It is the Pinnacle of search marketing to be the #1 listing for your primary keyword or phrase. But it's not that simple, for there are a number of ranking issues with the major search engines that make the elusive #1 position even more elusive than you might imagine. Forget SEO for a moment and think about the fact that the internet itself as a whole is a VERY dynamic environment.
Search engine rankings are in a state of constant change. This happens for a number of reasons. First, web pages are being added and subtracted from the Internet at rates closing in on hundreds of thousands a day. This alone is enough to ensure search ranking change on a regular basis. Add to this the fact that the search algorithms are also changing on a constant basis and rely on many factors, which themselves change on a regular basis. An example of this would be in-bound links to specific pages. Historically fixed positions in search engine ranking are almost unheard of due to the fluid nature of the internet itself.
In addition, the major search engines are really just huge databases full of information about web pages and this information is spread out among a number of different data centers. In a perfect world, these databases would be perfectly in sync. The huge amount of data contained in these databases makes this a near impossible task. So what we end up with is a different data centers sometimes showing different results. If a person in California finds his site at #1, that does not mean the customer in Ohio searching with the same keyword finds the same site at #1.
Congratulations to you if you find your site at #1 for your keywords. But don't despair if they fluctuate up and down over time or some one across the country sees you placed lower than you expect. If you are on the first page, expect to bounce around a bit. Just remind yourself if the placement was fixed, you would have not had your chance to be #1 in the first place.
About the Author
John Carcutt is Senior Search Engine Analyst for, 6AM Media, a Florida web development boutique specializing in the planning and deployment of web technologies for business.
Thanks to John Carcutt, 
