For years, the search engines have continued to introduce new factors into their algorithms to make their search results more relevant and to keep savvy search engine marketers from "cracking the system."
Weve seen many ranking factors come and go in importance. For example, years ago, META tags were the key to success, or so we thought. Stick in META tags that were loaded with your keyword phrases, and you were sure to achieve top rankings.
Then, we had keyword weight as a ranking factor. We struggled to determine the keyword weight of our competitors pages, then duplicate that weight in all of the various areas of our pages.
Along came link popularity, and with it, the massive link farms and link exchange programs. Web site owners joined as many as they could in an effort to boost the sheer number of incoming links pointing to their sites.
In the midst of these evolving ranking factors came changes to page components like the title tag. Put your keyword at the beginning of the tag for maximum ranking potential. Oops. Things have changed. Put your keyword as the 3rd and 4th words in the title tag. Wait - lets try the 2nd and 3rd words.
These are just a few of the ranking factors that have come into play over the last several years.
Can you see the potential for problems here
After all, including keywords in your META tags doesnt mean that the page is more relevant for those keywords. Just because you have 12,792 worthless links pointing to your site doesnt mean your site is relevant for your keyword phrase.
Now, were in the middle of another "link popularity" or "link reputation" surge. But the rules have changed. Now, we want sites that are related in content to our site, or authoritative, popular sites in our focus area.
Okay! Now were beginning to get on the right track! After all, if an important, authoritative site in a particular topic area links to your site, it must mean that your site is important and popular for that subject too. Or, if other sites in your subject area link to you, it must mean that your site is truly about that subject as well.
Equally important, or even more so, comes the "link reputation" factor. If enough popular sites in your topic area use your important keyword phrase when linking to you, its telling the search engines that your site is relevant for that keyword phrase. After all, the Web community has deemed to describe your site using that keyword phrase, which is a vote of confidence to the search engines.
Makes sense, except for one small problem. I can have a site thats devoted to wireless Internet connections, and you can have a site thats devoted to kitchen utilities. I can link to your site from mine and use the keyword phrase "kitchen utilities" in the link text. Some of the engines appear to use the link text as the determining factor when deciding link reputation, not the contents of the page pointing to the site. So, two sites that arent related in content whatsoever could potentially help boost the link reputation of each others sites. We may see the engines consider other factors in the near future, such as the contents of the title tag on the page containing the link, which will help solve this potential problem to some degree.
However, when looking at all of the factors listed here so far, do any of them truly prove that the page is relevant to a particular keyword phrase
With relevancy comes a much more stable, trustworthy search engine. When you search for a particular topic, youre assured of getting search results that contain pages with good, solid content related to that keyword phrase.
After all, most people venture onto the Internet looking for information. If we can provide that information in content-rich, valuable pages, weve done the search engines, the users, and ourselves a big favor.
With all of these various ranking factors, what is the one area that is sorely missing
How about a site ranking algorithm based on a combination of content relevancy and user popularity data
"Content" relevancy and "user popularity" arent as easy to manipulate as link popularity, link reputation, or even keyword placement, so the search engine results should certainly be more relevant. After all, anyone who is concerned about relevancy in search engine rankings should want the most relevant pages and sites to rise to the top of the rankings. If our pages arent the most relevant, we have some work to do!
Introducing an Innovative Search Engine Ranking Algorithm
I just learned of a new search engine that actually uses a combination of content relevancy and user popularity to determine rankings. Its called ExactSeek.com.
How does ExactSeek measure user popularity The engine has teamed up with Alexa, which offers a toolbar that measures activity on the Web. By measuring the surfing activity of millions of Alexa users, ExactSeek is able to determine the user popularity and relevancy of Web sites in its index. User popularity is a far more reliable indicator of where Web sites should rank and gives users some input on the search results they see.
Mel Strocen, CEO of Jayde Online, which is the parent company of ExactSeek, says,

"Alexa traffic data will be a strong factor in the ExactSeek ranking algorithm but not the dominant factor, that being page content. Essentially, weve opted to emphasize user popularity over link popularity."

