The Google Rat Race: In Pursuit of The SERPS

For a long time webmasters the world over have used Search Engine optimization (SEO) techniques to increase their websites’ ranking for specific keywords on search engines.  SERPS simply put is the search engine hierarchy that has been created by search engines such as Google and yahoo to provide people with a listing of sites best suited to the keyword being searched.

The mad dash to push ones keyword higher in the SERPS is what has caught many a webmaster in a rat race resulting in breakneck competition on the SERPS page. And why not? A high rank especially on the organic search is guaranteed to give you traffic to your website if and when the number of searches for the targeted keyword are large.

Just think of it like this. A lay person wants to read about poker and is looking out for a blog online. He isn’t sure where to go. So the most logical thing he will do is to open google.com and type “poker blog”. He would then most probably visit the top 3 to 5 blogs and check them out. This makes the top 3 positions a very valuable place to be for webmasters since just being there will drive traffic to their site. I have personally seen webmasters trying their best to influence the various “known” ranking factors each trying to get the better of the other on the SERPs. Watching the competition is simply mind boggling and I must confess is highly addictive as well.

However looks like things may change for the better. Google has recently changed the way it presents SERPS. Google has had advanced search options available for a year now but the recent change in user interface (UI) for the search engine has put these advanced options right there in the open for users to check out. This has meant that the whole SEO landscape has changed simply because users will start going to the different options Google provides them, taking them to different sets of results. Results which make the old SERPS redundant at best.

This may well be the dawn of a new rat race with webmasters beginning to micro-manage their SERP strategies to target the various options on the NEW Google SERPs . Looks like the first of the rat races are already on especially when it comes to the shopping domain with Google allowing online store webmasters to place items for sale on the biggest e-marketing property there is online.  One thing for sure though, things are going to change online.

~ Online Marketing Team