"TRUTH IS BEAUTY IN - SEO - SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION"
As a young academic and business law scholar I made my mark as the author / composer of legal court documents, on behalf of both myself and external clients. I became a kind of machine for grinding theories and texts out of small pieces of facts; and as Mark Twain formulated it: "Facts are stubborn." I followed the trail of crumbs. Truth and conscience forces impelled me beyond my own control - though not in the Jedi sense.Soon followed a dawning realization that legal affairs are ugly.
The legal courts inherent flaw, its lack of autonomy - beholden to all, master of none - was always addressed. We might call it unbiased, neutral, disinterested. However, those desriptions seem too clever by half. Alas, the reality is frequently more pedestrian. I was not Bambi's little brother, and neither were individual, opposing lawyers, nor the court's presiding judges. It was not always pretty.
“The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.” It’s said by a character called Dick the Butcher in Act IV, Scene II of William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, which was (we think) written between 1596 and 1599. Shakespeare also wrote later: "Save a place in Hell, since there are some lawyers passing away soon." Bear in mind, in legal battles, preparedness, a good thought and a sharp pen is worth a lot more than a sword.
A successful painting artist - say a Monet, a Picasso - has often less skills than the educated teaching headmaster or president of an arts academy. It is not about skills per se, but about conceptuality and talent. Some say the best weapon against misinformation is the truth, not an embarrassed silence; others that prestige can not survive without mystery and that familiarity breeds contempt.
Friedrich Nietzsche stated the ultimate objective as a search for the truth. Our Search Engine Optimization - SEO - style includes clarity and simplicity that come from matching language to thought on the motive of truth. Our motive is pure truth, our Search Engine Optimization purpose is presentation.
Nietzsche was a writer; his proper medium is words. By putting into spellbinding words - Nietzsche's metaphors are vital mental shorthand; great balls of fire - his confidence in [discovering] truth gave us something nobody else could: the precise nuance of solitaire and/or Gestalt.
This eternal thing: truth. Is truth ever barren? Truth (we say) is the daughter of time. When is the truth approaching from the dim horizon? How will it look? Why is it hiding? How will it appear, now and then; in the future, when we need it so desperately? We should insist on probing, seeking, enquiring for deeper and deeper truths. (We might quote Lewis Carroll, in the Bellman in The Hunting of the Snark: "What I tell you three times is true!")
"Plato is dear to me, but truth is dearer still," as Aristotle expressed it in his desparate search for a final verification.Personally, I believe you can often be too profound. Truth is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek the truth, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found.
We can say of a phenomenon or a truth that it is as it appears. Why not push the idea to its limit and say that the being of the appearance is its appearing? This is simply a way of choosing new words to clothe the old "Esse est percipi" (To be is to be perceived) of Berkeley. The percipi would refer to the percipiens - the known to knowledge and knowledge to the being who knows (in his capacity as being, not as being known).
Good sense and reason is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that even the most difficult to please in all other matters do not commonly desire more of it than they already possess. Good sense or Reason seems to be by nature equal in all men.
Hence too it will show that the diversity of our opinions does not proceed from some men being more rational than others, but solely from the fact that our thoughts pass through diverse channels and the same objects are not considered by all. For to be possessed of Good sense and Reason is not sufficient; the principal matter is to apply them well.
Are we allowed to bend the truth in our sincere Search Engine Optimization efforts and endeavours in order to improve - or firmly exaggerate - its appearance. Are we allowed to ruthlessly apply our reasoning and writing skills on behalf of clients and their Search Engine Optimization needs? May it turn out to be an "easy cake" or a "pie in the sky"?
Let us further delve into truth and reason. A scientific approach to Search Engine Optimization - SEO - does not consist solely, or even mainly, in a complete system and a comprehensive, coherent theory. There must be no conflict between common sense and sound theory since sound theory rest on common sense [and genius], or give them expression.
Appeals to common sense are a staple of Search Engine Optimization - SEO, especially when an insurgent wishes to distinguish himself from a supposedly aloof and out-of-touch elite. We can note that the standard concept of common sense has a somewhat circular definition: common sense is a set of claims that sensible people agree with, and sensible people are those who possess common sense.
As common sense might have predicted, we find that plainly worded claims concerning facts about the real world are the most likely to be rated as demonstrating common sense. However, truly "common" sense is an elusive thing.
Theory can do no better than show how and why this should be the case. Pity the theory that conflicts with reason. Theory and its resultant formulas are thus subordinate to the great creative talent, and to the universals of reason and feeling that it expresses. Complexity is the SEO of tomorrow. The issue of freedom of writing is not black and white. How will you navigate the nuances of the web? Technology, reason, intelligence will be decisive.
CG Ekman outside Wordchain's / Boutique Ekman's corporate HQ enroute to a meeting with multinational clients evaluating Search Engine Optimization - SEO - possibilities and challenges throughout the Americas.
GOOGLE & THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
When we battle with International Search Engine Optimization - SEO - we immediately come across two phenomena: Google and the English Language. Google is an imperative in dealing with successful global SEO, and so is colloquial English.
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Google search is - as we have written before - undoubtedly one of the best business models of all time, providing Alphabet with whopping profit margins. Might Generative AI shift the overall picture? It provides answers, not links, hence less granularity for advertisers. Could Google's search business turn from a blessing to a curse? Will Generative AI sustain enhanced innovation - making good products better? Will exercise of raw Google power sustain its model - or will its power be in decline?
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... English style, familiar but not coarse, elegant but not ostentatious ... - Samuel Johnson
Now, anyone familiar with the history of English prose might wonder whether anything we do here will substantially improve its future. Since the earliest times, many writers have graced us with much good writing. But others have afflicted us with much that is bad. Some of the reasons for the bad writing are rooted in history, others in personal experience.
Let us back up the truck for a minute before we proceed with recent linguistic evolution: The Yamnaya culture, who lived 5,000 years ago in what is today's Ukraine, are considered to have transformed Europe and much of Asia genetically, culturally and linguistically. Among the many innovations these steppe migrants ushered in, scientists believe, are the Indo-European languages that are dominant in Europe today, and which are spoken by nearly half of humanity.
The Yamnaya descendants succeeded in imposing their genes and languages on a territory that extended, eventually, from Ireland to the Altai Mountains of Central Asia. Language, like culture, does not require mass migration to spread but painstaking reconstructions of the vocabulary of early Indo-European languages, based on comparisons of their living descendants, indicate that their speakers knew wheeled transport, practised dairying and possibly rode horses. Most scientists are convinced the Yamnaya spread these languages throughout the Old World.
By the time the Yamnaya moved on from what is now Hungary, leaving the steppe for Europe's temperate forests, they were no longer Yamnaya. Those migrants carried Yamnaya genes, but by now these were mixed with those of the indigenous farmers. Their culture had changed too, borrowing from local ones, and the blending continued as they moved west, until finally, around 4,500 years ago, the Yamnaya's genetic signature showed up in the British Isles. Their descendants had expanded as far as they could, and in just a couple of centuries.
Science must include some arts; and vice versa. There surely existed arts in Europe before the Yamnayas arrived. One has recently discovered evidence of a beautiful art gallery from 15,000 years ago, first excavated at Montastruc in France, near Toulouse. This was created by the Magdalenian people. This seemingly art-minded culture spread throughout western Europe between roughly 23,000 and 14,000 years ago. The Montastruc art features carved depictions of then-common local wildlife, such as the ibex and cattle-like aurochs. Did they evoke the high-minded pursuit of an artistic vision throughout Europe? Were the two states, writing and arts, linked? We do not know. It all remains dimly lit.