Recently a colleague and I were
talking about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. SEO is the new buzzword, or
possibly buzz-acronym, amongst certain advertising types as the next holy grail
of marketing.
Marketing holy grails are
supposedly magical, mystical, be-all end-alls to the main advertising dilemma:
"Am I getting the word out to whom I want to get it to."
SEO attempts to make the web search
engines display your name at the top whenever someone types in your product
category. It does this by tricking the web's spiderbots into thinking your
product is the most searched for. Because of the purported quantity of searches
for your product, your name should bubble to the top. That's the idea anyhow.
They also call it "gaming the
system." Which I think is funny because it's not playing the game by the
rules at all. "Gaming the system" and "Search Engine
Optimization" are really just two clumsy euphemisms for, um, cheating.
But you know, all's fair in love,
war, and commerce. Reminds me of my kids in the early days of video games,
reaching a tough spot and asking their friends for the cheat code to get past
it. Or some of today's games allowing you to use the "god mode" for
the same purpose, if you pay for it.
Odd. Somehow I don't remember ever
being able to start a Monopoly board game with both Boardwalk and Park Place
and all the utilities already in hand. Or a Jenga game with Velcro linings on
both sides of the little pieces of wood.
Makes you wonder. At what point is
cheating a crime? "It's not bait and switch, your honor. I didn't
misrepresent and overstate the implicit value of my product. I just search
engine optimized it."
America, ya gotta love it.
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