Here’s something that drives people crazy about SEO: You can’t ever be 100 percentsure that what you’re doing will be rewarded with the rank and the listing you want.This is because the search engines keep their internal ranking mechanism, even the criteriaby which the ranking is determined, under wraps. Welcome to the secret formulaof SEO: The Search engine Ranking Algorithm.
The algorithm is the formula that a search engine uses to determine its ranks. It’s a way of sifting through a multitude of factors, including keyword repetition and page titles, inbound links, and even the age of the site. Some elements have more weight, meaning that they are considered to be more important in determining rank, and some have less. Each search engine uses its own algorithm to determine which results to show and in which order. And each search engine changes its algorithm from time to time, often without so much as a friendly warning. So, the truth is this: You will never really know exactly how Google works.
Imagine if other forms of marketing worked this way! What if you couldn’t rely on alphabetical order in the Yellow Pages anymore? What if the TV networks chose to air only the bits of your ad that they felt were most important? What if your billboards were periodically relocated without your consent? We’re so glad you’ve got a good head on your shoulders because, now that you’re doing SEO, you will have to find a balance between keeping up with the algorithm and keeping your sanity.
Why do the search engines guard their algorithms so closely? Because, first and foremost, they value the searcher’s experience. If MSN published a guide called Instructions for Ranking #1 on Our Search Engine, of course you’d use it. And so would everyone else. Then all of the results on MSN would become so manipulated by site owners that relevance would disappear—investment sites could rank high for "grape bubble gum" on purpose—and searchers would drop the engine like a big useless hot potato. Even without a manual, the little bits of algorithm that people figure out themselves often get so abused that the search engines eventually devalue them.
How do you find the balance between seeking the Eternally Unknowable Algorithm and making sure your SEO efforts are effective? Matt Cutts, the popular blogger and Google employee who sometimes indulges his SEO-obsessed readers with tantalizing bits of inside information on Google’s algorithm, says, "Most of the right choices in SEO come from asking, What’s the best thing for the user?" Bringing targeted users to your site is, of course, the point of SEO, and that’s the reason we made you clarify your audience and site goals before we started talking about how the search engines work.
Some one asked Danny Sullivan, probably the best known and most respected authority on search today, what he considers to be "Eternal" about SEO. His answer: "Good HTML titles, good body copy, great content, ensuring that your site doesn’t have roadblocks to crawling—these have worked for nearly a decade." Notice he didn’t mention anything about chasing the algorithm.
(In the next post, we will work on, "PageRank"…stay in touch).
