Not Effected By Any Google Updates!!!

[SEO1]

Hi everyone

I see so many people complaining about Google and it's various updates ruining their businesses.

Well I am here to say that Google did nothing to ruin anyone's business.

Here are just two of my clients who have not suffered any bumps dumps bruises or any such mistreatment ever.

The first is a past client I consulted with in the Summer of 2004

Search google for police products and securityandsafetysupply.com has been in position 1, 2, or 3 since September 2004.

The next a client since Fall 2004

diamond brokers adamaunt.com postions 4, 5, or 6 since December 2004

Any ideas why none of my clients ever suffer due to these updates such as Florida, Hilltop, or Jagger???

Clint (not an seo expert) Dixon

...Live by Google,... Die by Google

[DaveN]

diamond brokers .. is on page 2 from here

DaveN

[SEO1]

Hi Dave

I would be willing to venture that is due to Googles localization and globalization standards.

Were you using .com or .co.uk??

Heck it could be better if I could just get them to switch to pure css and static html....

Thank you for the information as it helps to know how things are worldwide :)

Clint

[Marketing Guy]

I used TB and the results were as posted.

I'd guess some subject areas are more prone to turbulence during updates than others due to the amount of spam in the industry?

I've never had any drop in rankings from an update either (from around mid 2003) - I don't really push the boat out in terms of what I could probably get away with in SEO though.

MG

[Marcia]

I'd guess some subject areas are more prone to turbulence during updates than others due to the amount of spam in the industry?And if you guessed that, you'd be right. Highly competitive or even moderately competitive keyword phrases are the ones that experience the volatility from updates, not non-competitive keyword phrases.

Those keywords are relatively non-competitive, so they wouldn't be subject to the effects of updates as others are, not even close.

[Chris_D]

Any ideas why none of my clients ever suffer due to these updates such as Florida, Hilltop, or Jagger??? I answered Clint's specific question, with a specific answer. Clint took exception to my post - so I have deleted that post (above).

So here's a much more general answer.

I'm with Marcia...... its about the level of competition for the specific search phrases.

<mod hat off>

As a general rule - the TOS of SEW forums explicity prohibit self promotion. See http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/faq.php?faq=code_of_conduct#faq_self-promo

If members ask specific questions, and provide sufficent information regarding specific sites for other members to provide specific answers (within the TOS of SEW) then in my book - that's a question asked and answered.

There are also TOS regarding code of conduct etc. http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_code_of_conduct

Members need to understand that specific questions relating to sites (as opposed to more general questions) can result in factually specific answers relating to those sites. You may not want those answers posted in the public domain - for a variety of reasons.

If you don't want factually specific answers and advice posted in the forums -my recommendation is not to ask specific questions based on actual sites, and actual search terms, in the forums.

Just ask a 'general' question which doesn't identify a specific site & specific search phrase.

So the question could have been -

"Have any of your sites/ clients suffered due to recent algorithm updates such as Florida, Hilltop, or Jagger? Has anyone ascertained what specifically caused this suffering?"

</mod hat on>

Sincerely.

Chris

[Jill Whalen]

You may want to edit out your sites from the original post. The engines don't always take kindly when people "brag" about their rankings.

Just an fyi!

[SEO1]

I would delete the thing if I could

[Marcia]

Meantime, once threads are started and available for the membership at large, there's an obligation not only to the members who already took their time to respond to the post, but to the other members who may have an interest in the subject matter as well.

Any ideas why none of my clients ever suffer due to these updates such as Florida, Hilltop, or Jagger???There are many people who wonder the same thing, why some sites are affected by updates and others aren't. Therefore, a thread that's started in a public forum for public viewing is not a personal statement, for which the person's own website would be the proper venue.

when people "brag" about their rankings.Exactly, Jill. And the proper place for that is the party's own website, else it can be construed as being a topic raised for discussion - which is the logical assumption, particularly when a very pointed question is asked and specific sites given as examples

Posted publicly in an open forum, it becomes a topic inviting general discussion for the benefit and information of the entire membership, of all who view the thread.

It does not matter who poses the question - it's the ISSUE being raised by the thread that's the focus and the ISSUE raised is what needs to be addressed. If specifics have been posted, then that constitutes an open invitation to examine the specific sites in order to illustrate the principles.

