The only real important thing you need to generate legitimate money online, is traffic. It's the blood that any online business needs to flourish and survive. Search engines offer the best kind of well targeted traffic that so many desperately seek every single day. It's no surprise that a lot of marketing websites are designed to be more attractive to the search engines rather than towards their potential customers. Search engine algorithms still remain mysterious and are a closely guarded secret in the industry. So, what really makes search engines happy?

Through all of our efforts to use SEO to improve our ranking, we often forget why search engines exist at all. The search engine's main function is to display the most relevant search result for every inquiry made through their service. The truth is, it is really in the search engine's greatest interest that nobody manipulates their ranking system by using SEO strategies so that the customers using their service are returned the best relevant search results. Of course, this doesn't work out the way the search companies wish them to and they really cannot punish a lot of websites for doing it. Keep in mind, they will punish those sites that are utilizing deceptive SEO techniques that are being used to fool the search engines. These strategies are know as Black Hat SEO techniques, and if caught using them, you can get your site removed from the search engine indexes.

Here are a few examples of Black Hat SEO: Linkfarms(massive linking with other sites in a group where the only goal is to increase link popularity), creating web pages with duplicate content, overuse of keywords, cloaking(purposely giving search engine spiders different pages than visitors see) and hiding text from visitors that only spiders can read. These are some of the unethical methods that people are using to try to fool the search engines. A lot of these techniques can make your rankings fall and some will get you banned. Search engines hate being manipulated to this extreme. if you are discovered using them, you will get penalized.

It's important to understand how search engines work if you want your site to rank well. Algorithms are the mathematical formulas that search engines use to figure out how to rank a web page for a particular search term. These algorithms are one of the best kept secrets in the search engine world. Nobody really understands how their ranking system works, but they do vary with each search company. What we do know is that these algorithms are always changing, especially to fight over abused SEO techniques. SEO strategies that are effective today, may not work well the next day. It's always best to use basic SEO fundamentals that have passed the test of time.

Search engines are constantly looking for methods to deliver better search results to their users. Instead of concentrating on strategies to fool these companies, it's more important to focus on creating relevant content on your website. You won't ever get penalized if you do this. Place yourself in the search engine's position. They want to give searchers the most relevant search results possible, so give them lots of relevant content on your site. Trickery will only get you punished, resulting in the loss of valuable traffic to your Internet business. You should focus more on consistently developing your website with quality content and stay away from dirty SEO tricks. This is the true way to the search engine's heart and it always will be. Good luck to you and your success!