Search engines used to rely on webmasters to provide an
honest assessment of web site content by simply accepting
exactly what was placed in the meta tags of each site.
The engines ranked the sites in the beginning by looking
almost entirely at those tags and serving results based
on whether search words and phrases were contained in the
meta tags. That was when everyone publishing web pages
was sweet, naive and honest as twelve-year-old boyscouts. Ranking algorithms began getting immensely more complex as
webmasters started manipulating search results either by
lying about the content of the site in those meta tags, or
by stuffing those tags with keyword phrases. Meanwhile,
search engines started looking for formulas that could
deliver reliable and relevant results without relying on
honesty in meta tags. Google rose to prominence in a very short time by placing
far less emphasis on meta tags and far more emphasis on
popularity, based on inbound links from other web sites. I recently wrote an article entitled, "Reciprocal Linking
is Dead!" after discovering a dishonest manipulation of
that technique to increase affiliate sales through URL
cloaking and redirected link schemes. http://searchengineoptimism.com/reciprocal-linking-dead.html Google's PageRank algorithm, combined with the speed of
results pages, made them hugely popular with searchers,
who seemed to find those results pages more relevant to
their searches. Google continues adjusting algorithms
to include site themes, interior linking structure, body
text keyword density, frequency of updates, etc. Search over the past five years had experienced dramatic
expansion of players in the late nineties internet boom,
followed by implosions of mergers, death & destruction.
A brief and humorous article offers a recap of search
engine births, marriages and affairs over this period. http://searchengineoptimism.com/Yahoo_acquire_Overture.html Recently, while search providers consolidated to fewer
than a dozen major players from the hundreds of search
engines of just a few years ago, optimistic new players
have emerged seeking a piece of the search pie. Newest
on the block is optimistically open source Nutch.com,
which promises to openly publish their search algorithms
while others continue to hide their proprietary formulae
for relevant search results. Meanwhile there are ongoing attempts by some engines to
improve algorithms to reduce webmaster manipulation,
increase relevancy and produce ever better results.
This week, the small, but very aggressive search engine
http://www.ExactSeek.com announced a partnership with
Alexa.com to adjust their ranking relevance using the
popularity index of Alexa site rank. This move will,
no doubt, anger many smaller webmasters whose Alexa
rankings are lower than larger competitors. Smaller
localized businesses that compete against national
chain retailers will likely slip off the radar under
this scheme. Substantial, quality content tips the
scales back in favor of smaller content sites here. But is this different than the popularity index scheme
that Google uses determined by inbound links? Will those
web sites in the results at ExactSeek with thousands of
hard-won links disappear from the results pages when the
Alexa factor is applied to ExactSeek algorithm? I did a brief and unscientific test across the biggest
search engines by searching for my own site at each one.
One search phrase I've targeted is "Small business
Internet Tutorial" and the results are enlightening. MSN search returns my site, WebSite101.com as #1 result.
Google, I'm proud to say, returns exactly the same #1.
AlltheWeb.com gives WebSite101 position #6, still good.
Teoma.com returns a results page with WebSite101 at #1. The big boys of search comparing this well established
and fairly popular site - all seem to produce similar
results, all using differing algorithms to reach that
conclusion.
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Mike Banks Valentine is a Search Engine Optimization
Specialist practicing ethical SEO for Online businesses
http://SEOptimism.com
Take our Search Engine Quiz to test your Skills Level
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