Menu

• Dictionary
• Hot Shots

Directory

• Sponsors
• Billing Options
• Content Providers
• Web Hosting
• Traffic Counters
• Website Designers
• Resource Sites

Wow what a beautiful autumn day we're having here. It's one of those days that make you feel glad to be alive! It's a shame that being a webmasters isn't as great as the weather; just imagine how good it would be if all the hassles that we face as webmasters weren't there anymore ... man that would have to make life just about perfect.

Sadly though there's little chance of the perfect life for us webmasters any time soon and it really doesn't matter whether you're trying to make a buck in adult or mainstream ... there are real problems and challenges for webmasters whichever side of the fence you're working.

The latest hassle for many mainstream webmasters who make a few a few dollars from Adsense comes from Google who has decided that it doesn't like the business model of the sites that some Adsense ads are appearing on. Now that might sound reasonable at first because, after all, it really is Google's game ... but Google doesn't always bother telling everyone what the rules of the game are. In this instance it hasn't bothered telling anyone what it is that they don't like about the business models of these sites and they don't seem to be giving webmasters any chance to change whatever their business model is.

Of course all the review work is being done by nameless faceless employees of Google so you really do have no idea what the problem might be. It seems that some of the people who have been getting their accounts canned have nothing special in the way of a business model and their sites are really no different to sites that you and I might own. But someone ... perhaps with little or not relevant experience ... is looking at websites, deciding that they don't like them and then removing them from the Adsense program.

You've gotta love big companies like Google who feel that they have absolutely no responsibility to those who have helped them make money and it's these little muscle flexes that Google makes now and again that really scare the willies out of me. They think they have the power to do whatever they want and anytime they feel like using it they will, regardless of the impact they might have on other people.

Look forward about 10 years and think about what it could all be like then and tell me that you're not scared too.

There seems to be a lot of movement in the search engine results pages that Google displays at the moment. Of course there are plenty of people who are suggesting that it's all a dastardly plot by Google to encourage searchers to click on the Adwords ads on those results pages instead of the organic listings but I don't see that ... at least not yet.

I'm not saying that Google may not try something like that in the future ... when they really do have a strangle hold on the search market and the need to increase their profits is the real force driving the company ... but we're not there yet. Instead what I do see, especially in the mainstream areas that Steve and I are working in, are aggregators ... those Web 3.0 sites that I mentioned yesterday ... that take other peoples' content and display that content as their own hitting the top spots for just about everything.

It's not impossible to compete with those sites but it certainly is getting harder and you really do have to be on top of your game to beat them. It certainly isn't a situation where you can employ half-measures; you're either committed totally to gaining a good spot on page one of the search engine results pages or you're not. If you aren't committed to spending the money and taking the time to achieve good results then whatever you are doing and spending is just a waste of time and money.

That may sound rather brutal but it's the reality that anyone who wants to play the search engine game is facing these days whether you're playing that game in mainstream or in adult.

Of course there are going to be plenty of website owners who think that there simply must be an easier way to achieve those results ... a few of our mainstream clients are like that. These are the people who are going to sitting ducks for any scammer who wants to come along with a guaranteed way of cheating Google without getting caught but don't you be fooled. Fool-proof linking schemes, guaranteed first page placements in 3 days and all those other schemes that sound too good to be true are just what they sound.

Do I sound a little cynical ... perhaps a little jaded by all this? Yes I probably am but I'm still in the game because I'm sure that any webmaster who wants to play to win can do precisely that if they're prepared to work hard and not take short cuts.

So if you've been thinking of doing the hard yards to improve your search engine placement then by all means come on in because you do still have a chance of succeeding and once you have some sites with good first page listings then you'll know that the search engine game really is worth playing.