Search Engine Optimization (or optimisation as the British prefer) is a key web marketing activity.

According to Wikipedia it is the job of “improving rankings for relevant keywords in search results by rectifying the web site structure, and content such that they could be easily read and understood by the search engine’s software programs”.

This definition infers that:

1. SEO improves the visibility of a web site only for predetermined keywords;
2. sauce for the Goose may not be sauce for the Gander: in other words, optimisation for one search engine may not work well, or even at all, in another.

So far, pretty good. It could be improved or at least made more honest though in two respects:

1. SEO does not necessarily “rectify” anything. Perfectly decent web sites may not be search optimised at all, and perfectly awful web sites (riddled with technical and usability errors) may yet be perfectly optimised.
2. Except in romantic novels, SEO is less concerned with how a web site’s structure and content can be “easily read and understood” by a visiting search engine, and more with how the structure and content can be adapted to ‘persuade’ or influence it. Ironically this touch of realism appears to make SEO synonymous with rhetoric, which as Lord Baldwin of Bewdley reminded us, is the harlot of the arts.

One might argue that there are harlots, and then there are harlots. The same is true of SEO. A spot of careful and moderate SEO may go, in many cases, largely unnoticed by the web site user, certainly it won’t degrade the integrity, usability or technical correctness of the website beyond acceptable levels. But it is a compromise – between quality and search-effectiveness, and it will cause problems if it goes too far.

What sorts of problems? Well, poor or excessive search engine optimisation commonly creates the following usability defects:

1. Deception. This is a serious problem relating to the use of keywords within pages that are not relevant to the content of that page. This is very prevalent in the top listings of most search engines. It is serious because it assumes that people do not mind being deceived, which is a rather brave assumption. My experience is that people tend to have a low tolerance for web sites that waste their time (unless they come with that objective).
2. Bookmarks and browser History. You want people to bookmark your web site so that they can return easily. Browser ‘History’ entries let you easily find sites you’ve been to but haven’t bookmarked. SEO routinely perverts the titles and descriptions of web pages in order to make them seem relevant to target keywords; resulting in bookmarks and history entries like “UK business office furniture hire – chairs, tables & desks. Furniture Hire.”, rather than the more obviously useful and accurate “Kilroy’s Furniture Ltd. | Contact Us”. These problems get worse as ‘keyword reinforcement’ techniques often use the same title across many web pages. Perhaps it’s poetic justice, but this technique actually reduces the likelihood that, should anyone visit your web site, they will be able to find their way back again, which thereby perpetuates a dependence on search engines.
3. Marketing glaze. Many studies have shown that on the web, although I suspect everywhere, people avoid anything that looks like advertising and tend to ignore text written in marketese (marketing-speak, the lingo of sales). If the content on your web site is stuffed with keywords, and reads like a commercial, you really cannot expect anyone (other than children, who are the rather predictable exception to this tendency) to hang around long enough to actually buy anything or explore your web site.

These problems will:

1. do nothing to enhance your reputation;
2. keep you dependent on search engines;
3. turn away many adult visitors;
4. significantly reduce your web site’s effectiveness.

Search Engine Optimization is also not the only way to get your web site listed. And on its own it will not work miracles with your search engine positioning. Having a well-rounded relevant web site, and a carefully researched marketing programme, is how one gets a good Google position, and SEO is a part, but only a part, of that process.

There are occasions though where SEO is unnecessary or maybe even inadvisable: if your web site is part of a large organisation, like a government, the BBC or Microsoft. It’s not necessary because, providing you get some links from key pages on the main organisation web site and providing that your web site is built properly, your position will rise regardless of SEO. And it is inadvisable because – for a government web site, or any site that has to follow policies on accessibility, usability and technical conformance – SEO can quite easily break your obligations to those requirements. In this latter situation organisations should meet the requirements first, then undertake SEO and retest to ensure requirements are still being met, discarding ‘optimisations’ that prevent conformance.

Most of us though aren’t lucky enough to get incoming links from the BBC homepage, so we have to degrade our web sites to some extent in the cause of search optimisation. I suppose then the only question is: how much of a harlot are you prepared to be?