This post brought to you by the magnificent Beth Corneglio & Rasheite Radcliff.

R: Hey Beth! Have you read iPullRank’s article on the SEO Moz blog Just How Smart are Search Robots?
B: Yeah. I thought it was really good except for one thing. Super Pac Man?
R: Ha. I know. What’s that about?
B: I would say search bots are more like Sonic the Hedgehog!

Every Thursday our team has Donuts & Divulge. We each come together and discuss what’s trending in SEO. We present different articles (while enjoying donuts), and then discuss them as a team. Michael King’s article sparked our interest and got our imaginations running. What stood out to us about the article was the discussion of how bots scrape the internet to improve search rankings. The article argues that the bots are all knowing and all powerful, pointing out three key takeaways: (1) You’re not hiding anything with Javascript, (2) User experience is incredibly important, (3) SEO tools must get smarter. King uses an analogy, relating search bots to Pac Man but suggesting that the bots are a new and improved Pac Man with eyes to see, feet to kick and arms punch. To us, what he is describing sounds more like Sonic the Hedgehog or in this case a “Sonic Bot.”

Sonic Bot can do all of the things this ray-traced Pac Man can do and more. He’s freaky fast, and he is anthropomorphic. So Sonic has human qualities and abilities. He can think just like a human being, a trait similar to Googlebots who are designed to think like the user. One very distinct characteristic of Sonic—he hates tears. And we’d like to come out and say that the Googlebot hates tears too, at least when those tears come from searchers who can’t find what they are looking for. Now we realize searchers may not exactly cry when the search results aren’t helpful, but we know they definitely aren’t happy. In fact, Sonic bot’s “no tears” motto is similar to Slingshot’s “Everything to help and nothing to hurt” SEO approaches.

In order to keep the tear count low, the algorithm is ever changing to serve up the most accurate and deserving results. In this regard, the algorithm is much like Sonic bot’s need for adventure. He is always looking for something new and exciting to do, battling any evil that may get in his way. Sonic bot also moves really fast, blazing through websites, cracking JavaScript, all while taking in the scenery. Those of you familiar with the Panda update know that Sonic bot may not have found your site too scenic!

While Sonic bot is on his adventures, he does run into trouble. His arch nemesis is Dr. Robotik aka duplicate content, spammers and the like. These SEO no-no’s make him angry, so he fights back—penalizing those sites who are found guilty. What does this mean for the Googlebot and perhaps other search bots? Well these bots, arguably not headless, moves through the web gathering information, collecting rings. When the search bot collects information, that information is stored into a database which communicates with the search engine for the SERPs. This practice of collecting and storing sounds very familiar to us—ahem, reminds us of Mr. Sonic the Hedgehog whose collection of valuable rings are stored away for safe keeping!

We absolutely hate to ruin the Pac Man party, but we vote for Sonic bot over here. We will say, though, that we do agree with Mr. King about not chasing the algorithm. Dr. Robotnik and his crew remind us of those people who are consumed with chasing the algorithm, not focusing on the adventure, scenery or the end user. Using Dr. Robotnik’s tactics are evil, and although you might win a few battles, Sonic bot will slay you every time.