| Any sufficiently advanced technology is | | | | research director, has been quoted offering the |
| indistinguishable from magic.Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles | | | | following insight: "All models are wrong, and increasingly |
| of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law) English physicist | | | | you can succeed without them." Google has |
| & science fiction author (1917 - ) | | | | succeeded in advertising and even language translation |
| Some people insist that search engine optimization and | | | | by amassing petabytes of data and analyzing them to |
| marketing is black magic. SEM / SEO isn't magic at all | | | | find successful patterns. Google "knows" nothing about |
| but is advanced technology. Despite that fact, it does | | | | advertising or language translation. |
| have some similarities with common types of magic. | | | | The Google method has recently succeeded in |
| SEM doesn't have an instruction manual. Practitioners | | | | predicting the existence of previous unknown |
| must study and experiment to discover what works | | | | organisms in the air. An interesting example of this is |
| and what doesn't. Since Google makes regular | | | | the shotgun gene sequencing performed by J. Craig |
| changes to its secret algorithm so that sometimes that | | | | Venter. Venter gained notoriety several years ago by |
| which works one day doesn't the next. SEM comes in | | | | nearly beating the government funded Human |
| black and white (and even gray) varieties. Black hat | | | | Genome Project at mapping the human genome. Chris |
| SEM uses techniques that are questionable or | | | | Anderson at Wired Magazine wrote about Venter |
| forbidden to get high search engine return placement | | | | going from sequencing individual organisms to |
| (SERP) and, in my opinion, should be avoided because | | | | sequencing entire ecosystems enabled by high-speed |
| of the risk of getting the target site delisted. | | | | supercomputers that statistically analyze the data they |
| White hat uses industry standard practices to eliminate | | | | produce. In 2005, he started sequencing the air. In the |
| the risks taken by black hat practitioners. The | | | | process, he discovered thousands of previously |
| downside to white hat techniques is that the results | | | | unknown species of bacteria and other life-forms. |
| take longer to occur. Neither approach can guarantee | | | | Venter can tell you almost nothing about the species |
| the longevity of the improved SERP which is affected | | | | he found. He doesn't know what they look like, how |
| by the activities of others. The way we use Google to | | | | they live, or much of anything else about them. All he |
| identify the optimum search terms for a site has been | | | | has is a statistical blip - a unique sequence that, being |
| dubbed "the Google method" or correlative analytics. | | | | unlike any other sequence in the database, must |
| If you remember your high school science class you'll | | | | represent a new species. |
| remember the classic scientific method: study, | | | | Correlative analytics is used in SEO by looking at as |
| hypothesize, experiment, analyze, repeat the previous | | | | much of the usage statistics as possible to find the |
| four until you find a theory. Correlative analytics starts | | | | most relevant search phrases for a particular website. |
| with massive data collection then skips right to analysis. | | | | Those are the search phrases that are then used to |
| Speaking at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology | | | | optimize. |
| Conference in March 2008, Peter Norvig, Google's | | | | So resist the urge to call SEO hocus pocus. |