The following article was written by Nick Wilson.

Aaron Wall has an interesting article detailing how his SEOBook and SEOGuy websites have been dumped in the recent Google update.

"A couple of the sites that were hit in the Google update were ranking well in most major search engines for the term "SEO."

Recently SEO Guy ranked #1 in Google. My SEO Book blog also ranked in the top 10 - 20 sites since June of last year.

I just checked Yahoo! and MSN and SEO Guy was #1 for "SEO" on both sites. My site was #4 and #6. Teoma is a topical clustering based search engine and even their algorithm still ranks my site at #11.

After the recent Google update both SEO Guy and SEO Book no longer rank in Google for their official site names."

Many theories and surmizes follow, but they boil down to this:

Over optimized sites have been hit again...

This also ties in nicely with a thread i read a bit of over at WMW recently: The Best SEO Tactic is to do Nothing at all?

Member Tomthumb2000 says...

"I've been reading masses of opinions over the past few weeks and it strikes me that with so many conflicting opinions and contracditory evidence, what conclusions can the average webmaster draw?

It seems to me that the best tactic may be to just develop a site with plenty of good content, relevant titles, get the ODP and Yahoo listing and leave it at that. I've seen plenty of sites developed in Notepad reach the top of their SERPS without ever requesting a link or giving more than a relevant handful of links out.

I can accept that there exist webmasters and companies with genius techies and a hard-wroking team of Web promoters who can get results. But for the average webmaster is his time not best spent in developing a good site? Especially when no one can agree on what works anyway?

Maybe I'm just naive..."

What i wonder now is this:

- Is Google specifically targeting SEO efforts?

- How does this change the SEO game?

I think the first one is a bit of a no brainer :) but the second should provide some food for thought ... right?

Personally, as I've said before, the harder this game becomes the better off the industry will be..

Thanks Brad.

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Former WebProWorld Admin
IntentionalFoul.com

Search Engine Optimizing experts are loving that Google keeps changing the ways their algorithms work. Why?

Job security.

It may mean that their work is no longer working for their current or past clients, but those clients will come back if they were happy with the results the first time they worked together.

Are we assuming that the Average Joe and Jane doesn't realize that? Please. Let's drop the act. This is GREAT for business -- but only if you treated your clients as if this was going to happen someday (we all knew it would). If you didn't work your hardest for them, then you just lost out on what could've been two paydays from one happy client.

This will happen again in the future, so plan for it now by the way you treat your clients.

I see all kinds of posts bemoaning the latest change that "took away all of their hard work," blah, blah, blah. They just walked into the next financial boon, and they know it. I know it. Don't you?

Maybe there is something to that whole "Do unto others" thing.

Reading the threat at WMW is frustrating. Can't seem to glean any real information or real insight.

A lot of chatters there say - just do nothing. Keep adding content and take your time. How much time do their clients have?

There's such a fundamental lack of definition of SEO, SEM, online marketing, etc. - and the specific roles and skills sets necessary for them all. I mean, really, if you insist that a website should be left alone and all you need to do is add content and that'll be that, then you are making some big assumptions. Forget assuming that doing nothing will help you. I want to focus on assuming that the content you write (the "good" content) is going to do the job - but do you know what job it's going to do?

It just seemed like a copout way of dealing with this Google SNAFU.

But all of this makes me wonder if Google is doing something more sinister: cornering the SEO/SEM market. Amid reports of lower-PPC spending, the market has been slamming Google's stock price. It's down $3 a share today. I wonder if Google is testing out filters on SEO - so they can corner SEO and add SEO services to their AdWords/AdSense. This sounds possible to me because now that Google is public, shareholders/board could be much more sensitive to Google's position. Google could be trying every which way to gain a strategic revenue advantage. Google can incorporate SEO package - SEO consulting - and actually guarantee that if websites follow their guidelines, then the sites can gain better natural rankings (maybe they put a Google-SEO'd-certified filter in place so that all sites SEO'd by Google get pushed to the top). I would imagine that way Google could even further ensure QC.

I mean.. am I being overly cynical or does this sound plausible... at least possible?

The fact that there's nothing to stop Google from carrying out that exact plan makes it a plausible one.

Hold on tight. SEO experts are either going to be bought-up by Google like fishing in an aquarium with a net. Or, they'll all be shut out.

This might end up hurting a little. Novacaine anyone?

