Knowing When Not to Optimize - Site hosted on an unstable, slow server with too much downtime
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Unfortunately, I can't say that I have a 100 percent perfect track record with sites and customer satisfaction. But I can say that the biggest disappointment that I caused a client happened when the reason behind their drop in rankings was out of my control. The site was hosted on a really unstable server belonging to some reseller of a reseller.
During a really bad month, the site was unavailable for more than 20 days. As a result, rankings dropped about 5-10 pages on Google for several weeks. If you notice that a site is hosted with a really problematic hosting plan, you never know what sort of rankings you may drop to one day. And it's just a matter of time before that happens.
Wants top rankings but site design/architecture/content cannot be touched
"My site is in Flash with Frames and full of slow loading images. Now, it has to stay that way because my art director said it's great for the corporate image. My marketing consultant also admits that it promotes brand awareness. Oh yeah, and you can't touch or add any text on the site, either. Good luck."
My answer: "Thanks and good luck to you, too -- with the PPC, mate."
Excuse my cynicism, but the point is that SEOs, in most cases, need to touch the design, architecture and/or content of the site. Personally, I see inflexibility to changing a site as the toughest challenge for SEOs. For me, it is better to have more flexibility on a site and compete in a more competitive market than to have less flexibility and compete in a less competitive market. In any case, beware of the projects where you see that SEO flexibility is the very last priority, or even non-existent.
Previous SEO did damage
But there's something worse than inflexibility -- the unknown damage that a previous SEO may have done. As a policy, I and the SEOs at search engine marketing firm EasyNet engage in "white hat" SEO only. Beyond the moral standpoint, we believe it is the only way to achieve and sustain SE leadership position for the long run.
Still, any SEO may encounter a "damaged" site. In the worst case, it was "black hat" SEO that gave that site the boot from its historic search engine placements. But accidental mistakes that a "white hat" SEO may have caused will still have the same affect from the engine's point of view: punishment.
The problem with this situation is that you don't know when the punished site will come back to life. As SEO is very much about organized project management, it is hard to work out any objectives or schedules with such a heavy mist over the return of rankings.
Next: No patience >>
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