[Marcia]

Moving right along on the subject, with the "membership at large" as the focus, let's continue with the discussion raised in this thread.

What Marketing Guy posted

I'd guess some subject areas are more prone to turbulence during updates than others due to the amount of spam in the industry?I think we can look not only at some subject areas, in the broader sense, but also at the keywords and keyword phrases that are targeted as being financially lucrative, and therefore prone to *aggressive* marketing techniques in order to be able to compete.

Here are just a few simple metrics to examine, using resources that are publicly and freely available for anyone to use in evaluating the competitive level of different keywords when doing keyword research. Since specifics were given as examples, let's run with those in a simple illustration of comparisons.

police products
542 Overture searches
124,000 pages returned at Google for exact phrase

intitle: for exact phrase - 699
inanchor: for exact phrase - 357

police equipment
24,167 Overture searches
396,000 pages returned at Google for exact phrase

intitle: for exact phrase - 25,700
inanchor: for exact phrase - 745

OK - now lets look at a related, high demand consumer product:

pepper spray
39,605 Overture searches
2,580,000 pages returned at Google for the exact phrase

intitle: for exact phrase - 58,900
inanchor: for exact phrase - 51,400
__________________________________________________ _____

Looking now at the other niche, which would be B2B as compared to B2C:

diamond brokers
1,728 Overture searches
138,000 pages at Google for exact phrase

intitle: for exact phrase - 2,240
inanchor: for exact phrase - 500

diamond rings
151,699 Overture searches
7,280,00 pages at Google for exact phrase

intitle: for exact phrase - 172,000
inanchor: for exact phrase - 110,000
__________________________________________________ ___

Using just those simple figures, we can easily see which keyword phrases would be the most financially lucrative, and therefore subject to more aggressive measures taken in order to compete for rankings. Those measures - techniques, if you will - are generally what's targeted by filters turned loose during major updates, and are therefore prone to the major fluctuations and upheavals.

[SEO1]

Marcia

I will say it is a very good post in looking at pure numbers and where one would assume the money would be..

However from my perspective I don't want to drive untargetted visitors to my clients web sites

As an example for my diamond clients, we do not sell diamond rings...diamonds can be either cheap.... or expensive... and my partner and his network of brokers, deal in high end diamond stones. Think more custom than out of a showcase..in this case.

So a keyword like 'diamond ring' which the moderators thought was a valuable term... is in fact useless to this merchant, and while it may have seemed the more sensible keyword term to target...it is not.

Reasons for this are that anyone could be looking information for diamond rings, competition, students, wives to be, bargain shoppers, which might be good for dirtcheapdiamonds, but doesnt work for my partners.

Diamond brokers is a more targeted "buying term" from my clients perspective.

Oddly enough it seems you learn things working on the inside of different industies..where we had originally thought the diamond sites would operate in full e-commerce mode, one which would allow consumers to bid for their diamonds....due to consumer preference however we have instead found our websites are better serving as lead gathering entities, from which the brokers take the customers personal information and call and offer personalized service to the buyer.



As for the police products site ...it was a one time consult on three specific keyword terms the owner wanted front page results for. Again he found the terms to be the ones that converted best for his target market.

Looking at the site it is/was definitely not designed for full scale e-commerce sales in the b2c (business to consumer) sense,,but in my eyes a website that someone who was in law enforcement might consider buying from for a police squad or department, and not individual sales. (b2b)??

So while pepper spray might seem a good term it actually would only serve to bring tire kickers to the website.. which is not what the webmaster wanted.

Thank you for teaching me to keep the personal sides out... and i hope you've learned a thing or two on targeting customers :-)

Clint

[Marcia]

Clint, make no mistake - we all understand about proper targeting, and therefore target search terms that will bring the most targeted, appropriate traffic for our clients' sites, geared toward their intended target market. BUT...

In the thread title you declared:

Not Effected By Any Google Updates!!

indicating that while others are affected, you are never affected by updates. Then you proceeded to ask, very specifically:

Any ideas why none of my clients ever suffer due to these updates such as Florida, Hilltop, or Jagger???So very simply, though we don't know about ALL your clients, all we can surmise from the two illustrations you provided is that you are not affected by updates because, regardless of targeting, which is NOT the topic you brought up, the fact of the matter is that the client sites in question are not affected by update fluctuations simply because the phrases targeted are not competitive.

