The Face of Search Engine Optimization
The face of Search Engine Optimization has dramatically changed since its start; it has had to re-shape to be able to work within the strict guidelines set out by the various search engines. Recently, it has been described as, dead in the water or dying a slow death, but these statements cannot be further than the truth.
Since its creation, SEO optimizers needed to tactfully carry out, and determine what the search engines were looking for exactly, in order to improve a websites performance and rank well. It can be agreed that tactics have changed since the beginning of SEO, so as the internet evolves and algorithms with it. With optimizers trying to keep up with requirements and keep pace with the speed of changes constantly being rolled out. Reverse engineering is a major factor in order to gain your site favour and helping it to rank well within the search engine results.
Back in the beginning webmasters were depending heavily on the use of meta tags, HTML and successfully identifying the correct key words, correct key word density for each individual page of a site. All of these were common factors in search engine optimization performance. When Google arrived on the scene it was revolutionary, it promoted looking at inbound links and this helped determine the relevance and significance of a document.
These were influential times as the practice used by webmasters at that time involved “key word stuffing.” A manipulating process involving key words coloured the same as the background of the page. This wasn’t visible to the human eye and was difficult to detect, but search engines couldn’t be fooled and were beginning to eradicate this type of work.
Through the progression, SEO has shifted from onsite, to off-site optimization and link building. It was once accepted that mass volumes of links lacking in any real quality would bring outstanding results and high ranking positions. Google is not fickle though, and has added stricter guidelines and tighter site restrictions, thus implementing the idea of quality over quantity of links.
Google has now begun rolling out updates more frequently and with far more aggression. The reason behind this is to push out low quality and poor websites. In many years Google rolled out Panda, an update that wiped out multiple percent of its index due to the changes it had required in order for a website to rank well in the results pages. Low quality and poor content was not good enough and Google was making a loud statement to the internet world.
Poor quality and spamming to get results was not working anymore. What was needed was more thought and more effort. Give Google and the search engines what it requires and you will get the rewards. In unison, if you weren’t giving Google and the search engines what it wanted, you would also reap the rewards of what it dealt you.