cedar fever

an SEO (search engine optimization) experiment

by Steve Cook

I'm one of the thousands of Austin, Texas residents who suffer from the demon cedar fever. I was born and raised in Austin and never had a problem with cedar trees. After spending 15 years in the Dallas area, I moved back to Austin in 1993. That first January back brought a shocking surprise... I was now a cedar fever sufferer!

As of this posting, Wikipedia does not have an entry on cedar fever. The closest thing to it is their entry on hay fever. The entry details the generic symptoms of allergic rhinitis, one of whose causes is the ubiquitous cedar tree.

Cedar fever is triggered by the pollen of the cedar tree. The tiny, hardly visible pollens of wind-pollinated plants like cedar trees are the culprit. In addition to individual sensitivity and geographic differences in local cedar tree populations, the amount of pollen in the air can be a factor in whether cedar fever symptoms develop. Hot, dry, windy days are more likely to have increased amounts of cedar pollen in the air than cool, damp, rainy days when most cedar pollen is washed to the ground.

The time of year at which cedar fever symptoms manifest themselves varies greatly depending on the types of pollen to which an allergic reaction is produced. The cedar tree pollen count is generally highest from January to March.

the cedar fever SEO experiment

As a website designer I do a lot of SEO (search engine optimization) work in Austin, Texas. I'm always tasked with getting my web design clients ranked highly on Google, with the ultimate goal of appearing on page one for their desired search phrase.

In January of 2010 I was in the midst of a horrific cedar fever episode when I got the idea of creating an SEO experiment using the search phrase 'cedar fever'. A domain name search revealed that cedarfever.net was available, so I purchased it and begin working some SEO voodoo on it. In short, I was able to get my site (www.cedarfever.net) to appear on Google page one in 8 days!

Even though I used all my mysterious SEO powers to accomplish this, a large part of the credit goes to the low demand level for the search phrase 'cedar fever'. The less demand for a search phrase, the easier it is to achieve results. A log of my progress follows:

date	progress
January 1, 2012	GOOGLE PAGE 1: cedarfever.net appears on GOOGLE page one for the search phrase 'cedar fever'.
July 21, 2011	It's been a while since I updated this site - cedarfever.net is still appearing on GOOGLE page one for the search phrase 'cedar fever'.
December 31, 2010	cedarfever.net is still appearing on GOOGLE page one
Feb 5, 2010	SUCCESS!!! cedarfever.net is appearing on GOOGLE PAGE ONE for the search phrase 'cedar fever'
Feb 2, 2010	cedarfever.net is appearing on Google page 4 for the search phrase 'cedar fever'
Jan 30, 2010	took some photos of cedar trees and created a cedar fever photo page
Jan 29, 2010	started casting my SEO voodoo spells!
Jan 28, 2010	conducted a Google search on the search phrase 'cedar fever' in order to establish a base line. this website did not appear on any page of the results.
Jan 28, 2010	purchased the domain name 'cedarfever.net' posted this website created a cedar fever blog entry on my blog

Check back for periodic updates.
If you have questions about SEO (search engine optimization) or want to learn more, please go to http://www.austexwebsites.com/seo.php.