How My Mom Thinks Search Engines Work | Hacker News Reader

How My Mom Thinks Search Engines Work

seomoz.org

159 pointstreester38 comments

If you were running a SEO shop, how would you try and get to the front page of Google? "I’d write lengthy fluffy articles that, even though they didn't say anything interesting, they used the word SEO a lot and made SEO people feel special somehow so that it got linked from other sites that SEO people visit. Maybe I would even semi-attack a popular site like Hacker News in order to link-bait the site into linking to the articles."

OP here -- ahh the infamous top comment on HN; always good for a great mood killer to an article that was, simply put, really fun to write

You wouldn't believe the flaming I got for writing an easily digested (pun intended) article on password encryption. Apparently that is for Bruce Schneier only.

You have to agree the comment was funny though.

Absolutely -- and trust me, the SEO industry is full of so much bullshit I have come to expect a lot of hate by association alone. Someone even made an aggregation site for it!

http://shitbound.org/

> the SEO industry is full of so much bullshit I have come to expect a lot of hate by association alone

So you don't think HN's view on SEO is unduly negative then, after all?

I think HN's view of "bad" SEO is spot on, but there are plenty of agencies who present legitimate strategies that have long term and lasting effects on rankings as opposed to going for the quick loopholes that Google will just inevitably punish in the next algo update.

Which of those legitimate strategies are not just common sense? Honest question.

There is so much SEO information and misinformation out there, I don't think "common sense" isn't a useful way to look at the industry.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I've seen this type of question many times and the subtext often suggests that a need alone isn't enough to justify an industry. It's a service, and one many people would rather pay for than spend their time learning and doing.

All of them _are_ "common sense" - in the same way that most invocations of the term "common sense" usually mean "things that people know or ought to know but are apparently ignoring.

Most web site owners are not applying "common sense" SEO strategies to their sites. Many "web designers" don't either.

It's common sense the way UX and PR is common sense.

There are many people with different interests on HN. Startup people, web developers, and even some hardcore cryptographers. While the former will find you article interesting and probably don't already know too much about encryption, the latter will find the article boring and too simple. They probably will complain (maybe even thinking they could have written it better), while the startup people and web devs don't write anything, since HN discourages comments that only state "Good article" or similar.

That's how you end up with an article with lots of upvotes (from the people who liked your artcile) and some rude comments (from the people who didn't like your article).

I remember pg posting something along the lines of: if I wanted to write a bullet proof article it would be so long and involved that no one would want to read it and I wouldn't want to write it. I agree, and hence we'll always be nitpicked, especially if we write for a relatively broad, naive audience.

Everyone should "Take a non x out for coffee and ask them what they think x's do".

I've had two/three different careers (dependent on definition) in my life, and each one of is immersed in its own echo chamber 99% of the time. This is one of the major reasons industry leaders can't innovate worth a damn.

Agreed. For a while I basically made a job of applying 5-year-old tech innovations to an industry that was 15 years behind, which was pretty easy and extremely high impact.

Somewhat relevant, but a friend of mine had a weekly cup of coffee with someone she didn't know as part of her final year in college. Entertaining and an incredible way to gather wisdom, from my perspective.

http://52cups.tumblr.com/checklist

This is an incredible project, thanks for sharing

So true.

I can't say enough for looking through someone else's lens regularly.

I think I discovered this years ago overhearing my mother's interactions and frustrations with the IT department at her job. It helped shape my own perspective on technology as a tool to serve and enable.

His mom knows more than the average social media expert out there.

I am very impressed actually, some are crazy smart guesses IMHO.

Best comment ever

Well... Social media isn't very closely related to SEO, is it?

Don't tell my mom that I work in SEO. She thinks I'm a piano player in a brothel.

His mom sounds pretty smart actually. I imagine that most people know even less about how search engines works.

She knows more than me, I thought that page rankings were based on how many people link to your site, not how many actually visit. Who knew?

OP here -- You are correct, it is mostly about who links to your site -- but things like bounce rates and whatnot do affect rankings as well; hence the partial credit being awarded

>but things like bounce rates and whatnot do affect rankings as well //

How do Google, say, use bounce rates - they do have bounce rates for folks using Analytics, and I guess they could guess some form of bounce rate by analysing search clicks but they'd be missing data for lots of pages and lots of visits on pages they could get a rate on. So, do you have any insight in to how they or Bing or whoever do it in practice; or is it just a guess?

SEOmoz ranking factors, http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics..., (and other pages there) suggest it's based on clicks on SERPs that follow after a visit to your site. Is that the/a known method or just the most speculated method.

Seems it could be potentially abused, so for example the "are you sure you want to leave this page" (onbeforeunload) type warnings will clearly elongate the page visit duration.

People who click a search result and then immediately return to Google.

Are you speculating there? Is it for all users or just logged in? If I open several links from a SERP in tabs then am I adding to stats to give a higher bounce rate?

It's a combination of both, as well as a large number of other factors.

Google has a list here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1032321?hl=en

It is funny he mentions observing hacker news to understand the audience and potential criticism. It is 100% of the reason I visit this site. I want to understand and interpret this audience. There is a fountain of knowledge in these comments from a broad spectrum of users.

Either that, or he thinks we're his mom.

(More likely answer is a ploy to get upvoted to get coverage here. Worked.)

There is a fountain of knowledge in these comments...

(insert bidet joke here)

You should ask random people how search engines work. It is a hobby of mine these days, and its quite entertaining. One young lady told me that se thought Google had a bunch of secretaries answering all of the queries. I did not laugh, because that actually is how things are still done in a lot of places.

30 year tech veteran here, and I my answers would have been precisely the same

I think that one of the most valuable points this article makes is the "keep it simple" message, the apple ad example is particularly spot-on. It's great advice especially when you're trying to promote/market a new service/app/whatever. When you're into product development, you'll always tend to be slightly technical when you describe it. Removing any technical reference during the first approach is good to bear in mind. Unless you're aiming to a particular market, 99% of your users won't be that savvy.

Anything related to advertising and getting people to do something they didn't intend to is evil. SEO is on a borderline, and when you start growing links to your site, it crosses it.

I especially don't like those shitheads who come to blogs and post a "relevant" comment with a link to their services - I carefully mark them as spam and report their profiles.

So you would classify an organization like the Ref Cross running ads soliciting donations or volunteer work as...evil?

Really?

That would be a corner case.

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