Good Website Ranking Is No Freebie - It Must Be Earned

By Chris M Hunter

Great search engine ranking is what every internet business strives to attain, however it can best be found. The effort to earn a good position can be a full time job that demands a lot of ongoing attention. No wonder it happens time and time again that the attempt is made to 'outsmart' Google's algorithms, sometimes with disastrous penalty results. Thankfully Google tries to stay one step ahead of any less than honest methods and has continued to thwart such attempts, emphasizing that the only way to get and retain a good search engine ranking is to earn it the honest way. Like it or not, it will involve work, time, and conscientious effort.

Can Google Be Misled?

When the terms search engine optimization and ranking became a popular topic in the realm of website marketing, it was much easier to mislead search engines than it is today. People gained high positions with pages that included spam, duplicate content, and efforts that were essentially rigged to bypass any of the possible known checks that Google used at the time. While such an attempt did increase website visibility, rewarding such dishonest work with higher ranking and increased traffic eventually caught the eye of Google - and the result was increased efforts to stop such dishonesty from happening.

So with every new algorithm release, Google has made it increasingly difficult for websites that only seek high page position without providing actual value to succeed. This is important because while all those poorly made efforts were gaining rank, the well-made, informative ones were losing the page position war. Fortunately, the opposite is now happening as spam pages and those of little value are being weeded out. In turn, the real websites that have been well designed to provide quality information are rising to the top, the way it should be. By working hard within Google's rules, any legitimate website effort can earn a high ranking.

Page Ranking the Right Way

It is commonly agreed by most experienced IT managers that the best way to gain optimal page position is by creating a quality website with valuable, unique content that fulfills user needs and follows Google's recommendations on how to create and improve rank. Appropriate use of keywords can help, as does numerous other methods of search engine optimization; however, the main concern should be the quality of the content on each page. Websites that are well publicized through social media and other forums will generate traffic and natural back links of the quality that impresses Google and is usually rewarded with increased page rank.

The same can be said for websites that provide good products or services, have good customer service, and are able to show positive testimonials that attest to all of this effort. There are no shortcuts or sneaky tricks that work with Google anymore - and at this point, trying to outsmart the algorithms has resulted in many pages being banned altogether.

The lesson to be learned here is that there are no free gifts of good page rank today; any great position will definitely have to be worked for and earned - but this is a good thing. By getting all of the poor quality and spam pages out of the top results of the search results listings, those upper echelons of ranking are open to those who put in the necessary effort and will more easily see rewards for that effort. Keep websites informative and unique, featuring only well written, high quality content that appeals to desired visitors. Use normal optimization methods and better results will be seen than what would otherwise happen by trying to artificially alter the search results. So to paraphrase a saying from a popular movie: Build a pleasing, user friendly website, then recognition and ranking will come - naturally!

Chris Hunter is an expert in Web Design and Search Engine Marketing. To find out more about Houston SEO, go to the main website at:http://www.webunlimited.com.

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