In short Page Rank is a “vote”, by all the other pages on the Web, about how important a page is. A link to a page counts as a vote of support. If there’s no link there’s no support (but it’s an abstention from voting rather than a vote against the page).

How is Page Rank Used?

Page Rank is one of the methods Google uses to determine a page’s relevance or importance. It is only one part of the story when it comes to the Google listing, but the other aspects are discussed elsewhere (and are ever changing) and Page Rank is interesting enough to deserve a paper of its own.

Page Rank is also displayed on the toolbar of your browser if you’ve installed the Google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com/). But the Toolbar Page Rank only goes from 0 - 10 and seems to be something like a logarithmic scale:

Toolbar Page Rank:

(log base 10) Real Page Rank
0 0 - 10
1 100 - 1,000
2 1,000 - 10,000
3 10,000 - 100,000
4 and so on…

We can’t know the exact details of the scale because, as we’ll see later, the maximum PR of all pages on the web changes every month when Google does its re-indexing! If we presume the scale is logarithmic (although there is only anecdotal evidence for this at the time of writing) then Google could simply give the highest actual PR page a toolbar PR of 10 and scale the rest appropriately.

Also the toolbar sometimes guesses! The toolbar often shows me a Toolbar PR for pages I’ve only just uploaded and cannot possibly be in the index yet!

What seems to be happening is that the toolbar looks at the URL of the page the browser is displaying and strips off everything down the last “/” (i.e. it goes to the “parent” page in URL terms). If Google has a Toolbar PR for that parent then it subtracts 1 and shows that as the Toolbar PR for this page. If there’s no PR for the parent it goes to the parent’s page, but subtracting 2, and so on all the way up to the root of your site. If it can’t find a Toolbar PR to display in this way, that is if it doesn’t find a page with a real calculated PR, then the bar is greyed out.

Note that if the Toolbar is guessing in this way, the Actual PR of the page is 0 - though its PR will be calculated shortly after the Google spider first sees it.

PageRank says nothing about the content or size of a page, the language it’s written in, or the text used in the anchor of a link!

Definitions

I’ve started to use some technical terms and shorthand in this paper. Now’s as good a time as any to define all the terms I’ll use:

PR: Shorthand for PageRank: the actual, real, page rank for each page as calculated by Google. As we’ll see later this can range from 0.15 to billions.

Toolbar PR: The PageRank displayed in the Google toolbar in your browser. This ranges from 0 to 10.

Backlink: If page A links out to page B, then page B is said to have a “backlink” from page A.

Visit us:
http://www.halfvalue.com/top-articles/seo-resources.html

How Does The Google Sandbox Affect Your New Site?

Although the Google sandbox was designed with the primary aim of targeting spam sites, in reality it affects all new websites. The general consensus in SEO (search engine optimization) circles is that the Google sandbox algorithm functions to prevent new sites from blasting their way to the top of Google (using whatever means possible) and in effect overtaking quality websites that have been around for years.

WHICH SITES GET SANDBOXED?

All new sites are subjected to a period of quarantine.

HOW LONG WILL YOUR SITE REMAIN IN THE GOOGLE SANDBOX?

As far as Google is concerned not all new sites are born equal. Certain factors will determine the length of your website’s duration in the Google sandbox. If the keywords your website is targeting are highly competitive then your website will be quarantined for longer. If you think about it, this approach makes sense. Most spam sites have one goal–to make as much money as quickly as possible. So accordingly the average spam site will target big-profit keywords which naturally tend to be more competitive.

Following this thinking, if your website focuses on keywords and markets that are not very competitive, your stay in the Google sandbox will be considerably shorter. Once again, this explains why niche market sites tend to ascend the SERPs (search engine results pages) much faster.

WHAT FEATURES DO SITES IN THE GOOGLE SANDBOX EXHIBIT?

