Are we gettin' an 'organic' raw deal out of Google...
Date Published 26/04/2008 - Click here for more recent news
Here's the McGuffin - EASIserv.com are based in Northampton and we're in the web design business: so guess what...we've always targeted web design Northampton as our primary keyphrase. And we've been pleased and proud to report over the last couple of years that we were at google.co.uk Position No. 1 for that keyphrase: and we're still pleased and proud to report that we're at google.co.uk Position No. 1 (of 134k pages from the UK results at the time of writing) for that keyphrase.
So what's the beef we hear you say - 'cos we've clearly got a 'burr-under-our-company-saddle' about something, or else we wouldn't be putting our (virtual) pen to our (virtual) paper - and it's this: anybody whose ever spent 5 mins in a marketing seminar will know all about the importance of getting your key messages 'above the fold' on the web page. That mystical 'on-screen / page' split between the stuff that's immediately obvious to any casual reader / browser, versus the stuff that you have to go digging around and looking for, by turning pages or scrolling up or down or sideways or hither and yon (you get the idea I'm sure).
Well in our case, although EASIserv.com is 'organically' at Position No. 1 for the keyphrase web design Northampton, by the time Google's loaded in their Top 2 or 3 'sponsored links' and their 'local results and google maps' - as can be seen from the image capture below, the 'above the fold' is totally blocked-out by Google's commercial display, to the extent that the first 'genuinely-organic' search result (the blessed EASIserv.com listing) is indeed 'below the fold', just marginally able to peek its little 'nose-wosey' above the parapet in the display below. Paradoxically, as you may also be able to see from the image below, EASIserv.com is presently being listed as item 'A' in 'local results and google maps' display too, but that's judged on a totally different set of rules and, anyway, that's not the point - is it!
So in truth, here in EASIserv.com Towers we do feel a 'teensy-weensy' bit miffed and ponder as to how much further Google has yet to stray from its path of righteousness in displaying / presenting the 'organic' (a.k.a. natural / genuine) listings in a bit more prominence - 'above the fold'? And, of course, we raise this minor matter of discord with the big 'G' more in the spirit of a friendly observation: on the basis that if their real friends don't tell 'em about any lack of contentedness - how else they gonna' know?
PS1: clearly where 'the fold' appears on an individual's screen depends on what their screen setting is - we're set to 1024 by 768 pixels, which is still what most users set to, so we think what we're seeing is what most folks see.
PS2: one week later - Google had one of its periodic bouts of moving its furniture around and the EASIserv.com listing for 'web design northampton' dropped from Position No. 1 to Position No. 4 in google.co.uk (of 212k pages from the UK results at the time of writing) for that keyphrase - was it something we said!
PS3: dateline 26/08/08 - 4 months to the day when the EASIserv.com listing slipped from Position No. 1, we're happily restored to Result No. 1 of about 138,000 pages from the UK for 'web design northampton' - hoorah! In our time in the wilderness, we've floated around between positions 2 - 6, never off the first page but never at Position No. 1 - so we're pleased to have been reinstated.
Lessons learned? In truth, we didn't do very much different, nor do we think we were penalised in any way - but it's likely that we just lost a bit of focus on our marquee keyphrase. It happens. Therefore the Google-slap-in-kisser-with-the-wet-mackerel was undoubtedly useful in getting us to regain that focus. 'Ta muchly - big 'G'!
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