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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Livebooks must be behaving now
Frank Niemeir, Photographer
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Woodstock | GA | usa | Posted: 3:11 PM on 04.13.10 |
| ->> Looks like Livebooks is behaving now and people's web pages are now showing once more when you do a Google search. Hope they learned their lesson in not trying to show Google something different from what they're tossing up onto the web. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 3:17 PM on 04.13.10 |
->> Really? Did you not read what livebooks themselves said on the topic?
Livebooks has changed NOTHING through this whole process. It's just the nature of organic search engines. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Phil Hawkins, Photographer
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Fresno | ca | usa | Posted: 3:34 PM on 04.13.10 |
| ->> Hi Israel, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but in all seriousness, what is an "organic search engine"? (Now for the irreverence); Can I put it on my salad? |
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Stephen Brashear, Photographer, Assistant
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Seattle | WA | USA | Posted: 4:28 PM on 04.13.10 |
->> Phil - An 'organic search engine' (I think more accurately it should be called organic search results) produces search results based on a proprietary algorithm, rather than having someone pay to be at the top of the search for 'Fresno Photographer.' Google does both. When you do a search for 'Fresno Photographer,' the first results after the map are organic, based on keywords, links to the site, frequency with which it is updated, etc. This excludes the ads that are marked as sponsored links, at the top and in the column on the right. And I'm a bit unclear about the map directory results. I think you sign up for that, but I'm not sure how it determines rankings.
And yes Phil, an organic search engine goes well with organic spinach, kumquat and kidney beans. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 6:17 PM on 04.13.10 |
->> Exactly, Stephen :)
The main thing that makes Google "organic" (and moreso than Yahoo or Altavista), is that the formula is constantly changing and being tweaked such that it evolves/grows more accurate over time. SEO experts constantly talk about this - there are well over 100 factors that Google takes into account when deciding how well a page ranks, and the recipe of how they go together is constantly changing.
This, unfortunately, means that while they're tweaking some segment of their algorithms (or maybe trying out a new genetic ranking technique), thinks get tweaky for a while - maybe disappears for a few days or weeks based on a couple of factors which weren't important before, but now are considered really important; later it gets balanced out and things go back to a more keyword-centric or link-centric approach again. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Dave Einsel, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Houston | TX | United States | Posted: 6:36 PM on 04.13.10 |
->> At the end of the day, I'm just happy to once again have my site show up #1 in a search for my name. I am not "James Smith" so I have a small advantage.
Three weeks of exile from Google was making me crazy and, I suspect, poorer. Even though my PhotoShelter, Linkedin, FB, Twitter, etc, etc and, of course, SportsShooter profiles were the top results, it was not the same as my site.
During the dark time, both liveBooks and Google continued to give boilerplate responses. This is probably because neither one really knew exactly what had happened. Considering there are nearly 250 million websites out there, it's possible.
Google made some change and a bunch of us got whacked. Something changed again overnight because almost everyone I am aware of were suddenly back in their top positions this morning. Was it liveBooks or Google? Maybe both. Only the shadow knows.
My big take away from all this is that SEO, especially for the small business person, is a voodoo woman named Phyllis. We are just trying to avoid getting stuck with the pin. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 9:02 PM on 04.13.10 |
->> The best thing you can do to avoid the voodoo needle, regardless of your own site, is to research SEO for a couple days, make sure you're keyworded decently, and gradually build links from other sites - whether it be newspapers, directories, yellow pages sites, etc. That way your search engine placement is less dependent on your own site.
For example, right now Google Local Listings is listing my old cell phone number right up there at the top, which is kind of annoying since I need to cut it off! But the reason it's doing that is because it's listed in so many different places that it's ignoring what I'm listing myself and listening to data from other sources. I guess in the long run it's not too bad of a problem to have :) |
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Derek Montgomery, Photographer
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Duluth | MN | USA | Posted: 7:13 PM on 04.14.10 |
->> The problems with disappearing sites appears to be back. Mine was back for 1.5 days and is now gone again along with most of the other people who were participating in the Livebooks forum thread.
Sorry to tell you Dave, but your site is gone again too--at least from my end. |
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Ron Vesely, Photographer
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Chicago Area | IL | USA | Posted: 11:33 AM on 04.15.10 |
->> Crazy... Up and normal Goggle rankings a day or so ago, today... gone again.
I hate how Google has the world tied up and dependent on living within their "proprietary" world!
Bing seems to work just fine for now... I'm gonna use it more often, just because...
And it seems more people are using it, based on "Google Analytics" returns.
I'm sure things will eventually stabilize, but the last month has not been a very fun stretch, web wise. All we can do is wait it out, unfortunately. BUT, in the meantime, go out and get an HTML presence up and running asap, which I did via my new blog/PhotosShelter archive site http://www.vesphoto.net using Word Press. It has already, within one week of creation, brought in a few nice nibbles.
As Allen mentioned in earlier posts, don't depend solely on one platform (flash), or you are at the mercy of "who knows what". I couldn't agree more. |
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