By the time I fired my last virtual assistant (VA), the website in question was back down to the second page of the search engine results pages (SERPS) on Google. Thankfully, I hired a new VA and they seem to be a dream come true.

This person really seems to know what they're doing. I asked them exactly what tactics they were going to use and voiced my usual concerns about using only white-hat SEO tactics, but they already knew what I was talking about and assured me that they would manage it successfully and responsibly. Fortunately, it seems as though they are right. Within just a few days, the site was not only back on the first page of the Google SERPS, but it surpassed its last top placement of #8 and has gone on to position #6.

This will be really interesting to see what happens. The sites that currently hold the positions before ours are older websites with many more pages and inbound links (I know this due to my use of Market Samurai). Granted, our website is more relevant, which is why I think it has a real chance to succeed and take its place among the top three results on the first page.

Strange. I've known about this for the last year or so, but it seems like Google's search engine is losing its edge more and more as time passes. They seem to be catering to those with larger advertising budgets and black-hat inbound links than actual, relevant results. There are only one or two sites above ours that share our exact key phrase (or even close) that we are using to gauge Google placement, and yet we are not higher up in the results naturally.

Another reason why I think this is strange is that we're already at position #1 on other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing. Those search engines seem as though they are now working as Google's did a couple of years ago, when its search engine reached its prime. Hopefully Yahoo and Bing will remain the same, and Google to revert to its past usefulness.

I think one of the problems here is the fact that Google's index is colossal. The other search engines (including Yahoo and Bing) simply can't compete with the sheer amount of websites and web pages that Google has indexed. I hate to say it, but in this case I believe that the old saying is true: quality is better than quantity.

Check back weekly for more news on the subject. As usual, let me know if you have any comments or questions!