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Flawed SEO Logic Really Irritates Me

by Gavin Abeyratne
24 replies
  • SEO
    • |
The Warriorforum is of a much higher quality than other resources when it comes to SEO advice, one of the most annoying SEO mantras I hear on other forums is:

"Google ranks quality sites higher, so you should make a site that Google thinks is good quality and all your SEO woes will be no more"

This annoys me because it completely ignores what a quality site actually is, and how Google determines quality.

The whole engine succeeds based on the fact that Google doesn't JUDGE what a quality site is, it OBSERVES how people behave towards other sites, and ranks based on that.

All the maths and algorithmic formulas and calculations are an attempt to understand natural human behaviour and preferences, and keep in touch with what is actually popular and authoritative as people have decided.

Now I do of course accept that quality sites (by human standards) attract links naturally to some extent, and that there are certain standards that make ranking sites easier such as a minimum amount of pages (to some extent).

There are lots of reasons to make a quality site, they do tend to be more profitable.

But if I was completely new to SEO, and that was the advice I got, I would be completely lost and at the mercy of my competitors that understood that Google was really a dumb robot that reacted quite predictably to certain techniques.

I would really wonder why Google wasn't rewarding the hours of hard work I had put in to writing my articles, taking my photos and videos to put together a "quality" site, and why a 35% spun article with 500 backlinks was outranking me, when my site was CLEARLY of better quality than their trash.

What does everyone else think?
#flawed #irritates #logic #seo
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Nguyen
    Any marketer that's been around long enough should know that different IM models have different methods.

    Let me give you an example here.
    I have a site that ranks #1 and #3 for a particular niche and keyword. My site is hardly "quality" and is your typical affiliate site.

    My website is about pushchairs, a particular brand and model. How am I supposed to make a quality site out of such a small niche? The most I can do for this niche is probably 5 post, anything more and then I'll be repeating myself. I put alot of seo work into that site to rank #1 and I think I give the info that the visitor wants even if they stay on my site for 40 seconds.

    When your site is so narrow and niched and I mean specific physical product its very difficult to make a quality site out of it.

    IMO when Google talks about a site that is quality, what they mean is that a site that is so good with content that other websites will want to link back to it for the sheer quality of the site. if the basic on page seo is done. that site can rank high because of the other websites linking to it.

    In a nutshell

    Small niche site = backlinks = money
    Broad niche site = Quality content = link back from other webmasters = money
    (seo on the site if needed)

    Hears an example of a broad niche site:

    Google they keyword : how to wake up early

    and in the results you'll see a site by Steve Pavlina:

    How to Become an Early Riser

    3500 backlinks from other webmasters.

    This is an example of a quality site.

    Best regards
    Michael
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    • Profile picture of the author Stephen Crooks
      Stop... stop.. stop! It is not about whether Google thinks a site is quality or not. Google has no idea what a quality site is because basically like you say daedalus1, "Google is a dumb robot". Google just reacts to zeros and ones and not to the emotional elements of a well written article, video etc..

      Every sensible person is well aware of the Google's robotic nature. With all due respect, where you are misguided in my opinion is your opinion that the quality of your site has no bearing on ranking and that some simple SEO is all you need to succeed. You have however totally overlooked at the way the Google robot can measure a site's quality based on how real people interact with your the pages on your site. Why else did Google create Chrome, analytics, toolbar etc..? all at great expense to them to give away for free. The price is in the invaluable data that Google collects from the users of those software products.

      Of course, simple SEO is a necessity, I am not denying that. I am also not denying that a site with poorly written or rewritten content can have some ranking success for low level keyword searches. However, you are confusing SEO with quality, they are two different things.

      Your comments were also very dismissive of the power of quality content going viral in both the social media and also as link bait. This is a big mistake!

