How to Soar in Your Search Engine Marketing in the Post
Google Era
Part 1. of the Three Part Series
The Tao of Search Engine Promotion
Still Shows the Best Way
by Kamau Austin
"I Wonder if Google will Essentially Ever
become Again what it Once Was?"
It is causing a shake up in web marketing circles, and the
SEO industry is in chaos. Its Google's Florida and subsequent updates,
that have many of us in the web marketing industry taken by storm. Google's
latest series of updates has totally dismantled certain niche markets,
delivering sparse results in relevancy, not to mention a display of deference
to research sites.
At one point during the Florida Update using Google had
become like a throw back to a researchers tool, akin to the old days of
the scientist and professors exclusively using the Internet. While Google
is once again featuring ecommerce sites in prominent positions, in its
search results, it is obvious that the search company wants an online
world where commercial interests bid for top search placement.
The Limits of Search Engine Advertising
Google and other search engines have a real problem with
the reliance on search advertising, because they have obvious limits for
their desired advertising inventory. This is precisely their predicament,
because after the first 2 or 3 pages of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs),
search users usually stop scanning the results to launch a new and more
specific search, or at worst to abandon their searches altogether.
While allegations swirl about Google's upcoming IPO and
the need to force traditional SEO sites into the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising
mainstream, Internet gurus continue to speculate, postulate, and become
apologist for Google's erratic updates. I wonder if Google will essentially
ever become again what it once was? Google simply was once a great search
engine, doing what great search engines do - find the information you
are looking for fast and easy.
"Has Google Become the Web App of
Filters and Updates Eroding its Relevancy?"
Search is one of the Web's Killer Apps. Google is certainly
the dominant player in this market. However, with so many strong arm tactics
employed to curtail SEOs and Search Engine Spammers, has Google Become
the Web App of Filters and Updates eroding its relevancy? Recent reports
from widely reported online sources and in the Emarketer Statistics email
show that Google is losing market share to Yahoo! Furthermore studies
have shown that by 2005 Yahoo! search will over take Google in market
share. It is ironic that Yahoo!'s algorithm seems to respond well to traditional
on the page optimization.
More ironic is I find it easier to retrieve relevant sites
on upstart Search Engine Teoma,
with its HITTS ranking algorithm, than Google and its purported off the
page PageRank™ algorithms. I realize this has a lot to do
with the win at all costs "Black Hat SEO" tactics of many SEOs.
Moreover, its loss in relevancy has to do with Google's stop SEO spam
at all costs counter measures. I would opine that Google has never seen
a SEO who isn't a spammer in their book. This is why I think they toy
with the SEO community with esoteric concepts like PageRank™. Google
gives these concepts high visibility to SEOs (like a PageRank™feature
on its toolbar) so we SEO's devote a lot of time building our PageRank™.
While it is obvious PageRank™ is only a portion of its ranking system.
"Is Google's Promotion of the PageRank™ Algorithm
Really Just Bate and Switch Tactics to Marginalize SEO ?"
Google's claim to fame was the use of PageRank™
to garner its trademark relevant search results. However, given the fact
that some of Google's management considers SEO a technical form of Alchemy
or Black magic, is Google's promotion of PageRank™ really just bate
and switch tactics to marginalize SEO? We hear rumblings that the next
leap in Search Engine Relevancy will be the semantic web. Do we know if
the looming semantic web will be an enhancement to Google's algorithm?
I know search engine spam must stop, but has Google's solutions
become even worst than the problem? I know many "White Hat SEO's
like Jill Whalen of High Rankings.com and myself who advocate creating
the best possible content on a web site. Therefore if Google uses every
chance it gets to filter, ban, or de-rank optimized web sites, it will
adversely affect its ranking relevancy as well.
For example stopping email spam at all costs has made it
almost impossible to run an email business? Email another major killer
app on the Internet has been rendered almost totally unreliable for any
business communications by the aggressive filtering of egregious and deleterious
spam by major ISPs. Most legitimate emarketers deplore the use of email
spam, but the only solutions major ISPs have given to stop the spam problem
are filters and self serving toll charges to send email. Will search become
another casualty in the war against unethical spammers?
Is Google, in a similar fashion, throwing out the baby
with the bath water, or killing the golden goose with its bias against
ecommerce sites using some measure of SEO Strategies?
In the following parts of this series I will share with
you the SEO strategies I have employed to keep my rankings high with the
aggressively influx Google Algorithm, top rankings with Yahoo!, and even
top rankings with the new Microsoft search algorithm.
Kamau Austin, helps small and minority business make more
money, by creating, search friendly web sites. He is the owner of Ebizbydesign.com,
Einfonews.com,
eBizEliteMembers,
and Search Engine Plan.com. Kamau is also the creator of the Free Search
Engine Promotion Tele-courses. He can be reached at: 973-655-8866
Coming Soon Book Reviews
of Top SEO Books: The Nitty Gritty
of Writing for the Search Engines by Jill Whalen, Search Engine
Visibility by Shari Thurow, Dr. Wilson's Plain Spoken Guide to
Search Engine Optimization by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Search Engine
Fast Start by Dan Thies, Maximizing Your Web Traffic by Robin
Nobles and Susan Alexander, SEO Book by Aaron Matthew Hall, Search
Engine Optimization on an Extreme Budget by Non-stop Internet, and
others to be announced.
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