Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Search Engine Optimization

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization seems to be the latest buzzword in the world of Internet Marketing. If you don't do it, you are leagues behind the rat race.

The objective is to look at SEO, and what role it plays in the whole publicity dynamics of companies who are looking to reach out to a greater audience.

Have you googled something you are looking to buy from Amazon and found the first three links coming up as sponsored links? Most probably you have.

Well this is because these companies paid google to have their results come up first based on the string that you entered in the search box.

Now this tactic is quite fascinating. And quite scary if you stop to look at the flip side of such a thing.

Typically, what happens when you are searching via google or any other search engine is you log in with your credentials to make opening your mailbox or your facebook page easier.

The servers then maintain something called as analytic data against your username. They profile the users based on the web searches, your profile likes and dislikes.

The companies then pay these companies to analyze the data and create grids of users who might be interested in a specific set of products. They create profiles also known as clones. To elucidate, consider this example.

A and B are two individuals who are online "window" shoppers.They both look at multiple sites for rates of a similar kind of camera which they are planning to buy. They add the camera to their "wishlist".

Now the analytics engine records the data and stores it.

A company XYZ, is planning to start selling the same model of the camera but wants to reach out to a maximum number of online shoppers in quick time.

It approaches the search analytics company and gets the users information, on who might be interested. So that when A and B (now clones, since they are searching for a similar kind of camera) now search for the camera in the internet, they get a bunch of advertisements from XYZ which says they are selling the camera.

That is SEO for you.

Now I'd like to see what this holds for us mere mortals in the future.

This paves the way for a pressing moral question. Who decides what data the analytics firm can share with the companies! Because if we are private people, we do not want strangers to look at our browsing "profiles" and come up with schemes to woo us.

I feel, yes, this is something which makes a lot of financial sense, especially for start ups who do not wish to invest in quality market research. But it puts the customers at serious risk. Because most of our lives are spent online one way or the other, our privacy is our prime concern.

Now that is something to ponder about.

1 comment:

  1. SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization or search engine optimizer. Deciding to hire an seo sheffield is a big decision that can potentially improve your site.

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