This guest post is by Victor Solovey from Crazyxhtml 
Among the biggest love hate relationships I have had, the one with Google rates as the biggest.
One fine morning I get up and find that Google has done it again and my site has slipped down the ladder.
Obviously there can be no man more furious than me on this earth.
Some other glorious morning I get up to find my site occupying the heights of glory and I start loving Google all over again.
I especially love it when my competitor, who is known to use black hat techniques, gets the boot.
What’s it in Google that evokes such great emotions from me?
Looking at Google as your partner
I have been in the SEO scene for well neigh ten years and have seen the ups and downs, highs and lows of it. There was a time before Google when genuine guys like me never got to the first page of search results.
Everything used to be manipulated and keyword stuffing was the norm. Search was not big then. There used to be ten or more search engines out there.
Google got in and things changed. Search became big and stuffing was taken out of the bad guys. This was the time when my love bloomed with Google.
People like us could find a place in search results because Google found a way to get rid of rubbish. Search became democratic and the world was roses and wine.
And then the impossible happened. Google turned against simple guys like us, by creating a complex algorithm – terms like keyword density and backlinks were introduced. For me this was too much.
I write and write well. I provide great content. But I don’t understand 2% and stuff like that. In fact, keyword density started off at 8% and slowly spiraled down to 2% until finally it seems that there is no such thing at all.
Lessons learnt from my travails
SEO has been made to look more complex than what it actually is. You have to keep things simple and straight –
- Provide great content without bothering about keyword density. This is what Google wants you to do. Why fight against it? If you want to win over Google you must join it with your heart and soul. Fighting against it is of no use. I am not saying that Google search algorithm has no flaws. It has too many holes and I bet that it isn’t perfect. Hey, who said anything can be perfect. Is your GF perfect. Doesn’t she have flaws? Then why do you love her? If you can love her, with all her flaws, why can’t you love Google? This is simple logic. When you like someone you tend to give your best. When you align your goals with those of Google you will succeed. Period.
- This lesson is regarding backlinks. How many times has your mom told you not to be friends with so-and-so? “That boy is bad. Don’t mix with him”. This is what Google is telling you. You are known by the company you keep. If you take, or worse, buy backlinks from a bad neighborhood you will be penalized. If you have nice friend in reputed sites like .gov and .edu , you will be appreciated. It’s simple. Don’t go for link-wheel schemes and such since these are the bad guys in your neighborhood. It’s better not to have friends at all. Another lesson is not to make thousands of friends in a jiffy. It’s unnatural. You need time to build relationships. Google can sniff a rat when it sees a zillion backlinks created in a week. This action is sure to create suspicion.
Then came Panda, followed by Penguin
Suddenly last year Google upped the ante. Panda update started weeding out sites with poor content. One-page wonders which had mushroomed over the years started feeling the heat.
I saw that affiliate sites were targeted, which I still feel is wrong. Small businesses and individuals who earned their living through affiliates were mauled. Poor guys were only trying to earn a living.
I gather that Google is trying to eliminate competition and they only want AdSense to flourish.
I hate Google for this, but hey, I can’t really do anything about it. As far as Google is concerned, they claim that there would be some casualties and bystanders would get hurt in the shootout (what is famously termed as collateral damage)
With Penguin, Google has almost become a demon of sorts. With this update they claim that they will eliminate spam. In the process many genuine sites have been hit.
There seems to be a thin line dividing over optimization and spam. In my view Google has gone a bit too far with Penguin update.
What are the takeaways?
Once again, we have come full circle. As a website or blog owner, you must avoid getting into war between Google and big bad boys. The idea is to keep it simple.
You must provide great content on your site and you must be in good company. Avoid dubious SEO schemes which guarantee great search results.
To win over Google you must become their partner. You must overlook some of its flaws and focus on the good they are doing. Ultimately, it’s your blog you must worry about.
This guest post is by: Victor Solovey is the owner of crazyxhtml , where they do crazy stuff including psd to html and psd to css conversion. Victor is passionate about his work and also likes to write.
Image Credit: clicktube