There once was a time that simply adding relevant content to your web site would ensure high-ranking for applicable keyword phrases. The battle cry for SEO specialists and internet marketing gurus everywhere became “Content is king!” As more and more people rushed to add relevant content to their web sites to earn that coveted search engine traffic, content began to hold less importance in the algorithms that search engines use to rank a web page. Today, on-site content is just a factor, one that in and of itself carries little weight. But when taken into account with a host of other factors, such as the age of the domain and the number and relevance of inbound links, content is an important factor.

Unfortunately, like anything else, more than a few people have attempted to use this to promote their own web sites without actually doing any real work. Every single day, we find articles written by our staff posted on spam blogs by ill-informed SEO specialists who are attempting to promote their own pharmacy or gambling related web sites. They apparently have the idea that by simply copying content from our web site and other web sites, that they will earn tons of traffic overnight and their pockets will be stuffed with cash. In reality, it doesn’t work that way. The search engines are smarter than that.

Fresh, relevant content is a valuable asset because it encourages your visitors to stay longer and come back more frequently, and often, even link to your web site. It also encourages the search engines to rank your web site higher for relevant terms. The key here is fresh, relevant content. Simply copying someone else’s content is not going to help you improve your ranking, nor is adding large amounts of irrelevant content. Your focus should be on producing quality content on a regular basis, and over time your web site will begin to reap the rewards of your hard work.

Anyone that has any sort of experience with organic search engine optimization knows that links from other web sites are a large part of what causes one site to rank higher than another. For several years now, web site owners have been trying to increase the number of links pointing to their own web sites to improve their ranking. However, Google is now trying to put an end to this by devaluing all forms of paid links.

The benefit to this is that it has the potential to make the playing field more level again. On the other hand, it also has the potential to let your competitors squash your ranking by reporting you for paying for links ? whether or not you actually do.

Google probably won’t be making any major changes to their algorithm right away because it will still require a lot of testing before it can even come close to separating paid links from natural links, but it is definitely coming. When it does, you can expect a pretty heavy shake up with a lot of unhappy web site owners who have to scramble to compensate for lost traffic. So how can you avoid becoming one of them? Well, you can start by making sure that the majority of your inbound links are natural. By providing useful and relevant content or tools on your web site, other web site owners will link to yours and your natural links will grow over time. You can also work on becoming newsworthy. Media web sites, such as newspapers or television stations are typically considered authority sites, so a link from them can carry a lot of weight.

Like any other form of marketing, internet marketing, more specifically, search engine optimization requires a diversified approach. When you put all of your eggs in one basket you?re taking a huge gamble with the success of your business.

In a recent blog post (What does Google really owe you?) we commented on the Kinderstart v. Google lawsuit. As expected, the case has been dismissed.

Kinderstart is now attempting to enlist the help of other poorly performing web site owners to launch an equally frivolous class action lawsuit against Google for supposed defamation. Perhaps Kinderstart should focus on developing a solid marketing plan instead of wasting time, energy and resources in court.

Google now supports (though Microsoft has for quite some time now) the META NODP tag, which lets you opt out of the ODP title and description. The tag is below:

Google has updated their toolbar PR (PageRank). What does this mean for business owners? Nothing really, it’s just one of those “feel good” things for web masters and internet marketing people.

The latest Nielsen/NetRatings report ranking search providers by number of searches is in, and the lion’s share of queries again belongs to Google. An estimated 2.8 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, or 49% of all search queries in May. As usual, Yahoo followed in second place, with a meager 23% while MSN limps painfully behind, pulling in only 11% of the total search queries for the month.

The report is available in it’s entirety in PDF format here.

Not too long ago, Kinderstart, a parental advice web site, was in the media for suing Google over loosing their rankings, and as a result, loosing traffic and revenue. As part of their lawsuit, Kinderstart wants Google to reveal how it ranks web sites.

While this is (in my opinion) a frivolous and stupid lawsuit, it can teach business owners a valuable lesson about what happens when we rely too much on any one source of revenue for our business. This doesn’t just apply to the internet either. If all of your new clients come from your advertising in a particular magazine, and that magazine goes out of business or sells your advertising space to another advertiser willing to pay a higher price, where do you think that will leave you?

This doesn’t even touch on the fact that Google, and every other search engine is allowed to do what ever they want. If you managed to achieve high ranking for your web site, either by chance, or as the result of an effective SEO campaign, you should see it as gravy. They are not required or obligated to even list your web site, let alone list it on the first page. As their algorithms change, your web site may move up or down in the SERPs, but remember that their customers are the visitors using their web site to search for something, not the web site owners. If some guy started a business tomorrow called “The Good Business Bus” and drove passengers around to all of the local businesses that he felt were reputable, you would probably be pretty happy when he came by your business with his passengers. On the other hand, if his opinion of you business changed and he no longer stopped there with his busload of passengers, you probably wouldn’t try to sue him because you know you would have no legal ground to stand on. The Kinderstart/Google story is the same, unfortunately, Kinderstart hasn’t been bright enough to realize it yet.

Internet marketing and search engine optimization are necessary components of a complete marketing campaign, but you should never rely on them as your only source of new business.

Many businesses put all of their eggs in one basket when it comes to marketing, often because of their relatively smaller budgets and constraints on manpower. This can put you in an extremely precarious position in the event that something goes wrong. No single marketing medium is more prone to this than search engine optimization, or SEO. This is because despite the amount of work that you or your marketing company puts into your campaign, many external factors can adversely effect on it. If a search engine’s algorithm (the formula that determines the importance of a particular web page) changes, your ranking can plummet. Likewise, if one of your competitors pours a ton of money and manpower into their SEO campaign, they can often take your position in the SERPs leaving you with nothing but memories of the business you used to get from your web site.

While there is no way to completely stop things like this from happening, you can minimize the effect they have on your business by diversifying your marketing plan. Instead of relying solely on search engines to deliver prospects to you, add a few additional channels, such as networking, print advertising or email marketing. In doing so, you’ll have a more stable business model, sleep better at night, and generally run a more profitable business.

The Justice Department has ruled that Google’s complaint regarding the default settings for the search box in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7?do not violate their antitrust agreement with federal and state governments. Google claimed that the default settings in Internet Explorer favoring MSN Search would give Microsoft an unfair advantage. Ironically, this is exactly what Firefox?does for Google in their browser’s search box.

Google’s updated webmaster guidelines