So
What is Sick Site Syndrome?
"A combination of benign signs and
symptoms that - taken together - damages a site's relationship with the search
engines"
SSS is a combination of issues that can hog-tie your site.
No site is perfect, and minor errors will not make a lot of difference. But taken
together, these little things can add up to serious optimization damage.
- Trying
your hardest?
- Failing to rise above the masses?
- Visitor
numbers static?
- Google's spider not interested?
- Took advice from a cheap SEO?
Does
your site have Sick Site Syndrome?
There
is no cause for celebration when an honest webmaster building a clean and honest
site, cannot get listed in the search results - or rather, can get listed - but
too far down to be useful. In some cases, of course, it's fair competition.
If there are 50,000 Dog Lovers' sites, not all can appear in the top ten. But
every site should appear where it deserves to appear; and if your site is regularly
beaten by sites you know to be inferior, it may be a matter of Sick
Site Syndrome. The point about Sick Site Syndrome,
is that it really is treatable, and much of that treatment involves simple common
sense; following Search Engine Guidelines, checking for broken links and so on. But
some problems do require a little bit of judgement to get right - especially when
you've previously acted on a fair bit of bad advice, and the site needs a thorough
Spring Clean!
Many sites are the victim of 'over-SEO'; often the result of ill-informed SEO advice. This almost invariably reversable. Damage may also be done by webmasters experimenting with high-risk SEO techniques; crossing that invisible line can lead to a partial or complete ban from serach engin listings. Again, thi is almost always revversible.
But first you need to know what the problem is!
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