Search Engine Optimization – cekom cologne
Search Engine Optimization – What is it and how does it work?
The term "search engine optimization" means methods for setting up a website in order to be easily found for particular search terms by search engines. To accomplish this it is necessary to understand how Google and other search engines analyze and evaluate websites and then position them on their result pages.
Dishonest search engine optimizers try different techniques to deceive search enginges. Once detected this can lead to the exclusion of those sites from search engines. In contrast to this there are techniques which improve a website's visibility for search engines. By means of a clean search engine optimization you can achieve good placements in Google and co. in most of the cases.
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'He who is not being listed on Google is not visible on the internet', you could claim without much exaggeration. Or even clearer: He who is not being listed on the first few Google pages will not be found at all – because hardly anybody clicks through to the second or even the third search result page.
Google has been the dominating search engine for the last few years, and even though Yahoo and Microsoft are slowly managing to catch up, the first claim still remains true. And what's more: If you are well visible in Google, the results in the other search engines are also not bad most of the time.
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The Beginnings
When search engines first came up, you did't need to do more than to register your own website actively at the search engines. At this time this was mainly Yahoo. In most of the cases you were 'in' afterwards and could proudly watch being found.
Then came search engines like e.g. Altavista ... where ist was possible to apply tricks. By filling up the meta tags with the most important search terms and by properly enriching your texts with those search terms, the ranking of your website (= its placement on the search result pages) could be improved. This was the beginning of the so called search engine 'spams'. – You could even draw traffic by placing the most 'wanted' search terms on your pages. Thus allegedly well visited websites were created which sold expensive banner advertisements.
The war for good rankings broke out with ferocity. The reason for this was that except in cases where everyone knows a domain name (e.g. if it is a brand name) success or failure of an internet presence is determined by its position on the search engine result pages.
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The Google Revolution
Google revolutionized the search engine world with a new concept. Its main point: Links from other websites were treated as votes for your website. The more links the better / more relevant your website was supposed to be. – Besides link evaluation many additional factors were worked into the Google algorithms. With its sophisticated page rank algorithm around this concept of link evaluation Google managed altogether to deliver better results than other search engines.
But this concept, too, became outsmarted. The link trade business flourished: Link to my website, and I'll link to yours. – Websites became internally linked excessively, often even with invisible links. – All sorts of tricks were employed to obtain external links. For instance, guest books and internet forums were abused: 'Nice website! Please visit me on www.mysite.tld' – Webmasters on the 'dark' side of the spectrum created artificial link networks of hundreds, even thousands of computer-generated websites linked to each other.
Today the leading search engines, first of all Google, are involved in a constant competition with so called 'search engine optimizers'. The search engines are developing more and more sophisticated methods to detect and filter search engine spam. Webmasters are challenging these new algorithms on their search for new loopholes to undermine them.
The big search engines are publishing information for webmasters and SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers) concerning methods which are not tolerated and threaten SEOs with degraded rankings of their websites in case of violation. Heavy frauds may even lead to the removal of a website from Google's index. – When for instance Google enhances its spam filters again, a howling starts among the webmasters' community and many dark knights are weeping in grief ... while others are smiling quietly ... until perhaps the next time.
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Search Engine Visibility Today
We strongly advise against applying the more or less secret tricks of the black sheep on important websites. It may even be dangerous to travel inside the gray area.
A website that wishes to avoid problems should stick to the W3C recommendations and Google's advice for webmasters. This applies anyway to all commercial websites as well as purely information-centered company or product websites.
Additionally everything should be done to make a website clearly visible for the search engines. This starts at avoiding certain techniques like frames and session variables, continues with the W3C compliant use of HTML tags and particularly internal links and ends at the appropriate writing and content structuring of your website. As Google states: "Create pages for users, not for search engines." We'd like to add: And see to it that your pages are accessible to search engine spiders as easily as possible.
There are a number of practically tested strategies which in accordance with the search engines take care that a new website can be easily found for its relevant search terms. Behind these strategies are neither sorcery nor dirty tricks but just a clean analytic play with comprehensible arguments and recommendations.
But exactly in this world of search engine optimization many dark figures are cavorting, gray knights and lightweight programmers. So take caution and always stay skeptic! There are a number of techniques leading to quick success ... which deflagrade even quicker or which can even do constant harm (Google penalties!) to your website. It can take years to lead a once punished website back to the top!
Fair working search engine optimizers can be identified by the following guidelines:
- no registration at hundreds or even thousands of search engines (because everything except Google, Yahoo and MSN is mostly irrelvant anyway)
- no guarantee for achieving certain top rankings (which would be impossible)
- no link farms (offer of integration into a network of mutually linked sites)
- no invisible text
- no doorway pages (branching pages created only for special search terms)
- no cloaking (different contents for search engines than for people)
- no claim of special connections to Google
We at cekom are commited to create our customers' websites according to the valid rules and to take care that the best possible search engine results are achieved. We avoid illegal techniques and point out their perhaps unintended use.
We aspire high customer satisfaction and sustained results. Therefore we conduct continual analyses of search engine algorithms and competitor activities to assure long-term success.
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