Jumping off the SEO Boat

[craigmn3]

Okay Boys and Girls......I've had it playing nice, working hard and sharpening my nose out against the SEO grindstone. The bottom line is I have been wasting hours of time refining my sites current SEO standards:to exacting the right amount text to code ratio, i have been elminating tables, cutting code, weighing my keyword density on a postal scale, Drastically cutting back my graphics to decrease load time. and virtually hundreds of other psychotically stimulating adventures call SEO...then I snapped, I burst like a tomato giving his life up for an overweight italian woman's ragu.

I took one of my sites and broke (most) of the rules.

I JAMMED it with pictures elminated 90% of the text.....used graphic and javascript navigation removed anchor tags (well most of them) I mean I did it the way I wanted too... and it popped up overnight on Google from nothing to #11 on google and 13 on yahoo for my Main Keyword
the site is :Above Ground Pools 4 Less (http://www.abovegroundpools4less.com)

Then I did again with a sister site and it popped up to 11 on yahoofrom nothing to Number 11 of Yahoo.
Pools4Less (http://www.pools4less.com) though I left the achor text on this one (old habits die hard)

both of these sites only have the basic meta tags and minimal optimization....Have I been exuding sweat and blood on the altar of SEO for naught?

I know # 11 is not number 1 but these secondary sites have been struggling for reconition even though duplicate content was kept to a minimum.

My Idols have fallen and my altars have crumbled, what is a know disavowed SEO junkie to do?

[amar]

Is your targeted keyword "Above Ground Pools", if so, you have kept most of the tags necessary for SERP's.

Your keyword is appearing in the following tags:

1. Title tag
2. Keyword tag
3. Description tag
4. Alt tag
5. H1 tag
6. Anchor text in the page link
7. In one of the image name
8. 7 sites the keyword is appearing in the page cache
9. you have few back links with targeted keyword as the title

What else require for ranking ?

[just-trying-to-help]

Wow...

I guess this SEO stuff is out the window.
Where did I put that Flash MX cd???

I have often wondered if SEO was worth all the trouble. There's your answer...

A couple of years ago, i made a complete graphics site. I mean all pictures. the only text was

© 2003-2004 myurl.com All rights reserved.

Thats it.
Ended up 2nd page of Yahoo for a couple of months with 185,000,000 results.

Makes you wonder...
Ken

[nigelaxis]

You have opened an interesting topic.

For me, SEO can only ever be a part of a marketing strategy. Why?
Because a) the very next day the algo's could change and place your site in never-never land. You then have no new business and hungry mouths all around you.
Infact most algo updates seem anti-seo do they not?
b) The search engines have different algo's. So your update might please yahoo but not google. Likewise the update might be great for the search engines but terrible for your users.

I guess the key thing in the mind set of all the search engines is that they want sites that their users will want to find! So if we focus on providing this as part of our "SEO" we will please the search engines and our clients!!!

[Webnauts]

I do not understand what the problem is here. Since one and a half year now, my rankings are improving constantly in all major search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN, even if their algos changed often.

So, I do not get all this here. Sorry... :)

[CAD]

Effective on page optimization techniques (or best practices) is what you do to move you from page 2 to page 1 IMHO.

[ran_dizolph]

personally, i've kinda given up on the SEO thing.

I mean, when push comes to shove, SEO is nothing more than an ever-changing guessing game.

My result of months of building links with 'SEO-Friendly directories' ? A drop in PR for the sites.

With all the time i've spent building links and all that junk, i could've just focused more on making sure my websites are the best they can possibly be from a users point of view.

[G[dot]com]

I am sorry but first I agree with webnauts in the "time factor", the time your site has been online weighs for ranking. Also, I think that your site has not been "de-optimized" at all...

1. You have all images with the ALT attribute and their names with keywords.
2. you have relevant text rigth next to those images.
3. you have text itself in the page.
4. you have a menu which, eventhough is made is javascript is full in keywords.
5. the domain name of your site has the keywords and in the same disposition you mention you rank well with.
6. you have relevant anchor text in links.
7. etc etc

You have an optimized website (not "minimally"). I am sorry, you should have to do better than putting more graphics and less text to break that optimization.

