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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Prepared by: Larry Stewart larry.stewart.ut@gma il.com
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Topic Outline Introduction How Search Engines Work SEO Building Blocks
• Keywords• Crawler• Links
SEO Tools Black Hat Methods Summary and Conclusion
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Definition of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)1
"Natural," or "organic," search engine optimization (SEO) is designing, writing, and HTML-coding a Web site to maximize the chance its pages will appear at the top of spider-based search engine results for selected keywords and phrases
Organic Listings: Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings)
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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SEO Iterative process Dynamic environment Art Science
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Why is it important? Internet advertising 1H 2006 : $7.9
Billion2 Search ranking more site visitors Internet users tend not to click through Depends on webs role in your
economic model
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Variation in Approaches White Hat Abide by terms and conditions set forth by
search enginesBlack Hat Breaches search engine terms and conditions May provide short-term gains You run the risk of being penalized by search
engines
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Defining Success (Context)Search-Friendly (SEO)
• High ranking • Terms and conditions set by search engines
(Google, Yahoo, MSN Search)
User-Friendly • Site must satisfy the needs of visitors
Persuasive • Profitable for site owner
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Search Engine Operations1. Gather Content
• Crawler or spider moves recursively downloading content
2. Builds sophisticate index3. Individual web searches run against
index• Results are retrieved and ordered
• PageRank & Relevance
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Google Search Placement4
Placement: importance and relevance PageRank (importance)
• Counts links• Weights links
Query matching (relevance)• sophisticated text-matching techniques • examines all aspects of the page's content
(and the content of the pages linking to it)
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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SEO Optimization Categories Keywords
• Keyword selection and keyword-rich text Crawler
• A crawler-friendly site navigation scheme Links
• Link popularity
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Keyword Recommendations1
Page title: visible HTML text ,“Above the fold” Page Size: "100 KB" limit is still is still widely
held. The optimum page size is 500-3000 words (or 2000 to 20,000 characters)
Be specific Example: “Apple iPod” verses “iPod”
• exact phrase should appear generously throughout your site copy on every page
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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More Keyword Recommendations5
Meta tags: use but don’t stuff <meta name="description" content="Free Web tutorials on HTML, CSS, XML, and
XHTML">
Alt tags: use for graphics <IMG src="star.gif" alt=“star logo"> Content is king Write good content with relevant and important keywords in mind. Geo Targeting Add geocentric terms to target local areas Domain Names Use keywords as part of domain name
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Crawler-friendly Engine spiders are primitive beings
• choose simplicity over complexity Goal
• All your web pages seen by crawlers • Google: enter in searchbox
“allinurl:utexas.edu”
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Suggestions to be Crawler Friendly5
Traditional <a href> tag Keywords in subfolder names Minimize quantity of subfolders Cross link relevant terms and phrases
within the site Multiple paths to pages to eliminate
orphans
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Avoid or Minimize: May Negatively Impact Crawler5
Flash (slow to load and difficult to navigate) Frames Java navigation Session ID to track visitors exact same Title tags on every page set to require a cookie when a visitor gets
to the page
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Link Development Inbound Links Impact PageRankPageRank (Popularity, importance) Number and quality of links pointing to a
website Measure of usefulness of site
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Link Development Tradeoffs Advantage
• it is dynamic, cumulative, and difficult to imitate
Disadvantage• takes time (vs. advertising)
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Link Development Approaches (White Hat)7
Quality content to start with Cultivate quality link (not quantity) Begin with web directories Harness online publicity Use Blogs and forums wisely Investigate competitors
• Understand their strategy• Online publicity, blogs and forums• See inbound links ("link:domain.com" in Google,
"linkdomain:domain.com" in Yahoo)
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Search Engine Term and Conditions Google Yahoo MSN Search
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Vendor Tools Example: Seo Administrator 8
Ranking monitor: site positioning in for keywords
Link popularity checker: checks inbound links
Site indexation tool: check site indexation
Server Log-analyzer: Administrator log analyzer
PageRank analyzer: analyze competitor sites
Keywords tool: suggestions, associations, competitor analysis
HTML analyzer: dissect html text in the same way that a search engine would (syntax, keyword density)
Black Hat Methods
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Head of the webspam group at Google Matt Cutts Worked on his Ph.D Computer Science
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Undergrad Comp Sci and Math (Graduated with M.S.).
