What's the most frustrating thing about trying to rank higher in search results?

SEO
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What’s the most frustrating thing about trying to rank higher in search results?

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hi @jasonh

i guess there are 3-4 frustrating aspects of SEO:

  1. one is that you can do everything like create high-quality content, build backlinks, work on pillars and clusters, etc., and yet rankings are always going to be unpredictable. moreover, the fact that results can easily get influenced by core algorithm (which are out of your control) updates makes it even more challenging.
  2. second i would say, time lag. SEO progress takes months, so it’s hard to know if strategies are working until much later.
  3. third, seo isn’t fixed. there is no-one-size-fits-all answer. so, it requires a lot of out of the box thinking and also original ideas which make it even more difficult.
  4. lastly, in 2025, seo is getting hampered by AI overviews, or as they say, GEO. that way, even if you have finally cracked the code, you will start to notice a dip in your performance metrics. that’s concerning.
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That’s a great question. For me, the single most frustrating thing isn’t just one specific task, but the unpredictable and often agonizingly long feedback loop.

In most professions, you do good work, and you see a positive result relatively quickly. In SEO, you can spend weeks or even months researching keywords, writing the perfect piece of content, optimizing it technically, and building high-quality links… and then you wait.

You’re essentially sending your hard work out into the void, hoping the Google algorithm likes what it sees. There’s no immediate confirmation that you’re on the right track. It can take months for your efforts to translate into a stable, higher ranking.

To make it even more challenging, while you’re waiting, Google can release a major algorithm update that completely changes the rules of the game, potentially undoing all your progress overnight for reasons that are rarely clear at first.

It’s that combination of intense, upfront effort followed by a long period of silence and uncertainty, all while the goalposts are constantly moving.

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After doing what we can to rank higher, the final fact is the website still has a low rank status, which is indeed frustrating and disappointing.

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Hi @jasonh,

That’s a great question, you optimize titles, write solid product descriptions, add alt text, set up your meta tags, get decent backlinks… and still your competitors (with worse sites!) outrank you. Frustrating? Extremely.

Here are my thoughts…

SEO is slow: Unlike ads, SEO doesn’t give you instant feedback. You might wait weeks or months to see if your changes worked. It’s like shouting into the void and hoping Google was listening.

You’re optimizing for an algorithm that keeps changing: Google updates (like core updates, spam policies, AI content crackdowns) can wipe out months of work overnight even if you’re doing white-hat SEO.

It’s hard to know what actually moved the needle: Did that meta description update help? Or was it the internal link change? Or the product reviews? There’s no single lever, it’s all interconnected.

Good SEO tools are expensive: If you want real insights (like from Ahrefs, Semrush, or even SurferSEO), it adds up fast. And even then, they can contradict each other.

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@Elroy1 Wondering what you have tried and if any of the tactics turned out working for your ranking some time later?

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@Amlani I totally hear you! Trying to figure out the algro we have no control over can take time. While trying out various creative tactics and waiting the search engine to pick up the signals, the anticipation may come with moments of doubts.

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@jasonh I have tried publishing ads in Facebook and Instagram, as my store aims at books and toys. However, my store rank was still slow two years ago. This has changed until I explore SEO strategies on the store and though improving slowly still, it has made some progress until this year, and I’m still monitoring the changes or data every day.

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Honestly, one of the most frustrating things is that it’s a long-term effort with zero guarantees. You can do everything “right” — optimize keywords, improve loading speed, add schema, even write great content — and still not see consistent movement in rankings.

What makes it worse is the unpredictability. You tweak something hoping for improvement, and sometimes your traffic drops instead. A good example — we followed Google PageSpeed Insights and applied their suggestions (like preloading CSS and inlining JS), only to get worse scores and slower actual load times. Especially on Shopify, where you’re working within a boxed-in theme and layered app ecosystem, every “improvement” can break something else.

And now with the shift to AI-driven search, it’s getting even murkier. Everyone’s talking about optimizing for AI answers and featured snippets, but in reality, no one truly knows how these new models will treat small brands in 1 month or a year. You’re aiming at a moving target, with limited transparency and changing rules.

So yeah — it often feels like you’re investing a lot of time and energy in something you can’t fully control or predict.

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I agree with this one the most. Sometimes you write a piece of content that you think is going to hit big and It just flops. The other time you just vibe-write something and It does really well.

I noticed that having a really technically well prepared stored boosts your chances of ranking higher, but the external SEO is the more difficult part.

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The most frustrating thing is doing all the right SEO steps but still waiting weeks or months to see if rankings improve.

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Hello Natalia. I have a question for you. I set up shop on Shopify, bought a domain, and arranged for a Premium website to be made for me. I was deceived twice . And these are all Nigerian citizens. I am looking for a partner who will complete the small details on the website, help with sales, and be my partner on a permanent basis. I am willing to pay% of the sales. Perhaps you know honest people with whom I can cooperate. Thank you. Sincerely, Sergey.

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Hi Sergey,
I’ve answered you in DM.

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Honestly, one of the most frustrating things is how unpredictable it can feel. You can spend hours optimizing content, improving site speed, building backlinks, and making sure everything lines up with best practices—yet rankings can still swing up and down without clear reason. Add in constant algorithm updates, competitors outranking you with thinner content, and the time it takes for changes to even show results, and it can feel like you’re working in the dark.