1. not title tag
2. images without ALT attribute and names like "123.jpg".
3. No text in link, but those like "READ MORE" or "CLICK HERE"
4. No footer
6. Hugely smaller main menu and preferently made with images, no text. And again, name those images "menu1.jpg", "menu2.jpg". no TITTLE attribute in link.
7. Texts embed in images, no "real text"
8. use a domain with irrelevant words: "www.MissRobisson.com" if that is the pool's company name.
9. Wait 2 months, do not index it anywhere.

That will do. But will prove you wrong: S.E.O. *does* make a difference and *works*. You just don´t seem to get that what you are doing already at your current site is optimization too.

------
ps: And, btw... how many websites have the "pools4less" keyword? And as anchor text? And in their domain name? I see in google about +200 results only.

[viajero]

I'm confused too. I builded a new website using a template, almost no SEO and in one week appeared on google after submit. For some keywords I'm from page 1 and 3 in G results.

I tried the same with another site of mine and it didn't work :( I totally blew it. I changed a site with all the SEO secrets I know and it dropped positions.

I'm also confused about G. I have another website, domain never listed before, never submitted to anything, no content, and while I prepare the content, I WONT submit it... Surprise!!! after putting a parked page with some text, it started appearing on G... I have no idea how

[RemodelingGuy]

#11 might as well be #111 -

I never even look at the second page of results for terms I am trying to dominate.

A # 9 means I have a LOT of work to do.

If you're not in the top 3, give it up.

Follow the rules and 1-3 should be attainable.

No short cuts baby!

[incrediblehelp]

Is the wrong SEO recipe or the wrong chef in the kitchen?

First off these things don't really weigh much at all in SEO:


to exacting the right amount text to code ratio, I have been elminating tables, cutting code, weighing my keyword density on a postal scale

I think of these things as good design principles and practices. None of them are necessary to rank.

What about IBLs, good content and accessibility?

[incrediblehelp]

I look at SEO as 3 main principles (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=71515). I started this thread (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=71515) here a while ago, but it was taken in the wrong direction.

I still feel my three hold true for myself:

1. Relevant authoritative back links.
2. Accessibility in themed structure. Making your website easy to crawl and index. Information architecture is key.
3. Basic on-site SEO factors. Fresh original content.

[EditFast]

Unfortunate as it might be for this discussion board, SEO is dead! Don't waste any more time on scratching the dirt for that single kernel of SEO knowledge that will never satisfy your hunger for recognition anyway and will certainly not give you a jump on the others. Of course this does not mean you should ignore the rules. (You have not done so as far as I can see here aside from the shortage of text, which is not a deterrent in this case - less is best.)

Spend a little time thinking about your clients and the terms they will use to find your product or service. Find your keyword/phrase for each page and the page will write itself (almost). Design and write for your customers, not the SEs. Write for clarity to your users.

Google and the other bots are smart enough to figure out which sites are good for users and which are spam or SE fodder or simply poor sites that do not qualify as good search results. I am sure someone will reply saying they get a bad result for a specific term and, yes, we still see a lot of these keyword stuffed sites in the search results, but the vast majority of results for search terms are good results. The search engines couldn't survive if they weren't.

Your site is clear, to the point, focused on a specific keyword/phrase, is easy to use, easy to order, and lots of images, which users will not only like but will require for this product. Why would this be a bad result for the search engines? or, to put it another way, why would the search engines not like this page? It is not a bad result. It is just what the user is looking for with this search term. That is why it jumped to the top 20 listings quickly. You ARE on the right track. Simplicity is the key for many products and this is one of them.

[Rob Moll]

I hold the number one slot in google for my preferred 3-word search phrase. My ONLY strategy was to make my url match exactly my 3-word phrase. I am still on page 1 for a very popular search on two of the three words.

Additionally, that search phrase is used alot indicating that people want to see it.

The site is hobby related.

[craigmn3]

Thanks for all the input, but I think we have slipped the interesting point.

I did all the same SEO things before when the site at one million and one.

