Earning recognition on the World Wide Web is not as easy a task as some people might think. Every day millions of people vie for attention with blogs, photo galleries, and social media networks. We do our best to be noticed but there are fewer winners than losers in the daily game of earning recognition. What is it that makes a Web site stand out from the crowd? Why do people link to some sites more than others? The answer is not as simple as some people would have you believe.

For example, it might seem intuitive that an authoritative paper on a topic might attract much attention. But in reality a less well-informed essay that uses humor and clever graphics may earn more attention. So it would seem that knowledge and authority are not valued as much as organization and style. People want to read interesting content. The knowledge-makers are at a disadvantage if they cannot make their content more interesting than everyone else’s.

On another point, it might seem like the most recent information on a topic gets the attention. After all, we live in an age of instant gratification. But again reality suggests that older Web documents might prevail simply because more people know about them. The more recent information may be more relevant but the old information by virtue of its reputation continues to receive information.

These ideas have been shown to work in search engine optimization theory. Called SEO theory, search engine optimization theory teaches us that search engines use the least amount of effort required to find relevant search results. The search engines therefore look for popular, frequently mentioned, often-visited content. The better sites are often buried deeper in the results. SEO theory suggests that you improve your chances of appearing high in search results by increasing your search visibility.

What is search visibility? That can be described as the number of queries in which a Website appears. The more queries you receive traffic from, the more search visibility you have. Many people think you have to build up your PageRank. But SEO theory argues that PageRank has changed over time and it is not what most people believe it to be. At the end of the day, we need to develop interesting sites that other people enjoy reading. These sites will receive more attention because people want to recommend them to their friends.