subject: Thinking about the usefulness of Search engine optimization [print this page] Thinking about the usefulness of Search engine optimization
With the early rise of the Internet it did not take long for Webmasters to realize the financial potential of coming top of the list of search results. As the internet expanded its data content expanded with it and it was the job of the search engine to collate and deliver that content to us as search results; attempting to bring us exactly what we have asked for.
But how does a search giant such as Bing! recognise the data and know that it matched our search query? In part this is all the work of search engine optimization. When you submit a search query and you browse the results you are viewing the hard labour of SEO the strategies employed to ensure that a website stays high in the list of search results.
Naturally, this evolving relationship between SEO and the search engines has been fractious with Webmasters of some sites doing anything within their means to remain at the top of the search results. Huge sums of money are at stake and Webmasters know that remaining at the top of search results pays its rewards. Research supports this with itracking telling us that eighty percent of search results end up with the user clicking one of the top three search results. These techniques are frowned upon and include filling websites with repetitive keywords and links to unwanted porn and other deceptive links. The search giants know this and, as a result, they keep the algorithms used to deliver search results as closely guarded secrets.
That said, search engines rely on SEO to help them deliver the results that match the results that we want but the search engines move quickly to excluded content that it recognises as content designed to manipulate search results through repetition and trickery. And for every Webmaster that engages in disreputable SEO activities there lies a slew of Webmasters that achieve excellent ranking through setting-down thorough, relevant content and through building solid contacts.
With companies like Google now delivering personalized results to its users (introduced in 2005) we can only guess at the future of SEO and its place in the web.
