Revising Your Site - What Happened To My Search Engine Placement?
By Martin Lemieux
Posted Thursday, July 22, 2004
As of September, Smartads went through what so many have done before. I changed the entire site. I knew what it meant. It means that your search engine placements your probably so proud of are probably going to be lost in the process.
Sad but true. See, search engines are getting smarter, not only are they getting smarter but they do what you do. When you change a design, typically you change it for a couple of reasons.
1. You don't like the design anymore
2. You've learned knew tips on how to optimize your site better for search engine placements.
3. Your revising your services
4. You baught an old domain name
Whatever it may be, you're changing something. Now it won't happen right away but eventually, if your site already has a good search engine ranking, then search engines will find out what you've done.
But "se's" aren't human? That's correct but they were built by humans. Most se programmers realize that eventually something changes and since they want their search engine to be the best, they try to recognize your changes right away but there's only one problem.
What do they do with the listings you have right now? Well, let's say for instance you are attempting to change everything for the better.
Now let's also say that you HAD a page title called "good rank". Search engine's previously know and still think that your page is all about "good rank". Moving along, your new page information is about "Getting a better rank". Your old placements are now wrong in the eye's of search engines. They now realize that something has changed. So what are they going to do?
Dump your old listings and start over! Ouch is right. So why would you ever want to change your site if that's the case?
Well here's some food for thought: Yes, you may loose your existing rankings but your roots are growing. Your new pages are growing bigger and better than before, it just takes a small transitional period to take effect.
For instance, within Google, Smartads had over 580 pages found when looking at all the links to smartads. Since we changed the whole site, there was a 2 day period were none of them were listed anymore. Normally, I would of gotten scared right away if I didn't know that my site had changed.
Not 4 days later, not only were my pages back but the old rotten pages that weren't being used anymore got dumped and the many new pages got listed. All in all around 680 pages now. That was a jump of around 100 pages were added. Cause and effect.
Here's another example for you. Most of us know about link popularity within Google. You've put all your effort into promoting your main page. Within all of the links that you've had placed on other sites, you gave your link title "Great Ranking Services". Once google saw your link, it started looking to see whether your information on your site is relevant to "Great Ranking Services" and awarded you appropriately.
Moving along a little, you've not only changed your site but you've also changed your link title to better fit the new content on your main page. The new link you now add on other sites reads something like this; "Boost Your Search Engine Rankings".
Before you changed your site, you got a GREAT rank for "Great Ranking Services" when people searched online.
Here's the catch. Now that your promoting a new site, a new page, new content within your page, the old content relavance goes straight down the drain. Search engines have recognized that everything has changed and are not paying any attention to your old links anymore. Yes, they still help your link popularity, but they don't help your content relevance.
See, search engines are consistently trying to improve their content relevance. That's what people want. If they search "gidgets & widgets", they expect to get the best results for "gidgets & widgets".
In Conclusion:
If you plan on changing your site, be prepared to suffer for a small amount of time. Prepare yourself for the worst because the best is yet to arise and prevail.
I understand that we all want better search engine rankings and just be ready to do what ever it takes, even if it means loosing your old se placements for some newer, fresher ones.
I hope you enjoyed my article, for more of my articles, simply follow the link below!
Best of luck to you!
About The Author
Martin Lemieux
Smartads - President
(http://www.smartads.info)
Affordable Web Design & Web Site Marketing
(http://www.flyinggelatingames.com)
ASES - Affordable Search Engine Ranking Services
(http://www.toyshows.ca)
Canadian Toy Shows and Toy Collections For Sale
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