When you use Google to search, you will commonly find, included with more relevant links, a series of pages that look just like they were thrown together that second just for your query. How do they do that?

A “landing page” is actually any web page that a search engine will deem worth linking to, but in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) it takes on a whole new meaning. Before the page is created, popular search queries are studied. All the relevant keywords for a given search are gathered, and then a page full of content is written based around those key words. This is done with a “keyword frequency” count; typically the frequency is set to around 5% but it varies. Too many repetitions of the key phrase in the page’s content, and Google blacklists your page for rigging the results. Too few repetitions, and your page won’t pop up to the top for the search query.

The point is of course to get you clicking on the ads! The pages that are nothing but ad-heavy booby-traps for search engines are at last getting some attention, as with this recent New York Post story. Google did not get to be the search giant by sitting by and watching people game them.

When a web page ranks for a specific search phrase, and it is done because the content talks naturally about the topic, that is called “organic traffic”. The difference is, if you search for “Harry Potter book”, an organic hit will take you to a book-seller like Amazon, J.K. Rowling’s fan page, or a literary review. But when a bunch of you out there in user-land search for the same phrase in a short length of time, that search is driven up the “most popular” list and hits lists like Google Zeitgeist and Yahoo Buzz. Some SEO wonk notices the phrase, and “writes” a page full of content like this:

People everywhere are looking for Harry Potter books. The world has seen many Harry Potter books that are a big hit with fans. There are many things to consider when buying a Harry Potter book. You should carefully consider the quality and craftsmanship of it. The price of a Harry Potter book is also a concern; you can use a search engine online to find a bargain price on a Harry Potter book.

I said “writes” in quotation marks, because there’s actually a program that does this. Try substituting “stationary exercise bike” for “Harry Potter book” in the above block and notice how the paragraph makes just as much sense!

This is called “keyword stuffing” and is a part of “black hat SEO”, and is a sure fire way to get your page blacklisted, and possibly everything from your site blocked and banned as well. But the existence of a black hat indicates a white hat: It is perfectly OK to consider what the search engine will see when you compose a page (or – nervous gulp – a blog entry). And it is of course acceptable to focus on generating hits for an ad. The way to do “white hat SEO” is to have a clean, W3C-compliant page, with natural content that you’d write normally anyway. And that will get organic hits to your normal landing pages!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Related Posts:

• Search Engines – a look under the hood
• Search Engine Study – part 4: Making Your Site Search-Engine Friendly
• Avoid the Keyword Poison
• 8 Ways for Searching the Dark Web – Beyond Google!
• Dancing the Google Dance