Sandboxed websites tend to be characteristic of the following:

1. Do not appear in the Google Index

2. Have Google page rank without being in Google’s index;

3. Have good homepage page rank (4 or 5) but no PR for inner pages;

4. Have good Google page rank (PR) but rank poorly for primary keywords; and

5. Have a good number of inbound links yet rank poorly for primary targeted keywords.

THINGS TO DO WHILE YOUR SITE IS IN THE GOOGLE SANDBOX
Like most other situations in life, here you have a number of choices. You can sulk, fret, stamp your feet and moan and groan that the those tricky Google folk have hijacked your site–or you can get into the swing of things and utilize your time effectively:

1. Go ahead and add quality content to your fledgling site.

2. Work on increasing the number of inbound links (quality links not just any old link).

3. Tweak and improve the SEO quality of your site.

4. Write articles.

The list of things to do while your site is sandboxed is literally limitless. The purpose of doing these things is that by the time you site is released from the Google sandbox, it will rank much better for those competitive keywords you’re targeting and will have better SERP (search engine rank pages) listings than your competitor’s site that is equally new.

Because, instead of taking the effective action you did (while your site was under quarantine) your competitors spent the entire time fumbling around in the dark wondering just why the heck they couldn’t their site indexed by Google, let alone get any PR!

A word of caution though–Do not spend all your time trying to outwit Google. There are plenty of other methods to draw traffic to your site as well as other search engines to woo. Just implement good SEO techniques and with time they will pay off.

HOW TO SHORTEN THE TIME YOUR SITE IS IN THE GOOGLE SANDBOX

Is it possible to cut short the time your site spends in the Google Sandbox? Most SEO experts concede that on average any new site is going to spend at least 3 months in the sandbox.

However the good news is that there’re ways around this:

A. Register your domain name for more than one year (spam sites are rarely registered for longer than a year).

B. Upload your site for live viewing as soon as possible even if it isn’t ready for prime time (content-wise). Tweak the content later on or on-the-fly. The logic here is that the search engine spiders will crawl your site sooner. What is more, as you perfect and change the content of your site it will register positively to the search engines as constantly changing content (think blog).

C. Maintain good-practice SEO-linking campaigns. By doing this you will be killing two birds with the same stone.

Here let me explain:
THE NEW LINKS AGING FILTER

Other than the sandbox, Google has another filter in place aimed at reducing the effect of newly acquired links until a certain period of time has elapsed. The logic here is that your new inbound links will not be allotted full value immediately in an effort to counter the habit of buying links and other link purchasing schemes that people like you and I participate in to improve our search engine rankings.

This makes sense otherwise anybody with the cash could quickly acquire quite a stable of high page rank links and in effect outrank far older sites on the SERPs. One other thing about link acquisition–When you get links make sure you retain those links even though they aren’t apparently registering with the search engines to begin with. What is actually happening (as I just mentioned above) is that the search engines (notably Google) is sequestering your newly acquired links to ensure they are genuine long-term links, not links you acquired for say, one month or so, so as to get quickly indexed.

But there is no such thing as guaranteed top results in the search engines. Black Hat SEO techniques can help a web site rank high for a short while, but the web site usually ends up banned by search engines. A better method of improving a web sites rank is to manipulate the content.

There are a few rules to follow.

Never delete a webpage. Every day a web page is live gives it a bonus with the search engines. Deleting the web page and then building a new web page is counter productive. Do not worry if you have deleted web pages, just create a redirect to the new article.

Web masters with a Google account have an added bonus. Google has a submission tool in their account that gives web masters the ability to submit a single page when it changes or is updated. This tool is invaluable. Used properly with a web page that has a properly constructed navigation system, and Google will crawl the web site as often as a new page is added. This promises to eliminate Googles mythical sandbox.

A more important tool is an RSS feed. This is an opt-in service allowing web readers to receive web updates in their in-box. This is a fantastic marketing tool that can take the place of a newsletter, but only if it is used properly. A website that incorporates RSS feeds needs new content bi-weekly. This makes sure the web site is always fresh in the subscribers mind.

Most web surfers visit several web sites before making their purchase. Each web site primes the visitor. The web site that remains visible has the highest conversion rate. The conversion rate directly effects the advertising campaigns and SEO marketing techniques. This puts a different twist on the question, how often should the content be updated? The answer is now, as often as possible.

One excellent method to add content on a continual basis is to invite readers to leave a comment. The only problem is the potential for comment spam.

There are many ways to undertake promotion with a view to increasing traffic to your website. One of the most effective is to try and get in the top ten positions of Google, Yahoo and other search engines. This has the added advantage of being free traffic, as opposed to say, pay per click or advertising.

