SEOlogie invites you to join the research

"All men by nature desire to know." — Aristotle

"Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!" — Immanuel Kant

"I know that I know nothing." — Socrates

Knowledge grows out of questions, out of observation, out of the courage to question the obvious.

Research is open to you. Dare.

Knowing how people get found — and how you let yourself be found — is one of the most valuable fields of knowledge in the digital age.

And yet, most of the time, it is guarded behind closed doors: in agencies, in algorithms, in black boxes nobody wants to explain. Knowledge as an instrument of power. Opacity as a business model.

SEOlogie says: that is wrong.

Being found is not a secret to be sold. It's an ability that every person, every company, every organization needs — the small hotel on the beach, the law firm in the big city, the manufacturer anywhere in the world, the freelance artist in the megacity. On every continent. In every language. And that is why this knowledge belongs to everyone.

SEOlogie — a young school of thought whose treasury of findings is meant to keep growing

Ortwin Oberhauser's SEOlogie model of communication — the Five Building Blocks of Being Found — describes how letting yourself be found works structurally: from the seekers and those who fit, via the gatekeepers, the places / placements and question / answer, to the source. Contributions to manipulation research show why trust is the foundation of every lasting customer relationship — and how unethical marketing destroys that trust systematically.

Even now, in its youth, SEOlogie holds important findings for understanding how being found works in the digital world. And we welcome every new finding that joins them.

No single person can penetrate every dimension of being found.

Search behaviour is psychology. Algorithms are technology. Language is linguistics. Trust is sociology. Optimization is data science. Manipulation is ethics. Networks are sociology and mathematics at once. Artificial intelligence is changing everything as we speak — and nobody knows exactly how.

SEOlogie needs all of these perspectives. And it is open to everyone who has something checkable to contribute.

Who is invited? Everyone.

Not just SEOs. Not just marketers. Not just technicians.

Anyone who has observed something about the how of being found. Anyone who has a finding that can be supported and checked. Anyone who is willing to stand behind what they claim.

A psychologist who studies how trust arises in the digital world. A data scientist who spots patterns in search queries. An entrepreneur who has understood why her customers found her — and another who understands why they didn't. A linguist who explores which language builds bridges between what people are searching for and what sources offer. A developer who understands how technical structure enables visibility — or prevents it.

And also: a biologist who recognizes how visibility strategies work in nature. A philosopher who asks what it means when algorithms decide who gets seen. A cultural scholar who studies why people in some cultures search differently than in others.

The touchstone is not who you are. The touchstone is what you claim — and whether it can be checked.

Progress often happens where someone from one field recognizes what holds true in another. Those who look beyond their own field move the research forward. History has shown this again and again.

Welcome.

What a thesis is

A contribution to SEOlogie is a thesis — not an opinion, not an advertising claim, not an anecdote.

A thesis:

• takes a clear position — it claims something concrete
• can be checked — it states how it could be confirmed or refuted
• is supported by evidence — through observations, data, sources or a traceable line of reasoning
• names its field of research — it says where it sits within SEOlogie
• stands under a name — its author stands behind it

A thesis doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be transparent, traceable and understandable.

The fields of research

SEOlogie does research wherever being found in the digital world is in play. These are not sealed compartments — they are open fields of inquiry. A thesis can touch several fields at once.

Current fields of research:

Search Behaviour Research · Source Research · Signal Research · Placement Research · Gatekeeping Research · Algorithmic Mediation Research (AI Research) · Trust Research · Manipulation Research · Impact Research · Optimization Research · Technology Research · Language Research · Network Research · Perception Research

What each of these fields means, why it matters to SEOlogie and which open questions it raises: → All fields of research at a glance

Submitting a thesis

Download the template, fill it in — and send it to these@seologie.com.

Every submitted thesis gets read. Theses that meet the criteria — clear, checkable, supported by evidence — are published in the wiki. The author is named as a source.

There are no editorial meetings, no waiting lists, no memberships. Just one question: can it be checked?

Download the thesis template (.md)

Or submit right here