Get and Keep A Good Search Engine Position

©2005 by eibhlin morey macintosh

To secure and keep a good ranking at Google, study how Google works. Apply tried-and-true rules for the best search engine placement.

Google's "sandbox" is where most new sites wait until they show enough longevity to be worth including among top-ranked pages at Google. According to many search engine consultants, this is about six to eight months, on average, as of April 2005.

But, Google recently filed a patent on its unique algorithms for how it ranks sites. Here are some details from Section 0128 of their patent:

"A significant change over time in the set of topics associated with a document may indicate that the document has changed owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor text, etc., are no longer reliable.

"Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate spam. For example, if a particular document is associated with a set of one or more topics over what may be considered a 'stable' period of time and then a spike occurs in the number of topics associated with the document, this may be an indication that the document has been taken over as a 'doorway' document.

"Another indication may include the disappearance of the original topics associated with the document. If one or more of these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text, or other data associated the document."

In other words, once your site is well-ranked at Google, make website changes very slowly.

If you're adding new topics, add them over a period of weeks. If you're changing keywords, change just a few here & there.

Broad, radical, site-wide changes can make you look like a spammer to some search engine 'bots. If this happens, you might be back in Google's "sandbox" for several months. That will defeat what you've accomplished so far.

Keep your site focused on one theme. Add content pages so that your site remains cohesive.

If you're thinking of expanding your website to include some new (and very different) topics, set up another domain for each new topic instead. Domains and hosting are cheap at www.GoDaddy.com.

For more on the sandbox, read Blog Business World's sandbox entry.