The thing is that is scary about that is - if Google takes a leap like that, and builds a successful appeal to webmasters to go to them for SEO services (SEO consulting services + site design, etc.), then Yahoo AND MSN would jump on that.

Site owners can then pick who they want to go to for SEO services - Yahoo-centric, MSN-centric, Google-centric. At this point in time, Google would corner the market easily.

And here's how Google can appeal to users - Google can now "guarantee" that users would not find spammy top-ranking websites anymore. So users can be confident in using Google again.

Then, after Google corners the market - how can Google explain away their SEO services once there is status quo in their SERPs? Simple. Google will next factor who is paying more to be ranked higher.

This is a doomsday scenario. I'm just throwing it out there. But again - not just possible, but plausible. Like I said - the burden of being a public company is now upon Google. Shares are down $3/share on 2/25/05.

Google => corner SEO/SEM market & offer SEM services to all website owners
Google = $ $ $ $D

And what does that do to Google's AdWords program? It makes AdWords more of a necessity than ever before because the only way to get high placement of any kind in Google will be to go with at least one of their programs -- the new SEO consultation side of it, or the PPC side of it.

Either way, PPC's stock is raised in this scenario.

Can you just picture the Google-watchers sitting in their desks in their headquarters reading this right now saying, "Very good, now what ealse are we going to do to generate more revenue for ourselves? Don't stop your thinking there..."

just my 02...

There's no way Google has the manpower to watch and monitor all of these situations. If they decided to dedicate resources to watching one sector, another area would sneak up and figure out how to get top rankings.

Besides, it's in Google's best interest to keep the SEO'rs on their toes concerning the latest conspiracy theory, since fear of the unkown and banishment from Google is so dreaded.

I don't agree that the latest update was actively going after the seo market - instead, it looks like they went after people using the same text link pointing to their sites...

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Its a constant battle of one-up-manship. Raking is more about playing the game and less about content.

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Google has most likely simply corrected their algorithm to reduce the benefits from some of SEO Guy's spammy SEO techniques.

This is good for searchers, because it brings them more relevant results.

This is good for SEO's, because it improves the playing field for ethical SEO's.

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Webmaster: The Internet Search Engines FAQ

The site that I work for www.dabow-inc.com already uses such tools as adwords from google. We only resorted to this sort of marketing, because our own attempts at SEO management have failed. Mostly, because our market is small. Anyways the adwords programs would become too expensive to use if that was the only way to get our site out in the public eye. I don't know what others are paying, but we pay between $0.84 and $2.00 a click just to be in the top ten rankings. Give that too many clicks and our daily budget is gone before lunch. Something like this could really hurt google when small business owners start moving to more economical search engines.

Without even putting much effort into keyword density, simply modifying out title tags has done amazing things for us. We retrained our Internet Operations editorial team to mark the title tags of articles a certain way, and POOF, top ratings in some very competitive keyword and keyword phrase arenas.

We haven't have to get too tricky or sneaky at all. And, this new update by Google has only helped us. Perhaps ethics do pay off from time-to-time.

I just checked a keyword and checked the HTML of the #1 listing under the keyword "rose quartz jewelry".

It didn't even HAVE a doctype tag. The HTML errors stopped posting after 200...The website itself was far from attractive or professional!

I was thinking today that maybe Google's being SABOTAGED? Think of it! They're under HUGE pressure right now to get revenue from the IPO. MSN is live and on their tail... Now...Just say MSN buys out someone there--someone with power, and WHAM--Google's searches become irrelevant--at the time when everyone is comparing search results on MSN and Yahoo. With Google's searchs more irrelevant, users logically migrate to MSN. It's far cheaper for MSN to buy out one Geek than to spend millions and millions on advertising.

I just can't imagine Google would do this to themselves. Something HAS to be going on!

All these crazy theories--but whatever is going on--it certainly isn't LOGICAL. And that's what THIS Geek craves!

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MaxSun

http://www.LuckyGemstones.com

I recently found that 2 sites I had built for individuals - (their names are the .com, .co.uk addresses i.e JohnSmith.com have just disappeared from Google listings. Both were previously in top #3 rankings for their names, real names that is + domain name, as mentioned.

On both occasions no 'stealth' methods were involved - who needs it when your marketing a guy's name and what he does? [In one case a TV film editor and the second a writer of Kids' Musicals]?

