Anyone involved in any sort of Internet marketing sees the
term, "search engine optimization", or SEO, everywhere
these days. Everybody throws it around as if they were
experts on the subject. It crops up again and again in
forums and advertising alike. People offer their "SEO
services" for fees ranging from a few bucks to hundreds or
even thousands of dollars. Everybody seems poised to offer
free advice on how to effectively incorporate SEO into YOUR
website.
However, hardly anyone ever comes out and says WHAT search
engine optimization really is! So, as we explore the
history of SEO, let's try to get an idea of what it is and
what it does.
At its simplest, search engine optimization is just the art
and/or science (often more art than science) of making web
pages attractive, or MORE attractive, to the Internet
search engines. Obviously, most Internet businesses will
consider search engine optimization to be one of THE major
factors of any search engine marketing plan or program.
So, how did a need for "optimizing" a website so as to
attract the attention of search engines come about?
Well, back in the dark ages of the Internet, say the mid
90's, was when the arcane art of SEO began to blossom.
Maybe it was the Renaissance, but "dark ages" is easier to
spell. However, search engine optimization was pretty
basic back in those days. As a matter of fact, many of the
available "search engines" back then really weren't much
more than web crawling (sorry Spider-Man) directories
eventually extracting a bit more data from the site than
was submitted originally by the website owner.
Even in those dark days, a good quality search engine was
able to perform some discriminatory evaluation and assign a
weight, or search engine rank, based on the relevance of
the site's informational content, and other data, such as
keywords, description, and textual and graphic content, to
certain topics and queries. Unfortunately, although the
web crawler, or spider, of the search engine was able to
extract a certain amount of data, a large portion of a
site's ability to achieve high search engine rank depended
on material submitted by the webmaster.
Webmasters aren't stupid, you know, and they soon realized
that by using various techniques they could increase their
site's search engine rank. One such technique was
manipulating content by increasing the usage of keywords,
often to huge multiples which might be hidden in the
background of the site, for example. In this way they
could increase their website's search engine rank. A
higher rank meant more visitors, which usually meant more
money. A fact the webmasters easily understood.
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Enter the search engine algorithm.
"Algorithm" is possibly one of the least understood words
commonly found on the Internet. All it means is the
system, or instructions, which, in this case, the search
engine follows in its quest to rank websites. To be
absolutely silly, a search engine owner could decide that
his or her algorithm will include instructions to assign
the lowest rank to websites with the word "blue" in them.
The point is that the magical, mystical ALGORITHM is simply
the set of instructions that has been provided to the
software that the search engine uses to assign search
engine ranking.
Now, it isn't as if search engine algorithms didn't exist
before, but, as with cops and robbers, as the webmasters
got better at subverting the existing algorithms, the
search engines tweaked their algorithms to counter their
tricks and ploys.
One major change was that search engines began to place
less faith on the presentations and protestations of the
webmasters and developed software capable of investigating
the site itself and forming conclusions on what it actually
found there. Instead of the webmaster filling in a form
providing a title, description, and a bunch of keywords
which was checked by a "Mortimer Snerd" indexer which said,
"Yup, Mr. Bergen. Them keywords is there, all right, and
there's a bunch of 'em!", the search engine software began
to look more deeply for itself and make logical, or at
least quasi-logical, determinations about what it found.
BREAK FOR THOSE UNDER 50: Okay, 200 per cent of Internet
users are people nowhere near my age, so here's the skinny
on Mortimer Snerd. Back in the 1930's and into the 60's, I
believe, there was a popular ventriloquist named Edgar
Bergen, father of Candice Bergen. He mainly worked with
two dummies, Charley McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. Charley
McCarthy, although a smart aleck, was usually dressed in
tie and tails and seemed to be up on the comings and goings
of society. Bergen's other major dummy was Mortimer Snerd,
a hick straight off the turnip truck who believed whatever
he was told...and believed it literally.
Back to search engine optimization.
Okay, rather than just accepting the webmaster's word that
keywords "weight loss", "diet", and "exercise" were
applicable to the subject matter of the site and then
checking to see if those words were there, the software
began looking at a long list of factors. It would check
the domain name, and the words used in the title. It would
check to see how often keywords appeared, how close they
were together, and the sequence in which they appeared. It
would check such things as what the "ALT" attribute
attached to images contained, and what the META tags had to
say. Most important of all, it would check the textual
content of the site to get a major feel for the way all
these things came together and how they matched the claims
of the webmaster and the expectations of the search
engine's clients.
Now you see why so many people say, "Content is king!"
However, for a major search engine such as Google, website
content alone was not enough to insure that its customers
were seeing the most valuable search results and that
websites were getting the most accurate page rank.
Therefore, Google developed a system known as "Page Rank"
which also looks at the number of incoming links to the
site. In other words, how many other sites around the
Internet considered this site relevant to the interests of
their clients and hence of value to the interests of the
search engines' clients.
As search engines became bigger and more powerful, and as
webmasters became more inventive at circumventing their
algorithms, the major search engines such as Google made
their particular algorithms tightly controlled secrets.
This has made it extremely difficult for amateur webmasters
and search engine optimization services alike to predict
exactly which technique or tactic was going to be the most
successful for achieving a high web page rank on a given
search engine.
However, some deductions have been made based on the pages
and sites that DO seem to achieve high page ranks with
Google and other search engines.
Techniques such as picking a relevant domain name,
including important keywords and phrases in the title,
having keywords show up in such places as the image ALT
tag, and stressing keywords through the use of headline
text and by placement at the beginning and end of the page
are all of importance. Having lots of inbound links from
relevant sites is important as is internal linking (the
development and value of the sitemap is another important
topic).
Over and above all the smooth moves, however, it appears
that as search engine algorithms expand their capabilities,
based of course on the instructions they have been
provided, they begin to approach the viewpoint of the human
website viewer. As a human would ask, "Does this site make
sense and provide relevant data in an understandable
manner?", so too are search engines becoming more
interested in the structure and content of the website.
Search engine crawlers are becoming more efficient as well
in simply finding your site if someone somewhere has
considered it important enough to provide a link from their
website to yours. This is another reason why links from
other pages can be important for getting your website
indexed in the first place as well helping get it a good
page rank.
As in the good old days of the Internet in the previous
century (I needed to say that), the most common means of
offering your website to a search engine for its
consideration is by a simple task of filling in a form.
You will notice in the modern era, however, that the search
engines are asking you for less and less information about
the site. They prefer to go and get it themselves. On the
other hand, filling in the form does not guarantee
immediate, or even soon, indexing of your site...if it
happens at all.
From the viewpoint of the search engine or the human
visitor, while various techniques of search engine
optimization are important, the quality of the content
provided to your visitor is probably going to be the best
search engine optimization method of all.
About The Author
Donovan Baldwin is a 62 year old bodybuilder, internet marketer, and freelance writer living near Fort Hood, Texas. He is a
University of West Florida alumnus, a member of Mensa, and is retired from the U.S. Army after 21 years of service.. He has
recentily teamed up with Global Domains International (GDI), and offers information on his involvement with this international
company at: http://donsdomains.ws/ .