In fact, in an effort to make the results even more relevant, ExactSeek.com will be in flux for the next week or two as they work to determine how much weight to give Alexa traffic data in ranking search results.
The beauty of ExactSeek.com is that the harder you work toward increasing traffic to your Web site by adding new, relevant content, paying for SEO, advertising in various publications, investing in a PPC campaign, etc., the better your rankings will be in ExactSeek.com.
Can User Popularity be Manipulated
I think a better question would be, what search engine results cant be manipulated The key is to consider relevancy and valuable content, which is something that ExactSeek.com has wisely chosen to focus on.
Its true that not everyone uses the Alexa toolbar. However, it does provide results based on an excellent sampling of users on the Web. Plus, user popularity will be more difficult to manipulate than other factors, because it is certainly more difficult to manipulate the surfing public than it is to manipulate the search engines.
Give ExactSeek.com a Try!
ExactSeek.com is innovative in more ways than the way it determines rankings. For example, you can check your sites rankings in the ExactSeek database from a link on the main page of the engine. How convenient!
In Conclusion . . .
As the search engine industry evolves, well begin to see more and more innovations geared toward arriving at relevant search results that arent as easily manipulated as some of the ranking methods in the past. One of those innovations is being put into place now at ExactSeek.com: user popularity combined with content relevancy.

About The Author

Robin Nobles is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with John Alexander. They teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. She also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and she

Basically what innovation does is making your business unique and often more progressive in its development.

Looking deeper at positive influence of innovation allows us to notice clear tendency from business stagnation to rapid development depending on what level of innovation takes place in business management and planning.

The logic behind is simple if your business is a clone in its product and business structure, it will more likely to experience difficulties in reaching set goals in comparison with more innovative and therefore flexible competitive predecessor. New and well-grounded approaches greatly raise chances of any legal entity to take the lead over competitors, because one cannot beat competition doing the same things competitor does. It takes implementation of the new progressive vision and steps in business development.

Business innovation is an organizational and behavioral strategy any part of running business should be based on. In other words, it is an alternative way of thinking and doing business. There are times where conservative attitude allows securing reached results and accumulating resources for taking next step, still conservatism in Internet surroundings is to be exception rather than rule.

Human is a conservative creature by nature, especially at a mature age. We agree to face any evolutionism when we start private business or under unordinary circumstances yet 80% of all people dont even want to take a risk of starting their own businesses but once all problems have been settled, the need for "another angle of viewpoint" vanishes, making us highly vulnerable in the face of external changes and environment.

I used the word "risk" on purpose, as we know, any innovation is a risk. Doing what others do may be a wise strategy for slow moving - low profit development and it may be good for big corporation where gross income in several hundreds million dollars can "leverage" their reluctance for adopting innovative measures.

Small business owner does not have such privilege. For him/her it is usually a matter of survival to be innovative or not.

Innovation is a feature and integral part of starting, running and developing business, especially Internet business nowadays. I laid stress on Internet business for the unique competitive surrounding it possesses. While competition in offline business world may "forgive" some "imperfections" in plans, services, products or marketing due to inability of instantly offering a good alternative, business online instantly presents any visitor with thousands of similar choices that can be reached with a click of a mouse.

For every offline business owner having several direct competitors on the same street is a nightmare, demanding taking unordinary steps in order to "keep afloat". For every online business owner hundreds, if not tens of thousands, direct competitors "on the same street" are a usual and inevitable feature of running online business from the very beginning. Crucial part of making a difference here is to implement innovative-based business tactics on a constant basis.

There are many strategies of unique marketing measures that brought success. I have personally emphasized the importance of creating USP Unique Selling Proposition, but all of these advices are nothing more than a way of innovation implementation.

Whether you are creating a new product, choosing a web-design, setting up customer support or developing marketing plan - be innovative and unique in your approaches.

Every starting solo professional on the net experiences shortage in everything but probably a desire to succeed, so there is no point in reinventing the wheel. Often we are forced to make a compromise. If we speak about marketing strategy your next move may be well-known, widely-used and, therefore, customer-response-depleted or, on the other hand, innovative, unique and fresh, generating exposure you have never anticipated. Unfortinately many of us go the "conservative" way and that is why are doomed to read success stories of others, trying to reproduce what thousands marketers do vainly.

We are given proven tools that work - USP, time management, branding, viral marketing, affiliate programs etc. they represent the invented axe - a proven tool - with help of which we need to cross the "Internet business ocean" and reach desired point "B", but it is for us to decide how wisely to use given axe.

The first one decided to throw it away and swim across, the second built a raft, the third added oars, while the forth one in addition set a sail with a steering-wheel. What are you going to do Rationalism teaches you to go the best-known forth way, while innovation - set a second sail or invent a steam engine!

About The Author

Pavel Lenshin is a devoted Internet entrepreneur, founder of ASBONE.com, where you can find everything to make your business prosper. Discounted Internet services,

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