So what do I do? Re-register with Google? Or are the sites now blacklisted? if so what's my next move?

V.frustrating! While I'm v. interested in all the feedback above I'm more interested in finding a way back into the rankings. Any suggestions as to a next sensible step much appreciated.

Any feedback from anyone that's been in a similar position gratefully received.

Thanks and love,

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www.websitemarket.co.uk

I've seen ups and downs but this Feb 2 update has been VERY GOOD for me. My SEO policy has always been "avoid any tricky stuff that might be penalized, only do obvious stuff that improves the site without regard to SEO..."

I think that has been a good long-term strategy. Though it's hard to say, I might get hit hard in the next update. Who knows?

Andi

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crpytblade sez

I am a self-admitted skeptic and paranoid loon, so there's my full disclosure. But I am extremely unhappy with Google, and have been for about six months. It isn't about whining over "oh God there goes all my work" (for 100+ sites) it is more like "wow, look at the shiznet that they call natural search, if I can find it among the 20+ PPC ads littering the results." I had validated, quality, natural, white hat stuff for many, many clients high up on Google, and it isn't like they disappeared in one day, they just trickle downwards over time. 13 years one site has been online, it gets 2k+ natural sessions a day with no PPC, and creeping downward it has gone since the day Google did an IPO. Upwards went utter rubbish that is totally unrelated, or not nearly so relevant, to very obvious search phrases - one word, two word sorts.

Plus if you ask me, Google has already cornered the SEM market in the eyes of those who only see PPC as their best marketing option - i.e. the 90% of SMBs out there as opposed to corps with the cash to do radio, TV, email campaigns (good ones) and now podcasting and other such things.

As for SEO, it sort of bleeds into Adwords profits if you ask me... my how it helps to click on PPC if the natural results a) look similar - and I know they're offset, but not by much, 80% or so of people can't tell the difference per some studies... and b) how nice for Google's wallet if only the PPC seems to be relevant, eh?

I realize there are some natural curbs and checks on this, such as people abandoning Google in droves for a better engine - but MSN and Yahoo are PPC-happy as well, though I... cannot believe I am saying this... have been quite impressed with the new non-beta MSN. First time in my life I have wanted MS to really get after a competitor - or at least make a quality alternative product that humbles said competitor's gouging ambitions a little. Google's got the giant's attention, we'll see what comes of it - my prediction is they will BOTH start the SEO/SEM lock game, and we web people will all go grab 3 domains for every site and optimize them differently to hit the major engines (but not with identical visible content of course, that's black-hat SEO - eek! Call the cops! Plus it doesn't even work unless you do it! Or so scream the mad white hatters - of which I am one, though I'm climbing on the fence if this slide goes on forever...)

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Denver SEO, Blog, and Web Design Consultants

I run a tiny web design company with about 10 sites online. I have a text link to my site saying "flite media design" in the footer of all these sites. In the recent update almost every one of my sites has been removed from google! (The sites still have PR and if i search for the URL it shows but with no title or text.) All my sites except one which had an image instead of a text link. I think SEOforGoogle is right!

All I have been doing is learning to make valid html/css, no exsessive SEO. This google update has been a disaster for me.

Lets face it, if you have good content then things will definately at the very least be more stable.

The sites that this site started about definately 'did' use some techniques that were/are considered spammy. I have seen a lot of apparent competitors fall by the way side with these google updates and 9 times out of ten they have been sites that are no more than directories and more than keyword stuffed.. I mean, dont be naive, ive stuffed the odd bit here and there myself but not in comparison to the dropped sites..

who said Without doubt the long term success rule..

As for those complaining about the cost of pay for clicks.. perhaps you are not using people that know what they are doing..?
There are bound to be terms for 'any' phrase/keywords that will cost you 10p and not $2 a click! You need to utilise these! Does your site only get found for several queries? We get found for hundreds and hundreds of similar terms/expressions/locations etc etc that benefit us and we obviously target a number of these phrases via pay for clicks at 10p and just skirtthe obvious terms that cost high bids.... However we also target words that cost us $2 a click because it pays! These particular words we have tested and get high roi!
I would consult a expert in this field or at least take a lot of time to know what you are doing or else yes, you will be throwing money down the drain and google etc cannot be blamed for taking advantage of that.

Good content will definitely be more stable. Not a doubt. Title tags can be tweaked a little and good content falls little if ever, and tends to grow not shrink in rankings with fresh content and a large number of relevant pages.

