Most people have the idea that search engine optimization (SEO) means putting their website on page one of search engines. They do not know what is involved with that procedure or how to get there. Those who have done some research have inevitably read some article that steers them in the wrong direction and they request us to do things to their website that would draw them down in rankings instead of up.
In order to understand search engine optimization one must understand the viewpoint of the search engine companies. Their goal is to bring the most relevant website to the searcher for their particular search, not the most optimized website. They see search engine optimization as a bad thing that is hurting their algorithms. So as web developers figure out search algorithms the search companies are constantly changing the algorithms to thwart the optimization. These changes force websites to be changed in accordance to maintain ranking.
Wiregrass Advertising constantly monitors search engine algorithm changes. For instance, we are aware that Google, MSN and Yahoo make tiny modifications regularly. However, Google has made two major adjustments in early 2009 that greatly affected website ranking. Websites built to old standards were seen to decrease, some drastically. We were pleased to note, however, that websites designed by Wiregrass Advertising did not seem to lose rankings for their search terms. As a matter of fact, one site went from page four to page one in competition with almost 10,000,000 websites for its search terms.
Google has made such major changes to their algorithms that some developers feel that optimization is now a dead art. We feel that these developers either do not “know their stuff’ or are not up to a challenge. Optimization is not dead, developers simply need to adjust to the changes and begin writing websites differently. Ironically, the way Wiregrass Advertising has been writing them for years!
