subject: Thinking about SEO and what it is [print this page] Thinking about SEO and what it is Thinking about SEO and what it is
The purpose of putting together a website is, surely, to generate traffic. As the internet bloomed so too did the search engines as it was their job to codify and organize the masses of data that lay in wait to be discovered. These days, in the world of search results, you are no one unless your site stands tall at the top of the list: it's the sure-fire way to generate thousands of clicks a day and in the world of search engine marketing the click is king.
When we view a list of research results we are, on the whole, viewing the work of search engine optimization. A lot of work has gone into making sure that all of those results have fallen at the top. Next time you view your search results, take a moment to think about this.
Falling at the top of search results can pay handsomely and Webmasters know it. Research back this up: itracking results show that 80% of web-users follow the first three links in Google search results. Put simply, it pays to fall in the top three.
Of course, Webmasters have been quick to catch onto the relationship between SEO and search results. And as the returns can be high, it's no surprise that the web has been flooded with zombie sites, spurious links and dead-end links; all with the intention of remaining at the top of those all-important search results.
But not all Webmasters are unscrupulous and building trustworthy content over time, using networks and the right techniques embeds many sites within search results and, ultimately, keeps the visitors flowing.
The symbiotic nature of SEO and search engines is an interesting one. The search engines need SEO to make sure their results are valid and SEO ensures that the search engines understand the content and can codify it easily. But the misuse of SEO has led to the large search engines being reticent about the mathematical algorithms that source and deliver their results and SEO is always playing catch-up.
Since 2005 Google, for those logged-in to the service has been supplying the user with personal results based on past searches. How this will impact on the future of SEO, we do not yet know.