I am too much of a seo freak to jump off the boat without my life preserver. EVERYTHING about the site is the same...from age to keywords to alt tags to...everything. These were sites that were biblically (SEO Bible) correct

All of that was done before.
it wasn't until I got drastic and broke the rules on Keyword Denisty Code to Text Ratio, Load time et al that the websites soared.

I am growing the opinion that these search engines sniff out sites that are TOO optimized and s-can them.

[Webnauts]

com]I am sorry but first I agree with webnauts in the "time factor", the time your site has been online weighs for ranking.
A side note to this: My new second domain and web site www.seoworkers.com exist since October 2006.

[The Founder]

Dude...

My question is what did you think the proper keyword density is?

What made you think that the 'exacting the right amount text to code ratio' helps?

My question is virtually everything you mentioned there is not really SEO ... they are some 1990's era Altavisa advice... but not what would be considered SEO by today's standard?

Did you come up with something cool and submit it to digg.. and get it popular so you get a PR8 backlink, plus the other 500 bloggers that would write about it on their site with a backlink?

Did you submit something that would be considered breaking news as a press release on Google and Yahoo news?

Have you been keeping the world up to date on your blog, with fresh original content?

?

I am not trying to be a wanker... what I am trying to state is that no wonder it didn't work... you were working on decade old information...

[G[dot]com]

Thanks for all the input, but I think we have slipped the interesting point.

I did all the same SEO things before when the site at one million and one.

I am too much of a seo freak to jump off the boat without my life preserver. EVERYTHING about the site is the same...from age to keywords to alt tags to...everything. These were sites that were biblically (SEO Bible) correct

All of that was done before.
it wasn't until I got drastic and broke the rules on Keyword Denisty Code to Text Ratio, Load time et al that the websites soared.

I am growing the opinion that these search engines sniff out sites that are TOO optimized and s-can them.

Personally, I never made any maths about keyword density in any of my sites. Just tried to made them appear in a natural fashion as much as possible, but careless about the "density".

Perhaps search engines sniff overoptimized sites... maybe not. Anyway, believe me it´s more about the things I mentioned above and what other mention too perfectly, than about keyword density or too much fluffy text. IMHO.

[craigmn3]

To the founder.....

I have a site in the top 5 of Yahoo and Google in my main keyword. I know what it takes and I do it.

I am wondering why a change from High Text to Low Text

Low Graphics to High Graphics

Many Anchor Tags and Text Links to Java Script Navigation

would lead to such a drastic serps change.

Interesting conversations all around the subject....but the subject lays undisturbed.

[pdstein]

Have I been exuding sweat and blood on the altar of SEO for naught?

In a word, yes.

If your idea of SEO is getting precise keyword densities, small graphic filesizes, and minimizing HTML code, you've been wasting your time because those things don't matter much.


I JAMMED it with pictures elminated 90% of the text.....used graphic and javascript navigation removed anchor tags (well most of them) I mean I did it the way I wanted too... and it popped up overnight on Google from nothing to #11 on google and 13 on yahoo for my Main Keyword
the site is :Above Ground Pools 4 Less (http://www.abovegroundpools4less.com)

Are you aware of the fact that that phrase gets exactly 0 searches?

Why are you optimizing a site for a phrase that nobody searches? You could be #1 and it wouldn't get you a single visitor.

[incrediblehelp]

Dude...

My question is what did you think the proper keyword density is?

What made you think that the 'exacting the right amount text to code ratio' helps?

My question is virtually everything you mentioned there is not really SEO ... they are some 1990's era Altavisa advice... but not what would be considered SEO by today's standard?

Did you come up with something cool and submit it to digg.. and get it popular so you get a PR8 backlink, plus the other 500 bloggers that would write about it on their site with a backlink?

Did you submit something that would be considered breaking news as a press release on Google and Yahoo news?

Have you been keeping the world up to date on your blog, with fresh original content?

?

I am not trying to be a wanker... what I am trying to state is that no wonder it didn't work... you were working on decade old information...

Basically what I was trying to say above. Well said.

[Dinghus]

#11 might as well be #111 -

I never even look at the second page of results for terms I am trying to dominate.

A # 9 means I have a LOT of work to do.

If you're not in the top 3, give it up.

Follow the rules and 1-3 should be attainable.

No short cuts baby!

