In the past few days I've been doing quite a bit of Search
Engine Optimization (SEO), and in the have begun to wonder
just how good the search engine Google really is - and will
be in the future. A recent conversation with a good friend
really started me thinking - as I explained all the different
techniques for optimizing a webpage, and the techniques that
Google considers "Search Engine Spam", I kept receiving the
same reply: "Man, that's dumb!"
The most repeated advice given out by professional SEO's
is to follow Google's Information For Webmasters. Many of
these guidelines can be filed either under common sense,
or just plain best-practice. In general, these are things
that you should be doing already. There are other things
that affect a web page's listing in the search results that
aren't covered in Google's information. One of the things
that search engines including Google like, is pages with
regularly updated content. While having a website where the
content changes daily or even monthly might be useful to
some, it doesn't work for all websites. Consider an article
writen about a specific event, say the 9/11 attacks on the
US. Should this content be changed often? And should this
page be penalized for not being updated? Common sense says
no, but unfortunately the search engines don't agree.
Another thing that search engines like are sites with many,
many pages. My largest concern here is that with new technologies
like AJAX picking up steam all over the web, we're beginning
to see the end of sites with hundreds of individual pages.
And since Google still can't index sites that use frames,
which have been around forever, can we ever expect them to
index sites that use AJAX? Personally I like the idea of
being able to create a website that consists of a single
page and have the content dynamically update or change without
the user having to either wait for the page to reload or
navigate to another page.
In other words, if a designer or SEO were to stay completely
true to all of the guidelines and techniques to optimize
a page, all of there sites would look like they were created
in 1995. Seriously! Think about all the things search engines
don't like or don't get along with. They love text links,
they don't like images as links, they can't index frames
or Flash, they don't like javascript, and they hate splash
pages. All of these have become commonplace on the web today
in order to enhance the user experience, and the search engine
companies keep telling us to design sites for the user first.
Looks to me that they are just adding insult to injury by
setting us up for failure.
In my opinion, one of the biggest problems is companies
like Google and Yahoo is that they are getting away from
what they do best and what they were conceived to be - Search
Engines. Although some of Google's tools like Desktop Search,
Maps, Gmail, and Video are cool, they are distracting them
from fixing some of the fundamental problems with search
engine technology today.
I understand that Google isn't the only search engine out
there but it is by far the most popular. Forget hits, just
look at their earnings report and stock price. It is for
this reason why most SEO's and web developers, including
myself, optimize for Google first. If todays search engines,
including the industry leader Google don't get their act
together and figure out how to embrace and index sites that
are using some of these new, and for that matter old, technologies,
the question will be whether they will be of any use to us
in the world of Web 2.0?
William Mandra
http://www.m-networks.net
