Is search ruining the Web?

By Molly Wood

Search is the big dog; and it, more than standards, usability, or even aesthetics, drives the evolution of Web site design.

“It's easy to overinflate the importance of online search. Sometimes I can't help but wonder how it's even remotely possible that Google's stock is trading at more than $225 (at press time). But then I think of every new small business trying to make it on a shoestring marketing budget--actually every Web-based business, big and small, including CNET--and I realize that they're absolutely dead in the water unless they can somehow show up nice and high in search results. If Google tweaks its algorithms just a little bit, thousands of Web sites either have a very good or a very bad day. Search is the big dog; and it, more than standards, usability, or even aesthetics, drives the evolution of Web site design.

The cottage industry that's sprung up around improving a site's search results is called search engine optimization. At its best, SEO is a discipline that influences Web builders and designers to maximize their search engine results with some simple and uncontroversial changes. At its worst, though, the term includes a collection of questionable business practices, shady companies that promise clicks for cash and only sometimes deliver, and a tool that allows the proliferation of advertising-filled Web sites (free registration required) that do nothing but show up in search results and provide no information in exchange for ad impressions. It's also creating quite a heated debate about standards-based design and usability vs. search methodology. And as much as I'm a fan of standards and efficiency, I think the standards and usability are going to suffer the most.…”

http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-6217815-1.html