Google Introduces Over Optimization SEO Penalty

Internet marketing efforts often focus a large amount of time and energy on "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO). This means placing the right keywords and meta tags in your site in order for it to rank high (preferably the first page of results) on Google. Google uses secret algorithms to determine its result rankings. Google constantly does a kind of code battle with web site developers over whether the users see what Google "thinks" they want or what the pages marketers want people to see. Developers work to reverse-engineer the algorithms, Google tries to refine them.

SEO is not dishonest in and of itself, however, some sites have great SEO but hardly any content other than advertising. Now Google has decided to penalize "over optimized" sites. Read Google Introduces Over Optimization SEO Penalty for more details.

Re-discovering Ogilvy on the web

A post of the blog KISSmetrics gave us a useful blast from the past in applying a discovery by Ogilvy, one of the seminal researchers in advertising, to the present day, in particular to web graphics. Not all that is old is out of date and not all that is new is improved.

Ogilvy's discovery? That graphics do not always have the desired effect and that badly executed graphics will drive away readers, not keep them. Why should web graphics and layout prove any different? Technology is not magic: whether on a page or a computer screen, what we have discovered about human cognition and behavior still matters.

Ogilvy came up with 4 principles governing the use of graphics. Read The Shocking Truth About How Web Graphics Affect Conversions to learn more.

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