SEO Engine

Search Engine Optimisation is an art with some science! There are some rules, some interpretation and then some guesswork. The guesswork is the art form – experience tells you what works for some search engines but not for others.

The Science: the rules are strict – obey them or else your site might suffer a google penalty. These penalties can be triggered by the search engine algorithm or by manual intervention by the Search Engine’s engineers.  So where to find the rules? The most important rules are those set out by Google: Webmaster Guidelines. Most of these rules are easy to understand.

However, the main concern, is the interpretation of the science laws laid down by the Google Engineers. Of course, it is impossible for Google to be 100% transparent and open on the Guidelines. Ask question in the Google Webmaster forum and you are unlikely to get a detailed explanation from a Google Engineer – normally they will refer you to the “Guidelines”. Their reticence is to protect rankings from manipulation by “search engine spammers”. Too much clarity would give the spammers too much knowledge and insight on how to achieve high rankings with “dubious” or so called “Black Hat” techniques.

For example “In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links”. How do they define web spammers? How does a webmaster / site owner respond to a link request – how can you identify a web spamming site? What is a the definition of a bad neighborhood? So this is where SEO turns into an “art form”.

Traffic Advice

There are 2 definitive laws of SEO: 1) Content, Content, Content 2) Inbound Links. Great unique content will draw traffic like a magnet. Create content that is constructed using Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) and Google will be attracted too! There are, of course,  “science” techniques to creating web pages correctly for your content pages. Google readily admits that inbound links (recommendations) from other sites will enhance your search engine rankings so it is critical to attract those links. This is an art form not a science as the laws are not immutable.

Good SEO firms will offer advice that is white hat (above board) and look after your long term interests. It is tempting to take short term shortcuts – but you do this at your peril.

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