Search Engine Placement
When search engines were in their infancy, there were far fewer web sites out there and title tags often were sufficient to find a given business. (If you look above, you will see the product of my title tags-“Search Engine Placement, Austin”.) But the proliferation of websites and devious ways by some web sites engaged in tricking search engines have made title tags less effective.
Five years ago, a new bakery exploring the Internet’s potential would put their company name in the title, for example, “Janie’s Texas Sized Cakes”. Local customers might type into the search window the keywords, “Texas cakes” with Janie’s appearing in the number one slot. However, one day a new cake baker appears in the top position with the description, “Texas Cakes – Best Cakes in Texas”. When the link is followed, customers are shocked to find themselves in a pornography site. What happened?
Well, websites with content of no value to the average consumers knew that if they got more people to the web page, they had a chance of getting business from those who might never have looked for the website’s unsavory content. So, as in the case above, the offending sites’ web master would write title tags that had nothing to do with cakes in hopes of achieving a top ten ranking.
Search engines caught on and began instituting other safeguards such as meta-tags which held descriptive content and keywords about a businesses products and services. Scrutinized too were the alt tags that described the images within the website. Janie was quick to add these descriptors to her web pages and moved back to the top.
But it didn’t take long before the offensive sites followed suit. They began to pepper their HTML pages with keywords and descriptions that had no bearing on the web site’s content or images.
Search engines’ next algorithm performed a comparison of meta-tags to the title and the actual textual content. Here was a foolproof method! What obscene website would appear so foolish as to have information about cakes and baking on their page?
Well, Janie had already adhered to great web development practices with lots of great written content about her wedding cakes; about serving birthday cakes to a third generation; and how she used only the finest ingredients. With image alt tags describing her “Triple Tiered Wedding Cake” and “Football Birthday Cake” matching the content and meta-tags, Janie’s Cakes was ushered back to the number one spot.
But wait! Using the new content based scheme, the offensive website again appeared in the top listings! Yet if a browser scanned the content, there was not a single word that had anything to do with cake baking. What happened? Well, the tricksters hid the text by printing text in the same color as their backgrounds rendering the text invisible. They could say they mixed up the best chocolate cakes but not even own a mixing bowl! To see an example of their trickery, hold down the left mouse button and drag through the boxed area below:
| The case of the disappearing ink! |
You should have seen, “The case of the disappearing ink!”
Today, we utilize human editing for databases virtually eliminating inappropriate content in general searches. Additionally, websites employing deceptive practices to gain better page rankings are removed from databases altogether. Honesty is always the best policy.
Has your web developer explained the nuts and bolts of search practices? Have you been taught how to read your web logs? Are you getting the Internet business you had anticipated?
If you are not, perhaps you should call Thunder Data Systems where we make it our business to help your business in Corpus Christi, San Antonio and other cities across the state of Texas and beyond find success on the web.
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