How Google Won the Search Engine War
Article: http://searchengineland.com/google-won-pr-battle-seo-thats-good-thing-232761
How Google Won the Search Engine War
During the early days of the internet, search engines like Google developed a distinctly “us vs. them” mentality when dealing with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) firms. These firms would often use shady tactics such as keyword-stuffing and link farming to achieve high rankings for client pages. Unfortunately for the user, these pages were often completely unrelated to their searches. However, in the span of time between the early days of the internet and the present day, Google has been able to completely eliminate shady SEO tactics. In fact, SEO firms now help google by optimizing through the creation of better content.
The continual updates to Google’s search algorithm have kept Google one step ahead of SEOs. By now, old SEO tactics are outdated and useless, meaning the only ways to advance in page ranking are through content improvements, page popularity and paid sponsorships. Many believe that with the advent of the Google Knowledge Graph in 2012, searches maybe become winner-take-all auctions between companies to become the one and only search result highlighted by Google. Now that queries are answered through one top search result, the competition to become the top result has grown all the more cutthroat.
Google has won over the SEO industry, according to the article, for the good of users everywhere. No longer are search rankings determined by SEOs stuffing keywords into sites, but by quality and pertinent content. Much of this is for the benefit of the consumer, as searches are becoming more accurate than ever. However, the power of Google over our lives is incredible, and with the rollout of Google Knowledge, displayed content for each search may soon become limited to one highest bidder.