March 4th, 2010 by Nick

Like any revolution, search engine optimisation has is detractors – however SEO has not only become a way to exploit the mechanics of the web, it has become an integral way that the internet functions, and what you mightn’t be aware of is that SEO is not only welcomed by Google – it is positively encouraged!

Just like mobile phones where once seen as a threat to fax machines, or television was seen as a threat to cinema or the printing press to the establishment – ok you get the picture! – search engine optimization was once seen as a threat to the integrity of search results; this view, however was built on a variety of misunderstandings and myths regarding how and why SEO was implemented – myths that need to be expunged for once and for all!

Firstly, white hat SEO is by no means in any way a misuse or exploitation of Google search, and instead it is completely recognised method used by highly reputable brands (e.g the BBC) to encourage better recognition and understanding from the Google bots, which will crawl your webpage and determine its quality and relevance.

Yes, quality! This is another misconception of optimization; it is not simple the practise of shoe-horning in as many keywords as possible (where’s the fun in that) and actually Google will often reprimand sites that it feels don’t live up to their fairly stringent quality standards, either by relegating your page to a lower page rank or omitting it from search results altogether – whilst it might be possible for a page which practises ‘keyword stuffing’ to make it for a very short time, decent page rank will be short lived and penalties will foll0w!

Hopefully by now you are convince about the ethics of optimisation and prepared to embrace all of the advantages that careful optimization can offer you page; however you might still have some misconceptions about how it all actually works!

Some of the more persistent myths regarding search engine optimization include:

Submission of a Page

Whilst it is possible to submit your page to Google, this will not increase its chances of being page ranked in a high position, and your page will most likely be linked via back links from other websites – a key function of off page optimisation; this proves that optimization isn’t just a way to increase your page ranking but it is actually a pretty sensible way to get your page noticed in the first place!

Length of Content

There was a persistent myth knocking around that longer content would be more appealing to Google’s bots, however this isn’t the case, and while it is true that better quality and more comprehensive content will always be preferred, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that Google have secret methods for choosing prominent pages!

Remember – Google don’t just accept that practise of optimization, but they actually encourage it, even providing systems like Google Analytics especially engineered to help you attune optimization – so if Google embrace it, what’s stopping you?!?

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