However, attempting to get your website returned on the first page of search engines is very ambitious. It means that you will have to optimize your web pages extremely efficiently for your chosen keywords and key phrases. Plus, you will be competing against thousands or possibly millions of other websites where the webmasters are also trying to get their sites high up in search returns.

Having said this, it can be done. Search engine optimization is indeed one activity in which the individual webmaster can compete more or less on an equal footing with the corporates. In fact, the ‘one man band’ webmaster has a great advantage in that he or she can usually make instant tweaks and adjustments to their websites in order to improve their site optimization.

Whilst it can be difficult to get on the first page of Google, Yahoo and the rest, you will find lots of resources are available, many free, to assist you in achieving this objective.

For example, I did a search on Google for - optimize website free resources – and it came back with over 68 million hits! So there’s plenty of assistance out there. Maybe too much to know where to start.

If you’re looking for help in optimizing your website, here are a selection of resources which I have found particularly useful:

http://www.sitereportcard.com
Free website analysis, optimization and promotion reports.

http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/free-seo-tools.html
You will find useful optimization free tools here.

http://www.spiderhelp.com/optimize/
An excellent checklist covering the elements of optimizing your site.

These sites will be a good starting point for you if you’re looking for that ultimate of traffic objectives – to appear in a top ten position on the search engines.

If you use these resources wisely and effectively, you will find they will help considerably in achieving your objective to increase online website traffic.

There are plenty of reasons for you to get in touch with a search engine placement firm if you are worried about your website’s sinking rankings on search engines. Today, a website can be a key factor in a business’s success. At search engine placement firm, they understand that Internet can be the most effective and most economical way of marketing a product or a service. The future belongs to Internet. Keeping that in mind, search engine placement firm has come out with several innovative SEO packages for firms that want to stay in tunes with the changing times.

According to a study done by search engine placement firm, at any given point of time, over 10 million people in United States are online, looking for a specific product or service by searching for it in the search engines. Are you confident that they will be able to find your website on the Internet? For which key words your website is optimized for? At search engine placement firm suggest you to do a simple check. Just type in the relevant key words for your business, for which you have created your website. Can your website be found in the top 10 results? Is it on the first page? How many customers go beyond the first page? Do you ever go beyond the first page while searching for something? There! Now you know why you need the services of search engine placement firm. They optimize your web site with the right main page title, meta keywords meta description, main page heading, main page link text, main page hyper link URL summary, main page alt summary, page comment summary, main page body text summary.

Then compare this with the top 20 to get your web site on top.

Programs offered by search engine placement firm will increase your online business! Search engine optimization for high search engine visibility and search engine traffic. They have many innovative Search Engine Optimization packages for small business! Search engine placement firm offers web positioning service with guaranteed results for your business!

There are so many things that contribute to a successful web site, especially if this site sells something over the Internet. A well-designed, easily navigable site is very important, but if the search engines do not recognize it, than all of the efforts are in vain. It has been shown that over 80% of Internet users are using the major search engines and directories to search the internet. At search engine placement firm, we put this knowledge to provide maximum advantage to customers.

With such an overwhelming amount of people using the search engines as a search tool, it is essential to your business that your potential customers can find your web site

So you have a website, and you want to increase your traffic to sell your product. There are thousands of the websites just like yours, so how will you be seen? There are basically 3 options. You can pay some company thousands of dollars to market your site for you; you can hire someone full time to do the marketing for you; or you can do the marketing yourself. This guide will give you the basic knowledge you need to market your website successfully at your own pace.

First, you need to have realistic expectations. Web sites do not get in the top 10 in search engines over night. There is a lot of hard work that needs to be put into a site for it to rank high. I would grab a pen and paper and write down your main competitors. Then I would use the Google Toolbar to check their pagerank and incoming links to see how they rank. The higher the pagerank and more links pointing to your site, the higher your site will be in the search engines. Once you see how many links are pointing to their site and how good their pagerank is, you have an idea how much work is needed to get your site listed.

Link trading is the process in which you will get these links pointing to your site. You need to contact other similar, good ranked pages and tell them how trading links will benefit both sites, and then link to them, and in exchange they will link to you. The more pages linking to you the better, but remember quality, relevant high pagerank sites is what your looking for, you want your link to be on a pagerank 2 site as least, preferably 3+. Managing your link exchange program takes time, some software on the market can do this for you, some of the software is good, some bad. I would recommend adding the links to your site manually to start, until you get a better understanding of the SEO world.