One rule of advertising is that you should never ever let your own misconceptions poison your efforts. This is a classic case right here. Just because YOU think #11 is no good and just because YOU never go to the 2nd page when working on SEO for your site, does not mean that the consumer does not go to the 2nd page. Not saying you should be satisfied with being #11 but going from nowhere to #11 is a great leap.

The point I see is why kill yourself over SEO when a new algo tomorrow could kill your rank? Build a solid site that people want to visit and it will rank well. I have a client whose site has been up and down in the top 20 for years with NO major changes in the SEO "rules". We just keep updating content and giving the people what they want and it stays in the top 20 for most pages and for the key pages in the top 5.

I used to do the whole thing of measuring keyword weight etc etc etc ad nauseum (emphasis on NAUSEUM) to no avail. Then when I just stuck with the basics ie meta tags my sites did better on more search engines.

The real key is giving people what they want. Google et al may not admit to it, but it is obvious that the key to high ranking is really popularity.

[crazyhorse]

Of course you are going to rank for your one keyword...look at the site. Your title tag is the keyword only. Three of the 5 internal links have your keyword in it. and when you cache the site, you have about a 20 percent keyword density. Has nothing to do with the pictures, flash or anything else. You targeted one keyword...you better rank for it beause you will not rank for anything else with this site.

[craigmn3]

To Quote Crazyhorse:

Of course you are going to rank for your one keyword...look at the site. Your title tag is the keyword only. Three of the 5 internal links have your keyword in it. and when you cache the site, you have about a 20 percent keyword density. Has nothing to do with the pictures, flash or anything else. You targeted one keyword...you better rank for it beause you will not rank for anything else with this site.

and that is an answer I can live with. thanks

[incrediblehelp]

Great point here:


We just keep updating content and giving the people what they want and it stays in the top 20 for most pages and for the key pages in the top 5.

[Heal3r]

It's easy to get caught up in the lesser elements of SEO. Remember when PR first came out, we all went (Pr)azy.

It seemed like it mattered but it didn't. It was just an indicator. So are things like text ratios and load times etc. just indicators.

Slow load time is an indication that visitors will hate your site. too high a keyword ratio is an indicator that your content will make people hurl.

So Seo basics will lead you in the right direction. SEO supporting tasks can be helpful when the basics aren't working. But they can also be misleading if you get tunnel vision.

And really, there is no telling why your site increased yet. You need more data. Put all the "SEO" back and see if it plummets. Then take pieces off and whatch the effect.

[jrb@w3f.com]

Have I been exuding sweat and blood on the altar of SEO for naught?

In a word, yes.

...

Are you aware of the fact that that phrase gets exactly 0 searches?

Why are you optimizing a site for a phrase that nobody searches? You could be #1 and it wouldn't get you a single visitor.

Short story:

TomsTeeShirts.com (not real) but similar.
Someone put up the web site.
He shearched for "tomsteeshirts" and got over 20,000 links. He thought someone was stealing his code, and when you clicked on it, you got an image of his home page. Oh, I forgot to tell you, his home page WAS only an image.

He thought he scored big with his website design.

We all know different...

[jrb@w3f.com]

To Quote Crazyhorse:

Of course you are going to rank for your one keyword...look at the site. Your title tag is the keyword only. Three of the 5 internal links have your keyword in it. and when you cache the site, you have about a 20 percent keyword density. Has nothing to do with the pictures, flash or anything else. You targeted one keyword...you better rank for it beause you will not rank for anything else with this site.

and that is an answer I can live with. thanks

And you will be the only visitor?
Is that a good thing?

[SemAdvance]

What you get when SEO is done right

All results from Google.

