The Search Engine is Not the Enemy
Author of this post: Karen Morrill-McClure | About Blog Authors »
Findability and Search Engine Optimization have been on my mind lately (and on everyone else’s I suppose). Some SEO experts seem to look at the whole thing as a game that you win by getting your page ranked number one on a search result with particular keywords.
I do appreciate that search engine ranking is a concrete result (for that moment in time, at least) and it’s easy to point to (look, we rank number 2 for this keyword). I feel a certain satisfaction when a client’s site ranks high on the keywords we are targeting.
But it seems like the SEO experts (and their clients) often see the search engine (most usually Google) as the enemy, something to beat or trick.
There’s one big problem with this view.
If you’re constantly trying to beat the search engine, you run the risk of stepping over that invisible line that they have that results in your site being excluded from the search engine. You really don’t want to get kicked out of Google. If you think your site ranking low is a problem, imagine your site not being in Google at all. It’s not good.
The way I look at it, you and the search engine are partners, not enemies. You want people to find your site through the search engine and the search engine wants to give people the best result for their search. You’ve created the best web site you possibly can, right? And you’re client is offering the best product, right? So searchers want to land on your site and the search engine wants to take them there.
Now, what do you do to make it easier for the search engine to find, index, and serve up your pages? That’s a subject for other posts (Search Engine Optimization: It’s Not Rocket Science, for instance).
It’s a subtle difference, I know, but I think those subtle differences in attitude can make all the difference in putting you head and shoulders above your competition.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
As a search engine user, we’re looking to find specific things. You’re exactly right, SEO should be about knowing what someone is searching for and being the answer. If your page isn’t an answer to their search query, it doesn’t matter what your rank or position is!
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:18 am
Sketchee makes a great point. Being number one on google is not important or impressive UNLESS it is where your target audience is searching and you are answering. I meet a lot of people who brag about being number one for terms not even related to their content. I don’t get it. The site needs to be relevant to the search.
May 27th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
You are right. Most SEO experts do plug the search engines as the enemy and extol advice on how to beat the enemy. But it really is a partnership I want the engines to identify my site as quality content source for topics. If they don’t currently I need to continue my efforts to further its quality