Articles are another good method to establish links to your site. Unlike a regular link exchange which is just a sentence with a link, publishing an article you wrote will give other websites quality content about your business / products and also link back to your site. Most article sites do not require a link back to them, so when your link is published search engines count that link better then a standard link exchange because you are not linking back.

One-way links is just that, a link to your site, but in return you do not link back. Articles are great one-way links, but so are directories! There are numerous directories on the internet ranging from shopping to home improvement. You can go to these sites, and either for free, or a small fee you can submit your site to them. Having your site listed in the major directories benefits your site in 2 ways. First, you get a link back to your site, increasing your link popularity, and second, people searching the directories for your product may see your site and buy from you.

As you can see, getting your site listed in the major search engines will take some time to do, you need to manage a link exchange program, submit your article to publishers and directories, and maintain your current website, but remember if you take your time, and establish your presence steadily over time, then your website will begin climbing in the search engines, and you will begin to enjoy the benefits of increased traffic.

SEO Elite starts from the following assumption:

- look at the page that ranks number 1 in Google,
- do exactly the same + a bit better,
- and you will be number 1

SEO Elite will examine “all” the SEO parameters that it finds out about the number 1 site in Google. Then this SE software will automate the process in mimicking this for your site.

SEO is more than a software-approach!

SEO is the art of ranking number 1 in any search engine for any keyword.

Spiders rank a website number one because spiders “think” that this site deserves to be number one. Of course the spider cannot think: there needs to be a programmer who programs the spider to find out which site is best.

Now if you are smart enough to feed the spider exactly what the programmer thinks is important, you will have the knowledge to rank number 1.

This is exactly what SEO Elite does: it claims to know “all” the parameters that make a website ranking number 1.

Pitfalls of a software-approach to SEO

Suppose you find all the parameters needed to rank a website number 1. You manage to get all this parameters onto your site and you even manage to be rank number 1.

Now if your site is really deserving to be ranked number 1, all is fine. But if surfers start complaining that you are not, the search engine will be blamed!

It won’t take long until Google finds out that “somebody broke the code” of the spiders. The spiders will be updated to give quality results to the visitors!

This means you need to get an upgrade of your SEO software approach… : you are running after the facts in stead of above the facts.

How to be ranked number 1?

You rank number 1 because you deserve it.

In spider logic this still means:
- your page talks about the keyword you are optimizing for
- you page has lots of incoming links about the keyword you are optimizing for.

This is what ranking number 1 should be about.

But my SEO software is really up to date, or is it not?

Your software can only be up to date AFTER the spiders’ software is updated. Unless you write the spiders yourself, you will always be a bit later.

You cannot know all the parameters the spider takes into account, unless again you are writing the spider software yourself.

Some of the parameters you cannot influence: age of the website is one of them. Suppose the spider needs to choose between 2 websites: the oldest one and the SEO mimic: which one to choose? The oldest one would be the easiest bet, and you cannot change the age of your website can you?

SEO Elite: a close look at this SEO software

SEO Elite advertisement says you can get a top 5 Google Ranking in under 30 Days… But the examples on the SEO Elite website tell a different story!

There are 16 websites listed at the bottom of the website with their rankings.

Examining those 16 websites :

- 6 are about Yahoo rankings (and the advertisement stated clearly Google ranking!)
- from the 10 Google rankings left, only 1 is stated to rank number 1 in Google BUT
- typing this so called number 1 website keywords in Google, the website ranks down only number 9!
- and the so called number 1 website keyword-phrase is far from a popular keyword-phrase, in other words:
not a lot of people search for that keyword AND
the website doesn’t rank number 1 for this keyword…

Why do you do SEO in the first place?