Keyword Competing Pages Position Page

drop ship ipod--- 2,280,000--- 22---3
drop ship ipod--- 2,280,000--- 47--- 5
dropship ipod--- 442,000--- 11--- 2
dropship ipod--- 442,000--- 9--- 1
dropship ipods--- 474,000--- 4--- 1
dropship ipods--- 474,000--- 3--- 1
dropship site--- 1,040,000--- 120--- 12
dropship turnkey--- 151,000--- 102--- 11
dropshipping ipods--- 1,320,000--- 1--- 1
dropshipping ipods--- 1,320,000--- 5--- 1
how to drop ship ipods--- 2,410,000--- 19--- 2
how to drop ship ipods--- 2,410,000--- 41--- 5
ipod drop shipper--- 2,180,000--- 20--- 2
ipod dropship--- 439,000--- 1--- 1
ipod dropship--- 439,000--- 2--- 1
ipod dropshipper--- 122,000--- 6--- 1
ipod dropshipper--- 122,000--- 5--- 1
ipod dropshippers--- 56,000--- 5--- 1
ipod dropshippers--- 56,000 13 2
ipod dropshipping 1,320,000--- 4--- 1
ipod dropshipping --- 1,320,000--- 5--- 1
ipod wholesale dropshipper--- 231,000--- 7--- 1
ipod wholesale dropshipper--- 231,000--- 34--- 1
ipod wholesaler--- 2,260,000--- 27--- 3
ipod wholesaler--- 2,260,000--- 155--- 16
ipod wholesalers--- 733,000--- 85--- 9
ipod wholesalers--- 733,000--- 21--- 3
reliable drop ship--- 1,550,000--- 18--- 2
wholesalers ipods--- 780,000--- 31--- 4
wholesalers ipods--- 780,000--- 101--- 11

I know its not perfect... but its better than most lol

A few things

This is just one of my sites,,,,,results look the same on Yahoo and Msn too.

SEO is Dead - Most foolish statement ever!

"I am not hopping off any SEO Train, till Google throws me off or it derails"

Peace

[Webnauts]

What you get when SEO is done right
How can you tell if SEO is done right. Can you show the URL of that site?

[sitecreations]

With personalized search now set as default for new Google accounts, and so many people using it, what is #11 or #1 for you is going to be #20 or #30 for me. Everyone has to stop talking as much about rank and start talking about engaging the consumer, creating linkable comment, and thinking of search traffic as one of many possible traffic sources.

[Bill Treloar]

I'm surprised at all the people here claiming they're at the mercy of SE algorithm changes. Baloney!

If you have decent content and have your keywords and variations of them in the right places (the bulleted list in one of the earliest posts of this thread is a good list) and you have solid, relevant inbound links from related pages with a good reputation ... then all the algorithm changes in the world can only help you.

Why? Because you've created a valuable site that's helpful to people and relevant to your keywords. Thats what the search engines need in their top ranked results. Any algorithm changes will be designed to weed out the sites that are using sly tricks to get good rankings. So the more the algorithms change, the fewer of those sites will be ranking highly. That benefits YOU, the person with a good, valuable and relevant web site.

[jrb@w3f.com]

... then all the algorithm changes in the world can only help you.
Why? Because you've created a valuable site
...


AMEN!

[Christiaan]

I am only an amateur at this SEO business.

But I observe that if one uses a keyword that no-one would type in for a Google search, one can be proud of the fact that one arrives at the first page and believe that one has struck gold.

It becomes somehow a bit more difficult if one uses a very common single word, not a made-up word, and still be coming in the first ten results. And that is where the rules apply to get good results.

I know this from experience, I have tried (just for the fum of it) and with some of the keywords I have, I have become well placed with Google.

keyword---------result
======================
synaxarium------no 2 of 26,000
kwartierstaat---no 7 of 381,000
coptic calendar--no 7 of 415,000
sengers----------no 2 of 530,000
stamboom-------no 3 of 1,840,000

This is the result of having each page having it's own dynamic headings with the appropriate keyword etc. content, text and tags.
And PR? Some pages 4 and others 3

Just an amateur and all for the fun of it.

[EditFast]

SEO is Dead - Most foolish statement ever!

SemAdvance, you may have misunderstood my point since it was not clear: SEO IS DEAD!

Only those who either 1) make their living selling sham SEO products and services to unsuspecting clients or 2) have invested too much time and energy in SEO to give up, will deny this.

Forget about all the finagling around with keyword density etc. Design and write for your users. Give them content. The search engines will find you.

However, as someone earlier mentioned, SEO of the nineties is no longer relevant and this is what I am/was referring to. I do not consider backlinks and PR SEO related. These are marketing--spreading the word--pure and simple.

