The Lowdown on Keyword Density - Search Engines
(Page 2 of 4 )
The goal of search engines has always been to return useful and relevant information to whoever is performing the search. The technology was limited in the beginning, and it was more or less a toss-up on whether the results you got first were actually the most useful to you.
However, most people recognize now that the first page of results on Google is almost always going to be the one you are looking for. The technology has advanced over the years to keep up with growing needs and techniques.
Although search engines have always utilized multiple methods of ranking search engine results, keywords have traditionally been one of the most prominent. As previously mentioned, search engines of the past would simply count how many times a certain word shows up on the page and then turn up results accordingly. This was not working out, again for reasons previously mentioned. People were all too aware of this fact and took advantage of it for their own gain.
Now, search engines have begun to utilize much more advanced techniques. They look for "hidden" or overly repetitive words and actually count them for a negative value, penalizing people trying to cheat the system. They add positive value for the relative importance of words; for instance, a word in the title of the page has a great deal more importance than a word in the very bottom footer. There are many other intelligent algorithms that they now use to ensure the highest quality of results at the top.
This new breed of search engine has also inspired a new breed of developers looking to get the most out of their keywords. They have studied the new algorithms, both by reading up on technologies and performing their own research. They have uncovered numerous methods, both white hat and black hat, of making their web pages show up higher in search engine rankings.
For their part, search engines have actually put in effort to shape these methods. They have introduced custom pieces of code that have become official that will allow users to provide more information to the search engines to more accurately index web pages within a search engine.
They have also put a lot of time into documenting both white hat and black hat methods, and specifying how they reward and punish each. Although this does allow for very dedicated and intelligent people to cheat the system for a short time, the overall effect is beneficial to the web development community.
Next: Black Hat >>
More Choosing Keywords Articles
More By Joe Eitel