The illustrations provided, with the numbers, were in order to demonstrate to you why updates don't affect your sites -which is what you asked in the first place.

Of course, we know that a site selling "hand knitted baby booties" will target that specific term, because it will reach targeted, buying customers; but neither will the site experience update fluctuations.

It isn't the customer targeting that's the issue, it's the whys and wherefores of why some sites are and some aren't affected by updates.

[Connie]

Marcia wouldn't that be targeting niche keywords, that could produce a high conversion rate?

If the site owner is happy with the ranking for those words, and happy with the conversion rate from those words, isn't that the important thing?

Personally as a e-commerce site owner I would rather rank #1 for a word that was searched on 10 times per day and produced 5 sales, than ranking for the most competitive words that seldom produced a sale.

IMHO conversion rates are what is important, not the frequency of the search term or how competitive it is.

IMHO a mod should remove the URLs if they are in violation of the boards TOS. However you have to be consistent. I see post in here all the time with URLs and no one ever says a thing.

I for one would like to see some hard evidence that the engines do not take kindly to people bragging about their rankings.

[Marcia]

Good post Connie, a very nice addition to this thread from someone with an online retailer's perspective. :)

If the site owner is happy with the ranking for those words, and happy with the conversion rate from those words, isn't that the important thing?Connie, the site owner may not know the difference - many don't, unless they've studied on their own. For example, this illustration:

Of course, we know that a site selling "hand knitted baby booties" will target that specific term, because it will reach targeted, buying customers; but neither will the site experience update fluctuations.That wasn't pulled out of thin air, that's based on someone with a very similar type site boasting about their SEO for getting them a #1 Google ranking for a specified 4-word keyphrase (similar to that).

Two problems with that - no one searches for that (0 at Overture), and more than likely it would be people looking for "how to" instructions who would search on it, since there are plenty of free instructions out there. The person simply didn't know any better, when in fact the two word phrase "baby booties" (something similar), though harder to rank for, does in fact get searches and could easily convert. No searches, no conversions.

What I did, just for the fun of it and without telling anyone (until here, right now) was, since I already had an appropriate link up on a relevant, related site to a friend who sells that stuff, added one single anchor text deep link with that exact phrase in it - which was apparently enough to put that person's page in the #1 spot for that search, and it's stayed there for well over a year - since it isn't at all competitive.

I just looked, it's sitting right now at #1 at Google, #1 at MSN, and #2 at Yahoo. The page does not have the exact phrase in the title, and isn't optimized for the phrase (partial match only) - it just happens to be totally relevant for the phrase. There are 917,000 pages returned at Google for the phrase, only 302 pages for the exact phrase.

IMHO conversion rates are what is important, not the frequency of the search term or how competitive it is. Exactly - and often it's the low hanging fruit that converts best. BUT for highly competitive terms that are specific in nature, depending on the pricing factor (high priced items = lower conversion rate, generally), general terms won't convert as well as more specific ones.

Take "gifts" - those are stage one shoppers just out looking for ideas. "Gifts for men" gets more specific, but they're still window shopping for ideas. But you still may want the second term, because a certain number will convert if you've got items that catch visitor interest, though the more closely targeted the better the chance of having exactly what they're looking for when they've already shopped around and are ready to buy.

Sure, a very general term that's not competitive may bring in targeted visitors, but that doesn't have to completely rule out targeting more specific terms as well, in order to have more conversion opportunities. It can depend on how aggressive the marketer is willing to be.

Marcia wouldn't that be targeting niche keywords, that could produce a high conversion rate?Sure, right on! But the niche keywords can only result in conversions if they bring in searchers, which is why we have to look at those figures to estimate the potential when evaluating keyword choices.

[SEO1]

Hi Marcia

:)

I knew you know about targeting terms as well and yes we went off topic again...sometimes we free thinkers can't be corraled so easily and we venture off...

Though I find the conversion convo more fun ..... getting back to the point

I could really care less about my own long term achievements and have more than enough clients and own web sites to keep me busy and financially happy that I do not need to self promote.

So what I wanted to know is what others experiences are, what keyword terms, how competitive they felt they are, and for how long have the terms been ranked consistently on the front page no martter which update.

