1.2 The Search Engine Mission - Recognize Reality.
“Why is recognizing reality the Search Engine’s #1 Goal?”
Think about your own reaction when you do a search at an engine. What do you do when it delivers high-quality, relevant sites consistently?
You come back for more. You tell your friends, too, with zeal. Bottom line... more and more surfers do more and more searches.“And what does that mean?”
Ah-ah! A really great question. Now we are getting to the heart of the matter...
Ever notice the ads on the Search Engines Results Pages (“SERPs”)?
Those advertisers are the SEs’ real customers. Surprise!...
All this time you thought that the SE “product” was “search” and that the “customers” were the “searching surfers.” Nope... the real customers are the advertisers. The “product” is the targeted interest that each and every searcher...
... openly declares
whenever they do a search. Targeted surfers, that is what the
SEs deliver to their customers, the advertisers.
Think that’s cynical? No, it’s just business. If you want to know who the customer is, just follow who pays money to whom.
Bottom line for the SEs... the more relevant the search results, the greater the number of searches, the more ads sold, the higher the profits.
SIDEBAR
There is an interesting “other” bottom line. This one belongs to
the marketing companies who buy those ads...
As a marketer, it may be profitable to advertise. But it is always profitable to rank highly in the SERP’s editorial listings.
It’s easier to buy ads, of course. Simply spend money. Hope for a positive ROI.
Content 
Traffic PREselling Monetization
takes time and effort...
...but the diamonds
are forever.
“What happens if an SEO marketing company threatens the SEs by degrading the relevancy of the SERPs?”
They will hurt you, that’s what. Why? It’s elementary...
If you degrade their relevancy, you hurt the mechanism that delivers targeted surfers to their customers.
And here’s the surprising news...
SEOers, “black hat and white,” degrade the quality of the SERPs. Oh, and...
... myhat does
not count. I’m not an SEOer.
It goes without saying that both white hats and black are doomed. The “black hats” play a never-ending game of “stay one step ahead to avoid getting banned.” We won’t talk about “the bad guys” anymore -- they are irrelevant, worth mentioning only this one time for the overview.
The good ones play a slightly different game, “chase the ever-changing algorithm without tricking the engines.” However, they are not“ creating a reality.” Although they do not trick the engines, their focus is on the engines, not on delivering reality (in the form of high-value content).
In other words, they do the maneuvers that they do so well, specifically for the engines. They put tons of “sort-of content” into the engines’ database. That is not what the engines want. In the long run, they seek reality... genuine content, not facsimiles that were performed just for the engines’ benefit.
Life would be wonderful for the engines if everyone just kept it real. Luckily for you, they don’t. Why “lucky”?
Because if you follow Content Traffic PREselling Monetization
you have a running head start. And it’s only going to get bigger as
the engines get smarter. This book shows you how to leapfrog SEOers and
all other small businesses online. How?
Content Traffic PREselling Monetization!
This process keeps it simple. You jump straight to the end point, reality. That is what the engines want. So easy. So powerful.
“What exactly is reality?”
Another fabulous question, and I promise not to get philosophical. I’ll use the term “reality” in a very specific sense throughout this e-booklet.
Here is how reality works...
STEP 1) Web surfer looks for information by entering a search term at an SE.
STEP 2) Search Engine returns a SERP (Search Engine Results Page), which features links to both editorial content (the actual search results) and advertising that contextually fits the nature of the search.
STEP 3) Surfer either clicks on an ad, or clicks on an editorial search listing.
SIDEBAR
Most viewers regard “editorial content” as being more
credible. (Not all actually understand the difference, an ethical
shortcoming of some engines. But that’s another story, for another
time.)
Think of an offline newspaper. You read the stories and you see the ads. Many of those stories are, in fact, the results of publicity efforts by marketing companies.
But you regard it as editorial. So...
... your “BS
filter” is set much lower when you read an article in a
newspaper. You are more open-minded and believing about what you read.
