Singapore Web Hosting Blog

yes, our main web site, SingaporeWebHosting.com, dropped ranking in Google.

google “Singapore web hosting”, at this moment 11:40pm Mar 25th 2005, our site is No. 6, 5 minutes ago, it was at No. 4. It may be No. 12 one hour later.

most importantly, it had been at No. 1 for almost all related keywords, (Singapore web hosting, Singapore web design, Singapore email hosting , etc.) for more than 1 year. then suddenly from Feb 4th 2005, it dropped to nowhere.

it was hit really hard by latest Google update (alegra), like many other web sites.

we did nothing after Alegra, because I believe we did nothing wrong from beginning. we do not use any blackhat technique.

then slowly ranking has been getting back. first, on 5th page 2 weeks after alegra, then 3rd page, 2nd page, now back to 1st page. it’s still jumping up and down.

we didn’t do anything in order to recover.

there might be a few reasons from what i can see. hope it can be helpful to those who are hit. purely my guess, no evidence. so don’t blame me if it’s far from truth.

1)google is testing something and messed it up. that’s why our ranking is back while we did nothing. currently i can see two sets of data, in one set, our site is No.4, in the other, it’s No. 6. these two sets have diferent amount of search results. look like google is merging these two slowly. they may be testing many other things as well.

2)anyone can have only one site listed on 1st page under same keywords. the No.1 site for “Sinagpore web hosting”, and many other keywords, is also ours (1stSingaporeWebHosting.com). these two sites just cannot rank well at the same time.

3)age might be a reason. 1stSingaporeWebHosting.com is half year older than SingaporeWebHosting.com. both sites are designed and optimized by the same people using the same techniques, the only difference is age.

whatever the reason is, we’re not going to do anything. the fact that our newer site is getting back to top reveals that solid search engine optimization work still rules. ranking might suffer due to many many reasons, but if you believe you’ve done the work, your site deserves the top spot, then leave it, it will be back.

As you can see on our web site, we provide SEO - Search Engine Optimization Service.

There’re many SEO companies out there. Compared with some of the established SEOers, we’re really small fish, and we’re ok with that. Personally, I don’t think we’ll go after clients worldwide at all in the near future. In Singapore, we’re one of the best SEO service providers.

But there IS one kind of SEO company that makes us uncomfortable, sometimes really fed up - companies that promise guaranteed top 10 (20, etc.) listings.

There’s no such thing in search engine optimization industry. Anybody who claims guaranteed 10 or 20 rankings is simply lying. It would be obvious if you think further. Search engine results are calculated by algorithm owned by search engine companies like Google, Yahoo, Inktomi. How can anyone outside Google guarantee you top 10 or 20 listing in Google? Who has the power to control Google? None.

Nobody can honestly say they can get guaranteed top positions. At whatever price. 1 million may or may not bring you top spots. There is possibility, but no guarantee. This is true especially for Google who dominates 80% of all online traffic now. Go search for “search engine” in Google, Google itself is listed at No 4 currently. Surprise? This is the culture of Google. They don’t even allow manual adjustment to their own ranking. Everything is decided by algorithm. How can any outsider claim guaranteed top 10 or top 20?

Still, there’re many “SEO companies” promising guaranteed ranking. If it’s possible, why don’t they get their own site in top 10 under keyword “SEO”? There’re only ten spots in top 10, however, there’re way much more than 10 companies who claim guaranteed top 10. C’mon, give yourself a ranking first.

Think about it.

every now and then, i receive phonecalls or emails from clients asking, “how come i can’t find my site in google, yahoo, or any other search engines after hosting with you for 1 full month?!”

or a better one, “hi, we host our company site with you. we’re real estate consultants. why i can’t find our site when i search for ‘real estate’ in google?”

when i’m asked such questions, i always wanted to ask, “why do you think your site should be found in google or yahoo?”

well, i haven’t replied that way so far

but the truth is, search engines will not list your site in first 2, or even 20 pages, just because you have a web site. period.

go search for “real estate” in google, you will get 95 million results. those are all your competitors. 95 million. now why do you think your site should be found (normally that means top 20 listings) among 95 million results?

it’s only possible after you spend months, often years, of hard work on your site. or, if you would like someone else to do the work (seo service), it costs at least a few thousand dollars.

it’s not hosting issue, not design issue, it’s search engine optimization, or in short, SEO.

so if your our hosting client, you should not ask us why your site can’t be found in search engines. it has nothing to do with where you host the site. even if you host with yahoo, your site won’t be found in yahoo if you don’t do anything about it. it won’t happen by chance.