Google Goes to the Dance

Google is the dominant internet search engine.



That is common knowledge. Powering the informational searches for Yahoo!, AOL, and many others, gives Google a pre-eminant position among internet searchers.



There is unrest, in the ranks of the search engine optimization (SEO) community, however.



There are many reasons for this unrest.



Google is planning an initial offering of its shares, referred to as an IPO. Google had been a privately owned company, with its shares concentrated into a few owners' hands. Those shares are to be offered to the general public very soon.



Yahoo!, which once held the Number One search engine seat, has been using Google's results in its own search returns.



Yahoo! recently announced dropping Google's results. In the near future, Yahoo! will create its own independent search results. Owning the search engine Inktomi, considered and up and comer by the SEO crowd, strengthens their case.



Internet colossus Microsoft has been gaining some search share, with its own MSN search option.



Enter the recent so-called Google "Florida Update". With that watershed updating of over three billion web documents, within Google's data base, came a hurricane of controversy.



Sites that were accustomed to sitting on the first page of searches for their most important search terms (words entered by surfers into the search box) found themselves deep in the results. Sometimes they disappeared from the returned pages entirely.



Rumours of conspiracy abounded.



Some observers said Google was removing websites that broke its rules. Many thought Google was deliberately filtering certain keywords, so sites dependent upon them for traffic, would purchase Google's AdWords programs. Still other pundits pointed to Google as simply looking for better, and more relevant results, in a new way.



Yahoo! property Inktomi, and Microsoft's MSN Search were picking up new users by the day. The Google fixated SEO community went into a period of soul searching, blame, and then coping with the new search situation.



Fast forward to the present day.



Google is in the midst of yet another major update.



Updates tend to occur near the end of each month. During that time, the search results will often be highly variable. Google PageRanks (the Google measure of a web page's importance) may see some change, up or down. New totals of Google tabulated incoming links will also appear.



This potentially major updating event, already nicknamed "Austin", is creating yet another stirring of the Google results pot.



The search engine optimization community is holding its breath, after the wild ride through the "Florida Update".



Bloggers should simply remain calm.



If you continually add fresh content, related to the main topics of your blog or site, you have little to worry about. In fact, bloggers may have a lot to gain.



Content is king on the search engines. Fresh content is even more royal.



As bloggers keep adding fresh posts, on a regular basis, blogs are what the search engines love. It doesn't really matter, which search engine people use, to locate the search terms related to your blog. With fresh content, your blog will always rank well.



The other feature of blogs, that gives them search engine power, is links. Bloggers are linkers. Linking to one another's blogs, and to individual posts, is a fact of blogging life. Those who have never even heard of optimization, are scoring top postions, for their blog subjects.



By continually adding links, to and from other blogs and static websites, blogs are gaining Google PageRank at a rapid pace. That PageRank, and large incoming link totals, are helping to boost blogs to the front pages of searches.



Political and business bloggers are certainly taking note of those facts.



As the search engine community ties itself into knots, over every Google update storm, bloggers cruise through them with all sails set. Any search engine update can be very helpful to bloggers. It can be Google, MSN, or any of the others search engines.



It shouldn't matter to the blogging community which search engine is the most prominent.



Blogs provide what the search engines want, with fresh content and lots of links.



Bloggers should always dance well with Google.