Gee -- Thanks, Google!

I heard that www.google.com changed some of its rules about how websites are ranked following a search. It used to be that my website (http://www.SouthwestSpaces.com), if you Googled "desert paintings," would list as high as #1 or sometimes into the 20s or 30s. Now my site is hovering around #172!

And I don't know why! What did Google change? Is a certain group of us being "punished" for doing or not doing something?

I built my website myself, and I think I did an OK job, especially considering the high rankings I used to get. But web design is not my job. Making and selling paintings is. I just don't have time to try and figure out what Google wants from me so I can fix whatever the issue(s) is/are.

So all I can say at this point is: Gee -- thanks, Google! I hope you peeps understand that when you do stuff like this, you may be literally affecting someone's livelihood -- if not an individual's (like me), then even entire companies of people.

Googling Googling

Every so often, I Google my name to see how many other Mark Junges there are. I myself come up in several contexts: my Website http://www.southwestspaces.com, a positive comment about my site on someone else's site, and a review I wrote about an art-related seminar that appears on a third site.

However, I'm not the only Mark Junge in the universe! Other MJs include:

- a motorcycle racer;
- a Wyoming writer;
- a photographer;
- a 24/7 oxygen-dependent man who bicycled across the country to prove even people with lung disease can do something like that. (Good for him!)

But so far: I'm the only Mark Junge, Artist. Let's keep it that way! =)