SEO is 1 of the ways to get more traffic to your website. But there is more in getting a lot of traffic to your site, than “blindly ranking 1 in Google”:

— Always make sure you rank number 1 for a word a lot of people are looking for! —

If you buy any SEO software or outsource your SEO to the SEO specialists: always check their SEO examples:
- are they ranking number 1
- are the keywords they rank for popular search keywords (bigger than 10.000 searches a month in the Keyword Selector Tool from Yahoo’s search-marketing is considered not too low)
- how long did it take them to be number 1
- how big is the competition for the keyword-phrase (smaller or bigger than 5 million? As a general rule : above 5 million keyword-phrase results in Google, things become though)
- how big is the competition for the quoted “keyword-phrase” (smaller or bigger than 33.000? As a general rule : above 33.000 quoted “keyword-phrase” results in Google, things become though)

If for all these items the SEO software or SEO specialist can answer YES, then you can start taking them very seriously!

Let us use SEO Elite as an example of how serious you should take this SEO software.

1. SEO Elite: Are they ranking number 1?

Yes they are for the keyword-phrase SEO Elite.

2. SEO Elite: Are the keywords they rank for popular search keywords?

According to the Keyword Selector Tool from Yahoo’s search-marketing, SEO elite has less than 2000 searches, so it’s not that bad, but again, it is under the 10.000.

The top keywords are :
46762 searches for seo
10815 searches for seo services
9849 searches for seo company,

and for none of these the SEO Elite website ranks number 1.

So “No” for popular search keywords.

3. How long did it take them to be number 1?

I cannot answer that question now.

4. How big is the competition for the keyword-phrase

SEO elite has about 1.5 million search results in Google, less than 5 million, so should be manageable to rank number 1 for. So that’s a “NO”.

5. How big is the competition for the quoted “keyword-phrase”

The quoted keyword-phrase “Seo Elite” has about 250.000 search results, so the competition is stiff here and the SEO Elite website ranks number 1 here,
so that’s a “YES”.

6. SEO Elite results

2 YES and 2 NO… so for my analysis, it SEO Elite is a 50-50 program. Do I really need to spend the money to rank ALMOST number for a not-popular keyword-phrase?

6. SEO Elite: the website

Whenever you are interested in something to buy on the Internet, check out the overall website of the product you want to buy!

SEO Elite website is a 1 page website… Now what was the first idea to set up the Internet? To give people information, lots of information.

And we are talking about a “net” in Inter”net”: net means links here, there, everywhere… (that’s why links are so important in SEO)

I did not see any of these, although this is an SEO website.

SEO software: read and check the examples before you buy!

Again this goes for all SEO software you want to buy on the Internet: if they say “I ranked this website for that
keyword number 1 in Google”, spend a few seconds to check it out!

1. SEO Elite: check out Google

SEO Elite’s first sentence talks about “your page in Google”

This sounds promising: is SEO Elite “the” SEO software to get me number 1 in “the” number 1 search engine
Google?

Well, at the bottom of the screen of the SEO Elite web page you then read:
Using SEO Elite I rank number 1 in Yahoo for this, that, and more site…

Yahoo???

You want to be ranked number 1 in Google as that is what SEO Elite started talking about. And you are willing to pay for it!

2. SEO Elite’s website examples

The SEO Elite website lists 16 example pages: high example-rankings using SEO Elite.

From those 16 , there are 6 Yahoo rankings, so that leaves us with 10 Google rankings.

Remember my SEO keywords rule above : SEO is easy if your keyword phrase has less than 5 million results in Google.

How many of the example site in SEO Elites website are below this 5 million?
Only 2 out of 10.

And how many of those 10 rank 1 in Google?
Only 1 (or at least that is what they want you to believe!)

… If you are going to pay big bucks for SEO Elite, then you want to be number 1. Don’t you?

3. SEO Elite’s website examples : The numbers are wrong!

Numbers, numbers and numbers… Always check the numbers on any website!
So SEO Elite claims to have a number 1 ranking website :

* keyword phrase : learn to type faster
* website typingmaster.com.au

It takes only a few seconds to verify what SEO Elite says :
Type in Google - learn to type faster - and see what comes out:

55 million results! and not 5 million like mentioned on the SEO Elite website.
Great you say: SEO Elite is modest, he is able to rank number 1 with a higher competition than mentioned!

Does he???

You scroll down in Google to find the example website ranking…

Number 9!

Maybe the competition took over after the time the SEO Elite website was written…
For sure it did, but do you want to pay money to find out your page doesn’t rank number 1 anymore?
Like we said above: the spiders will find the mimics and push them down again!

