The Art of Networking through Search Engine Optimization SEO
World Wide Web (“Web”) as defined by Wikipedia is “a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that spreads over the Internet. A user views Web pages with the aid of a web browser and these web pages may contain text, Html codes, images, galleries and other elements of functioning webpage.” The World Wide Web has only been around for about three decades, and yet, there are trillions of Web pages in the World Wide Web and thousands of fresh pages are added on a daily basis.
The role search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN is to direct the web users to the web pages that have relevant contents. Search engines are competing fiercely among themselves to come up with the best and most accurate search results. Search engines act as “filters” in differentiating between the relevant and the irrelevant. How do they know what is “relevant” and “irrelevant” or “less relevant”?
They rely on whatever is found on a Web page, and they rely on links that direct to a specific Web page. Whatever is found on a Web page can easily be manipulated, but what is found on another person’s Web page is harder to control. That leads us to the intrinsic nature of the Web, which is a network of “interconnected” Web pages. The connecting abilitySearch Engine Optimization of Web pages is complicated by the fact that webmasters, the creators of the Web pages, have their own agenda, which often conflicts with the objectives of Web surfers. Webmasters want to increase their websites’ exposure (which would translate into increased traffic), whereas Web surfers want to find information that is the most relevant to them. It is in this environment that search engines come into play in trying to act as arbitrators.
How do they do that? They evaluate the quality, relevance, and weight of each incoming link in order to assign a value to it. The whole idea is based on the “democratic” nature of the Web. Why is it necessary for search engines to “assign a value” to incoming links (or, in other words, why aren’t all links of equal value)? Because search engines recognize the fact that “corruption” exists within the system and assigning a value to incoming links is a way to fight that corruption. The corruption comes mainly from webmasters that are trying to bend the rules in their favour in order to achieve higher rankings.
In this environment, how to maximize a website’s exposure while respecting accepted guidelines of website development and promotion? By networking with other websites and making the case for votes. Sounds like an election? It is! Except that this election does not take place every four years, but every minute of every day, with no end in sight. The never-ending election it is called.
There are two facets to networking:
(1) expanding a network and
(2) strengthening a system.
Expanding a network means to have the most exposure as possible while strengthening a network means getting votes. Other webmasters might know about a certain site, but they are under no obligation to link to that site. In that regard, the easy way to win a vote is to provide some incentives to other sites, meaning paying them a fee to add a link on their site (“sponsored link”) or reciprocating with a link back. A more difficult approach to networking is to create “partnerships” with other websites where each side would benefit or creating quality content that would warrant inbound links.
(1) expanding a network and
(2) strengthening a system.
Expanding a network means to have the most exposure as possible while strengthening a network means getting votes. Other webmasters might know about a certain site, but they are under no obligation to link to that site. In that regard, the easy way to win a vote is to provide some incentives to other sites, meaning paying them a fee to add a link on their site (“sponsored link”) or reciprocating with a link back. A more difficult approach to networking is to create “partnerships” with other websites where each side would benefit or creating quality content that would warrant inbound links.
This latter approach to networking has the advantage of
(1) creating links that are more contextual, meaning that they will also have more value for search engines;
(2) costing nothing because they are given out of free will, and
(3) meeting accepted guidelines of proper website development.
(1) creating links that are more contextual, meaning that they will also have more value for search engines;
(2) costing nothing because they are given out of free will, and
(3) meeting accepted guidelines of proper website development.
This is where the two aspects of search engine optimization connect. On-page and off-page optimization goes hand in hand because quality content is key to successful and sustainable networking. This is also where webmasters and Web users connect as quality content is also what most people are looking for when they search the Web.