(That is why, by law, those “tricky pages” that look like
editorial content but are really one huge sales letter, must
say “ADVERTISING.”)
Yes, you will notice the ads. You may even read those that “connect” with what you seek -- some of those may be relevant and timely. So you may even act upon those. But generally, we all read ads with our toughest “BS filter” functioning.
Let’s compare that with the online world...
We’re back to the SERP. You may notice the ads, even give one or two a quick read. You might actually click on one that hits you as highly relevant. Other than that, you click and read the editorial search results with more credibility.
STEP 4) The surfer decides if the SERP delivered what he wanted and if the content was any good. In other words, the surfer “recognizes the reality of that page” (i.e., relevant and good information).
STEP 5) Based on that recognition, the surfer takes other actions. These “other actions” are becoming more and more important to the SEs. They actually measure and track a variety of parameters that serve as ways to measure this behavior (“off-page criteria” -- we’ll get there in a second).
Humans have little trouble recognizing the reality of a Web site. Search Engines do, however. Some day, they will use highly advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence to “simulate human judgment.” But for now, if they can’t be as “smart” as a human, they can at least measure what humans do (collectively) if and when and after they click on an editorial link on a SERP.
Let’s go back to STEPS 4 and 5...
Suppose that the surfer had entered “porcupine mating habits” as her search term. She clicked on the #1 editorial search listing (the text ad for Viagra did not seem too relevant, but it might have been... if the searcher had been a male porcupine).
In any event, our typical Web surfer is now reading a page about the mating habits of the porcupines. Let’s see how she reacts (at various levels of consciousness)...
Is this page delivering the info I wanted? Is it excellent material? Is it well presented? If so... Is it so good that I’m interested in this site and will click through more of its pages? Wow! Look at the time. I didn’t realize that I’ve already spent 90 minutes here. Should I provide a link to this page on my own site about porcupines? It’s great! Hey, it has an RSS feed! I’ll publish that feed on my site. Superb -- I’ll post about this site in the porcupine forums.
The reality? This visitor found relevant info. She loves it (i.e., it’s a good page). How can the engines recognize that reality (relevance and quality)?
On-page criteria provide a “simple degree of relevance”... so do sprinkle your specific keywords in all the right places (ex., TITLE, META tags, headlines, body text, links, etc.) on each page. Balance with synonyms and associated words, too.
Off-page criteria track human behavior, starting from the SERP to what happens later (up to months later!), to determine quality.
For example... Which of the editorial offerings got the click? (Human must have thought the title and description were pretty relevant. Of course, an engine has to account for relative location on the page.)
How long did the surfer take to return and do another search? (The longer, the better that page must have been -- everything else being equal.)
How many links go to this page and how good/relevant are those links? (The more high-quality, relevant links to that page, the better.)
All the examples of our porcupine surfer’s reactions (see above) can be measured and tracked. And they increasingly determine more than just a “higher degree of relevance”.... they also imply better quality.
These, and hundreds more, are collectively known as “off-page criteria.” And, as we’ll see, there is only one way to generate strong off-page criteria.
SIDEBAR
It is fairly easy to “trick” any single parameter, such
as “click popularity” (more on this later) or “time to
return to engine” or “inbound links.” The engines do build
in fraud protection and ban the “black hats.” But as the number
and importance of off-page criteria grow, it becomes increasingly more
impossible to “SEO” them.
You started reading this booklet because you want to build a successful online business. The way to do that is not through SEO. Why not?
Because SEO merely mimics reality. And, as time passes, the ever-smarter SEs will recognize SEO’d sites for what they are... pale imitations of reality that do not address what the searcher was looking for... quality.
SEO sites are not “reality.” And the engines recognize that better and better.
MYLW: <<1.1 Keep It Real 1.2 Search Engine Mission 1.3 Quality Drives Off-Page Criteria>>
