Is Search Engine Optimization BS?

I once thought it was, but now I may be "going to the other side".

Looking at my analytic results from Clicky this morning, I had several instances where someone searched for "Double Petunia", a blog post I made in July 2008. Yes, I've been blogging for over a year-and-a-half. Impressive in and of itself. So, just for the heck of it, I did a Google search for the above words and made a startling discovery - the blog post is indexed as:

bob's bs: Double Petunia

...well, now, that's odd. Not so much that I found it, since I knew it was there, but because there was something missing from the title. Not that it was indexed wrong, but that, apparently, once Google has indexed something, there's not much reason for it to go back and take another look. Old blog posts are, for all intents and purposes, static content. Nothing changes. Maybe if I were to add some text or a picture - anything - Google would re-index it.

And what was missing, you may ask?

Look at the title of this post up in the top title bar. IT says:

bob's bs - by Bob DeLong: Is Search Engine Optimization BS?

I had added the Bob DeLong part last year during the "Utah's Top Blogger" competition, put on by Nigel Swaby, an SEO optimizer himself. Due to the way he indexed my site, it was simply by calling out my name, not my blog's title. So I figured I'd better change my blog from being anonymous to something a bit more identifiable. I suppose it was inevitable that I'd do that, since I don't talk about work - much - at least not in name. Besides, somewhere down the line I may reconnect with those who might have need to actually find me. Hopefully for all the good reasons.

So the question remains - how do I get all those old blog posts to be re-indexed? Just by commenting on SEO optimization, I'm sure the web crawlers - machine and organic alike - will pounce on the opportunity like a moth to a flame.

I just hope I don't get burned.