Gaggle Google

[Davey]

I've about had it with Google. Screw 'em!

It might sound like total paranoia to some of you, but I firmly believe that the people that rank the highest at Google are paying for the spots.

I have a few sites that have ranked extremely high for short periods of time. Then they get stripped. Then they re-appear and magically disappear in a day's time.

I also see sites in the #1 and #2 slots for particular keyphrases that I don't think deserved the slot in the first place who manage to retain those slots no matter what happens with Google.

I think I'll find a better way to promote my efforts.

I know that the Search Engines are deemed to be the best way to advertise to the average person, but it seems to me to be a bit lopsided. If you can't get your ads in, why try?

Davey

[cbp]

but I firmly believe that the people that rank the highest at Google are paying for the spots.

The only payment I have made for my top spots is working my butt off.

CBP

[onelife]

Hi Davey,

I must admit I have never paid for any search performance the site I own www.thehealthzone.co.uk cost £15 to build and gets in excess of 4000 visitors per day. All it consists of is a basic design and lots and lots of content.

Google takes around 700mb each month. I have very few link partners apart from directory like joe ant etc. Still not in DMOZ but one day maybe? I get very good rankings for my site and this was the first site I built, with no knowledge of SEO at all - still don't know anything.

So the moral of this story is just to build a site that people will find useful, I hope I have achieved this and I think the search engines realise this.

[ctabuk]

To Dave Carr, you have more links than you think, there are "Healthzone" sites throughout the world .com.au, nz, etc etc You have links by association of trading names, put "thehealthzone" into a google toolbar search box.
Great site though -
Davey are you talking about adwords or simple Google listings?
If you put your signature on your postings Google will pick them up (one day)

[Davey]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

To Dave Carr, you have more links than you think, there are "Healthzone" sites throughout the world .com.au, nz, etc etc You have links by association of trading names, put "thehealthzone" into a google toolbar search box.
Great site though -
Davey are you talking about adwords or simple Google listings?
If you put your signature on your postings Google will pick them up (one day)

Hi ctabuk,

Thanks for your response. I am talking about simple manual site submissions to Google to answer your question. I have never purchased any type of advertising from Google, or any other Search Engine.

My problem with Google is that after waiting for quite a bit of time, they list some of my pages, some very decently, and then for no apparent reason they decide to only show a hyperlink to the pages that were previously doing well. This really confuses me, and doesn't give me time to rework pages so that they are more relevant and presentable to visitors.

I don't understand their philosophy. I realize from this that I can't depend on Google or other SEs for my advertising purposes.

I know that several of you say that you are doing well with Google etc. I guess you're just smarter than I am about this.

I do appreciate your replies and the information that you provide me with.

I'll learn as I go.

Davey

[pepper123]

After reading all the posts I finally decided whatever happened with one of my sites wasn't my fault. It has basically disappeared from Google. Even my backlinks are gone. Maybe I have been sandboxed. How do you tell? At least Yahoo knows I still exist, or I wouldn't have any visitors to speak of. What's funny is the newer site is doing OK on Google. I find this all very confusing and have decided since I can't do anything about it I might as well not worry about it. Maybe it will come back someday. Or not.

[ctabuk]

Davey, Hi, I can't help if you don't post your URL, you can PM it to me through WPW and I'll do what I can.

[pepper123]

Well, as of yesterday my newer site was doing OK on Google. Showing up on the first page for several keywords. Today-it is gone. This is so incredibly frustrating.