My quest for getting to number 1 in the search engines for my name “Philip Nicosia” isn’t fairing too well. It’s not really surprising though as there are no links to this site and I haven’t manually submitted the site to any search engines.

I did a search today on Google, Yahoo and MSN and on all three search engines there were no results for www.philipnicosia.com.

I’ve been making websites for a few years now so I know what to expect and how hard it can be to get good results but for someone just starting out I also understand how frustrating it can be too. You can spend days, weeks or even years creating the best website in the world, the most informative website in your field but if no one knows it is there where are the visitors going to come from?

One thing you shouldn’t do is take short cuts. As a webmaster you are responsible for your website and trying to cheat the search engines may work short term sometimes but eventually you will get banned. Its not just the search engine algorithms that will catch you out. Competing webmasters who see your site above theirs will want to knock you off. If you are doing everything by the book then you have nothing to worry about but if you are cheating to get there don’t be surprised to see your site suddenly disappear one day. It could only take 1 well written spam report for your website that you’ve invested time and money in to be removed manually from the search engines if your tactics are bad enough.

If you want to keep on the straight and narrow and avoid all the major pitfalls and mistakes then I would recommend getting the SEO Book. Aaron who wrote and constantly updates this book lives and breathes search engines.

Posted in Search Engines