I last made an entry on this page:  11/25/2004 07:29 PM

SERP University SEO Blog

 Our Climb up the SERP's (Search Engine Result Pages)
 or
 Search Engine Optimization as close to real time as it gets

It's been awhile. Well, I have been busy to say the least. The success in my internet endeavors has resulted in a full time Internet Marketing and Design Business, 724 Design. It seems there are plenty of small business folks out there who have gotten miserable results from their web sites. We are enjoying great success revamping web sites which have little or no traffic and we are also implementing really successful Pay Per Click Campaigns to drive targeted traffic to our clients.

Why did the "Florida Update" Miss Us?

Google "Florida Update" Has Web Masters Reeling

You ever get too much of a good thing? Search Engine Optimization experts world wide woke up to a much different world on November 16, 2003.  A subject of much conjecture and hypothesis, the so called Florida Update on Google has devastated many web sites just in time for Christmas. The SEO community had done its' homework, figuring out the way to get high search engine placement on Google by following some basic principles. If you optimized your content and liberally sprinkled some well-researched keyword phrases through the content, if you put plenty on those keyword phrases in your Alt-Image Tags, if you used H1 and H2 header tags frequently, if you interlinked different domains you owned and if you freely participated in a link exchange program with little regard for the quality or content of those sites; chances are your web site has vanished from the Top 10 or maybe from the Top 100. The practices were not unethical but it is obvious Google consider it as "spamming".

At this time, there are thousands of theories floating around as to what the new algorithm consists of and how best to regain those lost search engine placements. Give Google credit!  Evidently there are multiple factors involved in this algo change and the search engine gurus and statisticians are reduced to just scratching their heads trying to figure it out. The first thing I did was visit the source , Google's Information for Webmasters.  While webmasters in the past have liberally interpreted this guideline, I am sure more folks will be scrutinizing it closely now.What else to do?

1. If you have pages with high keyword density-- take a look at them again! If the pages read awkwardly, if the keyword phrase placement is obvious they need to be revised.

2. If your Alt image tags are stuffed with keywords, get them out of there and use the tag for what it was intended-- a description of the image.

3. If you have links to multiple domains that you own, domains that share the same server and domains that list the same owner, rethink that strategy. In most cases, the domains are linked to benefit your search engine rankings and not your visitor. Google says that is not a good practice.

4. If you exchange links with websites in "bad neighborhoods" with little regard to the sites content or relevance, rethink that program also.

5. Content has always been king. My pages that had lots of ad copy that was focused on a central subject were little affected by the update. I have always been wordy and pages with more than 1000 words are not uncommon.

6. If you use doorway pages, dynamically generated trash content pages, cloaked pages, hidden text or re-directs. chances are you have been caught (or soon will be)  and that is well deserved! I would like to see you banned from Google permanently!

Should you go out and revamp your entire site?  I don't think so! Wait and see how Google settles down and what the new criteria is., tweak your site a bit according to the suggestion I have listed above and wait it out.

Google Changes the Way it Searches

Google has effected a major change in the way it returns search engine results. Many folks are upset by these changes. Websites that had maintained Top 10 results for years in some case are now nowhere to be found. Directories and Index sites have taken their places in many cases. Major shakeups in Google are usually given a name and this one is being called the "Florida Update". It appears Google has changed its' search engine algorithm in a major way!  You can read an exhausting discussion of the whole thing HERE.

What does the future hold? I would recommend just taking a wait and see attitude. Google has done this before and then reverted back to the old way of doing business. There are theories and conjectures flying all over the internet but NO ONE except Google knows exactly what is going on --and they aren't telling!  Perhaps they are trying to improve their SERP's due to pressure from MSN and Yahoo. I expect those services to offer much improved search engine results pages in 2004.

Go Daddy Claims Hosting Problem Is Resolved

GoDaddy.com is claiming their hosting problem with Google has been resolved. You can read the thread HERE.  I have not seen any change in my Google SERP's yet with my sites which are still hosted there.

