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Listen to anyone who remotely knows anything about search engine optimization and you will hear all kinds of strategies and tips on getting high rankings. Time, however, is rarely mentioned.
Time and Search Engine Optimization
When it comes to search engine optimization [“seo”], there are many ways to achieve your goals. Different strategies work in different situations. Some people use articles such as this to build links like mad while others disavow the strategy. Others will opine to the high heavens about keyword density analysis, keyword phrase research and so on. I should know because I do it as well. Get a few beverages in me and I can put you to sleep in 10 minutes flat with my yammering. Guaranteed!
One factor that is not really discussed is time. When it comes to seo, time is an element that matters. What does time mean? It simply means the longer a site is up and indexed by the search engines, the better it will rank. This is particularly true for Google, which seems to give a lot more weight to the age of the site these days.
I decided to write this article because time is not a subject raised by many people in seo. Why not? Well, there isn’t much you can do about it. You can’t really speed it up. Since there isn’t any way to tweak the time element as a part of a strategy, it is never mentioned. It should be, however. For people that are just starting out, time is something you have to take into account.
When building a new site, most of us rush to get it indexed as quickly as possible to get the sandbox delay with Google kicked into gear. The sandbox is just an artificial mechanism Google uses to avoid ranking any new site for six to nine months. Most people understand this now, but nobody really talks about what happens when the hated sandbox period ends. Simply put, your site may shoot up to the top 10 for your keywords. Then again, it may not. Often, it will shoot up, but only to the 15th position or so. Does this mean you have done something wrong? Probably not. If you are pursuing a popular keyword phrase, it can take time for your listing to crawl up from the teens to the every valued top five ranking. As your site ages like fine wine, it will continue to move up.
A few years ago, I started doing the seo for a site in the travel industry. After waiting for the sandbox period to run, the listing appeared at the number 17 position in Google. I groaned. Over the next four months, it slowly moved up to the number 11 position. ARGGGG! I still have scars on my forehead from banging my head on the desk. Well, since I am telling you this, you can assume it continued moving up. It now sits at number 3 and the site is 3 years old. The seo strategy was never changed. The only thing that did change was time.
If you are pursuing seo for your own site, it is important to keep in mind that time is a factor in getting high rankings. This is particularly true if you are going for highly competitive keywords. If you don’t pop out of the sandbox at number one on Google, don’t panic. Just keep doing what you are doing. Time will often take care of the rest.
About The Author
Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - an internet marketing firm in San Diego.
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