We live in a world where everyone seems to want the latest and greatest. Somewhere along the way, we decided that newer automatically means better. If we are buying a CD, it has to be the latest release from the newest one-hit wonder. It does not matter if the songwriter could not tell melody from harmony, or if the singer can barely carry a tune. All that matters is that it is new.
Each fall, hundreds of people rush to car dealerships, eager to drive next year’s models and barely able to wait for them to be unloaded from the truck. It does not matter if we are six months behind on payments for last year’s model, which still runs perfectly. We get dazzled by all the bells and whistles the new cars have to offer.
People will stand in a long line overnight, even in an electrical storm, simply to spend an unhealthy amount of money on the latest electronic gadget because it is brand new. We do not care that in just a few months it may cost a fraction of the price. We feel like we have to have it now.
Even internet service suffers from this right-now syndrome. For years, we were content with dial-up service. Sure, it was slow, but it was that or nothing. We barely noticed that it took hours to download a simple file, days to upload a couple of pictures, and downloading a video was practically unheard of. We did not know any better.
Now that the world has discovered all the new options for internet service, we feel like we have to have those too. It does not matter that they may cost twice as much each month, or that we might have to default on our student loans to buy the necessary equipment. If it is cordless, faster, and designed with the latest technology, we think we need it…right now.
We do not care if the old stuff is made with better materials, lasts longer, and costs less. In our minds, old equals junk.
Search engine optimization is one place where we should force ourselves to let go of our strange bias against older things. When it comes to search engine optimization, age often has the advantage over youth.
Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to search engines. The more attractive a website appears to them, the higher it ranks in search engine results. Search engines are not drawn to beauty, of course, but to repeated patterns and algorithms. A low ranking can potentially be the kiss of death for an internet-based business because studies have shown that internet users seldom look beyond the second page of results.
Search engines use web crawlers to determine a website’s ranking.
Older websites, and the webmasters who manage them, have had more time to develop and maintain their algorithms. They are already indexed and ranked by the search engines. In some cases, it can take three months for a web crawler to get around to spidering a brand new website that has been submitted to a search engine. Older sites are already appearing in results and gaining customer recognition. If an older site has been around long enough to earn a loyal customer base, those customers will still look for it, even if a change in the rankings knocks the aged website out of a prime position.