Or are this wrong numbers just typos?
Anybody can make mistakes, but luckily we can easily check everything what is said about SEO, so always check
before spending money!

Rank 9 is not that bad you say….

I agree.

But:
do you always scroll down to look at the page at number 9?
Not always at all…
It’s number 1 you want!

What is even more strange: The quoted keyword-phrase : “Learn to type faster” has no ranking on the first page!

Now this is what really bothers me: if I search in Google for the exact phrase “learn how to type faster” I would
assume that the SEO Example site would be number 1 there!

Back to Basics: web-traffic

Your purpose is getting as much people to your site as possible, isn’t it?

SEO software has the purpose of ranking 1 in Google.

Now it is very easy to rank 1 in Google for the keyword-phrase “jhdkghgkbdcds”,
but who is looking for “jhdkghgkbdcds”??? Nobody!

So if nobody looks for “jhdkghgkbdcds”, then why bother to rank number 1 with it?

Same with the above example-site with keyword phrase “learn to type faster”:

The Overture keyword-tool says that 448 people are typing in this keyword sentence in Yahoo.

448 people… is this a lot?
As mentioned above : Nope,
and those 448 need to find the result example website at rank 9…

What is a nice number? Anything above 10.000 but: also know that above 10.000 “the big boys’ are competing
with you, below 1.000 you have the field for yourself. Ranking second for this example website could be expected after 2 months, but it should be number 1 in no time, without using SEO software.

SEO Elite Conclusion

As I said before: always check the numbers and the facts about any SEO software and (this) SEO article!

Then make a decision yourself. If you see that the SEO software
- is ranking well for it’s own product
- is ranking websites for popular keyword well,

only then you can consider buying it.

While updates may be good for some, it also means “welcome to the real world” for others. If you are one to watch closely those high rankings that your website has been getting, you may want to revisit them again. Don’t be shocked to see that your site has dropped off the face of the earth.

Is Google Killing Over-Optimization?

The more we take a look at what is happening out there, the more we discover that Google seems to be penalizing websites that “over optimize” their sites. If you try and insert keywords whenever you can, you are over doing it. If you add “anchor text” to all your links, you are over doing it. Anchor text is a new practice but as I’ve stated before, it won’t last long. Most people never get to read or even see the anchor text implemented in a website. Anchor text is the “explanation” that pops-up when you put your cursor over a link.

I tested the “anchor text” theory with my site last week. I only tested one main page that I knew that Google would re-index within 48 hours. The results were very negative. As soon as the new information was indexed, the search engine results from that page dropped down dramatically. Again, I removed the anchor text from the page and the results seem to gain momentum once again.

It’s not hard to come to the conclusion that with so many of us out there seeking for “google answers”, we tend to implement anything we read in articles, newsletters, forums, etc… within our websites. With this in mind, it’s no wonder the new update may be attacking those who try too hard to raise their positions in engines.

Is Page Ranking Dead?

As we where all trying finally to veer away from Google Page Ranking, we now see another change in our ranks, another update has hit our doorway and with it has brought new PageRank updates. Is it really an increase/decrease of pagerank? or is it just the result of the new updates taking a small affect to the pagerank technology from Google.

It actually seems as though pageranking is still in affect. Many of the newer pages built these days have been neglected from pageranking altogether. Now, we can see a small increase to newer pages and a possible increase to older ones as well. Lately before the commotion started, 99% of newer pages barely gave any signs that Google had indexed them and rewarded inbound links to them.

What Does The Future Hold?

Many of you might be thinking, where do we go from here? In reality there are literally 1000’s of you out there that have never gone through a Google update of this magnitude. You may feel confused, unsure, and alone. Don’t worry, you are not the 1st to get hit hard. We’ve all felt the wrath of Google sometime or another. The best thing to do is to NOT wait until the storm settles down. No, get out there promoting your site more than you’ve ever done. I’ve always considered a hit to my websites a blessing in disguise.

Is Google’s IPO Affecting Change?

Some seriously believe that since the introduction to Google’s new IPO, they have had a new found reason to working harder at delivering better results and trully proving to the world that they have what it takes to be the best out there.

How is it that so many of us out there now depend on Google to perform well? What has happened to promoting online where so many of us depend solely of Google to create success for our business? Does this not seem strange to you? In our efforts to increase rank, get better placements, increase our traffic, we have let Google become our parent figure guiding us online and holding our hands.

