History of SEO - Part II
As the
internet grew by leaps and bounds, came a lot
of new sites, all competing to be in the top results of the search
engines.
Then
webmasters realized, they had to compete with
new sites coming up every day, and started thinking strategies, to get
a share
of the traffic pie.
They
knew that search engines used keywords to match
pages, so they started using popular keywords heavily on their pages,
often
spamming them.
They
would insert popular keywords in tiny invisible
text throughout their pages, which were visible only to the search
engine
software, but not to humans reading the pages, and get better
rankings
based on the keyword density.
Some of
the webmasters also used spamming
techniques, like doorway pages, and page cloaking, in their eagerness
to get
more traffic.
Doorway
pages are those, which are heavily embedded
with the popular keywords, with none or some content for the human
readers, and
act as doorways to the intended site, thereby getting traffic to that
site.
Page
cloaking, is a technique, by which different
pages are created, one for the search engine and the other for the
human user.
The
search engine spider gets a page which is heavily
stuffed with popular keywords, and which gets it a good rank.
While
the user, who clicks on the link of that page
in the search engine, is directed to a page with relevant content.
Both
these practices were unethical, because it
interfered with the ranking of pages by merit of their content.
Which
is the primary objective of search engines,
when it comes to satisfying its users.
The
search engines were battling with those
webmasters by fine tuning their techniques, and filtering websites,
some times
banning them from their indexes.
Then
came Google in 1998.
Google
was founded by Stanford University students, and it soon became the most
popular search
engine portal in the internet.
Google
used an advanced page ranking algorithm, which
ranked websites based on the number of their incoming links, and then
served
pages from among them, which were relevant to the user.
Google's
algorithm was also designed to defeat the
designs of webmasters, who used spamming techniques, like keyword
spamming,
doorway pages, and page cloaking.
The
advent of Google brought about a change in the
search engine techniques, and in search engine optimization, in
general.
More
credence were given to content, keyword or key
phrase optimization, and genuine link building with good content
websites.
Search
Engine Optimization evolved into a science,
which gave emphasis to ethical techniques, for getting a good
rank in the
search engines.
In the
present times, one can hope to have a good
rank, only if one's website has good original content, and that one
shows
credible evidence of being in for the long run, by having link
relationships
with quality websites.
The
primary purpose of having links, in my opinion,
is to show that one is a serious player, and that one in there for the
long
run, by establishing relationships with other similar websites.
That is
why modern day search engine portals give
emphasis to good original content, and linking with good quality
websites.
That is
how search engine optimization has evolved.
The old
techniques have changed, and only quality
websites can hope to rank in the search engines.
I am
not saying that there are no exceptions.
Exceptions
happen, but only in the short run.
If a
website has to rank well in the long run, it
could only be accomplished by ethical methods, as search engine portals
spend a
lot of money in devising techniques, to filter content that is not what
the
users want to see.
So any
real search engine optimization, has to follow
a ethical approach.
Looking
to the future of search engine behavior one
can say safely, that what the consumers want, is what the search
engines are
going to deliver.
Their
algorithms would reflect, what their users
would like to see.
And
what they would like to see is quality,
originality, different opinions, good products, good prices for
products, and
other quality stuff.
They
would not like to see a poor quality site creep
up into their search results, and every professional search engine
portal would
try to minimize it.
It
follows that search engine optimization, has
to become very ethical and concentrate on building a website for the
long run,
as it is done in the outside world for any business.