I am NOT saying do not use meta tags and I am NOT saying do not find the best domain name. These are important but only in a secondary way. Content is king. Marketing is queen. Together they rule the Internet.

[incrediblehelp]

SemAdvance, you may have misunderstood my point since it was not clear: SEO IS DEAD!

We all have our own a pinions as our own skills. If you have the TIME and SKILL to do it, then you may feel it is dead because you don't have to pay someone. Of course this is not the case for tens of thousands of websites that are looking to hire SEO companies everyday. So I disagree SEO is not dead, just affordable to do for some while others not.

Like I said early in this post I feel this are 3 core principles of SEO:

1. Relevant authoritative back links.
2. Accessibility in themed structure. Making your website easy to crawl and index. Information architecture is key.
3. Basic on-site SEO factors. Fresh original content.

You need these items. If don't have them or have time to create them, then hiring another company to do them is appropriate.

[SemAdvance]

Webnauts I would say with front page results on all three search engines for the varied keywords there is little doubt the SEO was done right.

Sitecreations - Personalized search is going nowhere soon. We do not search for what we know....we search for what we do not know. I am posting a blog entry tomorrow on how personalized search is not what one needs to focus on.

Bill I have several sites as well as clients sites that rank # 1 or # 2 for very high competition keyword terms month to month, year after year,,,,,good post!!

Sorry EditFast... but the only people screaming the sky is falling (SEO is dead) are those who do not have a firm grasp of SEO methodology......Stop being chicken little and learn some more about the subject at hand.

[RemodelingGuy]

Started a new thread as not tomess with this one at

>> http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=72039


Anyone interested in playing " Seeing is Believing? "

I've always wanted to do this.

Sure it's been done b4 but ...

Pick a term - Something Odd Ball, that doesn't affect an important term.

Say " Brown, Dead Apples."

No one should be fighting for that.

Takers will:

Build a page on "brown, dead apples" -

Find the content where you will -

Use your own SEO techniques etc.

Submit in any manner you want to Google!

We'll wait a week and see what happens.

----------------------------------------

Then we can see who got listed and start a thread on how we did it.

Discuss what worked and didn't.

I think it would be interesting and educational.

Takers? Let's see if SEO is dead or if any of us know what the hell we are doing.

[meinking22]

both of these sites only have the basic meta tags and minimal optimization....Have I been exuding sweat and blood on the altar of SEO for naught?


If you were exuding your blood and sweat on the altar of on-page SEO, then yes...it was largely for nothing...hehe

The strength of ranking really lies in off-page optimization and SEM strategies.

Steve

[meinking22]

SemAdvance, you may have misunderstood my point since it was not clear: SEO IS DEAD!

We all have our own a pinions as our own skills. If you have the TIME and SKILL to do it, then you may feel it is dead because you don't have to pay someone. Of course this is not the case for tens of thousands of websites that are looking to hire SEO companies everyday. So I disagree SEO is not dead, just affordable to do for some while others not.


I agree with Incredible's disagreement. SEO and SEM are on fire right now like never before. I'm getting so much business right now that I'm outsourcing crap to elancers...



Like I said early in this post I feel this are 3 core principles of SEO:

1. Relevant authoritative back links.
2. Accessibility in themed structure. Making your website easy to crawl and index. Information architecture is key.
3. Basic on-site SEO factors. Fresh original content.

You need these items. If don't have them or have time to create them, then hiring another company to do them is appropriate.

The above is a lock. And the beauty of those three principles is that if you create sites that do have them, they will be algo-proof...

Steve

[SisterSledge]

SEO is not dead...it is simply that many of the old rules are obsolete.

SEO has numerous functions that do still need attending to that can't be key-holed as "marketing".

[Christiaan]

Anyone interested in playing " Seeing is Believing? "

I've always wanted to do this.

Sure it's been done b4 but ...

Pick a term - Something Odd Ball, that doesn't affect an important term.

Say " Brown, Dead Apples."

No one should be fighting for that.

Takers will:

Build a page on "brown, dead apples" -

Find the content where you will -

Use your own SEO techniques etc.

Submit in any manner you want to Google!

We'll wait a week and see what happens.

