Google Corporate Information: Our Philosophy

Google describes its philosophy on a web site, and the first four points directly address the kind of search engine optimization that we teach in our clinic sessions.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
As we emphasize in class, "Content is King!" Your site has to provide value to the end users.

2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
As we put it, "focus your site on what it is about!" In fact, we emphasize focusing each page on your site on a specific topic to better address the desires of the users.

3. Fast is better than slow.
Another point we emphasize, "be careful with graphics tha slow down your page loading." Not just graphics, of course, but they tend to be the prime offender on this point.

4. Democracy on the web works.
This is about links and the impact they have on rankings.

The rest of their philosophy is interesting, but the previous points are directly applicable to optimization.

5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.

6. You can make money without doing evil.

7. There's always more information out there.

8. The need for information crosses all borders.

9. You can be serious without a suit.

10. Great just isn't good enough.

For those interested, the site I took these notes from also lists several links to Google information that may also be of interest. This site is a "Google forum" with a lot of other good information. Topics linked to include:
* Google Today
* How Do I Get My Site Listed on Google?
* My Web Pages Are Not Currently Listed
* PageRank Information
* Webmaster Guidelines
* Google Facts & Fiction
* Search Engine Optimizers
* Frequently Asked Questions
* Remove Content from Google's Index