      Basically it isn't flawed SEO logic that irritates you.. SEO is SEO and it is the same whatever the quality of your content. You are more irritated by the idea that quality content will always ultimately beat poor content in the index. Well, it does, and for every example of a poorly written article in Google's top 10 for a half decent keyword, I can show you thousands of quality examples. I won't though because that would take too long..
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  • Profile picture of the author Gavin Abeyratne
    Michael,

    I'm glad you agree also. Making a site about push chairs that is so high quality that webmasters link back to it is terrible SEO advice that Google Officially loves to give out, and your suggestion that backlinks are a better way to go is obviously working, based on your results.

    Steve, I don't think you understand the discussion.

    It IS flawed SEO logic that irritates me, such as people overstating the tendency of good quality content in specific niche markets to naturally attract a viral following or links.

    I agree that "every sensible person is aware of Google's robotic nature", but not everyone is sensible, and not everyone gives out "sensible" advice.

    Have you ever seen anyone make a micro niche site about "push chairs" for example, that ranked by itself because it was so high quality that all the other push chair websites just had to link back to it?

    Did it make the front page of digg and attract a ton of social media traffic?

    How long did this take to happen?

    I'm thinking it never did.

    And btw, Google does not determine "quality" based on their analytics data about how users interact with a site, it far too easy to fake. They create all their free software and tools to dominate the market, to build trust and good will for the brand, and to create opportunities for more contextual advertising.

    Otherwise we'd all just be paying people to keep pages open and read deep into sites now wouldnt we?
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    • Profile picture of the author Stephen Crooks
      Daedalus, maybe you are right I don't understand the discussion because you are confusing SEO with the quality of content. I don't doubt that you also understand the fundamentals of both on-page and off-page SEO but what has this got to do with the quality of the site's content?

      The reason I say that is because a site thrown together in 5 minutes with some crap content about kitchen utensils can have the same SEO fundamentals as a quality site. Fundamentals like all the META stuff, relevant backlinks, keyword proximity and prominence etc. A site about DIY with well crafted information rich articles, videos and other content can also have the exact same SEO applied to it. They are not exclusive of each other..

      This begs the question about what really irritates you? Is it the fact that quality content DOES always win over poorly written/rewritten content? The reason this is the case is because of the things you brushed over as inconsequential. Things like the viral nature of great content and the influence from social media toward good information rich content.

      I will go further and say the main reason why most people fail to find any real success with their sites is simply because they get lured into the fake dream from the push button merchants out there. The type of advice that says throw up some crap sites about inane topics because some keyword tool says so. Apply some basic SEO and watch the money come rolling in.. It just isn't a sustainable way to find success with your sites any more. There are far far more productive ways of doing things.
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    • Profile picture of the author Stephen Crooks
      No, you are wrong.. I will point you to the terms of service for Google analytics and in particular point 6.

      6. INFORMATION RIGHTS AND PUBLICITY . Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries may retain and use, subject to the terms of its Privacy Policy (located at Google Privacy Center , or such other URL as Google may provide from time to time), information collected in Your use of the Service.

      Trust me, this is just the thin end of the wedge.. They use any data collected and use it effectively to help them determine how visitors interact with pages. Things like bounce rate, time spent on a page, exit pages etc they are all very relevant factors for ranking alongside the traditional stuff like PR.

      Originally Posted by daedalus1 View Post

      Michael,


      And btw, Google does not determine "quality" based on their analytics data about how users interact with a site, it far too easy to fake. They create all their free software and tools to dominate the market, to build trust and good will for the brand, and to create opportunities for more contextual advertising.

      Otherwise we'd all just be paying people to keep pages open and read deep into sites now wouldnt we?
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  • Profile picture of the author FTCNick
    Excellent points made by all of you, and I enjoyed reading this thread!
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  • Profile picture of the author Gavin Abeyratne
    Hi Steve, firstly, I'm quite enjoying this discussion!

    Secondly, I'm not wrong, you are completely wrong my friend. Here's why.

