The Internet is growing at an exponential rate, resulting from greater masses attempting to earn an income from the Computer Revolution. It doesn't take long for a developer to realize the magnitude of increasing competition, when attempting to obtain more visitors. How much competition exists? The fact is, when this article was written, "Whois," reported 65,443,044 active Domains existed. Additionally, 446,308 Domains where, "on-hold," and 1,184,180 Domains where created by 18:00 EST (1). While this information does not illustrate direct competition for a given niche, it's apparent that any type of Website created will have modest rivalry. The Business model of an Internet Website is relatively simple; increasing traffic means increasing revenue. However, with the growing number of Websites, it will become more difficult to obtain greater traffic. So how is traffic disbursed on the Internet? Traffic disbursement can be isolated to two primary sources: Search Engine Queries and Incoming links. Search Engines have evolved greatly in the past few years. However, the principal is still the same. A Search Engine Spider travels through virtual space analyzing Webpages encountered and assessing their premise. Spiders can quickly route through deeply routed pages within any given Website and index them within a Database. In addition, they can assess which Websites change frequently, and retrieve new data on a scheduled basis. Because of their ability to quickly assess pages and their changes, they offer the internet community one of the most valuable resources, "The ability to accurately locate documents of interest". Based on the fundamentals of Search Engines, developers can increase Search Engine traffic by offering more content and resources. As relevant pages and resources are added to a Website, the premise of the Website becomes more apparent. In addition, expanded queries will match relevant pages displaying new content. The other source of Internet Traffic, "incoming links," can benefit a developer in several ways. First and most obvious, we can achieve greater traffic from the visitor of Websites displaying the incoming links. Also, if used properly, incoming links that are text based (Anchor Text) help Search Engine Spiders determine the premise of a Web-page. Finally, the total number of incoming links improves rapport with Search Engines (2). Because some Search Engines poses the tools and resources to quickly archive numerous pages and their data, they have begun to utilize, "Anchor Text," to leverage their Search Engine Results. The most famous example, of this technology being implemented, is the Apple QuickTime Download page showing as number one in Google for a search query of, "Click Here". The term, "Click Here," cannot be found anywhere on the visible page or Source Code. So why is it number one? Because the Developer linked the words, "Click Here," to the download page from many pages with good rapport (High Google PR). Naturally, this is pure speculation, as only the Google Engineers could explain exactly why it is number one accurately. However, most are probably familiar with the famous Google Bomb of, "Miserable Failure". A large number of people linked, "Miserable Failure," to the Official White House Web-page of President George W. Bush. As a result, George ranks number one on Google for the search term. Text links can be acquired through paying for placement or through exchanges with other Webmasters. For the most part, paid links will generate a lot more traffic then exchange links. This is due solely to placement. In a typical link exchange, the incoming links are placed on, "Weak," pages that receive little traffic. In contrast, advertised links will be presented on prominent pages with a lot of visitors. Moreover, a lot of speculation exists regarding how the major three Search Engines treat reciprocal links. Some believe they cancel-out one another, as a vote. This speculation suggests that, "one-way," incoming links provide the greatest benefit. Bombing, as illustrated in the above examples, has created a large market for the purchase of Text Links. As a matter of fact, text link advertising is soaring right now. A number of people now offer broker services, connecting text link publishers with people wishing to advertise. It has gotten so big the Major search engines are beginning to demonstrate concern. Matt Cutts, a developer for Google, has offered some insight on the matter (3). Acknowledging that many Websites rely on the sale of ad space for income, he explains how this method of calculating the premise of a page has greatly improved Search Results for all the major Search Engines, and selling links hurts this technology. Matt suggests that sold links should include an additional tag, "rel=nofollow," to tell Spiders not to count the vote. The Consequences of not including the tag means that Google may not pass PageRank with links coming from the site selling the links. Essentially, purchased links that do not include that tag will eventually become worthless for Search Engine recognition. Outside of paid advertising, it would require something really special to acquire incoming links. With practical reasoning, a developer would have to either create something very useful to the Internet community, or offer valuable information that will be referenced by others often. What ever method is conjured, its obvious in this point of time, the text link prevails for traffic generation. (1)Whois Source: Detailed Domain Counts and Internet Statistic (http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/). (2)Google: Google Technology (http://www.google.com/technology/). (3) Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO: Text Links and PageRank (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/). |
