Cats are fiendishly complicated to manage, they eat when they want, sleep when they want, come and go as they please. A cat is going to do what it wants, when it wants and there’s precious little you can do to change that. Feed them, shelter them, love them, buy those ridiculous mouse on a string toys to entertain them, get them a scratching post (which they may or may not use) and be enormously available to them for their every need. And they may or may not give you the time of day.

Search Marketing isn’t entirely like that, but it’s close. Learn best practices, implement the right site architecture, spend time developing great content, participate in online communities through social marketing, provide exceptional site performance all so Google will pay attention, and they will if it’s done right…sometimes. And what worked last quarter, may not be what works this quarter.

It’s the equivalent of setting out a can of tuna when the cat is gone, “I value you you so much, I’m willing to set out a $1.75 can of white albacore to entice you to quit being a bitch and come home where you can do me the favor of keeping you from getting eaten by the coyote waiting for you by the barn.” That usually works, then one day, “F#%& you, don’t care about tuna, what else you got?” A little different from Google, but note the parallels.

In the middle of a fairly difficult move, the cats decided to run off for the day. We contemplate what to do, leave the door open, set out food, drive to the old house, set a familiar article next to the front door, walk around in the rain for hours hoping to catch a glimpse of the cats which we imagine are wet and frightened, feeling out of sorts from the new change. In a bit of resignation we decide to go out to dinner and resume the search when we return. At which point, they emerge. Frightened, wet, tired? No, DeeDee is taking a long leisurely nap deep in the bathroom linen closet, Hermann comes strolling up after a 12 hour disappearance just in time to use the litter box, “Man that was a big adventure, I’d have stayed out longer but I really needed to take a crap”. What an ass. Yet here we are relieved and filled with gratitude that these demanding, careless little furballs are home safely. No rhyme or reason as to why they’ve gone or where they’ve been.

So it’s going great, you’re executing on the well-researched search marketing strategy, all internal pages and products are humming along, ranking and performing just as planned and all the sudden, 2 weeks into the busy season the top trafficked phrase with ranking to the home page drops off the face of the planet, for no apparent reason. Site performance is up, no big pricing changes in the industry, no new competition, nothing unexpected, it’s just gone. So you go about setting out the tuna, not the Bumble Bee, but the really good stuff they get only by smacking baby dolphins in the head, sure it’s bad, but you’ll try almost anything at this point. Stand out in the rain, forgo other activities in the hope of gaining the placement that helps make quarterly goals. Then in exasperation, you go to something else. Your heart sinks, a sense of dejected defeat washes over you. Then you check dashboards the next day, and there it is. The ranking you need, hate and love all at the same time. The bitch is back.

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