Percolating and SEO - The Long Term Approach


by Halstatt Pires - Date: 2007-01-31 - Word Count: 464 Share This!

Time is against you when trying to optimize a site, particularly if you have a brand new domain and site. Letting a site percolate is sometimes a good strategy to undertake.

If you work on the net, you probably drink coffee. For those of you who don't, percolate refers to letting the coffee brew until it is just right, to wit, waiting. In theory, you need to let the robust flavor build to a perfect taste. Of course, I heat mine up in the microwave most of the time, but I digress.

If you believe in search engine optimization, you know time is an issue. Simply put, a site tends to rank better the older it is. You can do everything perfectly from the optimization point of view and it really doesn't matter. This is particularly true with Google and its lovely sandbox. Even when you pop out of the sandbox, it doesn't mean you are immediately going to go high on major keywords. Instead, it is a sometimes slow process as your site ages like fine wine. I am convinced someone at Google loves wine and configures the ranking algorithm along the same lines.

Anyway, you can fight the good fight against the time problem or stop wasting your time. Trying to push a site that is two months old up in the rankings is akin to having sex with an elephant. It takes a lot of energy, yelling and the results aren't great. No, I don't have sex with elephants. Its an analogy! Switch to decaf.

If you have patience, one approach to the time issue is to let new sites percolate. If you have an idea, buy a domain and slap a couple of pages up. Then flip the site into the search engines and get it indexed. For the next year or so, you can trade links every so often just to keep the attention of the search engines. Once 12 to 16 months have passed, you can revisit the site and really have a go at it since time is less of any issue.

Obviously, this is a long-term strategy when it comes to optimization. You have to be committed to being in the game for a long time. It is, however, a wise way to allocate your time. Domains are cheap as is hosting. When you have any old domain, how much time and money will it cost to throw together a 10 page site. Not much. In the meantime, you can focus your energies on sites that already have percolated and are ready for some prime optimization efforts.

Is this approach for everyone? Of course, not. If you intend to run multiple sites, however, it has worked for me.

Halstatt Pires is an SEO consultant with MarketingTitan.com.

Related Tags: time, seo, google, search engine optimization, sandbox, domain, optimize

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