    RE: the Analytics Data Terms of Service, everyone knows that Google say they RESERVE THE RIGHT to use that data, but they actually don't use it at all for ranking sites. As I said, it is far too easy to fake.

    Think about how easy it would be to manipulate the average time spent on a site, bounce rates, and exit pages. A script could be set up to do that so very easily it is laughable, I think you can understand this as it is very obvious.

    Its not a coincidence that the warrior forum SEO section, warriors for hire, or WSO section are NOT full of people offering to up your "average time spent on site" or drop your bounce rates. No one offers these services, and no one pays for these services.

    Why?

    These things have no bearing on SEO.

    Before you go trying to rebut that point (good luck btw), riddle me this:

    1) Can you prove empirically that these factors actually play a significant enough role in a site's SERP position?

    2) Can you tell me how Google would prevent Analytics data like that from being manipulated? They have a hard enough time preventing link spam.

    Hate to break it to you, but Google officially blows a lot of hot air when it comes to SEO. They'd love to use that data (they'd also love you to think they use that data), but they can't prevent the manipulation of it and therefore do not use it for determining rankings.

    Also, you said,

    "This begs the question about what really irritates you? Is it the fact that quality content DOES always win over poorly written/rewritten content?"

    No, what irritates me is when people say that quality content always wins over poorly written content. Just like you did just then.

    That isn't SEO advice, that's being hopeful.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jacob Martus
      I wanted to jump in here and just say my piece. First of all, I would like to clarify that I have NO idea whether or not Google uses bounce rate/avg time on site to determine rankings, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to think that it might have some small weight in one of their many ranking factors.

      I completely agree that it could be manipulated, but as of right now, it is not being manipulated. As evidenced by the warriors for hire, seo services, etc. But just because no one knows whether or not it matters doesn't mean that it doesn't. Perhaps no one is offering these services because it's not an accepted fact that it works like backlinks for example which we all know work.

      I'm not a programmer by any means so I don't know how bots work at all, but couldn't Google keep track of specific information about the visitors to a site in the same way that they keep track of information to serve ads? So if they see the same IP or whatever continually hitting a site it negates any benefit that the avg. time on site or bounce rate would be affected by that person?

      Like I said, I'm not a programmer so if there are workarounds to that, then let me know.

      You asked Steve to prove whether or not the played a significant role in SERP position. I ask you the same thing. Can you prove that they don't?

      Sure they can be manipulated easily, but so can many other ranking factors such as backlinks, domain name, etc. So whos to say that bounce rate and avg time on site doesn't affect anything? The majority of SEO factors can be manipulated but they still affect the ranking algorithm. Google doesn't ignore backlinks because they can be manipulated and they are HEAVILY manipulated. They still factor them in.

      Just wanted to add in my input. I really have no idea whether or not they play a factor. Just wanted to say that they very well could because no one has evidence to support either conclusion.
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      • Profile picture of the author Stephen Crooks
        Okay, I know it is not going to hold any weight with you Daedalus and you are entitled to your opinion but if you seriously think that Google wouldn't use the most valuable information available to them.. i.e. visitor interaction with a site then I think you might as well put your head back in the sand again.

        Are you seriously saying that they create all these expensive, server hogging, bandwidth munching pieces of software just for a bit of goodwill to website owners? I don't want to be disparaging but it is almost laughable to think that. What about Facebook and all the other online agencies, are they interested in how their visitors interact with their services? Of course they are.. Data like that isn't free. The cost is in knowing the behaviour of the web surfers as much as possible to serve up the best adverts they can.. It is that simple.

        Anyway, what do you think Google wants to serve up to it's searchers (customers)..? Content that has been thrown together without any thought that it's searchers would just not be interested in or something they would be interested in? The better the content, the better experience Google can provide it's customers. The better the experience the more they use Google and make money from ads.. simple.