Oh and Marcia they were only two of many....

and if we can continue the importance of conversion in another thread somewhere I would like to see that

Clint

[Robert_Charlton]

So what I wanted to know is what others experiences are, what keyword terms, how competitive they felt they are, and for how long have the terms been ranked consistently on the front page no martter which update.

Clint - In my opinion, anyone who posts his or her specific rankings on a public forum is being extremely foolish. Anyone who posts a client's rankings (or for that matter a client's url) is being irresponsible.

Here's a thread that elaborates further on that subject...

SEO Competitive Keyword Success
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1168

The factors that Marcia cited are the basic indicators of how competitive a particular search is. She's right on about the reasons for fluctuations. In my experience, it is quite possible for a site to be well established for a competitive search and not fluctuate during some updates, but that of course depends on the nature of the update, the nature of the competition, and how well established a site is.

For more on what's competitive, read this thread, which has some good stuff in it...

What is Keyword Competitiveness?
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4374

[SEO1]

Robert

I'll repeat again I could care less about the self promotion.The moderators can delete the URLs'.

Further if you read this, since you quoted me

So what I wanted to know is what others experiences are, what keyword terms, how competitive they felt they are, and for how long have the terms been ranked consistently on the front page no martter which update.

I did not ask for URLs here did I?

Next just for kicks why in the SEM industry would we hide our results??

Are there other industries where people hide their success??

Could you clue me in on some ??

Are you naieve enough to believe a search engine could destroy your rankings if you were an SEO who published their results?

What about SEM firms who do not try to get their sites ranked well?? How could the search engine punish them ??

Do you think they would destroy a clients results ??

And this will fall under the basis of following Googles webmasters guidelines, 10 things, do no evil, etc.

Clint

[SEO1]

Robert

The first link I found droll the second I've read before and it was good to refresh again.

However the question still remains unanswered...

[Marcia]

Are there other industries where people hide their success??

Could you clue me in on some ??Sure. The affiliate marketing industry, for one, in which you'll find many who are among the TOP-notch, most capable SEOs you can find, many of whom have chosen to no longer work with client sites, but prefer to stay with promoting just their own instead.

When people find valuable niches, which is one of the prime prerequisites for success and profit in that industry, why on earth would they want to broadcast it to the world?

Are you naieve enough to believe a search engine could destroy your rankings if you were an SEO who published their results?The engines are not naive. They know full well that those who pursue the most aggressive tactics, which are the ones they're concerned with, will NOT reveal their specifics in public. Some won't even let their own mothers know what their sites are.

My guess is that the engines are savvy enough to know that when people are publicly boasting about their rankings, it's just liable to be nothing more than a teenage boys' locker room competition they play called "Mine's bigger." The grown-up big boyz with the big ones don't need to boast. :D


However the question still remains unanswered...If you're referring to this question, from the original post:

Any ideas why none of my clients ever suffer due to these updates such as Florida, Hilltop, or Jagger???Then yes, it has been answered.

[SEO1]

Hi Marcia

I Forgot the affiliates.. and I could add in Adsense sites.

But Macia... thinking of those you know running affiliate programs, have they suffered during these updates or did the get by without any bumps.

And how could I ask about what to do with terms that are in much much harder competitive counts???

if I dont use the keyword term but say how many competing pages and the current position wouldn't that be bragging as well??

And I really need help on this...

Clint

[Jill Whalen]

Are you naieve enough to believe a search engine could destroy your rankings if you were an SEO who published their results?

A better question, imo, would be are you naive enough to think the engines wouldn't?

It was many, many years ago, but I witnessed them doing it first hand.

[SEO1]

Jill

You post your rankings online... and you've never suffered correct?

Clint

[Quadrille]

The engines are not naive. They know full well that those who pursue the most aggressive tactics, which are the ones they're concerned with, will NOT reveal their specifics in public. Some won't even let their own mothers know what their sites are.

My guess is that the engines are savvy enough to know that when people are publicly boasting about their rankings, it's just liable to be nothing more than a teenage boys' locker room competition they play called "Mine's bigger." The grown-up big boyz with the big ones don't need to boast.Of course if your sites are "clean", then you have nothing to fear from Google - no-one's produced any evidence that "Google doesn't like people people boasting" (spammers aside, of course). :rolleyes:

In fact, if you think about it, Google has everything to gain by having successful - and clean - sites displayed far and wide as examples of Good Practice.

