With the help of MSN, recently I've been reminiscing about the Google of old.Remember those days? When you could take a good quality site, add a fewkeywords, get a few incoming links and bada-bing, bada-boom, it'd be #1 onGoogle? Remember the old days, pre-Florida, pre-sandbox? The days when we, assearch engine optimization specialists, didn't feel like a private schoolgirl smokingin the bathroom? When we didn't feel like the iron fist would come crashing down atany moment? Yes, those were the good old days. And MSN has finally brought themback, though on a much smaller scale.

Google hit it right on the nose back then. Search results were almost neverirrelevant - venturing to the second page of results was an event that drew gasps.There was never, ever any reason to leave Google and search for the same query onanother search engine. Satisfied users the world over, it was the search engine ofchoice almost everywhere searches were conducted. I myself never strayed fromGoogle, I was loyal and I was rewarded for my loyalty with consistently relevantresults.

But has Google taken their quest for perfection a few steps too far? Case in point:http://www.jimmylerner.com - this web site is the official site of an author. Searchon MSN for his name, "jimmy lerner" and his web site is the top result. Now, try thesame search on Google. The top results are pages devoted to reviewing his book,book stores selling his book, a press release I sent out to announce his new site anda few times I've even seen sites show up in the top ten that simply have a link to hissite from theirs and are completely unrelated. His site has been jumping from thesecond page to the first and back again.

This begs the question, optimization or no optimization, what, exactly, is theproblem with a quality, informative web site reaching number one for a search querythat is probably conducted specifically to find that exact site? Has the focus and aimof Google changed from offering relevancy to satisfied searchers to simply impedingthe progress of SEOs? Is Google's main concern now, to stop individuals fromhelping a site reach number one? It can seem that way, can't it? And I can only sayone thing about it. Bad move, Google.

I've heard a few people say that it's just a transition period. That all web sites are inthe same boat, everyone's waiting to see the fruits of their optimization labour.Perhaps this is true, and perhaps over the next little while we will see changes atGoogle that make our jaws drop, impressed at the level of perfection we neverthought possible. But I think maybe Google needs to re-focus their energies. Takethe focus back to the user, not the SEOs. Get back to the near-impeccable relevancylevel before I start using MSN to learn about all my favorite authors.

Courtney Heard is the founder of AbaloneDesigns, a search engine optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. She hasbeen involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped startseveral businesses since then in the Vancouver area. More of Courtney's articles areavailable at http://www.abalone.ca/resources/