        Of course crap content does get through into the index I am not denying that.. And yes, that crap content uses the basics of SEO to achieve that. Are you seriously telling me though that Google wouldn't want to wipe it from the index if it didn't have to worry about the trillion or so other web pages in it's index? Are you seriously telling me that Google are not continually optimising their algo to find better ways to sort the wheat from the chaff? Are you seriously telling me that Google would not use the most valuable information available to them from their myriad of services to determine how visitors interact with sites? Sorry, with all due respect, I believe you have seriously misunderstood what is going to be the future of search engines for everyone.

        Originally Posted by daedalus1 View Post

        Hi Steve, firstly, I'm quite enjoying this discussion!

        Secondly, I'm not wrong, you are completely wrong my friend. Here's why.

        RE: the Analytics Data Terms of Service, everyone knows that Google say they RESERVE THE RIGHT to use that data, but they actually don't use it at all for ranking sites. As I said, it is far too easy to fake.

        Think about how easy it would be to manipulate the average time spent on a site, bounce rates, and exit pages. A script could be set up to do that so very easily it is laughable, I think you can understand this as it is very obvious.

        Its not a coincidence that the warrior forum SEO section, warriors for hire, or WSO section are NOT full of people offering to up your "average time spent on site" or drop your bounce rates. No one offers these services, and no one pays for these services.

        Why?

        These things have no bearing on SEO.

        Before you go trying to rebut that point (good luck btw), riddle me this:

        1) Can you prove empirically that these factors actually play a significant enough role in a site's SERP position?

        2) Can you tell me how Google would prevent Analytics data like that from being manipulated? They have a hard enough time preventing link spam.

        Hate to break it to you, but Google officially blows a lot of hot air when it comes to SEO. They'd love to use that data (they'd also love you to think they use that data), but they can't prevent the manipulation of it and therefore do not use it for determining rankings.

        Also, you said,

        "This begs the question about what really irritates you? Is it the fact that quality content DOES always win over poorly written/rewritten content?"

        No, what irritates me is when people say that quality content always wins over poorly written content. Just like you did just then.

        That isn't SEO advice, that's being hopeful.
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        • Profile picture of the author Tom Goodwin
          The problem is, people are saying how Google *should* rank sites, not how it actually does rank sites. IMHO, Google shouldn't rank sites based upon blog comment backlinks (and this is coming from someone who probably posts about >10k blog comment spam per day), but everyone knows that Google does in fact often rank certain sites well based upon almost exclusively blog comment spam.

          Just because Google should rank sites based upon ABC, doesn't mean it does.

          On a site note, how does Google test bounce rate for sites that don't use Google Analytics (which in the grand scheme of things, is miniscule). I certainly don't add the vast majority of my sites to Google Analytics as I don't want them tied together, and i'm sure the fast majority of people who own domains don't even know what google analytics is. As for chrome, do people actually voluntarily use that?? ;-0
          Tom

          Originally Posted by Steve Crooks View Post

          Okay, I know it is not going to hold any weight with you Daedalus and you are entitled to your opinion but if you seriously think that Google wouldn't use the most valuable information available to them.. i.e. visitor interaction with a site then I think you might as well put your head back in the sand again.

          Are you seriously saying that they create all these expensive, server hogging, bandwidth munching pieces of software just for a bit of goodwill to website owners? I don't want to be disparaging but it is almost laughable to think that. What about Facebook and all the other online agencies, are they interested in how their visitors interact with their services? Of course they are.. Data like that isn't free. The cost is in knowing the behaviour of the web surfers as much as possible to serve up the best adverts they can.. It is that simple.

          Anyway, what do you think Google wants to serve up to it's searchers (customers)..? Content that has been thrown together without any thought that it's searchers would just not be interested in or something they would be interested in? The better the content, the better experience Google can provide it's customers. The better the experience the more they use Google and make money from ads.. simple.

