search engine optimization – cekom cologne
SEO – what is it and how does it work?
Search engine optimization refers to methods of setting up websites so that they are easily found by way of certain search terms. For this, it is necessary to understand how Google and other search engines analyze websites to list them on pages that display search results.Fraudulent SEOs use various methods to trick search engines. If any such fraud is discovered on a website, it can subsequently be excluded from search results. Available in contrast to this are techniques that improve a website's visibility to search engines. Proper search engine optimization usually achieves high rankings at Google and Co.
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"If Google doesn't find you, you are invisible in the Internet", one could say without much exaggeration. More specifically yet: if you are not listed on the first few pages of Google's search results, you will not be found. After all, who bothers to keep on clicking beyond page two or possibly three?
Google has been the dominant search engine for several years, and the statement above holds true even if Yahoo's and Microsoft's search engines are slowly catching up. Also, if one is highly visible on Google, then the results from other search engines are usually not too bad either.
The beginning
In the early days, you just had to actively register your website with search engines, Yahoo in particular. In most cases, your website was then "out there" and you could smugly watch the hits on it accumulate.
Then came search engines like Altavista, which could be tricked. By filling the metatags with the important search terms and setting text containing an abundance of such terms, it became possible to improve the ranking (= placement on pages displaying search results). This marked the beginning of search engine "spams". Internet traffic could be diverted by registering "coveted" keywords with the search engines. Thus arose websites that were purportedly "frequently visited" and therefore able to sell expensive advertising banners.
The competition for good rankings soon became fierce. Except in cases where everyone is familiar with a domain name (e.g. certain brand names), a website's success or failure is generally determined by its position in search results.
The revolution by Google
Google revolutionized the world of search engines with a new concept. Its crux: external links referring to a website were weighted as votes being cast for that site. The greater the number of such links, the better and more relevant the site must be. Besides assessing these links, Google's PageRank algorithm takes many more factors into account. Thanks to this ingenious algorithm based on the concept of link assessment, Google has generally supplied better results than other search engines.
But this principle was also deceived by a flourishing trade in links: if you link to me, I'll link to you. Websites were linked internally to excess, often even invisibly. All kinds of tricks were used to harvest external links. For instance, guest books and Internet forums were hijacked: "Nice website here! Visit me on www.mywebsite.tld". Webmasters on the 'dark' side of the spectrum created artificial networks comprising hundreds, if not thousands of computer-generated websites providing links to each other.
Now leading search engines, especially Google, and search engine optimizers are engaged in a constant race. Search engines develop increasingly sophisticated methods of detecting and filtering spam, whereupon webmasters test the new algorithms and look for loopholes to undermine them.
The major search engines notify webmasters and SEOs (search engine optimizers) about undesirable practices and threaten with lower rankings in the event of non-compliance. Websites that commit serious violations are even completely removed from Google's index. Whenever Google's spam filter is tweaked yet again, for example, the webmaster community protests loudly, and especially a lot of dark knights complain bitterly, others yet laugh silently ... until perhaps the next time.
Search engine visibility today
For important websites, it is imperative to avoid using the clandestine tricks of the irresponsible. Operating in this grey zone can even prove dangerous.
To stay out of trouble, websites should observe the recommendations of W3C and Google's information for webmasters. This applies anyhow to all commercial websites, and even purely informative corporate or product websites.
Furthermore, everything possible should be done to make the website highly visible to search engines. This ranges from the avoidance of certain techniques such as frames and session variables, through use of W3C-compliant HTML tags and internal links, in particular, to appropriate texts and structuring of the site's content. As Google remarks: "Create pages for users, not for search engines." We would like to add: And make sure that your pages can be accessed as easily as possible by search engine spiders.
A number of practical and proven strategies in agreement with the search engines' guidelines ensure that a new website is easily found with the search terms of relevance to it. This is attributable neither to wizardry nor dirty tricks. Being played here is a clean, analytical game with comprehensible arguments and recommendations.
But especially this world of search engine optimization is awash with dark knights and rush-job programmers. So be wary and stay skeptical! A number of techniques that achieve fast results later fizzle out just as quickly, and can even cause you lasting damage (Google penalties). It can take years to restore a penalized website to its former glory.
Search engine optimizers who deal fairly can be recognized by means of the following criteria:
- No registration of websites with hundreds/thousands of search engines (usually meaningless, except for Google, Yahoo and MSN).
- No guarantee of achieving top rankings (such guarantees are baseless).
- No link farms (offer to integrate into a network of mutually linked sites).
- No invisible text.
- No doorway pages (interim pages created only for certain search terms).
- No cloaking (notifying search machines of content different to that offered to visitors).
- No claims of special relations with Google.
We at cekom are committed to set up websites for clients in accordance with applicable rules, and ensure that the best possible results are achieved via search engines. We avoid bad practices and draw attention to their possibly unintentional use.
Striving for high customer satisfaction and sustainable results, we constantly analyze search engine algorithms and competitors' activities to ensure long-term success.
The Eero Aarnio website: For its keywords always on top of the international Google charts.
Just try "plastic furniture" in Google ...
The 1x1 of search engine optimization:
- user centered content
- clean W3C compliant programming
- good readability for search engine spiders
- no tricks
