There is occasional talk in security and development spheres about the possibility of classifying complex db's as operating systems (OS's), because of the way that they can be configured to perform tasks within a clearly defined environment, and the way that they have the uncanny ability to spew consistent task results. This got me thinking about our perception of the web. This may seem a bit over-the-top for the average SEO, but we at Vertical Leap are not average SEO's, and so we think deeper about things.

You could interpret the web as nothing more than a big fat computer network. Some companies have taken time and effort to find ways of seeking out and classifying the available data. They provide db query services to us - call those query services the search engines.

Expanding on the idea that a db can be a sort of OS, the next step for us could be to see the web as a kind of open source OS, where everyone can contribute to the available resources and the way it works. This has the knock-on effect of affecting the search query results.

Understanding that the internet could be described as a kind of OS is one thing, and a great leap (of faith, some might say) - trying to understand the mechanisms that the search engines use to compile their db's, and the rules used to score and present search results is entirely another. The biggest problem is that the rules are moved about a lot. There is one constant though, the engines are able (though not always instantly) to suss out when they are being fed fibs to produce skewed results.

The rules aren't always straightforward, but they are open to a little interpretation. When was the last time you read through Google's Webmaster Guidelines? When did you last review any W3C guidelines, in fact when did you last assess your search performance against a trusted framework? These resources are in the public domain and made available to us so we SEOs have learned to "play nicely"- we are not slaves to them, but they tell us where our playground ends and the electric fence begins.

So, if you want sustainable long-term gains from organic search engine marketing use an ethical SEO like me and my colleagues- we know the rules, we "get" that the internet is a big, wobbly OS with db tendencies. But more than that we know the framework, and therefore why the rules work- given the opportunity we can make them work for you.