Google Getting Harder to SEO For?

[protozoider]

I've been working with some sites and placement on Google for the past 3 years. I've seen it get gradually harder to get placed on Google anymore. Especially if you want the front page. I've done quite a few experiments to get my sites higher. About a year ago all our sites were #1. Now most of them aren't on the first page and they are constantly updated. I've emailed Google constantly about problems with searching and finding irrelavant results. I look for one thing and find junk instead. The problem is, Google leads us to believe that PR is the big issue. Having quality links. Well our sites have quality links and a rating of 4 on each of them. They have all the proper key words and words in the page. I've done all the research to know exactly what needs to be in the page and where to get it high on search engines. Yahoo has most of our sites rated very high, as does alltheweb and msn. Google however does not work the way they tell us. If you search for one of my key words on one of my sites, you will find a site with a PR of 3 over mine with PR 4. Same keyword on both sites, ours has more content though. Every time I wrote Google they told me PR PR PR. Obviously that's not it. Sure it might help but it's done nothing for me on 4 of my sites. Not to mention that our sites have exactly the content you look for with the keywords and more products with those keywords involved but sites that have unrelated products or small amounts of the same products get higher results. Can Google be bought off? Is that how it works?

To totally prove the PR myth here. We have a site rated 4 that is on Google but we have not found it under any search term. I don't understand why they would penalize it if it even is. I think Google has been feeding us lines about how to get good listings because I don't think THEY even know how their spider indexes sites.

[decaff]

Unless...of course..you are running the full-blown, fast and furious, "I won't be back", white hat seo is for "girlie men", only want short term gains, just looking for a quick buck, fully controlled web site cluster, so I can game the system (have total control over inbound/outbound link relationships and context)....and get whatever "I WANT" out of it with no regards for the big picture .... business model...
in other words SPAM...

tons of SPAM in the SERPs these days...
SEO is really easy for those who take this route..

hard for those who find themselves competing against these aggressive tactics..

[Josefu]

I don't 'optimize' anymore and my site's doing fine.

I've been reading here for over a year now and the arrows of all advice and serp-deciding algorithm changes all point in the same direction - honest, complete content. By complete I mean not filled with validation errors.

Of course there are zingers out there like the use of h1 h2 tags and anchor text - but I find all is fine as long as one uses them for what they were invented for and nothing else. And it is obvious that one would expect that the clickable word that he clicks upon should be almost a title for the page it opens. All the rules in Google's algo go in this sense - user logic.

So make your page titles, seperate your text with subject titles when the subject changes, make your links link to pages that hold what they describe, and go over the whole before you publish it to make sure everyone, everywhere can read it.

I can't see it as being any more complicated than that.

[Hardwood Guy]

Nice point Josefu. How can one keep track of all the theories that go on around here? It has to drive some nuts! My traffic got hammered in the early part of the month but I just sat it out and fortunately things have swung back to normal the last two days. It still isn't where I want it to be but...in time.

My aplogies to others that may think of me as a whiner---ain't going there anymore.

[walrus]

For Google at least, I think inlinks have become even more inportant then they were.If you have good content then it could be lack of inlinks,unless your page structure isnt spider freindly.

One example is if your using tables there are a few little things that affect the way your page is read.

This is from Googles guidlines pages.
Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as Javascript, cookies, session ID's, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.

Hope that helps a bit

[union_jack]

I have a number of sites which for my sins are interlinked, most disappered after Florida or shortly after they previously all ranked in the top 3 for there main search term. However 5 or 6 kept there rankings despite been interlinked and a very similar template the only difference i could find is that they had one or two relevant links which seemed to be all that is needed.

I have know lost 95 of my visitors and all my revenue, i have taken this opputunity to redesign my sites. The main changes i have made is to target links which are related to my sites.For youe information they are all city guides and i have targeted links from sites which have some link ie sports clubs, businesses, local organsiations. They are not directley related to my site however they are all links that would be of some use to my visitors. I am hoping this will see Google rank me well. I must point out that i have not gone for site with good PR, i have gone after links specifically that will be of use.

Also i have removed all my interlinks, however i am i right in thinking that i can interlink a number of sites, which will be value by Google. Does any body have any idea if there is a number you can interlink.

My point is if my theroy is right ( i have been wrong with most of my theroys), that you no longer need to look for big PR sites, or pay for links, simply all you have to do is swap links that would be relevant to your user. I think this makes sense if you are a search enginee looking to provided your users with the best results.

Ill sit back and wait for you guys to rip my theroy to bits.

[Josefu]

No, not at all, you're on the ball there with most of that. Relevency.

Something tells me that, in the google algorithm (and post-crawl processing) that google takes the extra .0025 (est.) seconds to compare the text content of the link-ee/er linked pages to see if some of the words match up.

[protozoider]

I understand that Google does not intend its site to be fully for our advertising of our site. But if you look at it from the surfer side, I would want to find good products directly related to my search phrase. You don't get that most of the time with Google. I spent two years studying search engines and found what works and got amazing ratings. Then Google changed theirs. So those two years of study got me good placing everywhere but Google which unfortunately most people use. Now I wouldn't say that people deserve to have good results with their sites but when you spend as much time learning them as I have, you would think so. I've taught people how to optimize their sites, I've been asked to a local community college to speak about search engines. SEO programs are definitely wrong, they don't teach you to do sites in a manor that works for search engine liking. I can get just about any site to the top 5 on any site except Google.

