Derek Powazek on “Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists”

His thoughts on so-called Search Engine Optimization are spot on. The crux:

Remember this: It’s not your job to create content for Google. It’s their job to find the best of the web for their results. Your audience is your readers, not Google’s algorithm.

It sounds obvious, but there are still too many people contributing to the web who believe that its inner workings are magical. Success on the web, to my mind, is far more predictable than in publishing, politics, movies, etc. The only way to compete on the web is through quality.