The ultimate solution is in two parts, and is simple: 1. STOP DOING SEO FOR GOOGLE, rely more on Yahoo and Bing. Google's share of all search engine traffic is about 69-70%, Bing's share is about 18%, Yahoo is about 12-13% (at least according to some recent searchenginewatch columns I've seen). If more internet markers concentrated on optimizing their sites for this other 30% of search traffic, they would get only 42% of the traffic they could get from Google, but it would certainly be more steady, long term traffic, and not subject to the algo change per minute nonsense big G puts us through. It would also mean most of the perfectly sound, quality SEO tactics people have used for years would not have to be suddenly ditched, due to Matt Cutts declaring they were now deemed to be "spam" by Google. 2. RELY MORE ON NON-SEO, NON-RANKING METHODS for getting targeted traffic. 3 out of 4 people find a site through search engines, while the fourth visitor finds it through related links they click through. Human click-through traffic are achieved through video marketing, forum marketing, Yahoo Answers, Google news and press releases, Wikipedia external links, Twitter and FB type social media links, related articles (from either sites or directories) and so on. Done in combination, this can easily replace the traffic Google delivers for most niches. Do steps 1 and 2 together, and we can all kiss the monopoly goodbye.
I think so and I found currently it's hard to keep up with how Google evolve. Changing rules constantly is absolutely a pain in the ass. I can't even get a site properly into the ranking.
Interesting thing I learned recently... For my eCommerce business I now focus almost exclusively on Bing for search engine traffic. I can fight and struggle to get on page two of Google for a relevant keyword and get maybe 20 hits a day for that keyword, or I can have a much easier time optimizing for Bing and getting first place for that keyword with less competition, and get 50 hits a day. Just because Google is the largest, does not automatically make it the most obvious choice. If I am starving, I would rather catch fish in a pond with a spear than try taking a trawler out into the Atlantic with an expensive crew and no guarantees.
Exactly what rules have they changed? I do not know of any. All they have done is make the algorithms better at detecting and penalizing for stuff they said you should not be doing. i
If that were actually the case, the adult industry would not be seeing hundreds of tube site with pirated, shallow content beating them for each and every single search term. I have worked with numerous adult companies who have all experienced exactly the same thing - their unique and original content is pushed back to page 10, while thieving pirates and tubes with nothing on a page but a video are constantly swamping the first three pages. If Google was actually doing what it says it wants to do, this would not still be happening.
Here's a list of changes Google made, just in 2013: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-algorithm-updates-2013-list
From my perspective, it seems that it doesn't matter how much great content you have on your site in the adult business, you will always be thrashed in Google by sites that have thousands of links in, and thousands of hits a day. In this case, popularity is all a site needs to completely destroy actual VALUABLE content as dictated by Google. So, this tells me that the best way to get to first place in Google is to buy traffic to inflate your perceived popularity, while building potentially thousands of links in. If Google doesn't want people to do this, perhaps it should be enforcing its own damn rules across the board and stop promoting high traffic sites solely because they're high traffic.
and exactly how do you optimize one search engine over another? (I build quality backlinks, google will either pick them up, or they wont, and so will other engines, but I am unclear how you optimize for more traffic on one search engine over the rest of the search engines)
Bing looks for different signals to Google, it's slight, but once you know the subtle differences and what you need to do to please Bing things are much easier. I am ranking in first place on Bing for several keywords that I have targeted, while on page three or four in Google for that same term. It's about competition also; if ten people in the same field are all vying for that one top spot on Google the chances of coming in late and getting anywhere near that is unlikely. Bing, on the other hand, doesn't have that same level of competition because most are not trying to work out how to please Bing at all, they're all too busy fighting amongst themselves to get in Google's mythical graces.
Algorithm updates do not equal guideline changes. Their position has not changed on link schemes, but instead the algorithm has improved in enforcing them, just as Agent000 wrote. Bing is not as good at detecting link schemes/spammy links, so it's easier to rank.
Really? That's not the only difference. Relevancy of the surrounding content for links is also far more important to Bing than it is to Google.
I ask for the third time: What rule changes have they made? They are just algoirthm changes aimed at better detecting "rules" that they already had in place. therein is the problem. "You" building links is against Google's guidelines; it always has been. They just getting better at policing their guidelines with algorithm changes.
Not really. A site I used for a (spam) case study is ranked #5 in Bing. Content surrounding links? What content in a lot of cases, or others it's plain crap. It is position nowhere to be seen in Google. Oh, and number #3 in Duck Duck Go. Google seems to have handled the situation way better than any other SE.
I couldn't agree more with the Google monopoly over the internet searches. It does appear that Google will continue to be that way until Yahoo or Microsoft will do something about their search engines.
The constant changes of Google's algorithms can be frustrating. In fact, it did cause our company to have to take better heed about the kind of content we post. However, I'm glad that this search engine has high standards. It forces website owner to make sure they put up high-quality information and not just spammy ads. I say if you use common sense when posting on your blogs and sites, you'll do fine.
The link leads to something called an article, and the article explains the rule changes Google has made (and decisions made to adjust the algo to devalue certain sites with X elements, are also rule changes). The Google 'monopoly' is really only one affecting half of visitors reaching niche sites---out of 100 people browsing a topic, 25 may get to a niche site via link throughs from related sites, about 50 get there through Google, and 25 through Bing/Yahoo. Since at least one half are not getting to sites via Google when the total picture is considered, what accounts for this vice-like mental hold big G has on us as the be-all and end-all of web marketing?
Agent000 --- I sure do. I don't literally mean that Google exclusively owns or controls the internet. I was just saying that Google, somehow, monopolizes the internet search simply because that's what most people do. Majority of people use Google. Where's the fail with that?
What a load of nonsense. Google only has a 66% marketshare. Epic fail. Time too go back to school and learn economics 101.