Search engines are a great tool of course. Therefore serach engine optimization (SEO) is a big deal in todays internet. Everybody tries to increase their page rank and to make sure, that the right infos are displayed. But we all actually run into a dilemma with this.
All of you know it, but let me briefly mention the basics:
1. Websites are built by human developers for human users.
--> human - human
2. Users employ machines (serach engines, SE) to find what they want to see.
--> machine - human
3. Search engines have algorithms that try to mimic the user's thinking. But: No algorithm can fully mimic the human brain!
--> algorithm is not human brain
4. Developers adress the machine's wants more than the user's needs.
--> human - machine
5. Websites are built by human developers for machines. Machines pass websites on to the user by their own algorithm.
--> human - machine - machine - human
This means that more and more consideration is given to the machine's algorithm on both sides of the original human - human interaction.
A: Algorithms try to mimic the human brain.
B: The human brain tries to mimic the algorithms.
Dilemma: While the machines try to come closer to human thinking, actually the human thinking comes closer to machine thinking.
This is good for the search engines, because they more and more fulfill their task better. But it is not their achievement! It is the humans more and more becoming dependent of the machine's wants.
So, what started as enhancement in human - human interaction actually became a machine centered thing.
I am not making up one of those SciFi scenarios where machines take over the world, but we have to face it:
We humans work for the machine, instead of having the machine work for us!
Let's take this article as example:
While writing it, I was first thinking about the meta-description, which should be the same as my first paragraph. There it now says "... today's internet". Originally I wanted to say "world wide web", but as I used "internet" as keyword in other articles already I stick to it.
What is seen as good writing, when you use different terms for the same subject, becomes the contrary for search engines. They rank you higher when you use the same term more often. To adress the human user, we have to adress the machine first, otherwise no user will ever see this. And then the user sees, what is good for the machine, not what is good for the user!
Actually I should go over the whole article, changing "machine" to "search engine", as this is, what users are more likely to search for - themselves thinking about what the machine thinks! But frankly, I don't want to. I want to say machine, because that's what it is about - it is a general problem, that applies to, but is not limited to search engines.
Can you see my dilemma?
Either I tell the full message loosing readers, or I have more readers loosing part of the message.
Do you have a solution for that? Please comment...
See also: Pech mit Google