I've worked hard to get my clients good results. If it were that Google only had a small amount users it wouldn't be so bad. It's because Google has become the largest used engine.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I would want to find good products directly related to my search phrase.

It is wrong to assume that most people are looking for products. Most people are actually looking for information while most websites are now trying to sell products.

[Leosghost]

The problem is protozoider ..anyone can get a site on the first page of the other search engines except google ...if you can get that with google then you are worth listening too about what you know about search engine optimisation ...otherwise any 10yr old kid can do SEO..( some do pretty hot on google too ;).

[dirkz]

2 years doesn't sound like much in comparison.

How many years of training is required to beat 10s on 100m? How long does it take to bootstrap a business from 0 to 500,000 revenue a year?

[Josefu]

Want to hear odd? One of my most active sites is #3 for its (very competitive) keywords, but on Yahoo and MSN it doesn't drop in till around page six.

IMHO, this is what happens when the SE's start trying to play 'catch the optimiser' - by overchanging their algo to try to trap some of the slyer techniques out there. And if you have a dynamic site there's an even greater risk of being 'knocked' by over-reacting SE's who can't find the middle of the 'what is ligit' road and end up not only giving irrelevent results, but whacking off those just watching from the sidelines.

The beauty of Google is that it is moving, despite its many 'adjustment' vaccilations over the past year, in a discernable direction: Relevent results. Ignoring the techniques spammers use to bring first-time (and usually once-only) visitors to their sites, Google favours what brings visitors back: solid, coherent and cohesive content.

[metatarsal]

As far as I can see, Google's algo is far from perfect. It favours low content pages featuring links to other sites; rather than serving immediate access to the most relevant sites themselves.

This is probably to be expected in a search engine that is now financially driven.

I'm not sure we'll see another Florida though - I think it will be more gradual.

But by the by, Google will gradually turn into a paid-for search engine (it's already 40% there!)

And lose all credibility - that's why we're not investing :-)

[outland88]

I was doing some work on sites in the last few days and I came across some unusual results on links pages. To me, it was the first very clear evidence that Google was definitely penalizing sites with order pages under high traffic keywords. They’re forcing many commerce sites into Adwords.

[trillianjedi]

They’re forcing many commerce sites into Adwords.

If you were google, wouldn't you?

TJ

[outland88]

>If you were google, wouldn't you?

No, I'd base it on site size and exempt certain categories of sites.

[dirkz]

> But by the by, Google will gradually turn into a paid-for search engine (it's already 40% there!)

If they do, another SE will happily jump in and get their market share.

Users don't want paid-for results, they want relevant ones.

[MikeNoLastName]

>anyone can get a site on the first page of the other
>search engines except google ..
----------------------------------------

Funny I seem to have the OPPOSITE problem. I can get my pages on the top 5 of Google under just about any term I want, but can't seem to get in the top 10 pages of Y!.

I've been working on the assumption getting a page on both at the same time was mutually exclusive and just worrying about G, since they've always brought at least 3 times the traffic anyway.

[Josefu]

...I may have spoken too soon in one of my earlier posts. There's a PR 1 site now at the top of the SERP's for my keyword and it's using the 'keyword crowding' techique. The same keyword distributed with other texts and titles 27 times in the same page.

Doesn't page rank count for anything anymore?

[illusionist]

I think it might be keyword density as all the results where my site use to rank on the top 10 now have sites with almost no text on the pages.

[osfp]

"Google favours what brings visitors back"
exactly yosefu ,i believe that G can see probably from Alexa or its toolbar the pages that have return visitors for the a or b key word and thats why it gives to those pages high rankings,i would like a feed back if anyone else agree to that.

[illusionist]

Yes but they dont search for it again on g, they just go staright to the source...mostly. How excatly will google track each person?

[osfp]

"Does any body have any idea if there is a number you can interlink" i know a site thats interlinking with 200 other sites in every page and ranks #1 for a competitive key word

[osfp]

"Yes but they dont search for it again on g"
i dont agree exept only if they put the source in there favorites some times its hard to remember a huge url

[DslLmi]

It might be that the Google toolbar is like the alexa one.... And lets them know traffic and such... With out anyone knowing it.

[illusionist]

But still how many times are you gonna search for the same thing again and again?

[submitx]

Give people a reason to link to your site. It is the most underrated topic in webmasterworld.

Although I'm a bit late to the thread, this is the most useful nugget I've seen. The best way to rank well in Google (long term) is to build a quality website. Offer better content / more content / different content / laser targeted content than your competitors and the traffic will come.

[dirkz]

At the moment, it's till webmasters who decide what's relevant by linking to it.

I hope that Google is planning a scheme where the actual users are deciding what's relevant, by tracking them with cookies and the toolbar.

Of course this brings some privacy concerns.

[DslLmi]

Well look at it like thes what problem would you rather have? bad rank? Or privcy issues?..

Privcy I say. With the amount of junk that people are alowed to get away with now.. It is the far worse of the two evils.

Just my Thoughts!

[dickbaker]

This may be the wrong thread to post this comment on, but I remember a number of people saying that Google doesn't pay attention to meta tags.

Well, G has finally picked up about ten pages from my 1300+ page site. And most of the descriptions of those pages are from the meta description tags, not from the page text itself. If G were picking up on the page text, I might be doing better.

[oodlum]

But still how many times are you gonna search for the same thing again and again?

I think a lot of people do exactly that, rather than try to manage hundreds of bookmarks. I know I do.