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Downsides of SEO

SEO (search engine optimization )  was developed in the late as a way to rank websites that appear in search results. SEO has become important to not only the user, who wants to feel confident that the search results will be relevant to what they were looking for, but also to companies who have realized the importance of having a website that ranks high among the search results. To rank search results, search engines (such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing) take into account several things such as the website’s popularity, keyword usage and links. To optimize on one of these components, such as keyword density, is to increase one’s SEO. Although SEO is a great way to rank websites, it has also created many problems for the internet world, including: webpages being built for SEO purposes and not content, the fast change in rankings that it causes and the no set rules of SEO.

Downsides-of-SEOWanting to rank higher in search results, some web designers build their entire site around SEO strategies (such as having lots of keywords and links), causing their site to lack in quality content. Next time you are reading through a web page, count how many times the keyword you searched for appears in the article, and you may be surprised at the density. Although many web developers are able to balance the overuse of keywords by keeping the keyword density at or below five percent, some developers splash a keyword into every sentence. Although this may initially boost the site’s SEO, it constant use of keywords often become annoying for the reader, who will move on to another website, having wasted valuable time in the process.

Along with the abuse of keywords in hopes to increase a site’s SEO, some web designers also abuse links (another SEO increasing method). Search engines view links as a recommendation for a web page. In theory, if a person enjoyed a website’s content, they would share a link to this site on their Twitter, blog or Facebook. However, realizing that links help improve a site’s SEO, some designers have bought links, paid forum posters to create links to their site, and create “fake” pages full of links back to their site. This hurts the ranking of other websites that may be more relevant to a user’s keyword search.

Rankings in search engines based on SEO methods change frequently, which can be a problem for both the website and the user. If a user, for instance, enjoys a page and forgets to bookmark it, he or she may be unable to find it again simply by searching the keyword if the ranking of that site has changed. Maintaining a high ranking also requires a lot of work for the company. They have to constantly be updating their page (even if the content is still relevant), encouraging users to link to their page and making sure that they have a sufficient number of keywords in all of their content.

There are no set rules on SEO, which can sometimes be unfair. Websites with relevant, high quality content may never achieve high rankings (and thus, their business may fail), while spammers can receive high rankings for sites of little quality. Although algorithms have a mathematical formula in hopes of ensuring quality, these equations sometimes allow spammers to succeed, while allowing high quality, relevant content to slip through the cracks.

SEO is an important part of search engines. After all, without SEO search results displays would be a mess. Although SEO is a great way to organize content, it also has its downsides: some web designers are now solely designing their content for high rankings, hurting high quality pages in the process. Although SEO has its downfalls, web users must accept it, because SEO will be around for years to come.

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