Search Engine Optimization
Based in the Ottawa area, we help our clients with their computer and Internet needs. Our specialty is modifying our client's website content to ensure that search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing give it a high ranking. In addition, we offer assistance in the design of web stores to simplify the shopping experience and enhance revenue.
While search engine optimization (SEO) is our specialty our clients often have other computer related needs. Our expertise allows us to help our clients in a variety of ways. We also offer webmaster services, computer network services, data recovery and other computer services.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Google rank myth: web traffic
Myth: The more traffic my site gets the higher the ranking Google will give it.
When I first started learning about SEO I figured that this was the case however when you dig a little deeper you start to wonder...
Does Google or anyone else know how often your website is being viewed or for how long? Unless the site is on their server or has a tracking code in it (ie. Google Analytics) there is no way for them know with any certainty. That said, they do know how many web surfers hit your site from their search engine and their adwords but that is it. Using these criteria would not produce good search engine results which would be rather counterproductive. Would you use Google if you could find more accurate search results with, for example, Bing, Yahoo or any one of a dozen other search engines? Probably not. If anyone should know it's Microsoft because IE is still the most popular browser and it would be a simple matter to record what you do with it and send the data to their servers. They don't do that because that would be illegal... Besides if they did, MSN would be the dominant search engine and it isn't...
Perhaps you are still skeptical... Okay, let's assume for a moment that Google magically sees every little bit of web traffic. Unfortunately, this data is practically meaningless. Anybody who can program a server side language (Java, PHP etc.) can build a program that impersonates a web surfer. It's not hard. I've done it. At Chapters they have a book on programming web robots.
With a suitable web robot on your portable computer the next step would be to visit a place with wireless Internet (can you say "Starbucks"?) and run it. In fairness I've never done the Starbucks thing. I don't even like coffee. My point is that it would be remarkably easy to manipulate the results if this really was a factor.
Google keeps their algorithm for ranking websites secret so I maybe I'm wrong... :)
When I first started learning about SEO I figured that this was the case however when you dig a little deeper you start to wonder...
Does Google or anyone else know how often your website is being viewed or for how long? Unless the site is on their server or has a tracking code in it (ie. Google Analytics) there is no way for them know with any certainty. That said, they do know how many web surfers hit your site from their search engine and their adwords but that is it. Using these criteria would not produce good search engine results which would be rather counterproductive. Would you use Google if you could find more accurate search results with, for example, Bing, Yahoo or any one of a dozen other search engines? Probably not. If anyone should know it's Microsoft because IE is still the most popular browser and it would be a simple matter to record what you do with it and send the data to their servers. They don't do that because that would be illegal... Besides if they did, MSN would be the dominant search engine and it isn't...
Perhaps you are still skeptical... Okay, let's assume for a moment that Google magically sees every little bit of web traffic. Unfortunately, this data is practically meaningless. Anybody who can program a server side language (Java, PHP etc.) can build a program that impersonates a web surfer. It's not hard. I've done it. At Chapters they have a book on programming web robots.
With a suitable web robot on your portable computer the next step would be to visit a place with wireless Internet (can you say "Starbucks"?) and run it. In fairness I've never done the Starbucks thing. I don't even like coffee. My point is that it would be remarkably easy to manipulate the results if this really was a factor.
Google keeps their algorithm for ranking websites secret so I maybe I'm wrong... :)
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