Ambatchdotcom Seocontest
My entry in this contest has been a rollercoaster ride so far! From 4th place after 5 days, to 950 after 14 days, and back up to 11th now. But what a learning experience!The aim of the ambatchdotcom seocontest is to take your entry to the top of the rankings in Google for the specialised set of key words - ambatchdotcom seocontest.
The contest runs until 20th October 2006, the winner determined by the highest listed site on Google for the term "ambatchdotcom seocontest". Additional prizes are also available for the top three places at the end of July, August and September.
In the first month of the contest (it began in the middle of July) I have learnt an awful lot about SEO or Search Engine Optimisation - but probably more about what NOT to do so far.
Specifically, my entry was going really well in the early stages of the ambatchdotcom seocontest. After just a few days it was at number 4 out of a total of 64,000 results showing in Google.
But when I decided to indulge in some highly "unnatural" linking practices on July 25, Google made me suffer an almost immediate penalty!
In the next two days (it took that long before I realised what had happened) my ambatchdotcom seocontest entry went from the dizzy heights of top ten placement, to the "basement" in Google - well, actually about 90 floors below the basement - ending up around 900 in the results by August 1st.
As soon as I realised what I had done, I pulled the links I'd put in place, but not before Google had picked up some 600 of them.
It's taken about three weeks for those links to be updated and removed from Google's index!
And now... I'm back in the race - coming in again at position number 11 on August 17.
Lessons Learned to Date
Well, there are several, and I'll go into in detail when the ambatchdotcom seocontest competion is over - I feel a "white paper" will be needed then with all the gory details... but for now my observations include:- Most of the entries in the top places use "blogging" type software - and we just know that the search engines love them but I really don't like them. Blogging sites are all just so-o-o-o similar, but they DO contain some techniques that MUST be applied to "normal" sites (you'll have to get that white paper to find out what)
- There are lots of "optimised" links to the sites in the contest - again, I'll explain later what an "optimised" link is for those who don't know. The first place holder already has over 3000 back-links already from all sorts of places, so it will be interesting to see how that holds up/progresses over time
- Linking MUST be natural and gradual - any sudden, unexplained number of links, particularly from just one site, WILL plummet you into oblivion! (as I found out the hard way)
- Several top placed contestants are getting away with keyword stuffing - there's one there that has only the contest terms on it repeated over and over again! I personally can't see any point to this type of human unfriendly page, but it is interesting to see it so high in the SERP's. Must be some solid linking that is outweighing the extremely high keyword density. We'll see how it pans out over time...
Interested in a Bribe?
You know you are...If you'd like to help out in my little linking/SEO experiment, I'm quite happy to offer a "reward" for your participation in the ambatchdotcom seocontest.
Please get all the details here.
And stay tuned for further updates from the ambatchdotcom seocontest.
Regards
Stephen Spry
SBSN Webmaster
