An Ultimate Lifestyle Secret - Search Engine Direction in 2007

It is the beginning of 2007 and if you have a website you are probably wondering what the year will bring in terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO ) changes. Well, the changes can be summed up in one word, "relevancy."

If you are going to talk about search engines and search engine trends, then you are really talking about what Google is doing. Because Google is the leader in this field, it is extremely rare that another search engine will innovate before Google.

Very early in 2007, Google filed some new patents. Google's new patents talk about using relevancy to determine whether a site is worthy of being included in the search engine results. Relevancy, as far as Google is concerned, is about how the words on your page compare to every other site's pages that include information on the same topic.

As an example, let's say that your site is about politics. And, let's say that it is about Republicans. Pages on your site will be compared to other sites that have pages about Republican politics and politicians. Suppose you have several pages that mention President Bush. If you do, then those pages should also mention the White House, the Vice President, Congress and current events that they are involved in. Why would that be necessary? Because there will be other sites that are relating George Bush to these other key phrases. For your pages to be considered, you'd better work them into your content also.

Using the Relevancy rule to your advantage will help your site to be viewed as a possible authority site. If you can accomplish this, you will have a distinct advantage because Authority sites rate higher placement in the search engine results. Unfortunately, educational and government sites are viewed as authority sites just because of their domains. It is difficult to beat these pages, but you can do it if you provide better content.

So, for 2007, your goal is to have the search engines consider your site an authority by providing content that is not only original but also viewed as relevant when compared against the web as a whole. Keyword stuffing of a web page will no longer get you a high placement. The search engines are slowly being developed into artificially intelligent machines that can learn to recognize patterns and use those patterns to manipulate their output.

Google was the first to file their patents, but you better believe that Yahoo! and MSN are not far behind. Only time will tell if all of Google's patents will be accepted due to the wide-ranging impact of the relevancy concept. But, at least for 2007, you had better make sure that your site has the best possible relevant information on your topic or your site ranking could sink into oblivion.