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Diary of a Google Gazumpee by: Heidi Perry Back in November, when the Google Dance began, Barry Lloyd of makemetop.co.uk wrote an article entitled 'Been Gazumped by Google?' GAZUMPED! What a wonderfully descriptive term. In fact, it succinctly describes what happened to us when our website went from #1 to oblivion a few months ago. We were gazumped, swindled, cheated out of what was rightfully ours. Okay, who's to say what search engine position rightfully belongs to anyone. I mean, let's face it, getting to the top of the search engines for coveted keywords is really just a crap shoot, isn't it? Or is it? The SEO Cycle... We've been at this internet game for a long time, a decade, in fact. Dinosaur days! We don't pretend to be search engine experts, it's not our forte. Nevertheless, we have been around long enough to see some patterns emerge. Here's a recurring pattern we've observed in Search Engine Optimization: 1) The SEO experts research and make claims of what works to get a website to the top of the search engines. 2) It works for a time, and websites implementing their tactics move up the ranks. 3) Eventually, the algorithms change, and websites gain or lose rankings. 4) SEO experts make adjustments, then back to step one in the cycle again. Around and around we go like mice on the optimization exercise wheel. Furthermore, we do not foresee any chance of stepping off of the optimization wheel for years to come. From our experience, as long as search engines exist, the algorithms will always change, and the SEO experts will always have a job. But, is Search Engine Optimization really necessary? To Optimize or Not... If you've set up a flow of traffic to your website outside of search engines, there really is no need to optimize. However, if you want search engine traffic, you'll need to step onto the wheel. Furthermore, you need to know there's some pretty fierce competition riding the same wheel. But, be forewarned. Once you step onto the wheel, it will become part of your regular marketing exercise. Is search engine traffic worth stepping onto the endless wheel? Marketing experts tell us all the reasons why search engine traffic is targeted. But, let's put that aside for a moment and talk about real-world experience for a minute. In the past 10 years, our websites have received traffic from every imaginable source. But, you want to know about search engine traffic, right? We'll give it to you straight. Search engines have sent us some of our best customers. A significant number have stayed with us for years, and a surprising number have made purchases on their first visit - direct from the search engines. Now, with this is mind, perhaps you can understand why we have felt gazumped after losing a significant amount of search engine traffic. So, what exactly happened to us? Dancing With Google... For years, we have been building a professional community where home-based entrepreneurs can network with one another and find the resources they need. As a clearinghouse of information, it has been a real task to organize the thousands of pages of information and make it user-friendly. We had been #1 on Google for years for the coveted term 'home business,' among other terms. As such, we enjoyed traffic that brought us a significant number of customers and subscribers. Traffic and sales grew consistently for those years. Our Alexa rating showed the continued growth by going from a ranking of '30
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