P3D Re: Stereophotographer foul play

[Dan Shelley <dshelley@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Blum wrote:
> This is what the webmaster had to say on the subject:
> 
> No, the only thing you have to do to re-submit a site to most search engines
> is to re-submit the same URL. The system has no idea who you are, and
> doesn't care in most cases. All you're doing is re-tasking a spider. When
> the spider hits the site which was previously indexed, it reports back to
> the engine, the engine removes all prior references, and re-prioritizes the
> site based on the rules for that particular engine. Anyone can do it to any
> site on the internet, anonymously. That's how you add sites, and that's how
> you remove dead links (and perform malicious tinkering).

I suppose that maybe you didn't read my other note very carefully as
this is essentially what I said. We agree on almost everything except
that a submission automatically deletes entries. This is not the case in
most search engines I have worked with over the years. (FYI - I have my
own business building and maintaining web sites for customers, so I have
dealt with this from time to time...) 

If you submit your site to a specific search engine and it is evaluated
and placed at the first return position based on a particular keyword,
Great. If I then (_for example_) were to re-submit your site a week
after you submitted it, then why would the second submission return
anything less than that same first position again? (unless someone else
had submitted a different site that might bump you tonumber two...) I
can not change any of the keywords, descriptions, links or text on your
site, so it will get evaluated the same as before. 

In your example, I think you mentioned that you had been located in the
first position on a search site, then a week later you were removed from
being returned as a possible match. This could only occur if someone at
that search engine site decided to physically remove or block your site.
This DOES happen, more often than you think... 

> There are about 20 basic rules for setting up a "doorway" page for your site
> that _most_ engines will like. I spent quite awhile making yours very
> attractive to several engines, which is why we ranked to high (luck has very
> little to do with it:).

If the attractive doorway was still there, it would still be an
attractive doorway. Search engines are businesses. They are not tools
for "the betterment of humanity". People run them, and make decisions
about their content - sometimes they do stupid things in that judgement
process. This appears to have been such a case. There are many things
you can do to try to improve your position in a search engine, but some
measure of luck DOES have something to do with where you finally end up,
if you get there at all.

> Dan also said:
> 
> A better solution would be to ask all the 3D folk that have web pages if
> they might link to your site. This will generate FAR more traffic than
> the search engines will. Trust me on this one...
> 
> I think Dan must be right about this and I certainly invite anyone with a 3D
> site to link to mine at www.redshift.com/~markb/ . I intend to make many
> more links as soon as I get around to it. I was hot under the collar when I
> posted my message and I agree with Dan that by and large the 3D community is
> a very good one.

Great. I will post a link in my next links pages update! =)

It really is a nice site Mark! Congrats!!

Dan Shelley
dshelley@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.dddesign.com/3dbydan