Search Engine Optimisation: A Technique To Enhance Searches or Just Another Source Of Spam?

A recent feature by a computer magazine columnist evolved into a feature denigrating search engine optimisation and the professionals who perform it, painting them all as spammers. Naturally this view has been rebutted by practitioners in the search optimization field.

The feature included examples of searches that the columnist made and led to his comments on the quality of the results. His case was not helped in one search by employing a term with a broad scope for a popular item - “best cell phone plan”. The very nature of this sort of search is that it will produce lots of entries with a high search engine positioning for sponsored adverts by organizations promoting special offers. These will naturally be followed by entries from price comparison websites. He must not blame search optimization for that.

Personal review sites are becoming more available, and for some items there will be a lot of related data. Consequently the organic listing produced for many searches can be saturated with references of review sites. By being consumer reviews they are not guaranteed to be the most dependable of resources: interesting yes, but opinions to be handled with caution. Most users know this, and are suitably cautious. Personal review sites are way beyond the range of optimisation.

Some of the search engine optimisation strategy involves the publication of articles for dispersal to blogs as a way of marketing a website and enhancing its search engine positioning. This must be part of the problem that this columnist has with optimisation: there is the assumption that this is only generating spam. A good optimisation specialist will be concentrating on writing worthy content. There is much content out on the web that is of poor quality, but this can derive from any number of sources – it may not consciously be spam, it could even be badly written copy published by the website owners. Certain industries are more prone to bad content than others. It is probably not deliberate. The search engines are continually evolving to do what they can to weed out poor content but some will always crop up. Again, optimisation is not necessarily the cause.

A professional search engine optimisation consultant will be doing more than just composing articles. The specialist will review the content on the website so that any coupled keywords are easily recognised by the search engines. He can spot locations where page names and titles can be enhanced to aid visibility on results pages. These are the mechanical modifications that he can recommend for an organisation’s website that help to improve its organic search engine positioning and its visibility on the results listing. These are actions that all help possible consumers to spot the business’s pages.

Some optimisation professionals will use unethical strategies but most professionals do not. A good specialist will realise that bad practices will ruin the reputation of the business’s domain that he is promoting and his own, so unethical techniques including creating spam will be avoided.

Most of us have robust opinions about some things, and obviously this columnist has a problem with search optimization. As in all walks of life, there are good and bad habits. search engine optimisation should not be dismissed as the source of all bad habits. Most internet users are knowledgeable enough to be cautious of the results a search can return.