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Climbing up the Search Ladder
j_heisenberg writes "Wired carries a story on SEOs or search engine optimizers. Among some bold claims: traffic is up 6 times and sales double, once you hit the first page of results on major engines. The catch: eventually everyone will use SEOs, and there is only one first page."
Is there any limit on how much you can optimize.. eventually, everything will be at equillibrium...
This was tried during the dot com boom. It just dosen't work. Isn't this what Google was supposed to stop?
Just by using XHTML compliant code and writing in our blog my fiancee and I are the #1 result in Google, Yahoo, and the new MSN search for a wide variety of topics. This includes areas we only talk about in one post or something. Perhaps the $$ and time that people spend on search engine optimization sites/links/etc would be better spent writing proper XHTML?
Our site is http://www.caseyandanna.com [No link, please don't slashdot!]
A few of the common search terms that we see involve: Cinara Aphids, Shrek2 pictures/etc (my typo), Aramark norovirus
Anyway, that's our experience.
I run a music site (Yeah, i know, shameless link...) that is constantly being beaten out by 3 domains. I did a whois on the owners and they're all the same guy in india.
I heard that this is why Google signed up for domain selling. They're getting their hands on the whois information to cross reference.
That would get rid of a lot of falce pagerank building...
Am I the only one who considers SEO unethical, almost to the sense of Nvidia or ATI making drivers that would cheat on benchmark programs? If your page is what someone wants, good, if it isn't, you can pay Google and they'll advirtise it on the side of the page along with all the other junk.
Really? Doesn't that assume that you have at least 15% of margin to play with? A lot of business would kill for that much.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Since the dawn of the web, workarounds and cheat have continually been found to "optimize" search results. The sad result of every web site's quest to appear at the top of search results is that it has prevented search engines from providing "objectively relavent" results.
While Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft continue to develop "search relevance technologies", someone out there needs to develop and bring to market a cognitive search engine that can actually understand the content of a page the way a human does and connect it with the requested search terms. Something similar to the Cyc project that Doug Lenat has been working on since the 80's (and its subsequent OpenCyc F/OSS derivative, only tied into search engines. And, no, I am not talking about Ask Jeeves or other silliness like that. ; )
Otherwise, "relevance" is just going to become a euphamism for "the people with the most money to 'optimize' their results"
"The catch: eventually everyone will use SEOs, and there is only one first page."
Which is called the prisoner's dilemma. If no one uses these SEO's everyone is relatively happy, someone uses it to their benefit / detriment of others (as they go down the list). Everyone then starts wasting time / money using them and we are at a nasty outcome.
When you search for "search engine optimization", you get about 7,950,000 results. Who'd pay money for SEO from a company that can't place over the 6 million mark when you search for SEO on Google?
The point of a search engine is not for the comopanies to be found to sell things to people... the point is for people to be able to find the information they are LOOKING for, thus the most visited, or however x search engine runs things. This DESTROYS that method, so whereas when you now look for "2005 Corvette" Chevy's website comes up, in a few months, it'll be Yo Mama humping a camel, because the pr0n site hosting that crap will be able to pay the most....
Christ I'm not crying cause my site won't be found, I'm complain cuz I won't be able to find the site I need.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
not at all.
What I'm saying is SEO is essentially useless. It serves no benefit to the business. A business doesn't stand based on a handful of sales. And those that do survive on that few (mainly aerospace) don't get found on Google, it's word of mouth.
It's content that makes it worth while.
Why didn't you like AOL? Their service suck?
Why do you like some ISP's? becuase their service is good?
Are you more likely to choose an ISP based on their Google Rank? Or because a friend says "they are GREAT"? Or because a bunch of slashdotters say "these guys rock"?
WORD OF MOUTH is the best marketing ever.
On the net, search ranking is essentially useless. Anyone who considers it important needs to re-evaluate their business. Unless of course you ARE a search engine.
You are right that mass market products will reach equilibrium. So, everyone is hoping for some little clever trick that will make them something special. Sadly, whenever you have a market condition where people feel they need to pull tricks for survival, you will create a market rife with scams.
Anyone with a defineable, replicable trick will probably end up selling out to the mass market fearing that their competition will sell out first.
Personally, I think the best hope against SEO tricks is for the market to have more independent directories and search engines with radically different algorithms and results. This world where your web site thrives or dwindles on the caprice of a single engine (google) or single directory (DMOZ) is far from ideal.
Self promoting sig: yes, I waste time making things like this page of Salt Lake Bands. I think others should waste time pounding out blogs and sites with things they think worthwhile.
More to the point, we'll soon reach a need for disparate search engines: one that caters to commercial needs and one that caters to "information only."
Perhaps this also will never happen, much as the ".com" intended for "company" soon came to mean "anyone with a website."
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
How about people stop making sites that are so similar to existing sites that they are unnecessary? Before you launch your internet business, maybe you should try this.
1.) Go to Google and type in the search terms you would use to find a site like the one you're proposing.
2.) If you get more than a page of sites offering the exact same thing, find another idea because you're fighting an uphill battle.
