Listen to anyone who remotely knows anything about search engine
optimization and you will hear all kinds of strategies and tips
on getting high rankings. Time, however, is rarely mentioned.

Time and Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to search engine optimization ["seo"], there are
many ways to achieve your goals. Different strategies work in
different situations. Some people use articles such as this to
build links like mad while others disavow the strategy. Others
will opine to the high heavens about keyword density analysis,
keyword phrase research and so on. I should know because I do it
as well. Get a few beverages in me and I can put you to sleep in
10 minutes flat with my yammering. Guaranteed!

One factor that is not really discussed is time. When it comes
to seo, time is an element that matters. What does time mean? It
simply means the longer a site is up and indexed by the search
engines, the better it will rank. This is particularly true for
Google, which seems to give a lot more weight to the age of the
site these days.

I decided to write this article because time is not a subject
raised by many people in seo. Why not? Well, there isn't much
you can do about it. You can't really speed it up. Since there
isn't any way to tweak the time element as a part of a strategy,
it is never mentioned. It should be, however. For people that
are just starting out, time is something you have to take into
account.

When building a new site, most of us rush to get it indexed as
quickly as possible to get the sandbox delay with Google kicked
into
gear. The sandbox is just an artificial mechanism Google
uses to avoid ranking any new site for six to nine months. Most
people understand this now, but nobody really talks about what
happens when the hated sandbox period ends. Simply put, your
site may shoot up to the top 10 for your keywords. Then again,
it may not. Often, it will shoot up, but only to the 15th
position or so. Does this mean you have done something wrong?
Probably not. If you are pursuing a popular keyword phrase, it
can take time for your listing to crawl up from the teens to the
every valued top five ranking. As your site ages like fine wine,
it will continue to move up.

A few years ago, I started doing the seo for a site in the
travel industry. After waiting for the sandbox period to run,
the listing appeared at the number 17 position in Google. I
groaned. Over the next four months, it slowly moved up to the
number 11 position. ARGGGG! I still have scars on my forehead
from banging my head on the desk. Well, since I am telling you
this, you can assume it continued moving up. It now sits at
number 3 and the site is 3 years old. The seo strategy was never
changed. The only thing that did change was time.

If you are pursuing seo for your own site, it is important to
keep in mind that time is a factor in getting high rankings.
This is particularly true if you are going for highly
competitive keywords. If you don't pop out of the sandbox at
number one on Google, don't panic. Just keep doing what you are
doing. Time will often take care of the rest.

About the author:
Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com - providing href="http://www.marketingtitan.com">internet marketing
services.