by Scott White, 2/16/2006
Don't be ashamed of self-Googling
Come on, you know you've done it: typed your name into an Internet search engine such as Yahoo or MSN. Don't feel embarrassed. We all do it. It is, after all, interesting to see what others are saying about you.
In a business context, it's not narcissistic at all. It's smart, especially when you're trying to build your brand online. But besides looking for your specific name, try looking for your category. For instance, if you're a Denver widget maker, look up "Denver widget" or any other combination of keywords or phrases relevant to your business. Where do you rank? Top two? Top 10? Top 1000? It doesn't take a genius to figure out the top five results will get a lot more clicks than Numbers 75-80. Are you where you want to be?
How top-ranked websites get their positions
Especially for the most competitive keyword searches, companies must engage in a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, which encompasses strategic smarts, hard work and clean code.
How search engines rank your websites
Computer programs called "spiders" are responsible for visiting, indexing and ranking web sites. Each search engine has its own spiders with somewhat differing methods for ranking the websites it finds, and there are strategies you can use to make yours more appealing--and also mistakes that can negatively affect your rankings.
4 SEO Urban Legends
Legend #1: You can muscle your way into top rankings. Maybe in 1999, but not anymore. Simply repeating a bunch of hidden keywords on your page or in your META tags no longer fools the search engine spiders into giving you high rankings. Algorithms that power the software behind these spiders have become much more advanced, and employing tactics like this will more likely hurt your rankings than help them.
Legend #2: It starts and ends with traffic. Many people will click themselves repeatedly in the hopes of boosting their search rankings. However, this is a futile effort because spiders don't care one bit about traffic.
Legend #3: I can get rankings cheap from those nice folks sending me all those emails. If you fall for one of those spammer schemes, you deserve to be ripped off! Seriously though, you'd be paying good money for a clerical job you could easily do yourself. But even if you did do it yourself, you would run the risk of getting even worse rankings. It's like membership at Augusta National--if you say you want it, you won't get it. Search engines regard repetitive submissions as desperation, which they reject wholeheartedly.
Legend #4: A Search Engine Optimization service guaranteed a Top 10 position on Google. In short, nobody can legitimately do that. Such guarantees are a telltale sign of snake-oil salesmanship. Here's how the scam works: technically, they live up to their end by getting you top billing on a search term of their choosing, which is so specific to you that only your mom would likely search on it.