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Why are we using the expression SEO since there is only one search engine people are targetting/using ? do businesses really care if they are numero uno on Bing

by camus 14y ago

Why are we using the expression SEO since there is only one search engine people are targetting/using ? do businesses really care if they are numero uno on Bing or duckduckgo ? I never understood that. Let's cut the crap , SEO is Google rank optimization. It means there is no SEO since the only player that decides how SEO works is google. If tomorrow Google decides using the word "FLOWER" in your header improves your rank on its search engine, what optimisation are we talking about ?this is not optimization , it is following google's rules. It means google is in charge, and they are abusing their dominant position pretty well, and the whole system is a scam anyway.

ericcholis 14y ago
Sorry, this is way to broad of a generalization. Yes, "SEO" is a bit of muddied term. Yes, people target Google first. However, there are quite a bit of standard practices that aren't Google specific that need to be followed. Schema.org and Sitemaps.org are great examples. Also, a serious business would be kidding themselves if they thought that targeting engines like Bing wasn't important. Reaching customers is important. With that being said, Google is the biggest player in the game. This means they can make up whatever rules they see fit. However, one of the biggest SEO "secrets" has nothing to do with Google: "Build for readability, good content that fits your targeted keywords." Again, this is a general rule, and only a starting point.
oinksoft 14y ago
IF Google were to bias in favor of "FLOWER" while disregarding content relevance, it would be an abuse of their dominant market position. But from the outside looking in, it seems like Google strives for nothing but providing the most relevant search results for their users. Controversies tend to arise when Google tries too hard, it seems, localizing based on fragile heuristics and such. If this is the scam, what's the alternative? An open search engine, perhaps, where development, ranking algorithms, etc. are completely out in the open. I'm not sure this is realistic any time soon though given the cost of hosting a search engine.
- cbeach 14y ago
  A search engine that ranks mainly on social-graph recommendation might be one solution, because the social graph is a simple data structure that transcends "ownership" by Facebook or Google+. The engine itself is a non-trivial system to implement, mind you.
  - Silhouette 14y ago
    The trouble with this idea is that Google can't magically see private links/recommendations on social networks any more than anyone else can. For example, one site I help with has just a few inbound links from low PR sites as far as Google is concerned, and gets a page rank of zero accordingly. In reality, it probably gets more inbound links via social networking in a single day on most days, and unsurprisingly those personal recommendations often drive more inbound traffic than any search engine. Google's basic premise of ranking the importance of a site based on how many links it gets and where from is wildly inaccurate in the era of social networking. Normal people mostly don't run their own public web sites or blogs any more, they share stuff on sites like Facebook and often only with their "friends". Personally, I think this is a good thing, because both as a visitor and as someone running sites I would rather rely on legitimate personal recommendations from people who are genuinely interested in a site than on some arbitrary algorithm running in a data centre somewhere on another continent. I don't think it's healthy for any one intermediary to have a dominant effect on whether interested people can find interesting content on the Web, and sites like search engines and social networks are merely intermediaries.
    - bones6 14y ago
      In your example, I see it like this: Google sees those links and gives low page rank but quantity helps too. So if you're getting a bunch of links on social media, it follows that eventually people will blog about it (crawlable content) and link back to the site. Sure it may be a crappy blogger blog but it's legit and Google does count that. Over time a ton of non-spam PR0 backlinks can and will help rank for search terms. Of course, getting some big PageRank links will help a lot more and if you have any say in the matter, can help with what keyword you rank for.
the1 14y ago
eh? what about baidu?
- camus 14y ago
  you have a point , sorry i'm a bit western-centric. There is also yandex , yet it doesnt really make sense for non chinese or non russian centered businesses to invest in Yandex or Baidu ranking. I live in europe , few have heard of Bing for instance, so Yandex , or Baidu ... it is like Alpha Centauri to them ...
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Unless you have a business that targets people all over the world. Like a software business.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
carbocation 14y ago
> Let's cut the crap , SEO is Google rank optimization. That's not true in Russia, China, etc. And even in the West, dominating the rankings for your segment in the competing search engines could be extremely lucrative.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Calling yourself a "Google optimization consultant" or whatever might run the risk of trademark issues. You also might care if you get to #1 in bing. Sure it's nowhere near as well used as google in terms of % but it still adds up to several million eyeballs. Being #1 on bing for some search term that is super competitive on google is likely to bring a huge amount of traffic.
Encosia 14y ago
That's probably true for most of us here, but definitely not for every demographic. My personal blog that focuses on software development gets almost all of its search traffic from Google, as you'd expect. However, you might be surprised that a consumer focused site I run only gets 55% of its search traffic from Google (and this site gets more total search traffic than my blog, which does pretty well itself).
greyman 14y ago
No, people also do optimization for Bing (you can Google about it ;-)), and also in certain countries, local search engine can be a good source of traffic, so there is a SEO for that as well. But Google is usually most important, that's right.