And PPC is only getting a bit pricey for "big terms" because there are companies that are finding it harder to scale as they hit the cielings of certain terms, fully agree the "cracks" in the wall can be very nicely taken good advantage of by any site not needing 50k hits/day. 98% of companies aren't using PPC yet - once 20% or so do, which is probably a fair estimate of 1-2 years out, it'll be competitive down the whole wire - but as noted, if it makes a profit, it's worth it. If it doesn't - oops, you got own3d by someone with a more efficient product, system, process, etc.

Though it sure is nice to be inferior and yet profitable, will the ride lasts. =)

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Denver SEO, Blog, and Web Design Consultants

Here's the thing - people did that because Google stressed that anchor text for links are important.

They have to be "relevant" and descriptive is good. The anchor text is supposed to be a "white hat" and legal technique.

This technique makes sense for users and so why would something like that be penalized? It doesnt make sense.

I mean, I produce web sites and web marketing work for small businesses. I also produce other self-owned properties that I use to diversify revenue streams. Now, I'm still small and do this part-time, but a lot of folks I've helped I put a link to my design/marketing consulting site. Why? It's good business practice for me. Referrals. Why should I be penalized and not be able to find my own website in a searchh for my company name, based upon links to my site that Google deems "spam" when I do it as good business practice? It doesn't make sense.

I would love to believe that Google is broken, that some SNAFU occured and Google HQ is on Red Alert (arooooga! aroooooga! arooooga! Alert! Alert! Condition Red!) I would love to dismiss it as that. But that seems like a serious, SERIOUS miscalculation on Google's part, and seriously, as a public company, I dont see how Google would walk into that.

My thinking is that Google is introducing some new filter and right now, targeting SEOs to see how well it works. I think this new filter will lead to Google cornering more of their SEM services = and increasing their revenue stream.

Look at Yahoo! As a pure Internet company, Yahoo has plenty of revenue streams. Look at the ad revenues they get just on their website. They have domain registration and hosting, Yahoo stores, etc. There are numerous revenue streams for Yahoo. Google, while they do well, does not have as many diverse revenue streams.

I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist - pragmatist. I think Google is doing something and testing this new filter in a bid to introduce some new SEO/SEM service. It makes sense - public company trading at nearly $200/share - which is down $3/share today - shareholders want results...have high expectations.

It's probably unrelated and was posted in advance, but Adwords *is* down for maintenance right now - run for the hills - it's a conspiracy theory!

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Denver SEO, Blog, and Web Design Consultants

Hello, fellow search fans. This discussion is interesting for a couple of reasons.

#1. Google's recent/current algo "update." They do it all the time. Tweaking their Hilltop formula this time, most likely. It's all about relevance, and if Google says anchor link text is important, well, I tend to believe them.

Which is why I tuned up the inbound links as much as I could. It would always be a smart thing to know the story your inbound links tell you.

#2. Think "SEO" is the only affected term? Since we are so close to the term, it's been noticed immediately. But I'll bet there are other terms with results that have "changed" in the SERPs.

It's too easy to attribute to the big G ulterior motives based solely on their IPO/public company status. I do not know anyone there, but I doubt they've changed the Way They Do Business because of stock price fluctuations. "Do no evil" remember?

If Google waters down their natural results, their AdWords won't make up for it. Searchers will go somewhere else...MSN or Yahoo. I believe whatever Google is doing, it's playing out over time and is in their best competitive interest. They haven't got to this point by accident!

--Greg, Mr. Goodhelp

Greg -

I think you are quite probably right. I think anchor text relevance is a potential for abuse, but so is about everything else.

However, I do think there is an ulterior motive of sorts (not necessarily in violation of do no evil) that will be spurred by their public status, and while a $3 share wobble (~1% = BFD) won't make daily policy, nor do I think they'll target anything in particular (like SEO), I do worry that in attempting to "do it all" they may let their search relevance slip a little... it's happened before, it could happen to them, though one would imagine they've got whole teams of bright folks who know what their core competency was and should continue to be...

I love Google overall, but they've stepped on big toes, and will have to watch their flanks to stay on top of their game in natural search, even if other things seem like better PR. And I don't mean PageRank.

Just my two cents, but everyone should listen to me because...

We're #1 for "best holographic business cards on earth"

(which of course I don't have a bloody thing to do with, but I am lazy and it's staying...)

