Jakob Nails It, Search Engines are Leeches

112941 Resource 76407 24 21 1137013381121 1220108475773 Controlled Search Engines are Leeches?

Is the table of contents or the index of a book leeching off the value of the content of the book?

Well, yes, I suppose, but we (book readers; content consumers) appreciate that because it helps us find what we want. The value of a TOC is indeed greater than its cost. The same applies to search engines.Sure, putting all your eggs in one basket that you don’t control is a silly strategy. But one dynamic will not change any time soon…your content is worthless until it is found by someone who cares about it.Today, Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., represent very important avenues through which people looking for content, find content. The reality is that most people will never own or control the most important avenues for content discovery. In that sense, most people will forever put a bunch of eggs in baskets controlled by others. Are these others, in general, "<a title="Search Engines as Leeches on the Web" href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html" target="_blank">leeches</a>"? Hardly; they actually create enormous value. As a little experiment, try abstaining from <a title="Google" href="http://google.com/" target="_blank">Google</a>, <a title="Yahoo!" href="http://yahoo.com/" target="_blank">Yahoo</a>, <a title="MSN" href="http://search.msn.com/" target="_blank">MSN</a>, or any of the other search engines for 30 days. See if you can be, as <a title="The Contest" href="http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheContest.htm" target="_blank">Seinfeld might say</a>, a master of your domain of content.Even if the search giants (Google, et. al.) are replaced by something else, the fundamental dynamic will not change (your content is worthless until it is found by someone who cares about it). So at that time, it will be as important to be visible in whatever discovery technology replaced the giants, as it is today to be visible in the giants.-- F. Andy SeidlIf search engines are leeches, then human internet users are as well. Search engines were originally designed to satisfy humans – a way of creating operationally efficient models for finding stuff. Today, search engines exist for precisely the same reason – to help humans discover content of interest without forcing us [each] to read 100% of the content on the web. If [indeed] search engines are sucking the value out of the web, then it must be assumed that this drawback is the expected cost of having a web.<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">"I'm not saying ditch Search. I'm saying strive to be Search independent. If the engines dropped you tomorrow, how much traffic would you lose?" -- <a title="Jakob Nails It, Search Engines are Leeches" href="http://performancing.com/node/809" target="_blank">Nick Wilson</a></blockquote>We have always advised our clients to write for humans, not search engines -- because search engines (in the long run) will always be reflective of what humans want. If they didn’t reflect human requirements, they wouldn’t get used, would they? (e.g., In 1997, why did everyone switch from AltaVista to Google?)And in all this, not a single mention about the long tail of search. ;-)-- Bill French 9 application/xml false long tail master of your domain search dependency search engines are leeches Seinfeld Jakob Nails It, Search Engines are Leeches I've been pushing the word that Bloggers need to be more, and indeed, can easily be Search engine independant for some time now. Jakob Nielsen nails it when he says Search engines are leeches on the web. http://performancing.com/node/809 Search Engines as Leeches on the Web Search engines extract too much of the Web's value, leaving too little for the websites that actually create the content. Liberation from search dependency is a strategic imperative for both websites and software vendors. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 aseidl 68.40.167.222 false true false false true 174050 false false true false false false true 76407 blog blogsite/Blogsite/web