Google is one finicky bitch!

[Rob]

I spent two weeks on a website design with all unique content, optimized PERFECTLY onsite, a nice social following, and on an aged domain. It's not ranking for shit. Out of 30+ pages, only one page is ranked in the SERPS on the first 10 pages - and it's on page two. I mean this site could be used for an example of how to perfectly optimize a site for Panda.

And then I have a five page site, minimal content, more photos than content, more competitive market than the site I first mentioned, and four out of five pages are 1/1 in the SERPS. WTF?!?! I did minimal work on that site and it ranks like they fucking have naked photos of a Google Exec with a lady boy in Thailand. And the other site, I just can't get that fucker to rank well at all.

Totally fucking baffled. And yes, I checked the history of the first domain, and it's clean. The prior owner never even configured a website on it. Left it at a splash page for his registrar.

[Sly]

Legitimate back links.

Regular updates.

Site map.

Patience.

[Colmike9]

Just making a website within their guidelines won't always get you to #1 by doing that alone, esp. in just 2 weeks.
First of all, what KWs are you trying to rank for?

[Rob]

Originally Posted by Sly

Legitimate back links.

Done. All uniquely written articles, didn't spin a damn thing. Submitted to web 2.0 blog sites with follow links. Backlinks are reported and have significant weight. No trash article submission sites, just quality, hand submitted unique articles and videos.

Regular updates.

I update that fucker every day with fresh content.

Site map.

Tested and submitted.

Patience.

Ain't no one got time for dat!

[Rob]

Originally Posted by Colmike7

Just making a website within their guidelines won't always get you to #1 by doing that alone, esp. in just 2 weeks.
First of all, what KWs are you trying to rank for?

I understand that, I've been doing websites and optimization since '96, I'd like to think I know what I'm doing. I've never had a site not index or rank in this amount of time. I'm not so concerned about #1, I'm more concerned why Google is acting like the site is sand-boxed, when it clearly isn't.

For this site, I'm using geo-localized key phrases. That's another think that is surprising me. It's not a competitive market at all. There are Cragslist ads, Yellow Page ads, and Facebook business pages on the first page for search phrases I'm targeting. If I can't get a content page before those, then something is wrong.

[Colmike9]

Originally Posted by Rob

I understand that, I've been doing websites and optimization since '96, I'd like to think I know what I'm doing. I've never had a site not index or rank in this amount of time. I'm not so concerned about #1, I'm more concerned why Google is acting like the site is sand-boxed, when it clearly isn't.

For this site, I'm using geo-localized key phrases. That's another think that is surprising me. It's not a competitive market at all. There are Cragslist ads, Yellow Page ads, and Facebook business pages on the first page for search phrases I'm targeting. If I can't get a content page before those, then something is wrong.

https://www.searchenginegenie.com/sandbox-checker.htm

I'm not sure what to tell you besides keep updating and see what Webmaster Tools is saying without looking at your site.

Tools like this used to work very well for me, does anyone know if backlink generators still help at all?
IMTalk.org - IMT Website Submitter

[j3rkules]

Gotta love google dance, huh?

[TheSquealer]

Funny how most of the Internet believes a search engine owes them something

[Rob]

Originally Posted by TheSquealer

Funny how most of the Internet believes a search engine owes them something

Please elaborate. I don't think anyone owes me a goddamn thing. I'm willing to work my ass off for what I have, and I have always done it that way. If they don't want to rank my sites, then that's up to them. But if I play by their rules and have had success throughout my professional career playing by their rules, then why is it wrong if I question this one time it doesn't work?

[j3rkules]

Originally Posted by TheSquealer

Funny how most of the Internet believes a search engine owes them something

[TheSquealer]

Originally Posted by Rob

Please elaborate. I don't think anyone owes me a goddamn thing. I'm willing to work my ass off for what I have, and I have always done it that way. If they don't want to rank my sites, then that's up to them. But if I play by their rules and have had success throughout my professional career playing by their rules, then why is it wrong if I question this one time it doesn't work?

I was more talking about the fact that since 1996, people have been trying to manipulate search result while complaining about the results of their attempts at doing so. People complain when search results change. People complain about every single thing a search engine does. A search engines goal is to make the person performing the search happy. Not to make the guy trying to breach into the top 10 results for "teen whore fucks monkey".

A simple fact which very very few seem to grasp is that every single site is related to every other site. When one moves up in results, others move down. Your question is not "why are all the sites above me, better results for the surfer", your question is "Google isn't. fair to me because I am not getting what I want, so what do I do". My suggestion would be that you focus on being the best result, not trying to rank for the result.

Be patient. This isn't 1998 and your well thought out meta tags aren't going to give you an edge and it's not going to happen overnight.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by TheSquealer

I was more talking about the fact that since 1996, people have been trying to manipulate search result while complaining about the results of their attempts at doing so. People complain when search results change. People complain about every single thing a search engine does. A search engines goal is to make the person performing the search happy. Not to make the guy trying to breach into the top 10 results for "teen whore fucks monkey".

A simple fact which very very few seem to grasp is that every single site is related to every other site. When one moves up in results, others move down. Your question is not "why are all the sites above me, better results for the surfer", your question is "Google isn't. fair to me because I am not getting what I want, so what do I do". My suggestion would be that you focus on being the best result, not trying to rank for the result.