Why hide your light under a bushel - unless you have something to hide? My mum has no need to be ashamed of me, unlike some folk not a million miles from here :D

[Marcia]

Why hide your light under a bushel - unless you have something to hide? My mum has no need to be ashamed of me, unlike some folk not a million miles from here Oh, the ones with the MOST to hide are no doubt who they'd love to spot, but those are unlikely to publicly boast with specifics.

No need to hide one's light under a bushel, except out of respect for clients' wishes for privacy, and sometimes NDA's - which is their perfect right. Also, some marketers may value their personal privacy - also their right, as with any individual in any circumstances.

Then - what someone may consider to be their "light" that they want to shine before the world, and a good example (in their opinion), may elicit honest opinions not to their liking. This thread is a perfect example, I'd say.

There is nothing wrong with having testimonies or examples on an SEO site if they, as individuals, choose to WITH the client's specific knowledge and/or OK, but as far as boasting goes, one's own site is the place for that as a marketing/sales tool. Regardless of how the engines see it, boasting in public forums is inappropriate and accomplishes nothing for the community.

[Connie]

A better question, imo, would be are you naive enough to think the engines wouldn't?

It was many, many years ago, but I witnessed them doing it first hand.
I would really like to see proof of that. Like a statement from Matt Cutts.

Anything else could simply be a coincidence. In fact when I have seen post in your forum from someone who is bragging about increased positions, due to help received at HR all I ever see is congratulation post.

If you thought someone was in danger of being penalized for posting their success in your forum why did you not post a warning?

As a Dense "Ol MO Hillbilly" who is not a SEO I have a hard time understanding all the uproar SEO1 has seemed to cause. I am an on-line retailer and have been doing this for 5 years. I don't have a brick and mortar store. All my income is from the Internet.

Whether Wordtracker or Overture returns results for a specific term does not mean anything IMHO. Log files are the best source of information for targeted traffic. Apparently SEO1 or his clients have done research.

SEO1 yes I do go up and down with Google (particularly) in regard to very general key words. I remain pretty stable with the less popular key words for my industry. But the less popular keywords are what produce most of the sales.

[Marcia]

Log files are the best source of information for targeted traffic. Absolutely, but the words and/or phrases have to be on the site to begin with in order to show up in the stats. If they aren't on the site and pages they can't show up, and represent a lost opportunity for revenue.

Here is one example, from the sites cited as an illustration:

However from my perspective I don't want to drive untargetted visitors to my clients web sites

As an example for my diamond clients, we do not sell diamond rings...diamonds can be either cheap.... or expensive... and my partner and his network of brokers, deal in high end diamond stones. Think more custom than out of a showcase..in this case.

So a keyword like 'diamond ring' which the moderators thought was a valuable term... is in fact useless to this merchant, and while it may have seemed the more sensible keyword term to target...it is not.The comparative figures were given to reply to the question asked - about why some sites experience fluctuations and some don't - so they served merely as an illustration. BUT let's take it a step further to being more specific regarding one of the sites provided for us as an example...

See the link to a page for engagement rings?

http://www.adamaunt.com/rings.asp

And see where that link goes to?

http://www.adamaunt.com/ring-select.asp?type=Engagement

Those are engagement ring settings - and they DO sell them on the site

http://www.adamaunt.com/ring_details.asp?type=Engagement&id=216&material=14K%20Yellow%20Gold

How much more targeted can it get? Let's look at the basics for that keyword phrase:

engagement ring settings
5,106 Overture searches
163,000 Google pages returned for exact phrase
intitle: for exact phrase: 11,00
inanchor: for exact phrase: 1,150

Related to the point that Connie brought up, notice the very basic "white hat" elements on pages - like targeted page titles. Will that search term show up in the stats, even though the product is actually sold on the site? Granted, it's nowhere near as competitive as "engagement rings" - but it's exactly what's sold and precisely targeted. And not overly competitive either, I might add.

Excellent point about stats, 100% correct. But reference has to be on the site someplace so that the phrases can show up in the stats in the first place, and then that's a great starting place for the merchant to acquire more targeted traffic and conversions.

Going back to the original question - that phrase may or may not experience update fluctuations, certainly not to the degree that a site focused on selling engagement rings, wedding bands and bridal jewelry would be.

