At first, most in the business world considered the internet to be a toy and perhaps a good communication tool. But in the last decade, the power of internet marketing and the need to compete in that marketplace has never been more evident. And just as business learns new marketing and communication methods when they enter a new market such as learning to do business overseas, the internet has brought with it entirely new tools and weapons that the modern business must learn to use skillfully to succeed in a cyberspace business environment.

And of the many new acronyms that have been added to the business vocabulary, "SEO" is one that is central to success in the internet marketing world. SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization" and it is an entire discipline unto itself. By learning to utilize well developed SEO methods, a business can learn to dominate their particular market niche even in a cyberspace business world.

But it isn't enough to just have a state of the art business web site up for modern internet business web site to succeed. Just as to be successful in the physical world, customers must come to you or you must go to them. And the primary method of letting customers know who you are and drawing them to your well designed web site is to connect to them through a search engine such as Yahoo, Google or MSN.

What Google Knows

It wasn't that long ago that a tremendous scare went through the internet community. The issue had to do with the huge amount of data that can be collected on individuals using search engines online. This large body of information naturally drew the attention of the Homeland Security agencies who are charged with the job of finding out all they can about potential sleeper cells of terrorism in this country.

This stand reflects a long established business ethic that Google has maintained to be protective of the data it collects about users of its search tools. That protective nature has more benefits than just building our confidence that Google is a safe tool for all of us to use. Google indeed has at its disposal a tremendous library of personal information on anyone using its search tools. And as the dominant search engine in the industry, this potential includes just about anyone who accesses the internet.

It turns out then that Google's protective posture when it comes to that massive database of search information serves their purposes extremely well. If they can keep this mountain of very specific data secure and proprietary, it represents a trade secret of tremendous value to Google to help them maintain their market superiority for a long time to come.