The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.
As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers.
In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.
Enough spammers I’ll say, because Wikipedia added nofollow to all external URLs since last Saturday. It looks like Wikipedia was targeted by some SEO guys running an SEO contest. I’m not sure if it was a fun rumor or no, but Wikipedia admins didn’t wait to make the decision and stopped all those who used the free encyclopedia for SEO purpose whatever free or paid.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-January/061137.html
Most search marketers are used to looking at things from a single perspective: that of a search marketer. Some of the more savvy marketers know enough to look at things from the perspective of end users as well, since those are the people they are ultimately trying to influence. The savviest of search marketers know that it’s also important to step back from time to time and try to think like a search engine engineer.
I have found adopting this way of thinking to be an extremely effective technique in reviewing a Web site strategy. I don’t have to agree with the thinking of the search engine engineer, but understanding it makes me better equipped to succeed in a world where they define the rules.
