A couple of years ago Google hit websites really hard that had done a lot of SEO. This caused many websites in almost every industry to drop from the rankings and websites that hadn’t done a lot of SEO to rise to the top of the rankings.
This created an interesting paradox in the SEO world. Should you try to work to recover the rankings you worked so hard to get and now have lost? Or should you give up on a site and start a new one where you can control exactly how much SEO has been done on a site?
I was recently looking at one of the website marketplaces at a site that was ranking #1 for a phrase that was the biggest phrase in this website’s niche. I was impressed at the ranking because the website seemed pretty simple. As I looked at the details of the site I realized the site was only 4 months old.
4 months old? So what Google is telling us is you can start a brand new website and within a few months get to #1 for a top tier key phrase?
Now before you go out and start 10 new websites I have a word of warning. We have no idea what this website owner did to get that site to #1. They may be employing some serious black hat technique that will get them banned. But it may be worth a test to start a new website and see what kind of dent you can make in the rankings in the first few months.
It could be that since so many sites were penalized you just don’t have a lot of competition in the different niches.
I still prefer to buy a website than to build one from scratch but I probably will build one soon to see how it goes.