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Denver SEO, Blog, and Web Design Consultants

I just saw that Ask Jeeves and Lycos are offering SEO services - a neat $ 10,000 for 50 pages.

Read this article:
http://www.site-reference.com/Search...387/index.html

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Good find. And that was my point all along - if these small engines would offer such service - and plenty of folks on WPW have talked about Yahoo and MSN offering their own service (I forget the threads), what's to keep Google from doing the same thing?

I think some people are being naive or just in denial. I'm not saying Google will be putting SEO out of business right away, but blowing SEO companies for their own name out of the SERPs certainly leaves a lot of SEOs with clients in a bind.

Furthermore, all the talk of creating "good sites" are subjective and completely useless to a client who isnt ranking well! The client wants answers, you want answers to help your client. So long as clients are getting unreliable results for your services, clients can leave you. As they search for better results - Google pops in with their own SEM package. They tell folks that they can get better rankings through a smart-site design. Use Google's set of guidelines - that happen to insist on implementing AdWords/AdSense - and voila - Google can get them ranking again.

I really think this is a big possibility that Google is honestly going to test. And I think they are testing some stuff to see the impact. And I suspect the changed results will stay like this.

I'll be nice to Lycos for it's services "back in the day" but if I buy $10k in FrontPage-quality SEO services from AdJeeves, will they please buy my "search engine in a can" product for $50M or so?

Hmm, that was actually pretty amusing. I decided it is Friday and I am bored, so I hit our friends at ask[ingforit].com with my au gneutreal search and for once it came back with high relevancy:

"will you buy my search engine in a can?"

AskJeeves sez #1 = Altavista.

I take it back, they really don't use a completely random returns page just to help flesh out the advertising spam - sorry Jeeves!

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Denver SEO, Blog, and Web Design Consultants

Well, $ 10,000 in South African Rand at the current exchange rate is around ZAR 70,000-00 odd.

I think these big guys will exclude a lot of companies when they ask this type of money - reason being, that us living in the other parts of the world just cannot afford it!!!

So SEO is 70K - what will the designers ask to design the sites then???

Even ppc advertising is too expensive for my customers over here in South Africa. Our local engines also offer ppc but in their generic results I cannot even find what I am looking for so why on earth must we advertise???

And the latest advertising prop I got, contained pop-under, pop-up, floating ads which are very annoying etc.!!!!

Maybe Google and these other companies should realize that the world does not consist of America alone.

Maybe that is why people that are desperate to make a living in countries like India resort to click fraud and black hat SEO????

Fortunately SEO, SEP, SEM are value added services and my business specialize more on other things such as software and SMS services. I think the SEO as far as I am concerned will take a back seat seeing that people in South Africa mostly do not even know what SEO is.....and then the ones that I saw doing it....well I would rather not comment.

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I have started a thread for confussed victims of this latest Google update here:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...=199146#199146

LOL - that is amazing! Talk about exploitation.
Is that the service they want 10,000 for? to give advise?

On the subject of Google offering SEO/SEM services - I think this is highly unlikely because such a thing wouldn't get very far at all before they had client conflict - conflict of interest.

They are much better off to stay with positioning to the highest bidder via pay for placement (adwords). Making any sort of offer to help manipulate the core search results to "clients" would destroy them very quickly.

Google has no reason to buy SEO experts, nor would they be able to pay most of them as much as they already make manipulating search results.

They can gain a ton of information about the most advanced SEO techniques meerly by tracking search results and linkage data.

while debating ethics in a forum about SEO, one needs to question the ethics of spamming forums, no?
http://www.v7n.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16763

SEO has nothing to do with ethics. Being an ethical SEO mearly means you are buying marketing speak from search engines.

you can look to undue some of the things you believe to be causing harm. maybe instead of doing sitewide links you can host a page on their site and funnel the link popularity into those pages? also mix your anchor text maybe?

about a month ago PayPal was not ranking for "PayPal". that is a crap algorithm.

