So we hear this phrase all the time, from everywhere.. “Content is King” but what does that  actually mean?

You all heard that Courtney Tuttle withdrew his keyword sniper posts a little while ago? …having been most likely been Google slapped?

He basically went from being #4 for “internet marketing” when we included him in our best SEO blogs awards back in the summer, to not even showing up for his own name.

That’s a pretty bad slap one way or another, he must have done something “Google” didn’t like if it wasn’t some server problem or something.

But what?  and if it was a manual slap, which looks quite likely, what for?

Free speech? Surely not?

It’s also just a little bit on top for us now, because some of our lads have been messing around ranking for the words keyword sniper / sniping etc, having some spare-time-blogging-fun with the SERP with their (attempted) humour, but are now left dangling out in the open with our pants down, in the keyword sniper rankings with some somewhat less than serious material.

.

And..,

er.. we’ve just launched an seo web design website package, with sniper in the name, the “sbs sniper” no less..  So what we’re wondering I suppose is are we next for a Google slap for aiding and abetting serp sniping in any form?

Why exactly was Court punished? His content was awesome, even if a bit disagreeable to Google’s ears? is it now “content is king if we like it’s message” ?

Court’s now apologizing for ever implying that content wasn’t king, and that it definitely still is. (We know that anyway, we’ve been testing the specifics of this statement for a while now, you can read more on our simple seo page)

What this seems to imply we are being told is that if GoogleGod, either  algorithmically (we know already) or manually, don’t like or want the world to know what you’re saying, even when the rest of the web clearly does like it, they can and will arrange a little smiting down of Good King Content any time they like.

Full on censorship was a never a part of the Google “don’t be evil” message was it?  …so if that’s what this is, it’s quite significant no?

Anyway, our version of small business seo sniping is based on inserting the  highest quality hand written content into a pre-optimised wordpress seo package that we construct and configure for the quickest route to market, rather than any of the online, affiliate or adsense keyword niche domination tactics Court’s original articles discussed.

Ours is aimed primarily at real world “bricks and mortar” small businesses and start-ups, and in not-very-competitive markets on the whole, (although fully scale-able) where if we carefully look at the current sites and kw coverage we can usually craft an immediate presence through the gaps.

We just want to build genuine small business websites that put little bed and breakfasts in Ibiza and 18 year old kid’s first business, a DJ Equipment Hire setup into view as fast as possible, not make fortunes from dominating adwords niches or affiliates.

..and we just liked the name.

so when we realised that the mighty SBS only went and shared the same initials as Small Business SEO, and that no-one had yet come up with the “Small Business Seo (sbs) sniper” connection, it all fell into place.

So is that still OK or can we look forward to vanishing from view for our own name soon as well? …probably shouldn’t jest, you never know who might be reading

hopefully its total self-flattery to think that Google would really care about a tiny little company like us no-ones ever heard of, using a phrase someone else invented to market websites on the(ir) internet……………?

update 17-11-08 More evidence Google is now the modern day God?