Self-promotion and SEO Trickery...

[Mario]

SEO is the shorthand for "Search Engine Optimization". And this technology is all about optimizing a web site to appeal to the Google bot, to make Google like your web site and show it near the top of the search results.

Large companies have dedicated departments for this, smaller companies pay agencies to optimize their web sites and do SEO.

While asking Google the other day:

Which website writes about DAM for photographers?

I've noticed that the sites listed at the top of the search results, e.g.:

Five Best DAM Software for Photographers
Top 12 Digital Asset Management Software for ...
12 Best Digital Asset Management Software for Photographers
..

all point at web sites of companies actually creating and selling DAM products.

They've all put a list / some "reviews" of other DAM software, with more or less correct (often incorrect) descriptions and feature lists in SEO-optimized structure/word salad somewhere in their in their blog or a sub-site.

This "strategy" seems to be successful, coercing Google to list their web sites at the top of the search results.

[Jingo]

I ran into this 2 days ago when I was looking for a Javascript library for FlowCharts... there were tons of the same articles all listing the same products with the top solution belonging to the company that was hosting the review.  It is an interesting "strategy"... users/viewers looking for a solution need to keep on top of things and realize these "top 10" sites are not always honest reviews.

[Mario]

I think many users fall for this.

[ubacher]

So why don't you play the same game Mario?
Just create a page listing the 5 best DAMs - but no more. Then put a large note saying that this page was
only created to be listed by Google.

(Your page might have to contain a certain amount of info to be considered legit.
Maybe you could just list links to all the sites which do the same thing.)

[Mario]

If the Google AI recognizes this, photools.com could end up at the bottom of the search results. SEO is kind of a black art.

I design my web sites for people, not for the Google bot. I make some concessions with blog posts, adding a bit of SEO. But only because the blog posts are rarely read by people. Do you?

https://www.photools.com/blog/