          Of course crap content does get through into the index I am not denying that.. And yes, that crap content uses the basics of SEO to achieve that. Are you seriously telling me though that Google wouldn't want to wipe it from the index if it didn't have to worry about the trillion or so other web pages in it's index? Are you seriously telling me that Google are not continually optimising their algo to find better ways to sort the wheat from the chaff? Are you seriously telling me that Google would not use the most valuable information available to them from their myriad of services to determine how visitors interact with sites? Sorry, with all due respect, I believe you have seriously misunderstood what is going to be the future of search engines for everyone.
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          • Profile picture of the author Stephen Crooks
            Absolutely and I am not suggesting for one moment that Google discount backlinks from blog comments or profile spamming and I am not even saying that Google never index content that can be regarded as crap by the majority of people. There is a difference between what Google aspire to and what they actually do.

            However, does this mean that Google have stopped honing their algo toward offering the best, most relevant content to it's searchers? No of course not because by continually improving their service they make more money. Also add to this that the most valuable keywords are where you won't see rubbish content.

            Analytics is just a drop in the ocean with regard to collecting visitor interaction data.. Google toolbar and yes Google chrome, everytime you visit an Adsense site you get a cookie that records what websites you visit. These are just a few ways they collect data about what you and I do online. Analytics is just one cog in the big machine.



            Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin View Post

            The problem is, people are saying how Google *should* rank sites, not how it actually does rank sites. IMHO, Google shouldn't rank sites based upon blog comment backlinks (and this is coming from someone who probably posts about >10k blog comment spam per day), but everyone knows that Google does in fact often rank certain sites well based upon almost exclusively blog comment spam.

            Just because Google should rank sites based upon ABC, doesn't mean it does.

            On a site note, how does Google test bounce rate for sites that don't use Google Analytics (which in the grand scheme of things, is miniscule). I certainly don't add the vast majority of my sites to Google Analytics as I don't want them tied together, and i'm sure the fast majority of people who own domains don't even know what google analytics is. As for chrome, do people actually voluntarily use that?? ;-0
            Tom
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          • Profile picture of the author Gavin Abeyratne
            Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin View Post

            On a site note, how does Google test bounce rate for sites that don't use Google Analytics (which in the grand scheme of things, is miniscule). I certainly don't add the vast majority of my sites to Google Analytics as I don't want them tied together, and i'm sure the fast majority of people who own domains don't even know what google analytics is. As for chrome, do people actually voluntarily use that?? ;-0
            Tom
            Haha exactly Tom, it is ridiculous that people believe that Google would use analytics data to rank sites when not all sites even have analytics installed, but what can you do? Even a direct, surprisingly frank denial from Matt Cutts won't suffice for some, nor will logic or common sense.

            I hope those new to the SEO game can see through that, and have learned something of value from this thread.

            Jacob,

            re: your comment "Like I said, I'm not a programmer so if there are workarounds to that, then let me know. "

            Yea there are plenty of workarounds. Proxy servers, scripts, outsourced labour, even viruses. I once attended a cyber security meeting for a large telecommunications company that outlined how organized cybercrime gangs used viruses to infect hundreds of thousands of computers and threaten denial of service attacks on businesses. Basically they make all those hundreds of thousands of PCs (different IPs, different ISPs, different locations and therefore untraceable) try and visit a site at once, and cause the servers to crash.

            Haha, funny thing was they offered this as a service for businesses to take out their competitors! They also threatened online gambling companies before major sports events etc.

            Needless to say the same infrastructure could be used for spam the search engine analytics data, very easily and very effectively.

            You mention backlinks and domains can be manipulated, and you're right. They can, but it is much harder to do this. Especially getting high PR links, or .edu or .gov links for example. Possible, but hard.

            But you're right, they can be manipulated and that's why we're in business buddy! For the record, I think you should be commended for asking for evidence before just believing something. I hope the evidence presented in this thread has helped you make a decision.

