Search Results Mystery

Mike Davidson, an accomplished web developer, conducted tests to uncover the mystery behind "Search Engine Optimization". Why does one site rank higher than another site under the same search term? Out of 18 million results for "David Wang" on Google, I am ranked 11. Why? I did not set up my personal site for search engine optimization. I gave up on doing that a long time ago. I do not have that many quality links pointing towards me when compared with other sites. So why do I deserve the ranking of 11 out 18 million? Who knows... All I know is that I get many hits from Google image search linking to my photos. Will that be a factor in my ranking? However, I only mention "David Wang" a few times on my site. So I do not see why I would be found under "David Wang". I guess I just mentioned the name a few more times. Will this help my ranking?

The bottom line is that improving a web site's ranking among search results is more or less a waste of time. The easiest way to promote a web site these days is by actively marketing a web site's address through web, print, and other media channels. And if you got the cash, the quickest way to increase traffic to your web site is by spending the big bucks to air a controversial commercial during Super Bowl like Godaddy.com. According to Bob Parsons, CEO of Godaddy.com, "Visits to our Web site also increased tremendously. During the 7 days that began with Super Bowl Sunday, visits to our Web site increased by 367% (to get this number we used a baseline period where our sites received what we consider an average number of visitors). Business also increased (using the same base period) by over 70%."

What have we truly learned about "Search Engine Optimization"? Don't waste your time improving search results when you can quickly improve your ranking by wasting your money instead. And this is why Google's stock is sky rocketing and the company is making billions of dollars. These days, it is all about ad placement and clicks.