The Search Engine Marketing Game Gets Harder

According to David George, author of the ABC of SEO (ISBN: 1411622510; trade paperback, RRP $19.95) the search engine marketing game is getting harder as popular search engines such as Google tweak their software. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) used to be a free lunch for many commercial websites," says George by using dubious or aggressive optimizations a site could boost its rankings in search engine results. Done well this was hugely valuable source of advertising."

(PRWEB) July 4, 2005 -- According to David George, author of the ABC of SEO (ISBN: 1411622510; trade paperback, RRP $19.95) the search engine marketing game is getting harder as popular search engines such as Google tweak their software. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) used to be a free lunch for many commercial websites", says George by using dubious or aggressive optimizations a site could boost its rankings in search engine results. Done well this was hugely valuable source of advertising."

Many useful informational sites were forced out of search engine rankings; this affected the quality of results. Google, now a multibillion dollar turnover publicly quoted company that makes money on targeted advertising had to act, or lose both searchers and customers. Google is threatened by Yahoo! which switched from Google to its own search engine last year and from the new Microsoft algorithmic search engine. Microsoft missed out on the boom of content targeted advertising and wants in on what promises to be one of the Webs growth areas.

At the end of March Google filed a broad reaching patent (US Patent: 20050071741) covering a number of ideas aimed at combating highly optimized sites (known as search engine spam). Googles search engine is based around links to websites and the text used in those links. The patent identifies unnatural link growth and text used in those links and penalizes new and short lived domains, all techniques used by search engine spammers," according to George. However while Viagra, Online Poker and Porn sites have their acts together many webmasters are not doing even the basics, creating websites that, sometimes pleasing to the eye, are difficult for search engines to categorize."

The ABC of SEO is a 170 page alphabetic tour de force through the often murky world of search engine optimization and marketing. It explains the complex jargon, offering detailed explanations of each term. It provides website owners with the building blocks to analyze and improve how their site ranks in search engine results and to deal intelligently with search engine marketing firms. The ABC of SEO is available from all good bookstores and a complementary website (http://www.abcseo.com) has the first draft online and features updates. Review copies (PDF format) are available on request.

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