[shor]

As a Dense "Ol MO Hillbilly" who is not a SEO I have a hard time understanding all the uproar SEO1 has seemed to cause. I am an on-line retailer and have been doing this for 5 years. I don't have a brick and mortar store. All my income is from the Internet.
'Uproar' is a tad strong. I think that it is a little tactless to name-drop client URLs. There's no need to name-drop when the question itself would have sufficed. It's halfway there to self-promotion, which is not allowed on SEW.

That being said, Clint's subsequent reiteration of the question was concise and removed the self-promotion:

So what I wanted to know is what others experiences are, what keyword terms, how competitive they felt they are, and for how long have the terms been ranked consistently on the front page no martter which update.
To which my reply is: The network of sites I monitor are largely unaffected by G-updates. This is because the network's high 'TrustRank' means that we continue to rank on the first page for some of the most competitive broad terms in the search market. In other words we have some PR8 authority sites, which certainly helps the whole network weather the storm(s). That and being mostly 'white-hat'.

[Jill Whalen]

I would really like to see proof of that. Like a statement from Matt Cutts.

Since Google wasn't even a search engine yet when this happened, and for all I know Matt Cutts was still in college, I don't think he can speak to my situation.

[Quadrille]

Regardless of how the engines see it, boasting in public forums is inappropriate and accomplishes nothing for the community.Sure - if you set no value at teaching by example. For some communities, successful good practice is seen as something to be celebrated by the community, giving new folk something to aspire to - and some tools to get there.

No SEO, of course, would highlight a client site without their blessing - but I'd suggest that some grateful clients are only too pleased to join in the celebrations - especially those who've had bad experiences in the past from more secretive SEOs.

Sorry, we've now accepted that Google likes Good Practice; I hope I've convinced you that learners, clients and fellow SEOs like to see successful good practice.

So who, exactly, has a problem with it? I really cannot imagine!

[Marcia]

I hope I've convinced you that learners, clients and fellow SEOs like to see successful good practice.I wasn't aware that I, or anyone else here, was in need of convincing of anything, but it's preaching to the choir.

Meantime, let's not inject irrelevant personal agendas and hijack the thread by digressing into a whole nuther topic area. Per the original post, this is the topic of this thread:

Any ideas why none of my clients ever suffer due to these updates such as Florida, Hilltop, or Jagger???And that is what we're discussing - why some do and some don't. There seems to be a consensus that level of competitiveness is a major factor. Any other factors anyone can think of?

[Connie]

Since Google wasn't even a search engine yet when this happened, and for all I know Matt Cutts was still in college, I don't think he can speak to my situation.
Then why state it as fact? SEs change. I think we all know that. What one obscure SE did years ago is not relevant as far as I can see. There are only 3 players at this time that I am concerned about. Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

I don't think you can say that what happened years ago (before Google) with another SE applies today.

In fact I think Google would be glad that people who practice whitehat techniques are doing well in the SERPs.
'Uproar' is a tad strong. I think that it is a little tactless to name-drop client URLs.
I don't think so, but your entitled to your opinion just like I'm entitled to mine. All any Mod had to do was delete the URL. I do it several times a day like this. [URL Removed]. I follow up with a post explaining why the URL was deleted and a link to the Forum Guidelines.

Marcia, I do understand where your coming from based on the links. If the generic terms are not profitable for the site, then why worry about them?

[Marcia]

Actually, as long as posts meet the TOS, what's between any marketer and their clients is their business and their choice. We can have our opinions, but in the final analysis we can only speak for ourselves because we have no way of knowing what anyone else's client relationships are. We can only take things at face value and focus on the issue raised.

<sidebar>
I will IGNORE the extemporaneous injection of the "hat" issue because it's totally off-topic for this discussion and we simply don't need to allow ourselves into being provoked or harassed into allowing a perfectly good thread to be hijacked.
</sidebar>

Marcia, I do understand where your coming from based on the links. If the generic terms are not profitable for the site, then why worry about them?Connie, the generic terms may end up being profitable from the site owner's personal perspective and level of knowledge, and as marketers our hands can quite often be tied by what site owner's decide they want, based on their own knowledge - and by limitations in what they're willing to spend.

That's why some of us will not generally touch a site at all without doing a preliminary initial consultation, to be able to give the site owner an analysis of the site's flaws and strengths, and let them know the marketing potential and the varied keyword possibilities open to them.

