Hundred Dollar SEO

Three posts about how search engines work:

• Rand Fishkin - covers how databases are likely used and what are dependent and independent variables. At the core it is a good question. He should continue this line by talking about how Yahoo! and Google work differently — especially since he places high value on links.
• Micheal Martinez - says that Google doesn’t work. He also points out that what ever it is that Google is doing they are not communicating consistent information.
• I shared a bit of theory on how quality links are determined.

In early January there was a dust up about a possible penalty being applied on Google. Whether there was a Google 6 penalty just as a coincidence from regular holiday revisions or an intentional filter is beside the point. What is becoming an issue is that the avenues of communication with search engines are growing, especially at Google where there are official blogs for everything, but the information is spread very thin. The blogs that are most useful are pragmatic post like this one.

But we don’t get that kind of useful information about Google’s — or really any search engine’s — primary offering, Search.

Some of the more interesting Matt Cutts videos etc. are scattered across other official blogs, like what is Google trying to accomplish with image search and how to use alt tags to help image search work correctly. Meanwhile they whine about people not appending rel=nofollow to links that Google suspects to be paid. It is not our responsibility to fix Google’s broken systems. Web sites owners, as content producers, should be more concerned with producing valuable resources rather than semantics. Most truly successful site get much of their traffic from referrals.

Where the search engines are failing us is in not functioning with the same kind of conversation about Search that they have about other projects. I want less “we have added a new hotkey to our mail service” and more “this is how a website communicates with a search engine”

I would like to give a special shout out to a condescending Yahoo! article. I read your search marketing blog because I am a Search Marketer. You don’t need to put out disingenuous advice bi-lined by a search marketing author to earn my interest, you need to put the screws to your competition. Please take advantage of your blog to address the issues that your major competitor is dropping the ball on.

Tags:   Google · YahooNo Comments

Related Posts