Electrical Engineers

• Search Engines and Directories
• Misinformation
• Algorithms
• Formatting pages
• Submission 

The first thing I'm going to analyse is the difference between Search Engines & directories

• Search Engines

Search Engines are automated gremlins that supposedly whizz around the internet collecting information from every web page out there. The software used for this is called a spider or a robot or a crawler. These little nasties are a bit of software that retrieve the information on a page, then feed the fat lazy index with the information. Then the fat lazy one will digest the information and spit out the foul tasting incomplete and indigestible stuff.  The stuff he swallows and the stuff he spits is determined by the minions who created and revere him. The truth appears to be that the fat lazy one cannot be bothered to send his spiders out to find food so he just sits waiting for people to throw scraps to the spiders so they can follow a nice easy path rather than beat their own way through the tangled mess known as the WEB. 

One of the minions, I don't recall his name, claimed that the reason the spiders don't crawl your website uninvited was due to the compensation culture of the US and possible law suits for privacy or whatever. Make your own mind up about that. I couldn't think of a better excuse myself for not doing my job. 

"Sorry but i'd love to work out the displacement of water in your bath but I don't want to get sued by Archimedes' copyright holders if their is, was, will ever be one." Nice.

• Directories

These are totally different kettle of fish, whatever fish have go to do with anything. Directories do not operate software for retrieving information from web pages. They rely on you to give them information which is nice and lovely and polite and relevant.  Frequently you are invited to add your own description and keywords for searches. Many directories will have a real proper human being analyse your pages before you are accepted into the ranks. One or two that I will not name here say they have human editors check out your site but don't. One has to understand the reasoning behind that is to help us make the right decision and not try any tricks. Busted. They know who they are because if anyone has seen the old electrical engineering page full of text on the hideous black pages would have opened the page titled "electrical engineers" and been faced with a load of waffle about web development. I have since altered the page as I got too many hits on it and my once slack conscience finally got the better of me. 

The real human directories are a bit better but still don't come up to scratch with a search engine. One of my sites has a squillion pages, What would be the point of submitting every single one to different categories or even 57 to the same category as they all fall under it ? do you think all the pages will get listed ? yeah right. At least the SE's deliver the right ones from their databases as and when the search string requires it. Well almost, see below.

• Misinformation

The funniest thing I read since the Discworld novels is the misinformation the search engines spout about what you should and shouldn't do with your page for maximum effect. If you want a laugh, I strongly suggest you swallow the garbage they offer then visit www.searchengineworld.com for some After-Eight style reality with fine cheeses, mustards that pierce the tongue like Cardigans lancers and water crackers. 

• Algorithms

The minions of the SE's go to extraordinary lengths to make algorithms that are near impossible to crack. why? Easy, to stop people making pages that the search engine wants to deliver to the unsuspecting user. Yep, you got it. They don't want you to be able to create pages that they like. I'm not sure if I have ever cracked one exactly as they never replied to my email when i posted the results. I suggest the easiest way is to create an algorithm that echos their results. I work on a Brownie point system for all results and rework it until I get the same results. Not perfect granted, but effective nonetheless. As if I'd really email them that, you didn't believe that surely. The Brownie point bit is true though.

So what is an alligarithm ? This is the formulae composed by the boffins at the search engines to filter the results into relevancy, popularity and spam etc. I'm not sure but I think close up they look like this ;

10110100100100010111101010010010101001010111101010001000100101010010010.... etc

The angerithms appear to be heavily geared to stop page optimisers supposedly cheating the SEs. In time, most loop holes will be plugged but at the moment it resembles something like a swiss cheese. Kind of.

• Formatting pages

In short SE's only like HTML text. Everything else is liable to get penalised for one violation or another. Dare to do a Flash5 site. The way the spiders work is retrieval of html data, if you have no html on the page, scrap heap. Loads of images? scrap heap. Some even want you to use strict protocol for your pages. I tried doing this and when I got off the floor laughing at the waste of space, I realised it must have been some kind of post modernist pseudo-surrealist joke. Or something. We can only dream and wait. 

• Submission

I have yet to come across software that doesn't work. On the other hand, I flatly refuse to pay for something when I can do it so easily by hand. The only software I actively endorse ( meaning no one has bought me yet) is www.agentwebranking.com. More about optimisation and submission on the optimisation page. I could have a link here but then you'd click it and not read the rubbish below. Assuming you are still reading this far. 

Paid submission service. Where do they get off ? Some SEs want you to part with your hard earned readies just so they can do their job. Nice trick. Get this scenario " Stanley the student has a website stuffed full of technical information, it is all freely available as he has finished his Thesis and got his grade A's and what nots. Being a deprived student, he is not about to waste his money giving his hard work to greedy SEs. Enter Larry Loadsawad, Naff little website, void of useful information. Opens his wallet and the SEs grab for it like a polar bear in a fish pond." What are we left with? yep a search engine full of useless nonsense. In my humble opinion ( and don't forget you ARE entitled to this) these Prstitute search engines are actively destroying the internet as we know it. Freedom of information is suddenly not so free. Yes I know there is an O missing in that word but that is to side step the family filters. I don't recall who first coined the phrase but it was someone in the webmaster newsgroup.

Link popularity, whatever next "your site is more important if people link to you" Bring on the birth of link farms. Let us all create a load of pages with nothing but links pointing to all our friends and eventually we will take over the planet, or some such nonsense. Here is an example. I have 2 pages, well one of my clients does. I use the string application letters. One page which is all about application letters reaches the top ten, great. Wait a second, who is that above me? Oh, it's the other page it has the word letters in it but only one a link that points to an area called application. How? because the page in front has 20 or so more links pointing to it. Johnny user enters his string and cops an irrelevant page for his troubles. Nice. what of Stanley student? well his page is by default, not important so it gets shoved to the back of the queue. Roll on the day we can adjust the search criteria and turn off some of the rubbish they come up with.

Indexing, this is hilarious. hold on, I'll write this slowly because some of you can't read very fast. Right imagine having a cut flower business, it is Fuchsia season. you have your page ready, submit it to the search engines and in three months you may or may not get listed. By the time your page hits the public, you are tilling for your Daff crop. I have noticed recently that some of the SEs are getting quicker to index your pages, one or two weeks and so on, but one naughty engine didn't re-index for nearly 6 months. How about getting your directory listing updated ? Don't even go there. Once again you are forced to make pages that suit them. If you are selling flowers, generalise the pages. I know it is a downer but basically the cutting edge technology of the SE's can't keep up with your primulas.

So who are the players? who do us SEO's use?

www.google.com 

I have Google set as my home page, I want the right results, not some old advertised garbage that someone with money paid for I WANT THE FACTS.

Have I missed something here? I suppose there is not much point in having an optimisation page now that I just waffled all that old pony & trap above. Anyone for a cup of Earl Grey ?

This article was written by you guessed it, me. Republication of this document in part or in full is just ridiculous, don't do it. No one wants to read it out of context. As a career, I somehow manage to hold down a job as the mathematician for ;

 A-K strategic business solutions 

If you are interested, some of my work can be seen at http://engineers-international.com , http://www.ids.com.au/solutions/ , http://racingcoloursclub.com/ , http://akstrategic.com/  

I can be reached direct via email at

makrobicz@hotmail.com

Other excerpts from these articles can be viewed at

• https://makrobicz.tripod.com/electrical_engineers.html

• https://makrobicz.tripod.com/complex_numbers.html

• https://makrobicz.tripod.com/search_engines.html

• https://makrobicz.tripod.com/optimisation.html (cancelled due to excessive waffle above)

Is it me or has this page just tailed off really quickly towards -

the end?