{"id":826,"date":"2012-12-17T09:07:16","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T09:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/?p=826"},"modified":"2012-12-17T19:49:47","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T19:49:47","slug":"why-optimization-is-a-terrible-way-to-think-about-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/why-optimization-is-a-terrible-way-to-think-about-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"Why &#8220;Optimization&#8221; is a Terrible Way to Think About SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes we make assumptions that lead us in the wrong direction. I&#8217;ve made plenty, and I&#8217;ll continue to make them for as long as I&#8217;m alive. And sometimes, we&#8217;re inadvertently responsible for wrong assumptions made by others. When that&#8217;s the case (and we notice it), there&#8217;s an obligation to correct the misunderstanding.<\/p>\n<p>I recently encountered an example of this in some advice related to the SEO field, and how to optimize for rankings. That advice referenced SEOmoz&#8217;s own <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seomoz.org\/article\/search-ranking-factors\">Google Ranking Factors article<\/a>, which uses a pie-shaped diagram to illustrate &#8220;percents&#8221; of particular algorithmic factors (like the illustration on the left in the image below).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-827\" alt=\"pie-vs-bar-algo\" src=\"https:\/\/images.sparktoro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/pie-vs-bar-algo.gif\" width=\"650\" height=\"318\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This visualization, and the conceptual takeaway that the ranking algorithm is a pie chart made up of buckets that can only be filled so much, got me worried that a series of assumptions might lead a lot of folks astray.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the problem &#8211; if we imagine the algorithm as a pie chart, each factor (or each type of factor) is only able to contribute a limited amount to the potential final ranking position for a given term\/phrase. But, that&#8217;s probably not the case. It&#8217;s more likely that ranking elements don&#8217;t stop positively contributing to the ranking process once they reach &#8220;100%,&#8221; in fact, there&#8217;s probably no such thing as &#8220;100% optimized for domain authority&#8221; or &#8220;100% optimized for link\/citation\/social factors.&#8221; As more positive signals are earned toward these elements, the overall ranking ability of a page simply rises.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tried to illustrate this below in a very simplistic fashion:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-828\" alt=\"how-we-think-about-the-algo\" src=\"https:\/\/images.sparktoro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/how-we-think-about-the-algo.gif\" width=\"700\" height=\"632\" \/><br \/>\n<sub>(do not take these charts to mean anything about my opinions of ranking elements, they&#8217;re just crude diagrams)<\/sub><\/p>\n<p>Some notes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 13px;\">In pie-chart world, once a factor has been &#8220;optimized&#8221; to its maximum degree, there&#8217;s no point in spending additional energy on it.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>In bar-chart world, the contribution of a factor never ends. It could be that some factors don&#8217;t influence as much as others, but each will exert additional ranking force of some level as it gains strength.<\/li>\n<li>Pie-chart and bar-chart thinking are mutually exclusive \u00a0&#8211; you can&#8217;t have both (at least, as they apply to a single factor)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My personal guess is that neither pie nor bar chart are the entirely right way to think about SEO. There might be some elements that have a maximum level of contribution they can make to a ranking position, and others that will add ranking ability ad infinitum.<\/p>\n<p>The assumption I&#8217;m worried about comes from using the pie-shaped conceptualization, and biasing ones work or tactics based on the idea of percentile-optimization.<\/p>\n<p>I think the industry overall may have made a mistake when we assumed the acronym &#8220;SEO&#8221; or &#8220;Search Engine Optimization.&#8221; The word &#8220;optimization&#8221; inherently suggests that the practice is somehow analagous to crafting a lock to fit a keyhole. The perfect combination of ridges, grooves, and smooth sections will open the lock, and continuing to perfect a key after it opens that lock is pointless.<\/p>\n<p>SEO isn&#8217;t that way. And tragically, I&#8217;ve probably confused a lot of people by using a pie-shaped chart in our ranking factors, and by writing posts with titles like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seomoz.org\/blog\/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization\">Perfecting Keyword Targeting &amp; On-Page Optimization<\/a>. Even though these contain caveats, there&#8217;s undoubtedly marketers walking away from these materials who&#8217;ve been given the wrong impression.<\/p>\n<p>My apologies to anyone who&#8217;s been confused &#8211; from here on, I&#8217;ll work to make sure that I don&#8217;t present SEO in this misleading fashion, and that future articles we publish to replace these older ones will work harder on both visuals and linguistics around the topic. Unfortunately, I&#8217;m going to have a harder time getting rid of the idea that &#8220;SEO&#8221; presents in its naming convention. We&#8217;ve been fighting as an industry for so long against the concept that SEO is a one-time activity, and all that time, our very nomenclature may have been one of our worst enemies&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes we make assumptions that lead us in the wrong direction. I&#8217;ve made plenty, and I&#8217;ll continue to make them for as long as I&#8217;m alive. And sometimes, we&#8217;re inadvertently responsible for wrong assumptions made by others. When that&#8217;s the case (and we notice it), there&#8217;s an obligation to correct the misunderstanding. I recently encountered<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","category-psychology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why &quot;Optimization&quot; is a Terrible Way to Think About SEO - SparkToro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sometimes we make assumptions that lead us in the wrong direction. I&#039;ve made plenty, and I&#039;ll continue to make them for as long as I&#039;m alive. 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