If you are like me, then you’ll try to take as many things into account in order to ensure success of your web business activities. This can be very difficult when you’re working on a subject that is, to a certain degree in flux. I am referring to search engine optimization.

I call seo ‘in flux’ because we know many factors that are important for achieving good search engine positioning, but at the same time it’s always the question when and how the current situation, in regard of how rankings are calculated might change or which things Google and other search engines plan to penalize you for.

When you’re a web entrepreneur or a web professional, and you have a reasonable amount of knowledge of how things on the web work you’re always thinking of ways to get ahead. This means that most of the time you balance on the edge of what’s acceptable and what’s not. So how do you draw the line, and where do you draw it ?
It seems to me that the best way to get the most effective results in search engine optimization is to include common sense into the equation.

I’m going to provide you with some tips and conclusions (based on common sense) that I came up with and which I like to fall back on while working on web projects.Keeping these factors in mind makes it easier for me to make decisions.

Hopefully, this post will also offer some of whom are struggling with seo some helpful insights. If you, the readers have a ideas for some more points, then I’d love to hear them as well.

But now, let’s get to it …

Keep monitoring & tracking - introduction of algorithm changes
It highly likely that search engine algorithm changes are introduced gradually on purpose. There are several reasons for this. First of all, the effects need to be tested on a small scale and second, the SE’s don’t want to change the complete search results landscape overnight. That would result in tremendous problems in a business medium as large as the internet.

For you as the search engine optimizer this means that if you keep monitoring your seo results consistently you might notice small changes as a result of new implementations from the search engines.

Realizing that changes might be tests or gradual introductions of new technology gives you the time to adapt your seo strategy accordingly. If you don’t you’ll be left behind when the wave hits the beach.

One example of gradual introduction is the Google page rank update. Suddenly bloggers started announcing that their pages had dropped in rank while they couldn’t figure out why. A hunt for the reasons why Google would be penalize particular blogs showed that the page rank algorithm update is focussed on blogs that are selling links. Google seemingly doesn’t like this. IMO they probably have commercial reasons ;). For anyone interested, there’s good article on search engine land which discusses the page rank update. Read it here.

Spreading the risk - optimize in as many ways as possible
Above I wrote that a gradual introduction of a new technology can give web site owners time to adapt their seo strategy. I’d like to add that many blogs and sites drop tremendously in their rankings after even a slight change in algorithm.

This sudden drop in rankings is usually due to the fact that the search engine optimizer has focussed their entire strategy on only one or a few aspects of seo. For instance content optimization but no link building at all (or the other way around). This means that if something changes in the way a search engine rewards link building, it will seem to have a bigger effect on the rankings because it’s exactly that part that they are relying heavily on for search engine placement.

Note : There are also reasons for ranking drops that are not specifically related to search engine ranking factors. This seems to be the case in regard of the Google page rank update, as a result of which Google penalizes blogs and sites that sell links.

Optimize your web pages in as many ways as possible at the same time is a risk reducing factor. You could for instance decide to attract incoming links in order to build rank, while introducing optimized content at the same time. Spreading risk is an important part of running any business.

Search engines (SE’s) are people orientated - use this knowledge wisely
This means that since the service of search is directed to people, they are constantly trying to adjust their algorithms in order to provide results that are most relevant to people. If you keep this point in mind while combining this with known factors of search engine optimization you are automatically planning ahead. Search engines are probably working on some technology that is supposed to deliver more relevant search results to people as you read this.

For example : LSI, or Latent semantic indexing. A technology that Google supposedly (not sure) uses in order to make their results more relevant to people. It’s a technology that analyzes relationships between a set of documents and the terms in it.

Simply said, if implemented, Google would be more effectively pairing related subjects that are relevant to each other, so that it can return the most relevant results for a search. If you were to search for ‘real estate search engine optimization’ you might also get other results that are very related to that particular subject.

Note : There’s no proof that it’s implemented, but on the other hand, a large amount of people have noticed differences in their SEO results which indicate a possibility.

Common sense - your life line on slippery slopes
As mentioned above, search engines try as best they can to supply search results which are relevant to people. Google, Yahoo! and other SE’s are constantly working on technologies that will enhance their search results. I’ve feel that using common sense while optimizing pages is the best thing in order to get the best rankings while keeping myself out of trouble.

For example, if you are writing articles and over-optimize, then the Google might think you’re spamming, but if you write naturally and are knowledgeable of the topic then you’ll automatically include the correct keyword phrases in your content. Writing naturally first and then adding extra optimization works much better then trying to write a totally optimized article in one pull !

Logic doesn’t stop there of course. If you have a big budget for promoting your web site or blog and you buy a 100 incoming links in a very short period of time then it’s easy for a search engine to decide that you got these links in an ‘unnatural way‘, and since the mission is to provide people with relevant search results you are ‘distorting’ these results. This is when you get ‘penalized’. This penalty can for instance be that you will loose search engine ranking for certain keywords.

I believe that this is what happened to john chow. I don’t know what he did exactly because I didn’t follow what he was doing at the time, but if I let my common sense run wild then he must have thought of some creative way to receive a huge number of links to his blog in a very short time. Google doesn’t like this. I can tell you that my experience in programming tells me that it might be possible for Google’s algorithm to automatically detect such an idea and crack down on it. If that wasn’t the case then, it surely could be now.

B.t.w. I’ve written a long article that gives a good example of how creative ideas can make you reach certain goals in web business. But again, always use common sense. The post is called strategic seo - building an optimal keyword attack formula for bloggers. You can find an example in part 4.

It comes down to the fact that you always have to keep in mind that Google is constantly on the lookout to find unnatural things indicating that a person is trying to ‘manipulate’ their search engine rankings in some way. I believe the best way to avoid problem is common sense.

Final thoughts
Keeping these logic points in mind has made it easier for me to make decisions in regard of my of seo strategies and the ideas I want to execute. Though the points made in this post are really logic and understandable. The problem most of the time is keeping yourself from using tactics that are supposed to ‘help’ your rankings but are disliked by Google. It’s up to you to decide how far you take your tactics, but I strongly believe that logic and common sense will help you keep withing what’s acceptable and as a result be more successful in the long run.