As I've mentioned before, I'm having a lot of work done to my home. One of the jobs is to have the landscape contractors put in underground drainage in my backyard to help the water drain better. So, a few days ago, they hauled in a ton of dirt to level the ground. Because the three that showed up to do this phase of the job were Larry, Curly, and Moe, I ended up with a mountain of dirt that did a great job of plugging up the back yard, with no chance for water to be able to flow out. Of course, the next day it rained for hours, and I now have a lovely lake behind my house.
They are out there right now feverishly digging ditches to get the water to move on out.
Rather than cry, I sat down here at my computer to vent a little, and decided to make yet another comparison to SEO. Moral of the story: When optimizing a site, don't plug it up! Think about the possible effects your changes may have on the rankings. They may not be what you intended. Plan ahead for that rainy day (algo changes?), and don't leave a pile of dirt (robots.txt screwups?) that may block the water from flowing (search engine crawlability?).
Ok, enough stupid analogies for today.
Donna,
My Dad’s side of the family is construction and I’ve found growing up on job sites has given me two great advantages:
1. No fear of heights. Running accross rooftops – that are only framed – doesn’t allow that “option”.
2. Major advantages for web development. So many of the same issues come up it’s almost scary. I guess when you think about it building a web site is conceptualy similar to building a building. You need to plan first, have a strng foundation, know how to work with customers (in both fields your word is who you are), solicit referals, develop word-of-mouth marketing, use the right tools, adhere to standards (clear navigation, accessable to handicapped, etc.), have some design sense (construction workers don’t like to talk about this but they use it constantly), have an understanding of space and geometry, deal with subcontractors, write contracts, keep timelines… It goes on and on.
When I encounter a real problem I often find myself wondering what my father or grandfather would do if they were in the same spot with one of their projects.