Ever wonder how one gets the top ranking in Google?  Yes, believe it or not honesty pays, the old saying ‘Honesty is the best policy’ comes alive in the contemporary world as a rule of thumb if you want to succeed.

What determines search results?
Ever wonder how your keyword provides results?  Once Google recognizes a site as relevant because of particular keywords or phrases, your site gets advantage with related phrases as well.
Ever sat on a seesaw as a child?  The same principle works when the original keyword or phrase gives a pull by recognizing other related keywords and phrases and bringing your site as a result. 

How did I get my Halo?
Ever wonder why someone is considered to be reliable while another is considered to be dishonest?  Wikipedia defines the Halo effect as a “cognitive bias in which the assessment of an individual quality serves to influence and bias the judgment of other qualities.”
Ever wonder why we believe some people and not others?  When we form a particular judgment of someone, we look at them as if we were wearing blinders.  We only see the positive things, blinding ourselves from the negative aspects.  In addition, we assume that these positive qualities seep into other aspects as well.  Thus, we create the Halo effect, an angel-like quality, near perfection.

Google sees my Halo
Ever wonder why parents think their children are perfect?  It feels as good when Google helps create your unique Halo effect.  It is difficult to get a top ranking for a particular keyword in Google.  One can easily be seen in the result pages of search engines such as MSN or Yahoo when compared to Google search engine result pages (SERPS). 

Ever wonder why this is so?  Google is like a good parent who puts a child, a new website in a sandbox.  This is done also to ensure that spammers can be prevented from attaining topmost positions in Google rankings through endless link promotions.
After a particular time frame, usually spanning a month or a few months, one fulfills the minimal requirement to be able to get a top Google ranking.  During this time, search engine optimizers are like hyperactive children.  There is so much activity happening in the range of white hat, black hat or lots of grey techniques. 

After having been a good child and doing your homework properly, the good parent Google recognizes your efforts.  You have done things well by providing good written content on your sites, your blogs are well maintained and regularly updated, and you have followed the right steps and submitted to directories, your efforts come into the limelight as you begin to be visible on the SERPS.
After a lot of hard work, your efforts begin to show when you reach the top ranking in Google, the Halo effect has begun.  The good parent Google has recognized and rewarded the good child for putting in effort to develop a trustworthy website in a particular area.  Go ahead and reap the benefits of a job well done, you have been rewarded.  Good show!

Michael Henderson, a proffessional web designer and SEO expert in a website design company. He has worked on many projects on website development in India and Overseas. His experience & understanding of web technologies, web applications, search engines & WWW standards made him act as consultant for clients for proposing optimal web based solution to back there business needs and an adviser for web developers & web designers for developing pages which meet W3C standards in all respects.