Comment Re:fundamental (Score 1) 124
Content is not king.
Think about it. Google quickly began to dominate the already saturated search engine market (think excite, lycos, yahoo, altavista) because their algorithm determined relevancy based on popularity. Now the other search engines are doing the same, because it's statistically better results. It's not perfect, but it's more relevant than content based search engines.
There are many geek blogs out there, but Slashdot is a better result for the search "news for nerds" not because it's perfectly optimized for the search phrase "news for nerds" but because it's the most popular destination for nerds looking for news. If a friend asked you for the most relevant site if they wanted news for nerds, you would probably tell them Slashdot. The popularity of slashdot makes it a better destination, because it's more likely to serve the needs of nerds more so then a site that has no popularity. You get way better news as well as discussion because this site is so popular.
Since Google implemented this, they have put additional filters in place to do a better job of filtering out spam sites (which is very difficult), but I guarantee you (being an SEO professional) that I can get a site with very little relevant content to the top of Google in a matter of days (using completely ethical methods to boot).
We have a list of over 100 different variables that Google and other engines measure to determine relevancy. Although OPO - on page optimization (what everyone focuses on, i.e. meta tags, content, etc) is important, it amounts to only 25% of what you need to capture strategic keyword searches.
There are many geek blogs out there, but Slashdot is a better result for the search "news for nerds" not because it's perfectly optimized for the search phrase "news for nerds" but because it's the most popular destination for nerds looking for news. If a friend asked you for the most relevant site if they wanted news for nerds, you would probably tell them Slashdot. The popularity of slashdot makes it a better destination, because it's more likely to serve the needs of nerds more so then a site that has no popularity. You get way better news as well as discussion because this site is so popular.
Since Google implemented this, they have put additional filters in place to do a better job of filtering out spam sites (which is very difficult), but I guarantee you (being an SEO professional) that I can get a site with very little relevant content to the top of Google in a matter of days (using completely ethical methods to boot).
We have a list of over 100 different variables that Google and other engines measure to determine relevancy. Although OPO - on page optimization (what everyone focuses on, i.e. meta tags, content, etc) is important, it amounts to only 25% of what you need to capture strategic keyword searches.
