A fair amount of people actually believe that search engines have a hidden agenda and the fact that their algorithm methodology is a very carefully hidden secret reinforces this in their mind.  But what a search does, via means of its algorithms, is to emulate users.  Its purpose is to index websites and provide the user with a list of relevant, accurate information so that their searches are as successful as they can be.

The mystery of the Algorithm explained

Even through its algorithm changes it is not difficult to keep your website in good standing with search engines, all it takes is a little SEO knowledge, common sense and imagination.

Many have tried to optimize their pages based on an exact algorithm, so to protect themselves from this, search engines use off site criteria to rank a web page.

If it were possible to manipulate an algorithm to give you the top rankings, this information would sell for a great deal of money, or search engine results would become totally irrelevant and search engines would become nothing but junk.

The reason algorithms changes monthly are so that they can continue to fight against spam.

For all the reasons above, search engine algorithms are one of the best kept secrets in the world today.

When Algorithms change

Algorithms do change, and at times these can show negative results in your rankings, but what this tells us is that the SEO team has not done their job in predicting which direction a search engine should take with its algorithm.

Is it possible to predict a change in an SEO algorithm?  Not really, but keep in mind that the ideas behind algorithms come from the minds of men, so while it is not impossible, it is certainly not easy either.  What is easier is to predict the general direction a search engine algorithm will take especially in the face of SEO abuse which can result in some aspects of the algorithms function becoming obsolete.

A case in point is the Meta tag.  The Meta tag was designed to allow a webmaster to list their websites important keywords so that the search engine knows where to place the website on its results page.  It did not take long for people to start keyword stuffing the Meta tag in order to try to fool the algorithm.   They managed, but only for a short time, and today due to a change made in the algorithm, the Meta tag has been devalued is no longer recognised by the search engine spiders when they scan a web page.

Another case of change in the algorithm came about because of cloaking techniques.  Search engines took note that this text was not relevant to a reader and what they did was red flag any site which used this method of Search Engine Optimisaton.

Today Meta tags, cloaking and keyword stuffing are part of algorithm history and are now obsolete in SEO practice.

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