I no doubt was agressive in link building, but if my blog was "spammy" then most all sites are spammy. I typically spend about 4 - 12 hours a day working on that site and its content. A large % of the links it acquired were not requested. Many of my sitewide inbound links come from blogrolls. I am not going to tell people not to link to me or that they can't use my site name to link to me.

many of the sites that were dropped were as high quality as they come. you don't get much more legit than the niche directories my friend Brad was running. and some of his directories were dropped for their site names too.
http://www.talmir.com/blog/2005/02/aaron_wall_doin.html

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Until I digest the entire thread and form a proper reply, I first want to post my respect for awall19 having been a fan of his site and writing and not gotten a chance to say that before.

wow, thanks for that :)

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"When Google does not rank my site my sales do not significantly change, so it shows there are other parts of my "optimization" which are far more important than my Google ranking"

-
http://www.search-marketing.info/new...seo-vacuum.htm

Glad to hear the effect is somewhat minimal to date. Has a well timed increase in MSN traffic masked any dropoffs?

I only have taken so much time in this thread since the goal of your sites are clearly around "information first", and selling second in my personal view of it. This alone makes it more valuable than a large percentage of sites with an opposite approach.

I think SEO for now is depending on content feeding system.

Just provide daily contents and waiting for SE to index your pages.

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I agree. Google has enough problems right now trying to keep Yahoo from passing them as a search engine with more relevant content for individual keyword searches.

The whole mechanics of how the search engine algorithms works in conjunction with their automated spiders makes it near impossible to prevent someone from creating a site that could rank well.

The scenario suggested here where Goggle would put the SEO's out of business will never happen. Not unless the whole concept of how search engines index the web changes. They will continue to target some of the more obvious attempts at SEO though.

It is a similar game that is played between the police with radar guns and the consumer with radar detectors. A game of one-up manship as someone else pointed out.

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Eric Nelson, Ph.D. <<SlickRockWeb>> Affordable SEO, Plan your Belize vacation early.

Wow, I don't know about anyone else but if I were advising you I would strongly suggest you re-evaluate your PPC campaign. Paying $0.84 - 2.00 a click is not in my opinion cost effective. Too many times I see people let their egos get in the way of good business sense. You don't have to be #1 for the most popular search term. Of course Google loves these bidding wars.

Have you looked at other similar keyword phrases that would have similar contextual meanings to your current keywords that you are targeting? These will most likely be much cheaper and you will ultimatley generate more clicks for less money. Which should be the ultimate goal. The only campaign we run that averages more than $0.30 - $0.40 per click is one where the average sale is about $3000 - 6000 dollars. Obviously in this case they can afford to pay more per click.

Anyway this is a little off the topic and I don't mean to come across as being critical. But I would strongly suggest that you might be paying too much per click for you to get any kind of good return.

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Eric Nelson, Ph.D. <<SlickRockWeb>> Affordable SEO, Plan your Belize vacation early.

i am working for http://www.westsidewinecellars.com, and for the past few months was doing everything I thought was right, so now.. since last month til' now we are top 10 or 20 for any keywords: wine cooler, wine cellars, wine storage, wine rack, wine cabinet and if you put a word 'discount' on front of it, we would be #1 all the way. wooo hooo.....

I guessed all the hard work of doing everyting correctly and right would be paid off by now. we're in good hand.

maybe there's little more trick i put in than just right.

(1st yr becoming SEO guy)

_____________________________________

Here it is - SEOGuy.com is not ranked anymore for their own name because of the new algo yes. But do you know what that algo is? I checked and I have a detailed explaination of why their site isnt ranked for "seo guy". They don't have the phrase included in their keywords tag, the description tag shouldnt have the phrases in it at all, the title tag doesnt have the phrase in it, they are currently considered spamming with the amount of times that phrase is in their body text, THIS IS JUST A LITTLE BIT OF THE REASON.

That unproven fact is that the reason the algo can not be figured out (by an ordinary seo that is) is because the algo is different for the "type" of site being searched. A site for lingerie as an example has a different algo than the algo for a site focused on SEO.

Guess what! Google loves it when SEO's scramble to figure them out. That's because nobody has been able to (until now).

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not really. for my product it seems as though personal recommendations make up a huge % of the sales as compared to search engine placement.

Google also ranks my site back where it was on some of the servers. still trying to mix up the link profile a bit more to turn some of the sitewide links into pre sell pages.

that was the goal of it. so far it seems to be working well.

click cost itself is irrelevant. its all about return on your marketing spend. I run multiple campaigns and sometimes pay upwards of a few bucks a click. so long as the sales exceed marketing costs and the value of my time all is well.

often branded terms are more expensive because there is higher conversion and more traffic (hence greater value and higher bid prices). the ultimate goal should not be to generate more clicks for less money but to put more money in the bank.

traffic itself is worthless if it does not convert to anything.