----------------------------------------

Then we can see who got listed and start a thread on how we did it.

Discuss what worked and didn't.

I think it would be interesting and educational.

Takers? Let's see if SEO is dead or if any of us know what the hell we are doing.

I would think that one will get a few million or more for brown, dead and apples. But than I might be wrong.
My experience with a keyword. I did have the word 'stamboom' somewhere in some of my pages.
I never ever could find my site on the first 10 or twenty pages when doing a G.
I started including it in the title, keyword and a bit more in the content and within a fortnight I arrived at the first result page of the search.

[Mads Dam]

SEO is only one of many factors.

As have already been mentioned; the age of a website also lends credibility to a site.

Traffic matters too; engines increasingly monitors the pattern of surfing.
If people like a site, spends a lot of time viewing page after page, returns later after more, etc...
That certainly improves the rank of a site.

However, there's also a potential contradiction involved.
A site may rank well, because it's old and everybody has had the time to hear about it.
But because of its age it may also be stuffed with old and inefficient code.

A new site may offer fresh content and superoptimized code.
But if it's only a month old, few have heard about it.

It's not as simple as SEO or not...

[sitecreations]

Sitecreations - Personalized search is going nowhere soon. We do not search for what we know....we search for what we do not know. I am posting a blog entry tomorrow on how personalized search is not what one needs to focus on.

Semadvance- I think personalized search has a life of its own and it was born last week when Google flipped the default choice on G accounts - it just happens for the average web user, it doesn't need any help to go anywhere. I don't know how many will have it turned on already - or if perhaps Google will start moving it out to all of us after we realize that the results are so much better. The average Joe couldn't give a damn about how hard or easy the life of a web marketer is - they just want great results.

The only thing I could see as a barrier to its growth would be privacy concerns over search history data. I'm already starting to see the effect it has on the SEM business. Lots of questions now - worries.

Things are getting much more complex in the organic search marketing world - which is a *GOOD THING* because it will hopefully weed out those who are pitching snake oil. With rank being so fluid and dependent on uncontrollable variations by user, perhaps the spotlight will be turned back on content and rubber-hits-road marketing by default?

[incrediblehelp]

Just to let you know I posted a new thread on Personalized search here at WPW:

Google Personalized Search Fair or Unfair?? (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=72038)

Just before we get to far deep here on why GPS sucks or is God's gift to search in this thread.

[Orion]

It's simple, it' well coded.

Design for your visitor, code clean...

You don't have to use the term SEO for it. Call it what ever you like!

My biggest problem is how do I design an optimized site, I can't charge extra for it cause I don't like to design a site that isn't coded properly! The only extra they get is researched keywords, content recommendations (or if they want they can pay to have it rewritten), title and description.

[parkoskar]

If this is Less then what is more ? I think more to it would be spam...

I suppose

[brucet]

Follow the rules and 1-3 should be attainable.

Provided there are no more than two other people following the same rules, presumably?
;-)

[kgun]

I mean I did it the way I wanted too... and it popped up overnight on Google from nothing to #11 on google and 13 on yahoo for my Main Keyword ...


Is this SEO rule number one?


I look at SEO as 3 main principles (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=71515). I started this thread (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=71515) here a while ago, but it was taken in the wrong direction.

I still feel my three hold true for myself:

1. Relevant authoritative back links.
2. Accessibility in themed structure. Making your website easy to crawl and index. Information architecture is key.
3. Basic on-site SEO factors. Fresh original content.

Taken in the wrong direction? Do you mean that the two last posts were off topic?

I wrote:
"Unigue, well structured, content and code and original ideas".

Isn't that in a nutshell what he has done, and he has studied so much SEO, that he does the most correctly is my point. His time spent on studying SEO, has not been in vain IMO.

[Bill Treloar]

Hi, Christiaan,

Has anyone taken up the challenge for your Brown Dead Apples contest. Sounds like fun, but I don't want to be the only guy involved....

Bill

[jtracking]

remember one small thing i feel a lot of people overlook and that is that we have to take into consideration the rankings etc. of other sites - our competitors.

If the # 1 ranking site bites and you come along with a site that has certain elements that would boost you to #1 then that's where you'll be.

