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Even though I haven't written about it for a few weeks search is something that really fascinates me. I could sit here and look at search statistics and the testing that we're doing all day and never grow bored. Sadly though that's rarely what any of our clients want us to do.

In online adult there are far more talented people than Steve and me that website owners can turn to when they want to increase the ranking of their sites. In mainstream the people that we deal with simply don't understand the importance of good search engine rankings ... and if they understand how important good ranking is they seem to think that it just sort of happens with no real effort from anyone.

That's ok by us because we can then get on with our own search engine projects and do very well at a local level ... and along the way we can hook our clients up to our coat-tails and drag them up the rankings with us. They're happy, we're happy and they don't hassle us to do anything that might get their sites ... or our sites for that matter ... penalized in Google.

Instead we sample and test, experiment and analyze and we have a great deal of success and that works for us. But there are more things than just the subtle nuances of the ever changing currents within search that are fascinating.

Search Gurus
One thing that often fascinates us is the way some people can bluff their way into what you might think of as the inner sanctum of the search A-listers. For some time now one guy we know has been writing and commenting about search in some very high-level places and people have been listening to him. He seems to know what he's talking about and he's on first name terms with some of the leading people in search so he's guaranteed to get attention.

That must be very pleasing for him and the people who pay attention to what he says must be very impressed because he seems to know what he's talking about. But is he really as skilled at SEO as he makes out he is?

I don't know ... but not that long ago he was over on Digital Point trying to pick up writing jobs at $10.00 an article and now he's 'famous' he's feeling a whole lot of heat. Matt Cutts and Google became very interested in him when one of his lurid link-bait articles took on a life of it's own after several newspapers were fooled into thinking that it was a true story.

I'm sure by the time Google has finished with him he may wish that he'd never written the article in the first place and the moral for us is that you should always be very careful about you read on the Net. Most self-styled gurus wouldn't know their ass from their elbow but they sure can sound convincing.

Living in fear
There's another sort of person in search that fascinates me apart from the gurus. I'm not sure what you would call people like this but they're the ones who are so afraid of Google that if they ever find one of their sites on the first page of a Google search engine results page they almost have a nervous breakdown.

They're the ones who quite genuinely ask questions like: 'I rank too high on Google, is something wrong?'

Don't, don't be nasty ... don't laugh at people like this. I know that there are some of us who would come close to selling our first-born if it would only get us a good spot on Google but some people aren't like us. Some people are so genuinely scared of Google that they will think that they've somehow slipped through the veil and become a black hat SEO without even realizing it if they suddenly hit the front page.

God bless them ... they sure do brighten up the day with their panic.

So when it comes to search don't be put off by the impression you might have that search is something that is dry and dull, boring and tedious. It's none of those things and even if you don't revel in the subtle movements of the search engine results pages there sure is plenty of human entertainment to keep you laughing every day.

So if for no other reason than the fact that you need a good laugh on a daily basis come on in and get involved in search. Watch the gurus rise and soar above the rest of us ... till they crash and burn and take others down with them. Laugh at the timidity of those who are so scared of Google that they would wet themselves if they ever got an email from Matt Cutts and along the way learn how search really works and make some real money from traffic that is really looking for what you're selling.