I understand that there are some fields where there will be similarity. Geico, Progressive, and State Farm would all like to be at the top of the "auto insurance" search. But if you want to open an online bookstore, you'd darn well better have something to set you apart from the million other online booksellers (especially Amazon) or you're dead meat no matter what your Google ranking is. Find out what that one thing is, and specialize in it. Be the best online seller of 18th century railroad books or two-headed troll dolls. If you can't rise to the top in a highly specialized area, you deserve your obscurity.
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
Maybe they need personalized search filters and a "never show me results from here" button.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
You're complaining that the people behind Google deceided that older, more established sites are more trusted than brand new ones? That doesn't make the least bit of sense to you? Wow.
I actually write SEO content -- but in a specialized manner. All of my content has to be keyword specific -AND- useful. Its the only way to get onto the search engines, and realistically stay there.
My works never involved link farming, or similar sort, and in the end results in better company pages (and ranks).
However, my competition doesn't see things in that way: They put bullcrap up for the search engines, which results in more bullcrap jobs for SEO.
(And by SEO, I mean standard content for websites. SEO is becoming the requirement for all pages to get into google at all... not just spider food (Bad SEO))
I can't say I don't like SEO: Its my job. However, if Spider food is banned or removed and replaced with half-decent content that actually means something, the internet would be better off.
Unfortunately, companies want to pay 1 or 2 dollars per 500+ word article for spider food, and expect their rankings to sky rocket. (I only write for higher paying markets. If the company is serious about good content, they should pay for it.)
Content writing has been outsourced just as much as tech jobs, straight to India. So you pay for crap, and get crap.
With so much crap out there, one good content writer CAN drastically improve a company. Now, this won't have such drastic change in the future, but right now its making a real difference.
It'd be nice if people were more concerned about having GOOD sites, rather than spamming search engines. While it costs more to get into it, the results will be better for everyone.
But, until some companies get over actually having to pay consultants and writers, I think it will be more junk in, more junk out. This is a prime example of how outsourcing is doing a lot more damage than good. (even the SEO companies are starting to outsource instead of using inhouse writers -- which means non-native, half of the time non-fluent English writers.)
It is quite frustrating, really.
Companies like the one in the article, while expensive, do tend to be more effective than the 1 or 2 dollar jobs -- in the long run. I just wish the companies would see it that way as well.
-- RJ
Actually when one RTFAs, one finds that Google actually has this to say:
Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, there are a few unethical SEOs who have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.
Sounds like they're saying some rather positive things about the industry as a whole.
All good websites need to use proper search engine optimization to let search engines and users find them. There are two types of SEO: those which are valid and important parts of site design and those which are tactics designed to trick search engines. I always help my clients with the first while reminding them that trying to trick the search engines is a good way to get themselves blacklisted.
A lot of websites don't even say what they do. How is a user expected to find your website if it doesn't say what it does? Clearly state the purpose of your website and the purpose of every page so that users and search engines will know what to expect. How many websites don't even have titles or have poor titles on most of the pages? A lot.
Websites tend to use images or Flash where text would serve them better. Stating what you do in an image or Flash does nothing to help search engines find you. Often these sites contain so many images and fancy animations that users have trouble navigating them. Websites should remember the golden rule of user-interface design: keep it simple stupid. Text should be text and not an image or Flash. If you must use an image or Flash then you should use the proper alt and title tags and you should repeat the same text as text in your page.
Many websites don't tell anybody they exist. They post something great but nobody ever finds it because they don't create incoming links for themselves. When you make a website, or a major new page to your website, then tell people about it. Tell people on archived mailing lists you use, list it with directories such as dmoz, etc. I personally encourage my clients to create community sites around their product and to sponsor paid-links (not ad banners) on informational websites related to their product.
Most of the steps involved are completely legitimate things you should be doing for your website anyway. The best way to rise to the top is to provide good content and to act like a website is expected to act.
A lot of howto websites have problems in SEO. They post useful information telling us how to do useful things but because they haven't considered their users actually finding their site they tend to be hard to find. That's why when you search for something you tend to find the first couple pages filled with unrelated spam and links to forums and mailing list articles. I had this problem myself for a long time. It's only been in the past year that I've began making an effort to get my howto's to rank well when people search for information on those topics.
Tricking search engines is negative SEO. It may work for a while but when the search engines catch on it can seriously hurt your placement. You shouldn't need to do these things either. Some things such as creating links to and from your website are perfectly valid but are often abused by people who have the misimpression that spamming out thousands of links is going to help them. For a while it might but usually not for very long.
Strategic partnerships with appropiate cross-linking is the way to go. Think of the way Slashdot links to Newsforge, Thinkgeek, Freshmeat, etc and they link back. THAT is the right way to do it. It's also not a bad idea to create rss feeds of your website that others can include into their own websites. THAT's a good way to get a lot of links back to your site.
Hopefully as awareness grows more websites will be properly optimized. Doing so will certainly make life easier for users Googling for what they want to know.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.