You must have misread my original post because I don't recall myself complaining about the anything the search engines have or have not done. I was simply venting about techniques I've successfully used, techniques which include having the best, most up-to-date, and most relevant content not working for a particular site. You confuse personal discontent with my own efforts with complaining about the inefficiencies of a search engine algorithm. They don't owe me shit, I know this. I've met many Google employees and they make that alarmingly clear.

I have always optimized my sites by the mantra that content is king. And I still believe that. That's why I hand write all of my own content - I don't trust other with something so critical. I'm building a website based on the user, not the owner. I've gone to war with many clients in the past trying to explain to them why an element wasn't a good idea because of user experience. Looks are one thing, but if it hinders the user's experience, then it's trash.

By focusing on being the best, Google has always rewarded my sites by listing them high in the organic searches. I was simply venting on a forum I frequently use to release steam and reduce stress.

[Rob]

I went to a conference once and the keynote speaker was some Google manager. He went on to say that Google reached a net worth of over $1B without ever having a tangible product for sale. It simply "steals" other people's work and make money by making it easier to access the stolen property. Think about that for a minute. It's like me going into a neighborhood and stripping off all the house numbers. Then charging people at the gate x-amount of dollars to show them where house #232 is located.

So Google does owe me something.

[freecartoonporn]

regular updates and patience

[michael.kickass]

Especially patience.

[JuicyBunny]

Have you looked at the sites above you? What is different? How are they achieving it? Do you have a tool to see what you ARE ranking for? Maybe its close but not exactly what you are shooting for.

[Rob]

I've researched this all day and the only conclusion I've found that makes any sense is that Google has a "honeymoon" period for new websites. I'm pretty sure this is to keep the blackhat activity down and prevent people from building a scam site, using blackhat to quickly get it listed, and then dump it once people discover it's a scam.

The site that is listing really well has had a developed website for a couple years, I just rebuilt and then optimized a new version. The one that isn't ranking is a very new website. It's less than a month old.

Like everyone said, I just have to be patient.

[anexsia]

Just be patient I have some sites that started ranking well almost right away and then plenty of others that weren't ranking worth a shit and then after 2+ months or so I wake up to the traffic ramping up.

[arock10]

Over optimization is a thing

[mikeet]

Doesn't matter what you do sometimes, if google thinks your domain sucks thats how she'll treet it.

[officemike]

make sure all you images have alt="" and title="" atributes. Even your outbound links can have title attributes. Otherwise your images are just blank spaces on your site as far as the search crawlers are concerned.

[shake]

Originally Posted by Sly

Legitimate back links.

Regular updates.

Site map.

Patience.

Good advice. A great book I recommend reading is the "Art of SEO" well worth the price.

[itme64]

I give up google long time ago. Spending hours and hours with different approach for 14 years now.

In my opinion, It is more about luck then SEO. If anyone knows the key of success probably he don't have to work. Any guy telling me He, I am SEO specialist, fist question I ask is what car do you have. Most of them have small cars.

We run about 100 sites+ and every site have different look,feel and approach

• From sites without any banners and only content/title to well written text.
• Sites with highest speed for mr. google to the ones that have average speed.
• Responsive sites and mobile/desktop sites.
• Sites focuses on niche
• Different countries
• WP sites
• With links without links
• Different extensions from .Com to .tv from 14 years old to brand new.
• Text landing pages
• Different IP system and country systems

and yes they generate traffic but if you would ask is there a pattern i don't know.

Just check google now, here in Europe if you search most of time it gives results of google Books (yes with porn search) and guess what happens if you follow the link. It is redirected direct to dating sponsors.
Or did you already see results from your own sites in appspot.com ? Appspot is a product from Google. Looks like "spammers" are checking this how the can use it. We have a lot of sites results showing through Appspot in google. Click on results and see what happens.

I wonder sometimes if google knows themselves what happens after a update. The top keywords here in Europe are still aways from BlackHat SEO links in hacked WP sites.

But yes google thanks you give me "still" traffic and it is a privilege to work work for you. We all share

There are some point where we always focus on a new site. The category is really related to the content. In our opinion this is what google check first, how the category page is setup. New websites are always hidden for few weeks to have enough content there. And the discription above the fault is with good related text about the category. In the category page the user have the best experience to find what they want to see.

[mopek1]

Originally Posted by TheSquealer

A search engines goal is to make the person performing the search happy.

I'd disagree there.

In my experience a search engine's goal is to make themselves as much money as possible.

You need to give 'adequate' search results at a bare minimum of course. Google was simply better than the other SE's before they went public and so they dominated and now everyone is used to using google which is why they still dominate. Their search results are about par with bing - at least that's been my experience over the last few years - and not nearly as good as they used to be.

As for owing webmaster's something, I agree they don't when it comes to websearch but they do when it came to stealing bandwidth (google images) from webmasters, and taking webmaster content and displaying it themselves (in certain cases) instead of leading the surfer to the content source.

[mopek1]

Originally Posted by Rob

I've researched this all day and the only conclusion I've found that makes any sense is that Google has a "honeymoon" period for new websites.

That's my take as well.

It seems you did everything right and if you keep it up and it does generate interest and a good 'user experience' - I hate that phrase - then google will eventually notice.

Good luck with it and let us know how it goes.