            Gavin
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            • Profile picture of the author Stephen Crooks
              Daedalus, I don't work for Google and all I can go on is my own experiences and form my own conclusions from my own testing. I think you are focussing purely on analytics, like I said before it is just 1 cog in a big data collecting Google machine. Whether Google use that data for ranking or not, is open to huge debate especially when their TOS says they can and might and when I had to physically opt out of allowing them to use my data for their own research.. Whatever, it is a side issue and like I have said numerous times, their are numerous ways for collecting visitor interaction data. However, don't take my work for it, take a look at these for starters..

              Official Google Blog: Personalized Search for everyone
              How do you think Google can collect 180 days worth of data about you and your activities online?

              Criticism of Google - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

              How Google Uses the Toolbar Data

              SEOmoz | The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google's User Data Collection
              Pay special attention to the bit about what Google openly admits to collecting data on.

              I could find you a ton more resources like that but I won't..

              Anyway all this is getting away from the main point of this thread which is why you don't understand the difference between quality content and SEO? Do you agree that optimizing the pages and structure of a site has nothing to do with how interesting and relevant to the visitor the content actually is?
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      • Profile picture of the author 4morereferrals
        You typically get to see how google is tooling us on the specific Real Product searches ...

        This page

        Twilight Posters at AllPosters.com

        has higher quality content than this page?

        TWILIGHT POSTER

        These rat *******s have better on page content too ? Look at this freakin page ...

        Barnes n Noble

        AmazonAmazon

        Here - lets really explain Googles idea of quality relevant content

        Summary ...

        Image of the serps

        PNG Screen Cap of these serps
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        • Profile picture of the author 4morereferrals
          Are you seriously telling me though that Google wouldn't want to wipe it from the index if it didn't have to worry about the trillion or so other web pages in it's index?
          Guess it depends ... whats offending crap content creators Adwords Budget?
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        • Profile picture of the author licketysplit
          Originally Posted by 4morereferrals View Post

          You typically get to see how google is tooling us on the specific Real Product searches ...

          (blah blah blah whine)

          Summary ...

          Image of the serps

          PNG Screen Cap of these serps
          So what exactly is the problem with those search results? If someone is searching for Twilight posters it's not too hard to figure out that they either want to buy one or look at pictures of them - Google's results are absolutely spot on there. Looks to me like you're just butthurt that it's not your site up there instead of theirs'...

          As far as the rest of this thread goes, I find the whole idea of "flawed SEO logic" pretty funny seeing as SEO is in and of itself flawed logic - Logic would tell you that you should be making sites for people, not search engines...
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        That's why now I always use semi-quality, semi-useful, semi-etc.

        Google is not 100% perfect. Never claimed to be.

        Google has since the beginning told people to STOP trying
        to manipulate it. Period. Their take has always been:

        Create as decent experience and content that is helpful
        and useful for your niche. If you do, then over time, more
        people will link to you. You will be generating your own good
        traffic. You may (note: may) move up in the SERPs. They
        never say you will.

        All of us can give little snippets of results that make no sense.
        But as stated, google cannot be perfect. Things happen.
        Sometimes your niche is too competitive or not worth it.

        If you are happy with the traffic from google, go in peace.

        If you are not happy with the traffic from google, then put
        50% of your efforts outside of google.

        I don't succeed whether google rewards quality content or not.
        It's not going to make or break me. But I shall provide as
        valuable a user experience as I can.

        If your content is such that it gets you a lot of fans and linkbacks,
        you are on the right track.

        Case in point: icanhascheezburger.com
        Is that valuable, quality content? To people who like funny cat pics, etc.
        it dang sure is! And a ton of people think so. Is it valuable to me?
        Not really. Is it valuable to the googlebot/algorithm? Yes. But not
        how a human defines "value" or "quality." It sure provides a quality
        experience for the people who love that stuff!

