Optimizing search results has evolved beyond tricks

Like any good netizen, if you live in Central Oahu and need a widget, what do you do? Of course, you crack open your favorite search engine, whether it be Google, Yahoo, Bing or, let’s face it, Google, and run a quick search. The search engine returns a few websites, you click on a couple and you are on your way. But have you really found the best widgets in Wahiawa? More likely, you have found the website best optimized to respond to your search.

"Search engine optimization," or SEO (another in a long line of IT-related acronyms), is a process that has spawned a cottage industry in and of its own. Basically, SEO is a technique to place a website in the first few responses to a search engine request. The rationale is that folks won’t go beyond the first page or two of a list of responses to a search engine query.

Early, crude attempts at SEO often resulted in websites that were crammed with keywords that might not always be relevant. Such websites often blatantly added keywords to the bottom of each Web page. More "sophisticated" sites would hide keywords to the naked eye but make them visible to the search engines. Listing keywords in a white font on a white background was a common trick.

Nowadays SEO is much more advanced. SEO sounds well and good — after all, the overall goal is for a website to be easily found by folks who are looking for it. The downside, of course, is that the SEO does not necessarily lead to the most appropriate search results; rather, it leads to the websites that have been best optimized. And it’s not an altruistic Web in which we live. For various reasons SEO is often abused.

SEO is somewhat of a dual-edged sword for the major search engine companies. They routinely change their algorithms, which, purposely or not, thwarts SEO efforts. But search engine companies encourage SEO folks to serve the greater good. Search engine companies provide SEO specialists with information to help them better their search results.

It is clear that anyone employing an Internet-based marketing strategy must be cognizant of SEO techniques and processes. Whether enlisting a consultant or using in-house resources, websites need to be optimized to ensure the coveted "first page" of a search result.

Keep in mind, however, that SEO is not a be-all, end-all solution. Merely appearing on the first or second page of a search result does no good if the website or business itself is of poor quality.

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John Agsalud is an IT expert with more than 20 years of information technology experience in Hawaii and around the world. Reach him at johnagsalud@yahoo.com.