Many business owners believe that because their website shows up high on Google this week, that will always be the case.

However, the cold fact of the search engines is that your position can be changed by any of several reasons, many of which are not even known to you.

1. Search Engine Changes â€" Google is the worst for this. Three or four times a year, they change their criteria for what makes a site rank highly.

These changes are usually because some people have found a way to scam the system, using what are called Black Hat SEO techniques.

Black Hat SEO can include things like having hidden links or hidden pages on a site, which are literally stuffed full of keywords.

Another trick is to create multiple smaller sites for the same company, all leading to a main website, trying to increase what are called inbound links.

Even though most sites do not do these things, they can sometimes be caught in the fallout of such changes, especially if they have hired a sketchy or just inexperienced SEO person or company.

2. Competitor Changes â€" Just as one site can reach a good search engine position, so can another.

I have had calls from many businesses who are surprised that their search results have dropped right off of the first page. A quick analysis had shown that some of their competitors had recently had new websites created, or hired new SEO advisors.

These new websites or SEO changes had pushed the competitor up above the other company in the search results, forcing them down.

Because there are only 10 spaces in the search results and only three in the local map listings, if enough competitors did this over a short space of time, most commonly at the beginning of a year, a company could soon find itself pushed completely off the first page.

3. Lack of Interest â€" This is something that can completely kill a website.

Search engines are in business to promote the best, most dynamic companies for a given search term.

When a new website is created, the search engines see that not only is the site fresh and exciting, but that you are showing an interest in promoting your company. As long as it has been properly keyworded, a new website can soar up the search results.

However, over time that initial search engine interest can fade if nothing has been changed since the site went live. The site can then slide down, especially if competitors are changing theirs.

This is why I advise all clients to update their sites at minimum once a month. It doesn't have to be much, maybe a blog post showing a current project.

Those changes, along with our WebUpdate systems automated SEO, can keep a site high in the rankings.

If you have concerns with your websites performance, now is the time to look into our WebUpdate system sites.

Not Open Source, they take advantage of advanced security, SEO, social, and responsive features to give your business the best competitive edge online.

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