New poll results just released by Rusty Brick at S.E. Roundtable pose the question “Should you flaunt your search engine rankings?”
While there are a variety of responses to this question, only 12% of respondents say it is a good idea.
But these 18 or so individuals who answered in the affirmative to this question are nowhere to be found on the accompanying WebMasterWorld discussion thread.
The search engine professionals discussing this question on the thread generally dismissed the idea for a variety of reasons…some even implied dishonest SEOs will flaunt their rankings by PhotoShopping (hopefully that’s a word!!) their site’s information into a page 1 search engine results page.
Aside from just plain dishonesty to make a quick buck, there are other more practical business reasons not to promote page 1 rankings.
First of all, rankings can fluctuate. As one SEO on the discussion board said, “What the GoogleGod giveth, the GoogleGod taketh away.” And they fluctuate for a variety of reasons – geographic location, time of day and other factors play into rankings. If you make this claim and then someone searches for your keywords only to find your site on page 2 or 3, your credibility will certainly suffer.
Flaunting our ranking achievements isn’t our style here at SEO Advantage. We agree with many of our SEO colleagues on the discussion board that it isn’t good business practice to make statements like that.
While high rankings are something to be proud of, it isn’t the whole enchilada…site architecture, copy and other elements have to be there for high rankings to make a meaningful impact in sales conversions and the bottom line.