I've long advocated a common-sense approach to algorithm chasing with SEO. What most people don't understand is that with today's algorithms, there is almost no such thing as a top search engine ranking. There is simply exposure. You either get more of it or less of it. Rankings play a role, but not in the way most people think.

Here are some little known facts about Google:

This makes the algorithm pretty difficult to game. It's also why SEO guarantees are useless. So, while keeping track of algorithm changes is smart SEO, chasing them really isn't. It's like trying to chase 50 rabbits at once and hoping to catch them all. At best, you might be able to chase down one or two, but you certainly won't capture all of them.

So what's an SEO to do?

They have to know what your audience wants and deliver it, because that's what search engines want, too! It's not about trying to get just the right amount of words on a page, your keywords in just the right spot or even about the perfect backlink graph. It's about building a site that visitors love, focusing on the keywords they search and doing it better than your competitors.