And Google Keeps On Dancing

LOL. Just L-O-freakin-L.

In a recent article, I talked some about how Google can (and does) make SEO and getting good ole organic, FREE traffic a pain in the ass. And judging by some of the email I got, Im not the only one who thinks this.

In fact, I actually closed with the comment that So the next time youre pulling your hair out wondering exactly just what you should be doing in your SEO efforts, you can take comfort in knowing youre not the only one who doesnt knowbecause Google probably doesnt even know either.

(I sure hope the Google spiders didnt read that and report me to the Big G. They might be watching me right nowjust *what* is that red, flashing light outside my window, anyway?)

Well, heres a quick follow up to that postand further proof that sometimes all you can do is just shake your head and laugh at the stuff thats supposed to work when doing SEO and getting good rankings in google.

Youve heard of the Google Dance, right? In case you havent, the concept is simple:

You do something different on your site. Say your site is brand new, or you put new content on it, or redo a page with on-page optimization factors, or go on a backlinking campaign, or whatever. Point is things change somehow.

Well, the Google Dance is generally when your site or page, due to this new change (whatever it is), jumps up the rankings in Google. It will generally bounce up and down sometimes quite drastically for a bit of time (generally a couple to few weeks) before Google simmers down and puts your site/page where it deems it should have its rightful place in the almighty SERP.

Now, traditionally, the Google Dance (as the phenomena is known) applies to sites that have a lower ranking, jump up in ranking, fluctuate up and down, and then settle back in where they were before (the original low ranking).

And that makes sense when you think about it. Take a page Google isnt putting tons of importance on, draw a bunch of attention to it, Google gets all excited, jumps it up in the ranking, then when Google finds out it got all hot & bothered for nothing, it just settles it back where it was (or hopefully for you, a little higher).

But WTF is Google doing when it does the opposite?

For instancein my last post, I mentioned that one of my sites had two separate pages that ranked on the first page of Google one page at spot #1, and the other page at spot #2.

(Nevermind that the page Ive done the *vast* majority of all the SEO work for is actually ranked LOWERbut I talked about that last time.)

You might remember that I made the comment and in fairly sarcastic fashion, I might add I decided to do a little SEO bump, by posting some anchor text-specific backlinks to the page at the #2 spot by posting to a couple blog directories and a number of articles directories.

The resultby posting more backlinksand thus (supposedly) increasing the possible SEO of said pageit dropped from #2 all the way down to the 2nd page of Google.

Yup time well-spent.

But never fear! For I was just a victim of the Google Dance!

See, a number of days later, my page actually jumped back up from the 2nd page of the Google results to #2 again!

*sounds the vuvuzelas*

So instead of my page being ranked low, then jumping up high, then back to low againmy Google Dance did the exact opposite. I ranked highdropped down lowand then went back to being high againand, incidentally, the same exact spot I was before I tried to do the little SEO bump.

I guess the lessons to learn here are:

1 Google is indeed unpredictable

2 Google does indeed like to dance (and almost everything they do is temporary)

3 I would have been better off not trying to improve my SEO rankings at all*

(*The jury is still out on that last pointbut Im not ruling it out.)