When you type a phrase into Google, you might get a few relevant results. But it seems like you’re guaranteed to get a bunch of “junkmail” results–one from every shopping site in the known universe, (plus now it seems like the unknown universe is impingin upon my searches!) Why?

I just started working with Step2, (http://www.step2.com, or http://www.step2direct.com) and working in their internet marketing department has got me learning way more about the internet than I ever imagined existed. It seems that SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is a huge business now, and making your site show up at the top of a search list costs a lot of dough. You can see this as a good thing (finally, no more of those stupid geocities homepages that were made in an hour and still keep kicking five years after they’ve been abandoned.) Or you can see this as a bad thing (I don’t want to buy anything, I just want to learn!)

A seach usuall also gets you a bunch of sponsored links, which statistics tell us many people glaze right over. I, personally, didn’t even notice them the first time I searched for our company on Google. (Where’s the site? I’m not seeing any links!) Retailers pay big bucks for you to see their site first, and then your eyes just whizz past it, mostly due to the conditioning of seeing so many spammed ads over the past few years. (ie, you search for Hardwood Flooring and end up with a link for a T-Shirt customization place that boasts “Buy Hardwood Flooring T-Shirts Today!”)

Good grief, when will it end? Never, probably. Every time they find a way to filter out those jerks, the jerks find new ways to get back in. It just goes to show that the internet has spread lots of information, but also lots of pathetic punks who just want to make a quick buck, and will trash anything to get it. Thanks to Google though, sponsored links might finally settle down. You see, if you “spam” the internet by buying every single keyword, you get a lot of clicks that are people who aren’t looking for your stuff. Google tracks those false leads, and charges the sites that buy them more per click. Hmm… Google, please crank up the rates and put those jokers out of business. And please, find a way to do that with “organic” search results as well. For the rest of you out there, download the Google toolbar and start ranking pages as crud if they turn out to be so. Make the web a better place for all of us!