Mistakes Were Made: Go with a Pro

As a so-called “professional” I can vouch for the fact that even professionals make mistakes. I’ve been in the business since before there was web development – back during a time when it was called “multi-media” and we emblazoned digital cuneiform on sacred gold and silver discs. This was a time when “Googling yourself” would have sounded like something that your parents warned would make you go blind.

I’ve made about every mistake there was to make – so many that I find myself having to invent new ones every day. But let’s face it, when it comes to your business why push your luck? Do-it-yourself web development and hiring amateurs might save money in the short term but at what price?

A couple years ago a client came to me with not one – but two web sites. He complained when he Googled himself his sites didn’t show up. Sure enough, he was right. I checked and neither of his sites had been indexed by Google.

[An aside: Q: Gee, you might ask, how do I see if Google has indexed my site? A: If you don’t know the answer to this question, maybe you should hire someone who does!]

I investigated further and his “developer” had broken a few of the cardinal rules of white-hat SEO (writing code that does not violate best practices for Search Engine Optimization). Not only was his site not indexed but it had been banished by Google! (Kind of like Zeus banishing the Titans to Tartarus.) Google’s spiders look for certain telltale signs and if it thinks you’re trying to trick it, you’ll be kicked out of the game. It’s not nice to fool mother Google.

I read through the code and the errors were not malicious at all, but simply made because the developer didn’t know any better. One such error was inadvertently setting all the text in the site to white. On a website with a white background, this is the equivalent of invisible ink. Google can read it but people can’t so it makes it look like you might be attempting to trick Google (see bait and switch). Further down in the code he added code to make the text black but it was too late. Google reads white on white and that’s like two strikes right there – maybe three.

Another example came to my attention just the other day. Someone called seeking help with a poorly performing site. “Why am I not being found?” Well, as it turned out, when he created his Wordpress site he set the privacy settings thinking he was protecting his privacy when in fact the settings told the search engines to go away and not to index the site.

I love the commercial with the happy couple who just created their $4.95 per month website all by themselves and they’re preparing to sit back and rake in the dough as millions come swarming to their doorstep PayPalling all that filthy lucre. Now that’s real mythology. Hire a pro.