build you site for humans, exchange links with 'on-topic' pages, forget PR, add content every day and Google will send you LOTS of traffic.

Too many SEO's try to 'beat the system' when they have no idea what the system even is. They are like a fish out of water. They have no idea where the next flip will take them, all they know is they don't like where they are now.

Dave

shasan

2:54 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member




Too many SEO's try to 'beat the system' when they have no idea what the system even is.

Many people think SEO means 'beating the system'. Trying to beat the system is a waste of time in the long term. Whether you want to call it 'SEO' or not is up to you.

PatrickDeese

2:59 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



> The results are still good

Yes I agree. They are excellent.

For example the #2 results for a search for "$city $country" in my area currently is a site that says:

"Best Directory Results for $City, $Country"

and then there's a text link labelled:

Save money when purchasing "$country" on eBay!

You know, I never consider purchasing an entire country, but you know, it's nice to know that I could use this site and save money through eBay.

I don't want to exaggerate about the content, so I will add that there are some banner ads, a pop up window about bad credit and upon loading the page it tries to install something called the "sex bar" or something. But it must be okay, since it is the #2 result from Google, right?

Wow. That *is* a great result.

jady

3:09 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Sure the results are good for some folks. We manage many sites - some have been aggressive SEO'ed and others not touched at all. Naturally most of the SEO'ed ones have disappeared down the ranks as I thought they would one day - no biggie, Google is just trying to beat this "problem". Cant complain at all!

What I do have a problem with is sites that are NOT optimized at all. They were created with just the user in mind - no header text, no link exchange crap, no keyword density, etc. But it appears some of these sites too have disappeared from the mix! One site in particular has been in the #1 spot for 3 years - now it CANT be found at all - but it is still listed in Google. The terms are now filled with newspapers, directories and even anchor text for other sites that have linked to this site in particular.. (rofl) This leads me to believe that the update/testing is FAR from over.

Here is something really funny to add to this statement. When I search for a web designer in my local area, our company (usually #2 or #2 - no seo at all) is GONE. However the #5 spot is held by a company 4000 miles away that has doorway pages with every major city on their site. Now is this a good result? Nahh...

Dave_Hawley

3:16 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)



Whether you want to call it 'SEO' or not is up to you.

It doesn't really matter what the label reads, other than the points I made SEO is nothing more than 'trial-and-error' on ever changing search engine systems. It is, for the most part, a witch hunt (IMO).

Human Being Optimization (HBO) will always win as that is exactly what search engines strive for.

Dave

sidyadav

3:19 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



PatrickDeese, Are you sure what your talking about is Google? It looks to me like some crap PPC engine.

Sid

PatrickDeese

4:12 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



PatrickDeese, Are you sure what your talking about is Google? It looks to me like some crap PPC engine.

Sid - perhaps you are seeing the light.

Instead of seeing real sites for $city $country (and there are a lot of them) the #2 result is a template generate crapola page that is wedging $country into a Commission Junction Ebay affiliate link.

If you want I will sticky you the search term.

Powdork

5:43 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Why don't you guys/girls go check these same searches on altavista. I have been amazed lately at how on target their results have been. Perhaps it's time for Brett to get them out of the 'lumped together paid inclusion forum' and give them their own. I think they've earned it.
Just an idea.

Powdork

8:35 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



alta vista does fill everything above the fold with paid listings when applicable and yes, I hate that. But do you really think all the web results are paid listings? I've never paid and I rank quite well there. None of the top ten for my queries have. They are consistently fighting INK for best spidering of my sites. I guess I also don't have the mistrust others may have since I wasn't around when they went $ in '99.
How's your site doing in av?
Did you pay?

Jakpot

10:27 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Too many SEO's try to 'beat the system' when they have no idea what the system even is. They are like a fish out of water. They have no idea where the next flip will take them, all they know is they don't like where they are now

And some "SEO's" seem to think anyone who is a non-elite, is the enemy.

feeder

10:56 am on Nov 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



<<The results are still good...>>
ROFL.

They are. In fact, better than usual (IMHO). Look at the non-commercial serps.

As for the commercial - well, AdWords are on topic. Shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone. ..

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