1.) keywords tags has little relevance to google
2.) some pages with absurdely hight KW density still rank well.
3.) I have seen sites rank well for some terms even when the site did not exist.

I do think most engines use various algorithms and that most people can not figure them out in depth. rather than type of site being searched I think the algorithm types might depend on query length or goal of search (such as navigational, informational, or transactional). surely industry does play some role in some areas too.

in the past Google was stupid easy to manipulate. as time passes I think the algorithms generally get harder to manipulate.

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Actually the keywords ARE important depending on which ALGO is present for that industry specific site. Each industry type does have its own algo. Some sites keywords tag is important and some are not. Depends on the algo. Each algo is different and same search engine. Confusing I know but I will eventually have followers :))

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You're talking about Google, right? This sounds a lot more like a hackneyed guess than an actual point of fact. Do you have a KGB, CIA or CSIS dossier on Google algo's or what?

I'd like very much to learn something new, so take me to school. Please provide a link to some more information which will substantiate this claim and please do it quickly so I can alter my SEO tactics appropriately.

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I didn't think so...

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Dubbya, maybe because this threads from 03-06-2005, and Collusion has not posted since August of last year,
that he hasn't replied

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Great old thread.

Good advice in that bolding.

And today it is?

My bolding. Also good points, but Andi's advice given above is a good solution if you can not do any better.

Exactly. They may know more about your searh habits than you know yourself.

Interesting conclusion. Questions:

1. How does that depend on business / industry?
2. How low should his bid level be?
3. Is the best way to analyze the optimal bid level, by using Google Analytics?

The definite answer to AdWords?

The definite answer to SEO in 2008?

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Hum, some interesting points of view. I've been in the industry for 7 years now. Its definalty getting harder, purelly becuase of the increasing number of good quality website out there.

Good luck all.

But your site was made

Dates: Created 20-jul-2006 Updated 12-oct-2007 Expires 20-jul-2016

One of the better I have seen. Definitely to your advantage.

You get a link in my next update on the site in the second link in my signature for that.

In addition you are one among 20 to be the first of marketing site candidates on OrangeRank.com. Have to collect some loose ends first.

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Hi kgun,

Thanks for the feeback, thats interesting stuff. I have never heard or seen orange rank before? What is it all about?

Thanks for your compliments by the way, I know the site is only live since 2006 however we used to operate under a different domain and recently 301'd the old domain to the new one. So Firefly IT is now FireflySEO. We did this to reflect the nature of the business which is 80% seo clients. Although we cliam to be an SEO company, I am really changing the way we do things, trying to go more for building traffic through other sites, rather than just search engines as SEO always changes and like this topic states, its getting harder to rank and domain age is so important.

Cheers all,

Allan S

You find the idea here:

RedCarpetRank.com:: Want constructive feedback.

It has gotten good receipt in Norway, more precisely my home town Haugesund, among other the creater of the Norwegian movie festival and some other people..

It depends on my health and it is not my first priority at the moment. Only collecting candidate links.

So the question is, do I have the background to do this? You find a taste of my background in the lower left corner.

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I strongly believe in the statement above. These days what you do know may not adversely affect you (or your client) till 6 months or more, but it will have an effect if what ever your doing now is not done with thought.

I've learn from experience (big mistakes)...

IMHO SEO hasn't really changed that much, the fundamentals remain the same. However I think people maybe inclined (myself included) to forget the sheer number of sites competing these days.

Factor in black hatting and rogue like behaviour of unethical webmasters & seo companies and your challenges to achieve your goals are made that much more difficult, but never impossible.

I look back on the early days when you could literally change your meta data re-submit your site and practically watch its affect on the SE(s) that afternoon.



Cheers

Dave

Too many SEO's have become link farm operators, Google has lowered PR on many pages due to this and it has effected all sites since your PR drops when the pages linking to yours drop, so yes, it is much harder today because of link selling and buying.

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Yeah, link trading have affected PR of many sites and so there is not much importance of PR now for your site.
I will suggest you to concentrate on updating content with unique value and much of importance for your visitors, which will bring back all your visitors and will do mouth publicity for your site, once your site will get much popular with useful content you will get good traffic and also ranking.
for eg : site like Apple, Microsoft etc....

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