This very well may be a manual manipulation of results, which also doesn’t make sense since several big brand names are missing from the results still.

These new results, if they stick, mean that large established brands do not have to do SEO, do not have to follow Google’s ever complicated rules about new fresh content, about minimizing flash, about proper tags, about duplicate content. They do not have to spend any money or time on SEO like the rest of the world.  It is frustrating enough for webmasters that they cannot simply make a useful site for their business, they must hire an SEO who knows what is right/wrong, or spend hours a week keeping up with the guidelines.  Now companies that are not even their direct competitors will outrank them without doing any SEO at all.

And the user is show results that they may not have even been looking for.

We’re coming up on holiday season in the United States, and for those of us in Internet-related fields that might take on a different meaning than for others. For online retailers like Amazon and Overstock, as well as for the online arms of brick & mortar giants like Best Buy and Wal-Mart, this is the most profitable time of the year by far. But for the many sites that make their money off another Internet business model – no charge for content, profit through advertising – the impact on the bottom line might be quite different.

The collection of holidays celebrated in America at the end of the year is impressive, from Thanksgiving to Hanukah to Christmas to New Year’s. These holidays mean more time spent way from work, more time spent traveling and vacationing, and less time on the computer. The real drag on web traffic, however, is the vacation-prone summer months. XiTi Monitor, a web survey institute, reports that between 2002 and 2007, the months of June through September all displayed negative seasonal effects on web traffic. August was the biggest culprit, with a seasonal drop in traffic of 14%.

How can your site avoid these drops in traffic? Stay away from content that is too season-specific, for one. Sparkplugging, a blog and community for Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, noted major changes in traffic to specific articles regarding tax write-offs and regarding keeping kids busy during the summer. The tax article saw a quick buildup until its apex on April 15, followed by a steep and permanent drop (until the next tax season). The second article, about how parents can keep kids busy, saw a decline after summer ended and kids started going back to school.

To a certain extent, these examples show the danger of existing completely within a niche. While niches can be profitable and often represent a smart strategy, it’s hard to build a successful revenue model around a site that only gets real traffic for two months out of the year. But on the other hand, if your content is diverse and you play your cards right, you can take advantage of each one of the various shifts in traffic. Although it sounds like common sense, it can still be done much better by many companies. Adapt your content to each season when the time calls for it, and then shift back when it’s no longer relevant.

Research the impact that summer and seasonal web traffic trends have on your website, and adapt your strategy accordingly.

PubCon is one of the largest industry events, covering all Webmaster topics.  The education is phenomenal and the networking is even better.  It’s held in Vegas, at the convention center, Nov 11-14.  It is one of the more affordable events of the year, and one of the most important.  More than SEO, it will cover design and programming issues, ppc, social media, branding, affiliate marketing.

Please let us know if you will be out there so we can say hello!

The apparently works fairly well and will certainly help those save this part of their budget for off site optimization.