Quality Leads and Search Engines - Part Two
If the arrangement developed by search
engines and directories actually worked,
then one might be persuaded to try to
comply with the rules of the game.
Unfortunately, in all too many cases,
even when a Websteader or surfer tries
to operate within the technical
requirements and limitations of search
engines, a submitted URL may end up all
but invisible to the surfing public.
Consider the following possibility. Let us
suppose that among the millions of Web
Pages existing on the Internet, there
were, say, a hundred Websteaders who
had constructed Sites concerning
modern, American politics. Let us further
assume that not only had all of these
individuals done their homework
concerning the way search engines
operate and, as a result, had
incorporated every feature which a given
search engine used to differentiate and
rank Web Sites, but they did so with
roughly equal proficiency.
Who gets ranked first, and who gets
ranked last? However a given search
engine or directory chooses to resolve
this question, there are going to be quite
a lot of these Websteaders who, for all
practical purposes, will be invisible to the
public because they are going to appear
far below the point in the list where most
Web surfers will stop looking, and, yet,
these Websteaders have been playing the
game in accordance with the rules.
Perhaps, someone may argue that the
foregoing example is too contrived. In
reality, there always will be some people
who play the game better than others,
and this will be reflected in where they
show up in search engine match-listings.
This criticism may have some merit, but
it doesnt't actually address the main
issues. For instance, on the one hand, in
whatever way various people may play
this game better than others, these
differences tend to be based on formal
properties (such as meta tags, headers,
keywords, titles, etc.) which are largely
irrelevant to the question of whether, or
not, those Web Sites enjoying high
visibility or search engine ranking also
possess quality content. On the other
hand, being able to learn how to play the
search engine positioning game well,
can't hide the fact that search engines
and directories are inherently linear and
hierarchical, and, therefore, only a very
limited number of those who play the
game well still will be able to gain search
engine visibility.
For those who only care about being at
the top of the heap of the search engine
wars, visibility may help them to earn
money, sales, and so on. However, this
"solution" which serves the few does
precious little to solve the problems of
the vast majority of the people who surf
the Internet looking for value and
quality, or try to promote their Web
Pages, or seek to advertise goods and
services at often prohibitive prices, on
the few Web Sites enjoying visibility.
Moreover, even if one were to go along
with the foregoing objection that the
given example is somewhat contrived and
artificial, one needs to take a closer look
at how the game is played. One needs to
try to determine whether, or not, the fact
that some people learn how to play this
game better than others really serves the
interests of Websteaders or surfers in
general.
In addition to the aforementioned data
base which, among other things, consists
of a collection of URLs that have been
submitted by hopeful Websteaders, a
search engine requires some kind of
software program. This program sets the
limits, conditions, values, and principles
governing the way a search engine sets
up, engages, and draws information
from, its data base.
Essentially, therefore, a search engine
consists of two parts. One portion is a
data base, and the other aspect is a
program which serves as the interface
between the data base and an individual
who is trying to discover whether or not
the data base contains any URLs of value
or interest to that person.
Let us take a quick look at each of these
two facets of a search engine. Such an
overview may improve instructive with
respect to the actual nature of search
engines and where the future of, at least,
one dimension of the Internet may lay.
Most of us are familiar, at least in
general terms, with the manner in which
a search engine develops its data base.
More specifically, a person - usually a
Web Page homesteader, makes a
submission to one or more of the existing
search services and/or directories
operating within some portion of Internet
cyberspace such as, for example, the
World Wide Web.
During this process, the one who is doing
the submission answers a variety of
questions about the URL being
submitted. This material often includes
information such as: the title of the Page,
a short description of the Web Site being
submitted, some relevant keywords, one
or more topical categories under which
the Web Page might be subsumed, and
whatever other information the owners
of the search engine service may feel to
be appropriate to generate a data-profile
for the URL being submitted.
Let us assume, for the moment, that the
search engine program processing the
foregoing sort of information were to
perform its task perfectly (this not only is
never the case, but it is hard to know
what such "perfection" might entail).
Can we conclude that the search engine
is, now, in a position to provide seekers
with whatever information they need?
The answer, of course, is "no". There
are a number of reasons for this.
For instance, much depends on the
quality of the information offered by the
one who has submitted the URL to the
search engine. Has this person
accurately described the Web Page? Has
this individual placed the Web Site in the
most appropriate topic category? Has
the person selected keywords which are
likely to be the most productive
possibilities for leading Web surfers to
his or her Web Page? Has this individual
been truthful in making her or his
submission?
There is an old adage in computer circles
which says: garbage in, garbage out. In
the present context, the relevant issue is
whether, or not, the person who has
made an URL submission has
introduced, either inadvertently or
intentionally, a certain amount of
"garbage" into a search engine and, in
the process, helped corrupt the data base
of the latter, rendering the search engine
less useful to Web surfers than it might
have been under more optimum, and less
distortive or corrupted, circumstances.
One can understand how an individual
might have done a poor job of describing
her or his Web Page or may have been
somewhat careless with the sort of
keywords that have been submitted to a
search engine as part of one's URL
application, but why would someone
intentionally introduce incorrect
information into such a submission? One
does not have to reflect very long to
discover some of the reasons for this.
Historically, search engines and Web
directories have served as the primary
medium for trying to locate information
on the Internet. One, of course, might
learn about various Web Sites through
some form of off-line advertising
campaign or via a process of
word-of-mouth testimonials, but, to a
great extent, many people, at least in the
beginning, have taken their cues from
search engine queries.
