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Search Engine Optimization is nothing more, but one of the many Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games out there. The concept is so similar, and everything works pretty much in the same way as a common MMORPG (WoW, Anarchy Online, Lineage, etc…). This comes from a MMORPG player who has gone from one game to the other, my previous game was Anarchy Online (couple of years back), and now I am so addicted to SEO.

First, let’s compare the basic principle of each. When you are “playing” SEO, you have websites, and the objective is to move up in rankings in the major search Engines. MSN, Yahoo, and Google. When you are playing a MMROPG, the objective is to move up levels with your fictional character. Okay, that said, let’s compare the two in a more close up level. I’ll be doing this from the point of view of SEO, of course, since I am trying to prove it’s just a MMORPG.

The World

The SEO world consist of Google, MSN, and Yahoo!. There are other smaller worlds which are struggling to gain interest from players, but that maybe someday will offer enough loot to attract players.

Your Character

When you are playing SEO, your character is nothing more than your real life self playing in a online virtual world.

The Levels

The levels are nothing more than the SERPS of your items. You move up levels by participating in battles and gaining experience points. You can also gain experience points by completing missions and crafting. The higher up in levels you are, the easier to generate good loot.

The Weapons

Your websites are your best friends, they are your sword, or your gun if you will, that will take you through the long journey of completing the SEO MMORPG.

Battles

Battles with other characters, or AI managed characters, are determined when you are trying to beat them with your weapon (outrank their site) who is competing for the same battle title (keyword) as you. Competing for the keyword, is the actual battle.

Missions

To complete missions in SEO, all you have to do is achieve one of the various objectives available in the game. For example, get listed in DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory, make it to Digg, etc. Everytime you complete a mission you gain experience points.

Crafting

Crafting is very useful when you are participating in battles. This includes link building in order to help your site win battles. The product of crafting can range from a miserable product to a good one, and this depends based on your previous experience with crafting. For example, if you are a newbie, and achieve a link on a page with 25 outgoing links, and barely any content related to yours, you are not as better off as the good craftsman who got a link on a related niche page, with few outgoing links.

Loot

Of course, like in any normal MMORPG, SEO also offers valuable loot. This loot can range from randomly found inbound links to your site (items) to valuable real life currency earned through various affiliate programs and google. Unique visitors to your site are also loot. Many enjoy finding prestigious items in ceirtain areas much more than currency and unique visitors. This is obvious, as if you can show off an item you found at the end world, you will be considered cool. In example, that link some important person from a PR9 blog gave you for free, could perhaps be considered the ultimate item in SEO.

Social Importance

Like in any MMORPG what other people think of you is important in SEO. If you are a major ganker* (black hat), or just a good regular player (white hat), your friends and connections matter. If you have no friends or reputation built in ceirtain areas of the game, ie: DigitalPoint, V7N, Namepros, DNForum, among others… you will have a harder time to sell your loot at good prices, or buy at cheaper prices. If you are trusted more, you will have an easier time overall, in every single aspect of the game. This also brings us to another aspect many MMORPGs have, guilds. In SEO you can be in many guilds at the same time, but your primary guild is the one you visit the most. For example, I’m a proud member of the DigitalPoint guild.
*ganker: a term in MMORPGs that refers to people killing normal users that are much weaker than them, perhaps in a state of battle with something/someone else. In other words, no one likes them!

Addiction

Well, that pretty much should do it. This should prove my point that SEO is nothing but another MMORPG, oh no wait. The last point. Just like any MMORPG gets you addicted and playing until you have reached the ultimate goal. SEO does the same, however, SEO manages to do this better than any other MMORPG as it seem every players ultimate goal keeps rising after they have achieved their previous goal. In other words, this is a vicious cycle, once you start playing SEO you’ll keep playing and playing. You won’t be able to stop!

If I missed any points that could prove my point further, feel free to add them to the comments! I hope you enjoyed the article, as I had a lot of fun writing it!

This entry was posted by Tommy Morris on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 8:25 am and is filed under SEO/Marketing, Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.