As easy as it is to get syndicated with useful interesting and unique information, it is
much harder to get syndicated with commercial ideas, especially if the site does not
add significant value to a transaction. Often times links associated with commercial
sites are business partnerships.
Many people do well to give information away and then attach a product to their
business model. You probably would have never read this e-book if I did not have
a blog associated with it. On the same note, it would also be significantly easier for
me to build links to SEOBook.com if I did not sell this e-book on it.
Depending on your skills, faults, and business model, sometimes it is best to make
your official voice one site and then sell stuff on another, or add the commercial
elements to the site after it has gained notoriety and trust. Without knowing
you, it is hard to advise you which road to take, but if you build value before trying
to extract profits, you will do better than if you do it the other way around.

The Web did not have sophisticated search engines when it began. The most
advanced information gatherers of the day primitively matched file names. You
had to know the name of the file you were looking for to find anything. The first
file that matched was returned. There was no such thing as search relevancy. It
was this lack of relevancy that lead to the early popularity of directories such as
Yahoo!.
Many search engines such as AltaVista, and later Inktomi, were industry leaders for
a period of time, but the rush to market and lack of sophistication associated with
search or online marketing prevented these primitive machines from having
functional business models.
Overture was launched as a pay-per-click search engine in 1998. While the
Overture system (now known as Yahoo! Search Marketing) was profitable, most
portals were still losing money. The targeted ads they delivered grew in popularity
and finally created a functional profit generating business model for large-scale
general search engines.
Commercialized Cat & Mouse
Web = Cheap Targeted Marketing
As the Internet grew in popularity, people realized it was an incredibly cheap
marketing platform. Compare the price of spam (virtually free) to direct mail (~ $1
each). Spam fills your inbox and wastes your time.
Information retrieval systems (search engines) must also fight off aggressive
marketing techniques to keep their search results relevant. Search engines market
their problems as spam, but the problem is that they need to improve their
algorithms.
It is the job of search engines to filter through the junk to find and return relevant
results.
There will always be someone out there trying to make a quick buck. Who can fault
some marketers for trying to find holes in parasitic search systems that leverage
others’ content without giving any kickback?
Becoming a Resource
Though I hate to quote a source I do not remember, I once read that one in three
people believe the top search result is the most relevant document relating to their
search. Imagine the power associated with people finding your view of the world
first. Whatever you are selling, someone is buying!

The Web started off behind the idea of the free flow of information as envisioned
by Tim Berners-Lee. He was working at CERN in Europe. CERN had a
somewhat web-like environment in that many people were coming and going and
worked on many different projects.
Tim created a site that described how the Web worked and placed it live on the
first server at info.cern.ch. Europe had very little backing or interest in the Web
back then, so U.S. colleges were the first groups to set up servers. Tim added links
to their server locations from his directory known as the Virtual Library.
Current link popularity measurements usually show college web pages typically
have higher value than most other pages do. This is simply a function of the
following:
• The roots of the WWW started in lab rooms at colleges. It was not until
the mid to late 1990s that the Web became commercialized.
• The web contains self-reinforcing social networks.
• Universities are pushed as sources of authority.
• Universities are heavily funded.
• Universities have quality controls on much of their content.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! may update their algorithm dozens of
times per month. When you see rapid changes in your rankings, it is usually due to
an algorithmic shift, a search index update, or something else outside of your
control. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, and some of the effects take a while to
kick in.
Usually, if you change something on a page, it is not reflected in the search results
that same day. Linkage data also may take a while to have an effect on search
relevancy as search engines need to find the new links before they can evaluate
them, and some search algorithms may trust links more as the links age.
The key to SEO is to remember that rankings are always changing, but the more
you build legitimate signals of trust and quality, the more often you will come out
on top.
Relevancy Wins Distribution!
The more times a search leads to desired content, the more likely a person is to use
that search engine again. If a search engine works well, a person does not just
come back, they also tell their friends about it, and they may even download the
associated toolbar. The goal of all major search engines is to be relevant. If they
are not, they will fade (as many already have).
Search Engine Business Model
Search engines make money when people click on the sponsored advertisements.
In the search result below you will notice that both Viagra and Levitra are bidding
on the term Viagra. The area off to the right displays sponsored advertisements for
the term Viagra. Google gets paid whenever a searcher clicks on any of the
sponsored listings.
The white area off to the left displays the organic (free) search results. Google does
not get paid when people click on these. Google hopes to make it hard for search
engine optimizers (like you and I) to manipulate these results to keep relevancy as
high as possible and to encourage people to buy ads.
Later in this e-book we will discuss both organic optimization and pay-per-click
marketing.