When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, it's a double-edged sword. On one side, there's the capability to really get one's content out there. That's done by putting certain words in the title of an article or in the tags or anywhere through the body. When search engines turn up certain words often, content with the same words will often show up as a search result higher up on the return.
But this is also somewhat risky. People have mob mentality, and quite frankly, have difficulty thinking for themselves. Media is sometimes wrong. It happens. Journalists sometimes screw up information and report the wrong thing. This often results in trouble. By word of mouth, or type, people will often search this false information, and the constant search for the wrong terms will result in a return of many of these wrong articles, misinforming the public.
Yahoo has this sidebar on their main page that shows the top ten trending searches on search engines. To me, this just seems to be a bad idea, especially if people are looking up the wrong thing. I've seen one of the top items on the list being that a famous celebrity was dead, when in reality it was just a joke from a group of users on a website. Yes, people do this. There are sites where the users plan to go to Google and type in searches of a made-up rumor. And when enough people type in these searches, whenever someone types in that celebrity's name, one of the top things that pop up is how said celebrity is dead from some random cause.
But you can't just stop it. You can't just take down a mistake and pretend it was never there as a journalist. What must be done is a correction and hoping for the best. People rely on SEO for content. If it wasn't for that, people would be exposed to the content that is the most popular, essentially harming people even more by limiting choices, especially since people don't usually go past the first page of results. Lesser-known sites rely on this practice, so it's here to stay.
No comments:
Post a Comment