Photo taken by Lush.I.ous, Flickr Creative Commons
Today, I read for the first time from a blog called SEO Theory. Kudos for the name, as this is exactly what it says it is. My initial impression was that it was refreshing to read an SEO blog that isn’t all about the practicality of SEO. Don’t get me wrong, most of the resources I’ve been been reading about on them have been hugely helpful. I just think this blog (though you could say it’s closer to an aggregation of articles) brings an intellectualized approach to the discussion. I’ve always been opened to diversity!
Alright.
There was an interesting piece on SEO Theory called The Theorem of Search Engine Optimization. About mid-way into the read, the author asks what search engine optimization really is and how it relates to the content of a site. Let me quote the bit in question and then we’ll discuss it:
The context of a Web page is defined by what a normal visitor perceives, what you show to real people who load your page. Hidden text is outside the context of your page. Cloaked text (served only to search engines) is outside the context of your page. Inbound link anchor text is outside the context of your page.
We can therefore say that an optimization strategy is independent of the context of a Web page because optimization strategies can be applied either only through the context of the page, outside the context of the page, or both through the context and outside of it.
It has to be said that Michael Martinez defines SEO as algorithm-based. To produce optimized search results in search engines, you need to have a knowledge as well as an awareness of the algorithm that powers the engine.
SEO had never been defined this way to me before. My definition is more inclusive and global than his, but reading his article made me question it. Basically, the author draws a clear line between semantics and algorithm. Semantics constitute the content of the web page (what people see) while SEO is the optimization of what surrounds the content . For the author, this optimization can only be performed correctly if you have some knowledge of the algorithm since you are trying to achieve increased search results without semantics being involved.
Semantics are optimized naturally. By changing the keywords, links and headers in your content and making them as relevant as possible, you are trying to achieve search gains on engines. It helps people find you more easily when looking for those terms, but it doesn’t rely on nor affect the way the algorithm performs.
Search engine optimization is the opposite. When people are doing searches on an engine, they’re not looking for code or concerned by HTML tags. They’re typing in words. With SEO, it’s the structure that is optimized, and this optimization has to influence instead the algorithm to produce results. This process is considered unnatural.
I have always associated both semantics and structure as one element. I believe the author has a point, though I’m not ready yet to take a stance. I need to gain more experience before I do so. I would be very interested though to hear what you guys think of this. Let’s get the discussion going!
By the way, I’ll go over another of Michael Martinez’s article tomorrow. Stay tuned!