Personally, I'm right with you - over time, the stats are the best keyword and marketing tools we can have. That's why I believe in working on a whole site, putting in plenty of unique, relevant, targeted descriptive content - which the engines like and even actively encourage. That gives tasty food to crawlers that's pertinent to the site, and provides the necessary tools for the stats to tell us what the customers really want and how they're looking for it at the engines.

[Jill Whalen]

Connie, I could care less if you or the original poster wish to post their websites and the keywords they're ranking on in a public forum.

I'm simply warning people that if they do that, they should understand that search engines do read stuff like this.

In my opinion, the best way to keep a site from being burned in any update is to make sure it does not shout "I'M OPTIMIZED." Much of that can be accomplished through understanding how to optimize in such a way that nobody who doesn't have a trained SEO eye would know that the site is optimized.

It also helps not to publicly state that the site IS indeed optimized.

It's one thing to share your successes on your own site to potential other clients. It's quite another to "brag" about them on a public forum. I learned my lesson in the mid-90's and I'm just trying to share it with others so they don't also get burned. Back then, it was a simple case of resubmitting and all was well within a few weeks. I don't think it would be so easy to recover today.

And whether my situation of bragging about a site in a public venue and having it removed shortly thereafter was just a coincidence, or paranoia or whatever (which it certainly might have been), it was a good lesson for me nonetheless. I was an idiot for doing the bragging and I learned to never do it again.

[WilliamC]

It's one thing to share your successes on your own site to potential other clients. It's quite another to "brag" about them on a public forum.

It is getting rather annoying having to agree with you more than not anymore, kudos for that. :)

[Robert_Charlton]

I'm simply warning people that if they do that, they should understand that search engines do read stuff like this.

Other optimizers read these forums too. While anyone can search Google for any term they like and bring up the top results, bragging about productive niche rankings in a public SEO forum is just asking for it (in my opinion, at any rate).

[projectphp]

I would really like to see proof of that. Like a statement from Matt Cutts.
"Statement from Matt Cutts" == "proof"... It really was just a matter of time!

[unreviewed]

Marcia deserves a “standing ovation”. Moderating a thread, becomes art, when the point is still made regardless of the percentage of negativity. Ignoring trolling and continuing the focus is much harder than she makes it look. ;)

[Marcia]

Lest anyone misinterpret any points being made, what happens with update fluctuations is not a white hat/black hat issue, it's far more of a desirability issue.

Simply stated, search terms that are barely searched on are not considered desirable when compared to those that get a lot of people searching for them. Just a couple of illustrations taken from the examples first presented here to begin this discussion:

diamond brokers
1,728 Overture searches
138,000 pages at Google for exact phrase
intitle: for exact phrase - 2,240
inanchor: for exact phrase - 500We can easily see that there are relatively few sites/pages trying to rank and compete for that exact phrase. It's a "low action" space and therefore can be expected to remain relatively stable.

Compare with the search term for a specific, targeted product available on the same site:

engagement ring settings
5,106 Overture searches
163,000 Google pages returned for exact phrase
intitle: for exact phrase: 11,000
inanchor: for exact phrase: 1,150
1,728 searches compared to 5,106 searches, which is almost 3 times as many, and considerably more specific and targeted from the searchers' point of view. And then:

138K pages targeting exact term compared to 163K - which is relatively little difference in the number of competitors' pages for the exact phrase. Yet, we can easily see that more effort is being expended to rank for diamond ring settings, simply because it's more desirable. Conventional wisdom generally indicates that the more specific the search, the better the conversions.

Still not competitive compared with others in the jewelry space, and still not subject to the same type of fluctuations as highly desirable search terms in that market, since the more desirable the more effort is being made to move ahead of those sites already ranking.

Overture searches for bridal jewelry:19,146 (for October, off-season)
inanchor: for exact phrase for bridal jewelry - 28,500So that's 28,500 for a search term that does experience fluctuations, compared with 500 for a search term that doesn't. And sorry folks, white hats sure do use anchor text in links; it isn't a "hat" thing it's an "effort expended for ROI" thing.

The more desirable search terms are in terms of ROI, the more additional pages there will be contending when update time comes around and the more serious effort there will have been expended. It's simple logic that says that there will be more fluctuation, simply because of increased interim activity and subsequent re-shuffling in the SERPs.