Wondering how you might be able to get ranked on top for a specific keyword? Thinking there may be a short cut or two? Recently I had the opportunity to work with a client who was also in search of ways to automate much of the search engine optimization process. I started the assignment working with him to improve his website design and architecture. Soon there after, we focused on building links to his site.

Off page optimization is all about building your web site's popularity. Google measures this by applying their algorithm and rewarding you with a Google Page Rank. Once your page has Google PR, it can easily be compared with other pages in the same genre. This is especially true with new sites or pages that have very little history associated with them.

When evaluating a web site I'm always sure to evaluate the content of the site. All content should be designed for the browser and then considered appropriate for search engine spiders. After validating the link structure of the web site and checking to make sure that pages load quickly, it's time to focus on link building.

A great way to build one way links is with directory submissions. The process is simple. All you need to do is to find directories related to your web site niche. There are many directories available and services that can submit your website automatically for review. We decided to use such a service to take the manual labor out of directory submission and target more than three hundred web sites.

Within 48 hours of the site being submitted, the web sites ranking for targeted keyword terms dropped by more than 62 percent. I couldn't believe what a detrimental affect the automated submission service had on this particular web site. Could this be coincidence or is there proof of the damaging effects of automated submission?

At the time, we were not focused on any other type of link building activity. Due to the immediate nature of the impact on search rankings, I've concluded that automated submission had a negative impact that was significant. My only hope is that its not everlasting.

Is automatic directory submission a thing of the past? Is it to good to be true? If you based your opinion on my recent experience I would say yes. Using the auto submission process had a very negative impact on search engine rankings for the site I was working on. Even though I can't verify the impact of all services I assume that you should think twice before assuming that a submission service is going to save you time or give you better results.