It's all the elements and strategies in our competitors sites we should consider - the rankings aren't based on a site by site calculation.

that's my opinion.

[incrediblehelp]

I wrote: "Unigue, well structured, content and code and original ideas".

No KGun this is the right idea as well. I just clarified my position as well.

[rms7design]

hello,

well, here is the question: is it to stay or not?

here are my stories:

1 website, 99% graphics, alt, meta optimized.... 1 pages of yahoo and msn after 2 weeks for 5 of our top keywords (2-3 word sentences)

1 website, 75% text, all meta, alt optimized, content, anchor links, etc.... took over 18 months to get it to the top.

I don't care what gets higher first.... both are where I want them to be and this comes from (I hope) good design, code, content and optimization.

and this for over 12 months now

so, pick your choice

Richard

[scot184]

Honestly, SEO shouldn't be your main concern. Like anything, it should be your "product". Back in the day when people had brick and mortar companies, their work revolved around a product or service. And once that product was ready for launch, they would launch their marketing efforts.

Nowadays people online are more worried about getting recognized than actually providing a useful product or service. I think we skip the content portion and jump right to the SEP or marketing aspect, which is short-sighted.

I recommend building your site, keeping basic SEO good practices in mind, and then fine tuning later as needed. You need to create your "product" or "service" first. Then you can worry about advertising, or SEO if you will.

[Xty]

#11 might as well be #111 -

If you're not in the top 3, give it up.



If everyone under #3 gave it up... Intense SEO has always been a waste of time.

[Peter (IMC)]

If this thread shows anything then it is the difference between the "technical" SEO and the "marketing" SEO.

The technical SEO favors the HTML Code and things like keyword density. Basically everything you can measure,... :) The marketing SEO is much more interested in promoting a website, knowing that a couple of good links can do wonders.

It´s like the technical analysis and the fundamental analysis in the stock market, both have their followers... But the reality is that you need to use both to be most succesful.

The same applies in SEO. For me SEO is just 3 simple words:

HTML
Content
Promotion

Get each of the 3 right, and you´re number 1, guaranteed!

What varies is the amount of work needed to reach position 1, depending on the online competition in the targeted market.

Expectations also need to be managed. We have a client that is in such a specific market, they are happy with 10 visitors per day. We also have a website of our own which we brought from 60 visitors per month to now over 6.000 per day, and we don't believe we are even close to it's maximum potential.

In the end, you do SEO to improve the results your website was built for in the first place.

[G[dot]com]

I agree, Peter. In the end, which this discussion comes to show is that we are not agreeing on one and only definition of what "SEO" means.

To Craig (discussion poster) means something, so he believes he has broken the rules doing what he did. For many of us he didn´t break anything for SEO implies most of the job he did on his re-design, or that he left from the site as it was before.

All the rest (if the keyword has no competitors, etc etc) is secondary. Until we don´t come to a common definition of "SEO", agreed by all, we might be discussing for ever.

Btw, this semantic problems -not coming to an agreement on what we are talking about, eventhough we use the same words "seo" "marketing" "design" programming"...- are one of the most common reasons why many discussions get on fire. I think.

[Dasani Warrior]

Of course you are going to rank for your one keyword...look at the site. Your title tag is the keyword only. Three of the 5 internal links have your keyword in it. and when you cache the site, you have about a 20 percent keyword density. Has nothing to do with the pictures, flash or anything else. You targeted one keyword...you better rank for it beause you will not rank for anything else with this site.

Crazyhorse has brought out an interesting point here. So many potential clients are sold on "tricks" like this. Crazy, you and I were reading each other's minds. This is no reason to forget about SEO.

[pdstein]

Like I said early in this post I feel this are 3 core principles of SEO:

1. Relevant authoritative back links.
2. Accessibility in themed structure. Making your website easy to crawl and index. Information architecture is key.
3. Basic on-site SEO factors. Fresh original content.

You need these items. If don't have them or have time to create them, then hiring another company to do them is appropriate.

I would add to that #0, which should preface those three: keyword research. Without keyword research you will end up climbing the wrong tree, and all the time and effort you put into the other aspects of SEO will be for naught.