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Which is still better than http://example.com/portal/servepage.asp?state=URHDA43FIDNWQI... (add 100+ chars) type of URLs we used to have before the SEO era.
Most SEO is nothing more than basic web concepts implemented right. People benefits from that, too.
When client asks "can't we just Flashajax the hell out of it?" they won't listen to response that it won't be accessible, standards-compliant, etc. But they do listen to "No, Googlebot won't index it".
The most effective tricks these days mostly involve passing as much link juice to the site as possible, and matching it to good content that is based on sound keyword research and user demand. In order to do this in such a way that actually makes a significant difference in ranking without being penalized is usually beyond the the average developer "dabbling" in SEO. The blackhat term for this is "link laundering" and it's really the only way to get the huge traffic gains in a reliable and sustained manner. Most SEO companies fit into one of the 3 following types:
1. Basic SEO is getting easier to execute with all the hand-holding that Google gives out to webmasters these days, however the benefits are minimal. Most of that realm is about making sure you're not screwing up your content, rather than optimizing it. The kinds of gains you get by doing this are maybe a 30% increase in traffic, assuming you site is not screwed up to begin with.
2. On the other hand, using link laundering/pyramids even less talented SEOs can see somewhere in the area of a 400% increase in traffic without much risk of a penalty. This is a lot trickier though because imitating a strong, natural, niche link graph is a lot harder than most people think.
3. The last strategy is commonly referred to as "turn and burn". This basically involves taking whatever content you have and link spamming the hell out of it which will cause it's traffic to spike briefly before being banned from Google's index. Ever seen all those spammy comments in you blogs that are pointing to a really crappy landing page? This is what they are doing.
Now granted I've made a lot of generalities here. Most of the time I see people discussing this topic they seem to not understand what SEO is compared to what it was 7 years ago which is why I'm taking the time here to explain this. The rules change a little when you start out with a valuable asset such as a large quantity of good content (such as any of the Q&A sites), or a set of very high quality links (anyone that's been covered by the major news outlets) because you can base your strategy on getting the most out of those assets.
Anyway, now that I've gone off on that tangent the easy answer is yes, good SEO is good for the web because it makes content more usable and accessible, and bad SEO is bad for the web because it means more spam.
Argument against: "search engine optimisation" is about optimising web sites for machines, not for people. Argument for: the function of those machines is to help people, so a) optimising for the machines is indirectly beneficial to people because they're happier when the machines work better, and b) as the machines get better at understanding what's good for people, optimising for the machines becomes more directly…
If you think about "people" directly, I would imagine that those people, in your mind, all browse the web with your web browser, in your OS, with your abilities. These people all find content the same way you do.
Of course, we both know that many people do not browse the web in IE8, just as many do not browse the web in Windows at all. A great number (but perhaps a tiny percentage) don't have flash.
Having a nice objective measure of what makes a page accessible is a very useful thing for a web developer.
I do not mind living on an Internet where blog post links last beyond the next update, URLs hint at content, StackOverflow crushes archived mailing lists on programming questions, the top result for "biology bingo" is not a blank page (it was in 2006), and content is created for demographics which are not content creators themselves. Hug a SEO, they're half the reason Google works these days (particularly at the frin…
I agree with you overall, but we've also got eFreedom.com beating StackOverflow with duplicate content in some cases, purely through SEO. In a perfect world, it would be impossible for someone to take StackOverflow's CC data dump and then outrank them.
Are sites that duplicate content without proper attribution properly flagged?
What is the best interest of search engines? Is it the good of the people? Or is this another "tragedy of the common"?
In the later case, what is the best way to fight back?
> URL's are now sentences. Which is still better than http://example.com/portal/servepage.asp?state=URHDA43FIDNWQI... (add 100+ chars) type of URLs we used to have before the SEO era. Most SEO is nothing more than basic web concepts implemented right. People benefits from that, too.
> URL's are now sentences. Which is still better than http://example.com/portal/servepage.asp?state=URHDA43FIDNWQI... (add 100+ chars) type of URLs we used to have before the SEO era. Most SEO is nothing more than basic web concepts implemented right. People benefits from that, too.
fuck, sorry I downvoted you when I meant to upvote. Can someone please implement an undo vote feature!?!? Also upvote Yaggo because he doesn't deserve to be on 0 points.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you overall, but we've also got eFreedom.com beating StackOverflow with duplicate content in some cases, purely through SEO. In a perfect world, it would be impossible for someone to take StackOverflow's CC data dump and then outrank them.
Do search engines actually try to "de duplicate" such content? Are sites that duplicate content without proper attribution properly flagged? What is the best interest of search engines? Is it the good of the people? Or is this another "tragedy of the common"? In the later case, what is the best way to fight back?