I want to get my site to the top of 1 keyword search. I have done everything I can think of and still I am not anywhere near the top. I have been told that there are some companies out there that say they have deals with Yahoo and Google which make it possible to get you to the top. Is this true or just a scam? Any help to get me to the top would be great! There is one site that is ranked third it is a one page site with like 4 paragraphs on it…how can they beat me unless they are paying for it? And I do not me in the sponsored section they are in the main search. HELP
search engines are like fishing nets. you can’t always guarantee your site will show up at the top, just like you can’t guarantee what kind of fish you’ll get. spiderbots are constantly rescanning the web, postings are constantly appearing and disappearing, and these all affect your ranking.
your competitor may have had their domain registered longer, may have more things being written about them on the web, or may have more sites linking to theirs.
the other thing is there’s often a substantial time delay in putting a site up (or modifying/optimizing it for search) and seeing a change in the results.
the only deals i’ve ever heard of that weren’t scams were SPONSORED LINKS. i wouldn’t trust anyone that said they had some "inside edge"… the big engines are public companies whose stock prices would be hurt if they did illicit side deals.
my recommendations: keep at it, make sure your content is easily searchable (in other words, more text than graphic or flash), make sure you follow the engines’ guidelines for submission to a T, and see if you can get other sites (blogs, epinions, etc.) to have links back to your URL. generally speaking, the more people hosting links to your site, the higher your ranking will be.
hope this helps.