        Paul
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        • Profile picture of the author Stephen Crooks
          Couldn't agree more.. The perception of what quality is has to be in the eye of the viewer and there is no metric for quality as such. I personally define quality as providing something of value to your visitors whatever that may be.. A video that explains how to lay laminate floors clearly or a piece of free software that alerts you when an ebay auction is about to close. Something that answers a question and scratches an itch is quality in my experience.

          Originally Posted by paulgl View Post


          Case in point: icanhascheezburger.com
          Is that valuable, quality content? To people who like funny cat pics, etc.
          it dang sure is! And a ton of people think so. Is it valuable to me?
          Not really. Is it valuable to the googlebot/algorithm? Yes. But not
          how a human defines "value" or "quality." It sure provides a quality
          experience for the people who love that stuff!

          Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author __internet__
    I'm not sure whether google analytics, bounce rate, or time on site matters at all to rankings. It would need a lot of testing.

    However, Matt Cutts says that it does not at all. It's hard for me to believe that he would be lying about it. It can be manipulated very easily, so there's no reason why they would care about it.

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    • Profile picture of the author Stephen Crooks
      Yes, I saw this video before and all I am going to say is that although I respect a lot of what Matt Cutts says, his role at Google is to ensure that people don't peek too hard behind the curtain. He is Mr. smoke and mirrors, case in point was the debacle around nofollow. Suddenly he proclaimed that nofollow meant that PR still evaporated into the ether rather than got passed onto the recipient page. This was a complete U turn from what was originally said.

      Can you actually imagine Google admitting that they would use "private" data even though their TOS says that they can and will do. Also, I remember getting a message actually asking me if they minded if they actually used my data for "research" purposes a few years back.


      Originally Posted by __internet__ View Post

      I'm not sure whether google analytics, bounce rate, or time on site matters at all to rankings. It would need a lot of testing.

      However, Matt Cutts says that it does not at all. It's hard for me to believe that he would be lying about it. It can be manipulated very easily, so there's no reason why they would care about it.

      YouTube - Is Google Analytics data a factor in a page's ranking?
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  • Profile picture of the author __internet__
    In the end, it doesn't really matter what Google does. It's getting harder and harder to make money from Google's natural search engine listings. They don't want webmasters to make money. They want to provide great content, and that's something that most internet marketers don't offer. No one wants to spend months worth of time creating great content if they are trying to make money.

    Therefore, if you're trying to make money through natural search engine listings, you are taking a risk. Internet marketers need to find other ways to get traffic and stop depending so much on what Google wants. You don't need to love Google to make money and they don't offer a lot of traffic when you look at the internet in whole.

    Everyone wants high rankings in Google. There is always going to be a lot of competition, and you are going to have to avoid all of Google's BS to get top rankings. It's not worth it to get top rankings anymore because they are not stable. Not only that, but you never know when google wants to put some youtube videos, brand new images, twitter, news results, blog posts and whole lot more junk for your keyword searches.

    They always find some new user based friendly help features that they throw in the search engine. Remember when search engines only had links? Now they have a bunch of garbage that hurt webmasters chances of succeeding. It's all about the user, not about your site. When people stop focusing on Google all the time, they'll start seeing success online.
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    • Profile picture of the author 4morereferrals
      Originally Posted by __internet__ View Post

      It's all about the user, not about your site.

      User? I think the term you were searching for was ... Shareholder Equity.
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      Rank Ascend Network - High PR Links / Guaranteed Rankings Increase
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      • Profile picture of the author __internet__
        Originally Posted by 4morereferrals View Post

        User? I think the term you were searching for was ... Shareholder Equity.
        Happy users lead to cash flow.
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  • Profile picture of the author Groovystar
    yeah but I still find almost all my sites I visit, through google and it is still the single largest place people find a website. It'd be nice to return to the old days of the internet, when there was no one search engine holding such a monopoly. I'm not betting on it happening again till I see actual evidence of it. Around 70% of my forum's members have always found us through google. I can't just walk away from that--especially as my forays into being found by other mediums have been extremely limited in success.
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