As a writer, editor, search enthusiast, and techie, it has become apparent to me that the notion of "engineering good content" is quite foreign to many of us and I'd like to take a few minutes to explain what this is, why it's important, and how to go about it.  In the end, I'd like to set the stage for many posts to come...

First, there's a notion out there that a good search engine will yield good search results.  I'm going to step forward and say that this is not necessarily true--and in fact, it's becoming more and more false with the clutter of site content that exists in the Webbed world we live in today, where search results are in direct competition with search engines. 

To the point, this is the essence of "engineering good content" for the Web.  We no longer use the Web in the same way that we would to look up information in an encyclopedia.  (Remember that old, dusty Britannica set?  Remember your first online experience?  If you were like me, lost like a child in the woods, you may have used them similarly.)  In fact, we are forced to use the Web much like a database manager would--if that database manager were able to make queries without any rules (perhaps a terrible nightmare for the "database people"). 

It's important that we address this change: There is so much information that exists online, that we are inundated with the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to search results.  The search engines are burning coal like a steam engine stuck in the muck to force "good" results from often mediocre content.  The key here is that search engines are starting to become more like people in a way--they will look for a topic, based on a query, in a logical, sensical way (the infamous algorithm).  The problem is that the topics it has to crawl through are simply created and casually organized...and voila--that's the end of the road for that topic (and consequently, often the last time the writer ever sees that topic again).  This approach keeps us hanging in the chaotic, monkey-with-typewriter world we're in today.  To evolve is to focus on engineering this content beyond its inception--for search engines and the people that use them.