Has anybody considered the average Joe surfer? Newbie Webmaster:

To get top 10 listing content, content, content. Social Bookmarking and getting in the top 10 on major blogs. The more people who (delicious) bookmark your blog, the higher your ranking.

Regarding content, content, content, the little guy is selling a product - not content. Besides most of the content I've seen in top 10's blogs & engines are techie stuff about SE's and SEO's. As for the social bookmarking, well there's a little bit of a clique going on there. It's another basically top ten of techie how to's, Web 2.0, RSS feeds, etc, etc.

How is the newbie webmaster ever catch up? How is the average Joe supposed to know that they are to bookmark the link in de lic ious? And what good is that going to do for a small site that sells product?

I see the small guys getting buried, and the net full of 'content, content, content. :(

I see your point.

I do. Really I do. It's really tough.

But! Google is not supposed to be a fair and open marketplace. Google is a search engine which decides that high content pages are the best and therefore chooses to show them towards the top of their results. Google doesn't really care if Bob's Red Widget Shop is trying to sell Red Widgets. Why should it? Why should Google's searchers? They just want to buy red widgets and as long as they can find red widgets they'll be happy.

FYI: search traffic is a very small part of overall web traffic. There are tons of sites out there that are getting valuable traffic that you can monetize. Look for some links on pages related to your product...verticals and such. Forget about ranking: focus on getting visitors who buy stuff. buy advertising on sites that will drive paying customers to your site.

Thank you for your reply Wail, I sincerely appreciate it.

Isn't the average 'online shopper', and the average newbie selling webmaster supposed to be treated equally?. I guess fair is in the eyes of the beholder. It's beginning to look like they are going to be second page news so to speak - compared to Social Bookmarking, Web2.0, RSS, content, content, content.

....and it's already starting. I've noticed in searches for something so simple as a pest deterent, the first 10 listings / results are articles, blogs, petitions etc. (not necessarily confined to just that term) . I truly wonder if Google and the rest are heading down this path so merchants will be forced to use PAY PER CLICK and again the newbie webmaster can't afford that route or he wouldn't be trying to do it himself.

I'm not sure. Google is for searchers not webmasters. Just a personal opinion.

Thanks DarkMatter ~

Your reply must have come through while I was answering Weil's. Personally, I am maybe 10 yrs away from graduating to intermediate webmaster. I know enough html to make a good website, although it may not be up to code (correct) and I see that maybe coming into play soon just like MSN.

At anyrate, my crystal ball says SEO's, (and that rehelm) will be tops dogs basically because that's what all the content is about.

Weil

I see your point, but I see it from both sides I guess.