Seemingly, therefore, until relatively
recently, the one and only chance a
Websteader had of becoming known in
cyberspace was to rank high in one, or
more, of the search engines and
directories. The operative word, here, is
"high" because, for the most part, unless
one were listed in the top 15 or 20 entries
for a given keyword search, then the
likelihood was very slim that a Web
surfer would have been willing to closely
examine, say, 100-400, or more, of the
"matches" that might have been
returned from a keyword probe of such a
data base - and this remains true even if
one were to assume that the Websteader
who submitted the URL had provided all
the correct descriptions, keywords and
so on ( which, unfortunately, frequently is
not the case).
As a result, the era of "search engine
strategies" arose. Websteaders, Internet
analysts, Web consultants, and search
engine placement companies all began to
try to come up with strategies capable of
paving a path to a promised land of high
search engine positioning.
At this point, a third component of
search engines and directories needs to
be introduced. This is the spider or bot
program which probes the actual Web
Site of an URL that has been submitted
to a given search engine or directory for
consideration and disposition.
This spider or bot is a close cousin to the
program that is organizing the data base
from which a search engine derives its
matches and responses to various kinds
of search query. In effect, the logical
character of the latter set of operations
determines the sort of information for
which the related spider or bot will be
probing whenever it is sent out to engage
and "evaluate" an URL that has been
submitted to the search engine or
directory.
In an attempt to try to control the results
produced by a spider's or bot's probing
of a Web Site, creative thinkers began to
introduce "tricks" such as: invisible text
(the background and text colors are the
same which is invisible to a Web surfer
but not to search spiders and bots), small
text (too small to be detected by a human
visitor, but capable of being picked up by
a search engine spider/bot), and all
manner of adjustments to the form of,
among other things, the material
contained in the text of, and HTML
coding for, titles, meta tags, alt tags, and
headers.
Therefore, repeating, and/or misspelling,
and/or capitalizing, and/or special
placing of various keywords, along with
a number of other scenarios, were all
suggested as being direct pipelines into
the inner sanctum of high search engine
placement. However, the strategies that
sometimes led to success with respect to
high placement in relation to one search
engine, didn't necessarily work with
other search engines because not all
spiders/bots worked in accordance with
the same set of logical principles,
priorities and weighting factors.
Furthermore, the algorithms used by
search engine bots and spiders began to
grow in sophistication. In somewhat
simplified terms, algorithms consist of
one, or more, logical routines involving a
set of reiterated or repeated steps within
a software program that perform specific
operations on a given object such as, for
example, the HTML coding that
underwrites a given Web Page.
Among other things, the growing
sophistication of these algorithms meant
that the spiders and bots (i.e., programs)
sent out by search engines to probe a
Web Site, were given the ability to
detect, as well as take steps to counter,
some of the strategies being used by
people to get high search engine
placement. As a result, search engines
and directories started to penalize those
Web Sites that were employing such
strategies ( usually this was done either
through rejecting the URL submission
altogether or by lowering the placement
or visibility of the Web Site in the search
engine's data base).
This led to an escalation in the war of
placement strategies. In other words,
search engine spiders/bots (algorithms or
computer programs) changed the way
they analyzed Web Sites, as well as the
manner in which they countered various
URL submission strategies that were
intended to subvert the intentions
underlying any given search engine
(which, presumably, is to provide a valid,
reliable way for Web surfers to
accurately access desired Web Sites). At
the same time, the thrust-and-parry
strategies of Web-positioning consultants
underwent transformations in an attempt
to try to discover new methods for
undermining, or doing an end-around,
the way in which these more
sophisticated versions of various search
engine algorithms were probing,
analyzing and grading Web Sites.
For instance, there are now products and
services specializing in what has become
known as bridging software. These
programs are capable of engaging and
analyzing the search engine spider/bot
probes of a Web Site and, then, such
software presents a so-called "optimum
Page" to the search engine spider
('optimum' from the perspective of the
spider/bot's algorithm/program and the
specific features for which that algorithm
is searching).
However, this "optimum Page" which is
being shown to the search engine
spider/bot is different from the one that a
visitor to, or browser of, the Site would
see. Moreover, some of these bridging
programs are capable of displaying a
variety of "optimum Pages" as they
engage spiders/bots that have been sent
out from different search engines and
directories.
The adversarial relationship which has
arisen between search engines and
Websteaders has a lot of implications for
the quality and character of the
information ending up in a search engine
data base. And, this, in turn, has
ramifications for the potential
significance and value of what might be
pulled out of that data base by someone
who is doing a keyword search of the
data base.
Not the least of these ramifications is
that many search engines and
Websteaders are so preoccupied with
outsmarting and neutralizing one another
that data bases have become corrupted
with a growing body of material which
renders many searches virtually
meaningless. As a result, when someone
tries to do a keyword search, often times
a great deal of chaff comes back in the
so-called "matches", along with
whatever wheat may be made available.
A great deal of time and energy can be
wasted in trying to identify which
"URLs" belong in the wheat pile and
which Web addresses need to be cast
aside as so much chaff, either due to a
lack of quality or because of irrelevancy
to one's needs. Depending on the ratio of
chaff to wheat being generated through a
search engine or directory in response to
keyword queries, one's level of
frustration can range from quite high to
only moderately so in many cases.
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