SEO Technology Environment

I have been digging for days now trying to figure out what people are searching for when they type seo technology environment into Google? I wrote an entire piece outlining my findings from the Google research (over an hour on this phrase alone) which I will link to at the bottom of this entry. It is not at all clear what this is. Sometimes I wonder if there are search robots doing dummy searches from multiple proxies just to through the statistics off for people. If so, how rude.

Here are my possible interpretations of SEO technology environment:

1) They are actually searching for seo technology automation but are using the term environment instead of software or automation. I guess this could be it. There are many black hat automation tools around. I hear about them from time to time in different forums. I don't use them of course - nor do I recommend you to.

2) These users are searching for seo analytics software. This seems reasonable. Perhaps they want help with keyword research. That would be appropriate. There are a ton of words out there. You can't go after all of them. You do need to know your targets and make sure they are well researched before you sink the time it really takes to rank on anything using white hat SEO. So maybe that's what they mean by SEO technology environment.

3) They are looking for debate on the current definitions of white hat seo. This is reasonable. There certainly is a ton of debate around. I don't see industry-wide agreement on what is in and out of bounds. So maybe that's the environment they are talking about. What is the current search engine optimization thinking? What are the experts saying? What's the latest from Matt Cutts?

4) They are looking for SEO platforms to help manage all the activities involved in white hat SEO. This is my favorite explanation, mostly because this is what we would mean by SEO technology environment. We've built one. And we use it for legitmate search engine marketing activities on behalf of our Fortune 100 clients every day. Without this environment, there would be no way to keep all the tasks straight. There would be no way to systemmatically know how our clients are performing. It's just too much. Too many details.

So there you have it. My four possible interpretations of what people mean when they search on SEO technology environment. In the end, human behavior is such that it probably not even one of these that is really in their head. But so it goes.