I was browsing Slashdot this morning and read the linked article on search engines. It’s a pretty interesting article over all about J.C. Penny and its rise to number one in search engine results. There’s discussion of Black Hat search engine optimization (SEO) companies so take a few minutes to read it.
One particularly interesting quote popped out:
If you own a Web site, for instance, about Chinese cooking, your site’s Google ranking will improve as other sites link to it. The more links to your site, especially those from other Chinese cooking-related sites, the higher your ranking. In a way, what Google is measuring is your site’s popularity by polling the best-informed online fans of Chinese cooking and counting their links to your site as votes of approval.
This specifically is why I choose to approve all posts to this blog and why I’m such a stickler about spammers on the forum I manage for Rita. I’m sure if I hit my gaming blog and checked it out, I’d have a bunch of spam postings waiting for my approval (just checked, 29 with 1 actual comment).
Good article though.