Has Google Lost the Plot?

With the help of MSN, recently I’ve been reminiscing about the Google of old. Remember those days? When you could take a good quality site, add a few keywords, get a few incoming links and bada-bing, bada-boom, it’d be #1 on Google? Remember the old days, pre-Florida, pre-sandbox? The days when we, as search engine optimization specialists, didn’t feel like a private schoolgirl smoking in the bathroom? When we didn’t feel like the iron fist would come crashing down at any moment? Yes, those were the good old days. And MSN has finally brought them back, though on a much smaller scale.

Google hit it right on the nose back then. Search results were almost never irrelevant - venturing to the second page of results was an event that drew gasps. There was never, ever any reason to leave Google and search for the same query on another search engine. Satisfied users the world over, it was the search engine of choice almost everywhere searches were conducted. I myself never strayed from Google, I was loyal and I was rewarded for my loyalty with consistently relevant results.

But has Google taken their quest for perfection a few steps too far? Case in point: www.jimmylerner.com - this web site is the official site of an author. Search on MSN for his name, “jimmy lerner” and his web site is the top result. Now, try the same search on Google. The top results are pages devoted to reviewing his book, book stores selling his book, a press release I sent out to announce his new site and a few times I’ve even seen sites show up in the top ten that simply have a link to his site from theirs and are completely unrelated. His site has been jumping from the second page to the first and back again.

This begs the question, optimization or no optimization, what, exactly, is the problem with a quality, informative web site reaching number one for a search query that is probably conducted specifically to find that exact site? Has the focus and aim of Google changed from offering relevancy to satisfied searchers to simply impeding the progress of SEOs? Is Google’s main concern now, to stop individuals from helping a site reach number one? It can seem that way, can’t it? And I can only say one thing about it. Bad move, Google.

I’ve heard a few people say that it’s just a transition period. That all web sites are in the same boat, everyone’s waiting to see the fruits of their optimization labour. Perhaps this is true, and perhaps over the next little while we will see changes at Google that make our jaws drop, impressed at the level of perfection we never thought possible. But I think maybe Google needs to re-focus their energies. Take the focus back to the user, not the SEOs. Get back to the near-impeccable relevancy level before I start using MSN to learn about all my favorite authors.

About the Author Courtney Heard is the founder of wwwabalone.ca Abalone Designs, a search engine optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. She has been involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped start several businesses since then in the Vancouver area. More of Courtney's articles are available at www.abalone.ca/resources/

Related Information of Interest:

The Benefits of Submitting Articles for SEO
There are millions of businesses in the world. Similarly, there are millions of web sites being used to promote each and every one of them. Some get lucky enough and always appear number one in search engines. However, most get archived in the last places customers will ever look for in a search engine. Clearly, luck can not be everything when it comes to giving your business the attention it needs. Itï¿½s a good thing thereï¿½s always SEO. Search Engine Optimization is the only way to go if you want your ads and web sites to stand out in the internet. SEO compliant articles will inevitably hit the right keywords at all times. This procedure comes from the meticulous task of picking out most probable keywords people from all over the world use in search of corresponding services. Through hitting as many keywords as possible, a certain website raises its ranking in various search engines such as Yahoo and Google. With this higher ranking, customers gain more accessibility to the site. As we all know, it is indeed very rare for people to check out web sites in the latter pages of search results. That is why articles need to be optimized by inserting the words with most hits in terms of customersï¿½ random typing preference probabilities. Through search engine optimization, a web site will earn higher in the engines and remains there as long as it is kept properly maintained. SEO companies also see to it that their clients are always on top of the results page. As such, you are guaranteed continuing surveillance of your siteï¿½s ranking day in or day out. They also have keyword generators which can spare you from the laborious task of assessing which key words need to be hit and which ones are futile to include in the article. It also allows writers to hit the taste of the masses which access the internet. Companies can now focus writing attractively for the keywords which sell the best. Other services rendered by sites can now be dissolved if the web isnï¿½t showing an interest for it, therefore eliminating deadwood in the business. With this wonderful innovation in web writing, each article will surely be given ample attention in terms of engine optimization and accessibility. The purpose of advertising and syndication will be fulfilled, instead of stagnating in a dark and shady area with abysmally low ranking positions.

Sandra Adams writes search engine related articles.To get free articles to display on your own site, please visit www.articletrader.com

Unique Content Is Your Key To Success!
As you search around this article site looking for articles to add to your website, consider this: there are probably 10 people like yourself doing the same exact thing. Not only are they doing the same exact thing, but they are probably looking at, and taking the same articles you are considering to add to their site.

Wow. That’s going to do wonders for your hopes to have search engines pick up these new articles and rank your site high in the search engine result pages (S.E.R.P’s). Forgive my brevity, but I was being sarcastic!

Shared articles may be good for putting together quick sites and heavily promoting the same article content that everyone else is promoting, but who are we kidding? Wouldn’t you rather have fresh content NOT picked over by everyone else? Of course you would. Now why should you pay for it when you’re staring at a free article site filled with 100’s of articles that you can use at this exact moment?

Because you CAN buy originality and have original content rank higher than the same old retread articles found over and over again on sites like this! Not only would you have a unique page indexed on the internet and crawled by search engines (sometimes daily), but if you had the right content service at your beck and call, you could be provided with professionally written content reserved for trade publications and offline magazines! There are 1000’s of professional writers out there on the Internet which are willing and able to write your next piece of web content.

Ok, so to go over the key points:
• Copied articles used over and over again- not so good since the search engines may pick up someone else’s copy of the same exact article. Cost effective since it’s free! You get what you pay for.
• Fresh, unique articles- very good usage since it gives the search engines something new to eat up! You get what you pay for.
• Do your research. Find a writer who is professional and understands your subject!

If you are wondering what the real world power of unique, keyword optimized website articles can do for you to drive traffic, just shoot me an email at articleauthors.net and ask me how well this article did for me.