Researching the search engine

One of the many things done at STR82U is search the web in ways that regular people don't. We look for ways that search engines return results in order to understand what questions to ask them. Some of the more interesting aspects of this practice is to observe the effects that technological changes have on the quality and density of relevant websites suggested. STR82U also follows and participates in topics effecting or relating to the day to day relationship between web search, users and site operators to know where industry leaders stand and promote points that reflect our goals for the future.

On page analysis

When it's known what people are searching for, combining a knowledge of human behavior can allow a designer to layout graphics and content in such a way to deliver the information plainly to the user so there are no doubts on their part; they know when they arrive at the end of their search. Finding ways to serve and use the traffic is of vital importance and you want to keep them coming back if it's a continuing service or product sales related.

To that end, plans can be made and acted on that are based on browser interactions, rather than the humans using them, to prevent flow disruptions, maximize retention and deliver the end result in ways that most clearly serves the user's purpose for visiting and allows delivery of large, pre-designed content efficiently. Bottlenecks and other semantics shortcomings result in traffic and revenue loss which ultimately hurts any brand you are trying to establish.

Search engine success through obscurity

Looking at pages that show up in searches and where tells a website owner several things that should indicate, specifically, what needs to be done to meet and exceed that of the sites recommended before it. Three measures of success are coverage, validity and visibility; large amounts of accurate records that can be found easily when the obscure search is made for something that seemed insignificant at the time of collection but is important to the person who found it or uses it to form decisions.

An issue of low-quality competitors isn't going to make it easier. Other factors that make up SERPs are: on page and in code factors like tracking and advertising; a website's age in several areas including length of time from initial registration; and being at the current hosting location and PageRank which is based on the number of other sites linked to it's pages and their quality as it relates to the text and target of those links. SEO is certainly a game but it's one that's complex.