Erik Dafforn’s SEO Confessions
So you think you know everything web search engine optimization? Think again.
Erik Dafforn, an SEO enthusiast, has a whole bunch to say:
You'd better sit down, this may be shocking. The truth is, search optimizers don't know everything about SEO. Here's the game: We pretend to know everything. Some of us even think we do know everything. But we don't.
Do search engines love blogs? Looking back, the blog has helped in ways we didn't necessarily consider. Do search engines love blogs? Not necessarily. Search engines don't love blogs with content scraped from other sources. They don't love blogs with content of such little noteworthiness they fail to accrue even a modest number of links from reputable sites. What they love is unique, expert, popular content that piques user interest from the moment it hits the SERP and delivers on the promise sought in the query phrase. Whether it comes in blog format, vBulletin, or plain old ASP sites makes little difference, so long as the information is crawler-friendly.
With 60 percent of our blog's traffic coming from search, you could say search engines appreciate it — perhaps even love it. But the relationship between blogging and business success isn't so easily drawn.
Several years ago, I was convinced Microsoft would change the search playing field because of its dominance of the desktop OS market. What I failed to realize is somehow search is different. Currently, my best theory is several factors converged within a short time to overcome the Microsoft/WordPerfect scenario, including a better algorithm, Google's nonportal approach, increased media notoriety for search, a public that quickly realized search was the most effective method of Internet information retrieval, and maturing competition in the browser market.
I may not be much smarter than I was when I began in this industry, but I hope I'm a bit wiser.