As we move into the future, are we going to allow only a certain amount of companies to hold the keys to our future? We need to break free and look towards making new partnerships and help smaller but also deserving search engines to plow the way.

Before this update, you may have felt comfortable with your high rankings but now they are gone. It has happened to the best of us. Take this opportunity to get back up and start promoting your site like you’ve never done before. Don’t just sit there and wonder what happened, take advantage of this “ego buster” and increase your own rank.

As for Google’s future, let Google figure that out and keep your focus on your own future. Go further than you’ve ever gone before.

Until next update, keep it up!

I came to find out that traffic is meaningless. The only metric that mattered to my business online was conversions. I need people to buy, so it truly doesn’t matter how many people start out at the website, it only matters how many of them end up at the order form. The only people who are likely to purchase from a website are a segment of active and interested people who are ready to spend money, and ready to spend it right now. People who are surfing around for related information, or worse yet, someone picked off from an un-related website just can’t do much for your business because they barely, if ever, convert. The more people you have like this, the higher the server load, and nothing else. I learned that the best visitor is one who is actively searching to buy a product or service like the one you offer. If the customer isn’t ready to purchase, then there’s little chance you’ll actually be paid anything.

I’m sure this revelation isn’t a shock to everyone, but for some people, they might see a bit of themselves in the situation I’m describing. I’ve certainly talked to enough people who were obsessed mainly by traffic. Who doesn’t love to see their log files explode? A huge burst of traffic is appealing to the Ego, if nothing else. However, log files don’t pay the bills. If you can earn $20 on 100 page views, you’ll realize quickly how direct conversion traffic is worth more than any other kind. Even if your website doesn’t directly sell a product, you’ll still make the most money with very targeted traffic. Why? Because these same consumers will be very likely to convert at the advertiser’s end. Advertisers are willing to pay the most for traffic that results in sales. For this reason alone, you can expect high rates of CPM by keeping your traffic very narrow and primarily focused on the act of buying a product or service. The closer they are to the act of purchasing, the better. This means the best visitor is a time-motivated person in the act of purchasing a product or service. If you derive a large percentage of your website’s traffic in this fashion, you’re sitting on a gold mine.

Grouping your web pages on tightly focused topics is a great way to ensure your traffic is qualified. The tighter the focus, the more likely the visitor is to convert. A person searching for “buy cheap online widgets” is very likely far into the purchasing thought process. If the visitor lands on your website and is pre-qualified by the landing page, the work of the advertiser in closing the sale is almost done. At this point, a click-through to the advertiser’s site is likely to generate a sale. Your compensation for supplying such a pre-qualified lead will be rich. If your entire website consists of pages engineered in this fashion and covering a keyword category intensely, you’re extremely likely to succeed as a web marketer. Hopefully this bit of advice will come in handy to someone who’s just starting out in the game. Save yourself time and target narrow profitable niches right from the start.

The bottom line is this: search engine marketing professionals do not own the search engines. They can tell you that you will achieve #1 ranking on a given search engine and actually they all do but they could also say that you will win a gold metal in the Jamaican Bobsleigh league. The fact of the matte is there is no way they can make either of those happen. If you go to a newspaper and they are asking for 500 dollars for an add for the back page, the only way you can guarantee that position is to pay the 500 dollars or you win the spot in your Friday night poker game against the editor.

If you tell your search engine-marketing people you want to be #1 in Yahoooooo, they cannot guarantee you that result. They can recommend changes to your site that will increase the likelihood of your ranking higher, but that is a long way from a guarantee. If you don’t control the medium, you can’t guarantee the result. Since your search engine consultant doesn’t control the search engine, there is no way they can guarantee your position. Having said all this, I will admit to you that some people do actually learn to control the search engines through trickery and cheating. This will ultimately be caught by the search engines and will get you banned for life from them meaning that it’s back to the 9 to 5 forty year plan of life.

The ranking algorithms of the search engines are a closely guarded secret. If they wouldn’t be there would be no point in having them right? The search engine wants to give top ranking to the site that is the best match to an individual visitor’s search query, not to the site that was able to “beat” the system. That is where the value of real search engine marketing comes in but most of all what good quality Content will bring you.