GoDaddy.com is the Black Hole of Web Hosting

If you are into pain and suffering, duplicate this experiment. I have a website at www.selfemployedweb.com that has seen better days. It is among the first five or so websites I did and it has grown sort of old and stale. I was hosting it on earthlink.net and it was pretty pricey. In light of everything that has been going on with Go Daddy, I decided to do an experiment.

On 11/13/03, selfemployedweb.com showed 48 listings in Google. Average traffic was about 50 visits per day and I got 5-10 leads a week off this site. Not bad considering I haven't really touched the site in months. I moved the hosting to Go Daddy on this date. 6 days later, I have 23 listings in Google BUT only 3 listings actually have ANY content. The rest are bare URL's. I had ZERO visitors yesterday and only 3 the day before. All appear to be coming in from linked sites. No leads for the last 4 days.

Now what does this mean? It shows, unequivocally, that Go Daddy has a HUGE problem!  A change of DNS to Go Daddy and NOTHING else caused this website to literally vanish from the Google search engine results pages in the space of a week. A small business person such as myself cannot afford a loss of income such as this!

The problem was first discovered almost 5 weeks ago and I see no progress being made at all as far as Go Daddy fixing the problem.  It absolutely boggles my mind to think about the thousands upon thousands of web sites which have got ot be affected by this Go Daddy problem.

Go Daddy still doesn't have it together!

GoDaddy.com  is ruining my business

Want  to do EVERYTHING right and still lose your shirt? Use GoDaddy.com to host your web site!  4 weeks ago I had multiple top listings on Google for each and every web site I owned. 3 weeks ago, you couldn't find my listings anywhere!  I didn't change a thing -- not one thing and all of a sudden I noticed ZERO traffic from Google overnight! I contacted Google first to see if I was being penalized - they wrote back almost immediately and told me that no, I was just partially indexed. What?  Looking at the Google SERPS, I had dropped from 111 listings to 12 listings. Those 12 listings were ONLY simple URL's -- no description at all! To my horror as I checked the other dozen web sites I was responsible for, they also showed just the minimal URL listings for a fraction of the previous page listings. In the space of time it took Google to update their index, all the hard won gains had been wiped out.  I was at a loss for the cause.

My next step was to check with the experts at the I Help You forums. You can read the complete thread HERE.  After about a week of research I think I have come to the root of the problem. Go Daddy has made some change that is preventing GoogleBot from indexing the pages it crawls correctly. I emailed Go Daddy and asked about this and was told there was no problem and "if" there was, it was Google's problem and I should check with them. A week later, after a very threatening email, GoDaddy replied that there WAS a problem (duh!) and they were working closely with Google to resolve it. Just this past evening I received a phone call from Nick at Go Daddy (give them credit for that). He had read my posts in the thread on I Help You and seen fit to call. The conversation boils down to this--- GoDaddy has a problem. They don't know what it is or how to fix it. It is also affecting the GoDaddy site in the same fashion so they have managed to shoot themselves in the foot too. I felt like I could not wait ANY longer for them to resolve the problem. I have moved most of the sites to different hosts -- most of them to Infinology and Yahoo Small Business.  In the meantime, I have lost a month's worth of business as have some of my clients -- and right at a critical time before the holiday shopping season.  Hopefully, we will get back into the listings quickly.

I made some additions to our Resource library you may find useful:

Top MSN Listings Are Easy - Step by Step Process to gain top listings on MSN, Inktomi and HotBot.

Website Design Basics - Initial Website Design  - Combine Search Engine Optimization, Credibility and Image. Do some simple homework and your business website will prove to be an asset instead of a useless expense.

Website Design Resources - Free Website Design and Search Engine Optimization Resources that I have found useful.

MSN Search Engine results had a recent hiccup that remains unexplained. Overnight, my serp's went from Top 5 down to the 175+ range. It is discussed in the IHelpYou forum here. Speculation about Looksmart being out of the mix and MSN positioning itself for a run at Google are rampant. As of 10/22, the listings were restored to their former positions - for the most part. The hiccup lasted about 16 days.

I came across this in one of the many newsletters I receive: