It is imperative that website owners recognize the value of owning a site that is highly ranked and visible for search engine results.

By Randy Zlobec

It is imperative that website owners recognize the value of owning a site that is highly ranked and visible for search engine results. In the mid- 1990's, webmasters and content providers began optimizing websites for search engines. This is currently referred to as search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is simply the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website for search engines using "natural" ("organic" or algorithmic) search results. Specifically, if a site is presented prior to others within a search result or "ranks" higher than others, then that particular website would be visited more frequently. Historically, search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation because they were forced to rely solely on factors that were exclusively within a webmasters control. Therefore in order to provide better results for their users, search engines had to adapt by developing intense complex ranking algorithms that webmasters could no longer manipulate. SEO is also capable of identifying a variety of searches to include image search, local search, and industry- specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy, SEO is used to increase a site's relevance. The SEO recognizes how search organics work and what people are searching for. It also initiates efforts to include unique content to a site to ensure that its content is easily indexed by search engine robots, making it more appealing to users. Other techniques are the Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO. Before distinguishing these techniques, however, one must have knowledge of the three major search engines on the internet. The leading and most marketable search engine is Google. Yahoo and MSN bring up the rear. The majority of the people who "surf" the internet use Google. More over, every search engine on the web has personal algorithms to implement a method for evaluating the importance of your website. Specifically, they have to optimize their website according to detailed guidelines. One type of individual within the SEO may follow the guidelines of these search engines, others may not. Subsequently, it is a necessity to identify the difference between the Black Hat SEO and the White Hat SEO.

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