by camus 14y ago

ericcholis 14y ago

Sorry, this is way to broad of a generalization. Yes, "SEO" is a bit of muddied term. Yes, people target Google first. However, there are quite a bit of standard practices that aren't Google specific that need to be followed. Schema.org and Sitemaps.org are great examples. Also, a serious business would be kidding themselves if they thought that targeting engines like Bing wasn't important. Reaching customers is important. With that being said, Google is the biggest player in the game. This means they can make up whatever rules they see fit. However, one of the biggest SEO "secrets" has nothing to do with Google: "Build for readability, good content that fits your targeted keywords." Again, this is a general rule, and only a starting point.

oinksoft 14y ago

IF Google were to bias in favor of "FLOWER" while disregarding content relevance, it would be an abuse of their dominant market position. But from the outside looking in, it seems like Google strives for nothing but providing the most relevant search results for their users. Controversies tend to arise when Google tries too hard, it seems, localizing based on fragile heuristics and such. If this is the scam, what's the alternative? An open search engine, perhaps, where development, ranking algorithms, etc. are completely out in the open. I'm not sure this is realistic any time soon though given the cost of hosting a search engine.

cbeach 14y ago
A search engine that ranks mainly on social-graph recommendation might be one solution, because the social graph is a simple data structure that transcends "ownership" by Facebook or Google+. The engine itself is a non-trivial system to implement, mind you.
- Silhouette 14y ago
  The trouble with this idea is that Google can't magically see private links/recommendations on social networks any more than anyone else can. For example, one site I help with has just a few inbound links from low PR sites as far as Google is concerned, and gets a page rank of zero accordingly. In reality, it probably gets more inbound links via social networking in a single day on most days, and unsurprisingly those personal recommendations often drive more inbound traffic than any search engine. Google's basic premise of ranking the importance of a site based on how many links it gets and where from is wildly inaccurate in the era of social networking. Normal people mostly don't run their own public web sites or blogs any more, they share stuff on sites like Facebook and often only with their "friends". Personally, I think this is a good thing, because both as a visitor and as someone running sites I would rather rely on legitimate personal recommendations from people who are genuinely interested in a site than on some arbitrary algorithm running in a data centre somewhere on another continent. I don't think it's healthy for any one intermediary to have a dominant effect on whether interested people can find interesting content on the Web, and sites like search engines and social networks are merely intermediaries.
  - bones6 14y ago
    In your example, I see it like this: Google sees those links and gives low page rank but quantity helps too. So if you're getting a bunch of links on social media, it follows that eventually people will blog about it (crawlable content) and link back to the site. Sure it may be a crappy blogger blog but it's legit and Google does count that. Over time a ton of non-spam PR0 backlinks can and will help rank for search terms. Of course, getting some big PageRank links will help a lot more and if you have any say in the matter, can help with what keyword you rank for.

the1 14y ago

eh? what about baidu?

camus 14y ago
you have a point , sorry i'm a bit western-centric. There is also yandex , yet it doesnt really make sense for non chinese or non russian centered businesses to invest in Yandex or Baidu ranking. I live in europe , few have heard of Bing for instance, so Yandex , or Baidu ... it is like Alpha Centauri to them ...
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Unless you have a business that targets people all over the world. Like a software business.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

carbocation 14y ago

> Let's cut the crap , SEO is Google rank optimization. That's not true in Russia, China, etc. And even in the West, dominating the rankings for your segment in the competing search engines could be extremely lucrative.

jiggy2011 14y ago

Calling yourself a "Google optimization consultant" or whatever might run the risk of trademark issues. You also might care if you get to #1 in bing. Sure it's nowhere near as well used as google in terms of % but it still adds up to several million eyeballs. Being #1 on bing for some search term that is super competitive on google is likely to bring a huge amount of traffic.

Encosia 14y ago

That's probably true for most of us here, but definitely not for every demographic. My personal blog that focuses on software development gets almost all of its search traffic from Google, as you'd expect. However, you might be surprised that a consumer focused site I run only gets 55% of its search traffic from Google (and this site gets more total search traffic than my blog, which does pretty well itself).

greyman 14y ago

No, people also do optimization for Bing (you can Google about it ;-)), and also in certain countries, local search engine can be a good source of traffic, so there is a SEO for that as well. But Google is usually most important, that's right.