8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Google is so fickle...

by Droopy Dawg
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
My SEO experience with Google has been pretty volatile... but mostly successful. BUT... I wonder what's going on with the Google algorithm sometimes.

I have created sites with all original content... backlinked to death... On and off-page SEO'd to the most minute detail, and a few are not even in the first 100 websites.

I have 1 domain that doesn't have ANY content on it (literally... no content at all)... very few backlinks... and its sitting in the #1 spot for a keyword phrase that has over 330 MILLION competitors (phrase match in quotes). I did optimize the domain name, title and description, but man... I scratch my head and wonder WTH am I doing right on this site, and wrong on the others.

The domain is a couple years old, but has been pretty much the same since I bought the name back in the summer of '08.

Well anyway... time to get back to work... thought I'd vent for a minute.
#fickle #google
  • Profile picture of the author tferraro11
    Ahhh, the joy of our everyday job. Its fun isnt it? Stay positive and focused. It will come around.
    Signature

    Check out my website for complete hands free SEO services: http://riccavalle.com

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2333636].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Groovystar
    After months of trying to optimise for one of our hardest keywords, guess what jumped to the top of the page for a while? One of the small video ads on a video site, for our website, which showed up with the link in the google meta summary, to our website, while our website itself sat at the bottom of the page!! This ad had no backlinks at all that I knew of. It hadn't even been posted where it had been as part of our campaign so even our site wasn't linking to it. It beat out a site that was PR 6.

    I laughed. It was funny. Irony at its best.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2335712].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author niffybranco
    Originally Posted by Droopy Dawg View Post

    My SEO experience with Google has been pretty volatile... but mostly successful. BUT... I wonder what's going on with the Google algorithm sometimes.

    I have created sites with all original content... backlinked to death... On and off-page SEO'd to the most minute detail, and a few are not even in the first 100 websites.

    I have 1 domain that doesn't have ANY content on it (literally... no content at all)... very few backlinks... and its sitting in the #1 spot for a keyword phrase that has over 330 MILLION competitors (phrase match in quotes). I did optimize the domain name, title and description, but man... I scratch my head and wonder WTH am I doing right on this site, and wrong on the others.

    The domain is a couple years old, but has been pretty much the same since I bought the name back in the summer of '08.

    Well anyway... time to get back to work... thought I'd vent for a minute.
    The competiton strength might be weak even though there are 333 million competing pages you need to check the strength of the top 10 pages for factors such as backlinks and onpage seo. if the top 10 pages are not well optimized then it will be easy to rank for.

    A lot of people make this mistake and i see so called gurus telling newbies to pick a keyword with less than 10,000 competing pages or whatever number they deem fit, this is so wrong as some keyword terms have less than 10,000 competing pages but the competition for the top spot is so fierce that a newbie has no chance in hell of getting on the first 3 pages talkless of page 1. For me number of competing pages is just a measure of popularity of the keyword. For competition strenght you need to check average number of backlinks, use of LSI keywords in the texts, use of H1 and H2 tags , are the keywords included in the title and description of these pages e.t.c this will tell you if these sites have got their SEO game cap on.
    Signature
    Top notch internet marketing tutorials
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2335737].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author SamSnead
      Google is fickle, I have been using MS to find niches for adsense and in doing so I have come across other sites (xfactor sites) that have beat me to it.

      So I find myself reverse searching all their sites to justify what I am trying to do. I am confused... some sites met all the criteria (weak competition, plenty of backlinks via ezine articles posted on a weekly basis) but are not listed anywhere in Google for the keyword, although they are indexed. While others rank well with little to no backlinks.

      It almost seems as if Google blacklists the server that some sites are on. Is this possible?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2335807].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author niffybranco
        Originally Posted by SamSnead View Post

        Google is fickle, I have been using MS to find niches for adsense and in doing so I have come across other sites (xfactor sites) that have beat me to it.

        So I find myself reverse searching all their sites to justify what I am trying to do. I am confused... some sites met all the criteria (weak competition, plenty of backlinks via ezine articles posted on a weekly basis) but are not listed anywhere in Google for the keyword, although they are indexed. While others rank well with little to no backlinks.

        It almost seems as if Google blacklists the server that some sites are on. Is this possible?
        Google might just feel your site is not related enough to rank for that keyword. When you search for your keyword on google on the left hand side there are links to related searches and wonder wheel, look for the related terms that apply to your keyword and mix them into your content, also for your main keyword try and use the related keyword as your top level categories this will tell gogle your sites content is very related to the term you are trying to rank for.
        Signature
        Top notch internet marketing tutorials
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2335822].message }}

Trending Topics