There are some people in the search engine optimisation industry who seem to suggest in their advertising that not only can they get your site to the top of a particular search, having done that, your site will stay at the top of the list for that search.

I am not at all sure this is a fair promise.

Last year Google sent a lit of sites down the lists and although they had a pause at the end of the year, I don’t think they have finished.

Indeed as a result of Google changes some sites have lost 50% of their income – but there is a solution. It is called a “complete make over” of the site.

This involves taking out poor articles that seem just to be there to take the site up the search engines. Indeed anything that seems to exist just for the benefit of search engines needs to be questioned in my view.

Likewise a site that is packed solid with adverts and links is likely to drive readers away, and it is just possible that one or two people will eventually write to a search engine to complain about the site being top of the list.

What you should do however is not only update and develop your content continuously, you should also check for all the links on your site and make sure they are working.

Finally absolutely avoid pushing lots of key words into a site, just to get up the ranking. It is a simplistic trick, and like all simplistic tricks, Google et al are used to it. Key words should always be used meaningfully within the content.

In short, more and more sites that try to trick Google are coming unstuck. Good links in and out, good and helpful articles, and lots of them, and a site that is regularly updated, are what Google likes.

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Tony Attwood

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