Wagging the dog

If it weren’t so serious, it would be hilarious. Webmasters who desire to get a high Google page ranking try to comply with what Google wants them to do. If Google lets it be known that links are good, then webmasters will proceed to go out and try to get links to their websites. In a freemarket system, this process can often get creative.

Tomorrow, if Google were to decide that sites should be ranked higher if they have an animation of a black dog on a red background at the upper left hand corner of your header, what do you think would shortly happen?

And later, if Google desides that sites should be ranked lower if webmasters PAY someone to create the doggie animation, then what?

Google ranking means money. Serious money. So I am trying my best not to laugh here. On this blog you are reading right now, it is obvious that I don’t give a rat’s patoot about Google or what they think. I am free to speak my piece and kick sand in their face. Not so on some of my enterprises which turn a profit. So I do feel your pain and exasperation.

More to follow.

Playing favorites

If you are a search engine, and your goal is to return the most relevant content to your users, what do you do when many, many equally good websites are returned? You might say the only fair thing to do is rotate those top, equally good and equally relevant websites. That would be fair. What Google chose to do, however, was to extend their criteria—lengthen their list of things they feel make one site “better” than another similar site, more relevant, somehow, than another similar site.

Now, the searcher doesn’t really care, or think about, all this rating foolishness. If they are presented with a dozen or so sites that seem to meet their search criteria, they are happy. They choose one of the very good and relevant sites that Google presents to them, and visit a few of those sites. Fine. But they seldom visit number 312 or number 869, which might have really been the best sites for them to visit.

So Google’s list of virtuous things webmasters ought to be doing got longer. And one of the things they came up with was links. That’s right, links. Google reasoned that if many other websites linked to this one website, it must really be good. It must be better than websites who had fewer links to their sites. It must be incredibly better than websites who had no links coming in to them at all.

Why?

Why would that be true?

Why would the most popular websites necessarily be “better” or “more relevant” to the searcher’s question than less popular websites?

To be continued.

Linking to quality websites

In addition to relevant content, another thing the search engines like to see are quality links. Quality links tell the search engine that people find your site interesting, and are returning and even recommending it to their own visitors. That’s good.

But don’t fall into the “link exchange” trap. If hundreds of unimportant low-traffic sites link to you, so what? Quantity is not nearly as important as quality when it comes to sites linking to you. In fact, quantity is not that important at all. Do what you can to induce good quality sites which have high traffic to link to your website. Again, this is accomplished by offering relevant content and interesting content.

If you write a good article on a subject of wide interest, don’t be afraid to call it to the attention of the webmaster of a large website with a similar audience demographic. Ask him to consider linking to your article. Be polite. Don’t be annoying by writing to him everyday.

Links from quality sites are helpful in your ongoing struggle to optimize your search engine rating. Of course, the link itself will also bring you some new visitors. Make sure your house is clean before they arrive.

Be nice. Try to make friends with other webmasters. Be willing to help each other. The alternative is to stay up all night trying to implement scams. Why bother, when it is so easy and more fun to do it right?

Quality content. Quality links. Be nice. Make friends.