Moved into information retrieval after classes from the university's Information and Library Science department
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http://www.searchenginegenie.com/seo-blog/images/matt.gif
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Black Hat Terms Link Farming: exchanging reciprocal links
Keyword Stuffing: Hidden text, Stuffing text in every nook and cranny
Cloaking: stealth, deliver different page to a search engine for indexing
Doorway Pages: bridge, jump page, designed to appeal to search engine spiders
Fast meta refresh: used to quickly switch doorway pages to the page the user is supposed to see
Code swapping: swap it on the server with the "real" page once a position has been achieved. also sometimes done to keep others from learning exactly how the page ranked well.
Bait and Switch: loads the page with a popular search words such as sex, travel or antivirus when is irrelevant to site
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Search Engine StandardsGooglehttp://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349&ctx=related
Yahoohttp://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-18.htmlhttp://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-17.htmlhttp://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/index.html
MSNhttp://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_REF_GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm
Web Robots http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.htmlhttp://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp/index.htmlhttp://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=8843
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Keyword ToolsOverture tool http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestionWordtracker tool [recommended]http://our.affiliatetracking.net/wordtracker/a/12246Google Sandbox Toolhttps://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandboxEspotting Toolhttp://www.espotting.com/popups/keywordgenbox.aspRelated Pageshttp://www.related-pages.com/adwordskeywords.aspx
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Conclusion and SummaryWebsite Success Search-friendly User-friendly Persuasive
Search-friendly Optimization components Keywords Crawler Links
Questions
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Bibliography1 Thulow, Shari. “What Search Engine Marketing Does Your Site Need?”
Clickz. 15 Nov. 2006 < http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3105241 >.
2 “2006 Second Quarter Results (October 4, 2006) .” Interactive Advertising Bureau. 15 Nov. 2006 < http://www.iab.net/resources/ad_revenue.asp >.
3 “Event Homepage.” Search Engine Strategies 2006 Conference and Exposition. 15 Nov. 2006 <http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sew/winter06/index.html >.
4 “Our Search: Google Technology.” Google Website. 15 Nov. 2006 < http://www.google.com/technology/index.html >.
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Bibliography5Laratro, Joe. “Dos and Don’ts of Search Engine Optimization.”
MoreVisibility. 15 Nov. 2006 <http://www.morevisibility.com/whitepaper/2006/SEO_Do_and_Donts_WP.pdf>
6 Thulow, Shari. “Link Development: The Key to Successful SEO ” Clickz. 15 Nov. 2006 <http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3431741 >.
7 link farming. webopedia. 15 Nov. 2006 <http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/l/link_farming.html>.
8 SSEO Tools. SEO Administrator.<http://www.seoadministrator.com/seo-tools.html><http://seo-tutorial.seoadministrator.com/>
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Vendor Tools Example: Seo Administrator 8
Ranking monitor: monitor web site positioning in the major search engines for keywords
Link popularity checker: checks inbound links across a number of search engines
Site indexation tool: check site indexation in Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines
Server Log-analyzer: Administrator log analyzer automates (Number of unique IP addresses, Number of visitors… )
PageRank analyzer: analyze competitor sitesKeywords suggestion tool: Keyword suggestion services, Keyword
Associations, search query suggestions, Competitor analysis HTML analyzer: dissect html text in the same way that a search
engine would (syntax, keyword density)
Date: 11.14.2006 Prepared by: Larry Stewart [email protected]
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Black Hat Terms Link Farming: exchanging reciprocal links with Web sites in order to
increase search engine optimization Keyword Stuffing: Hidden text, Stuffing text in every nook and cranny Cloaking: stealth, deliver one page to a search engine for indexing while
serving a different page to everyone else. Doorway Pages: A Web page that is designed to appeal to search
engine spiders. Fast meta refresh: used to quickly switch doorway pages to the page the
user is supposed to see Code swapping: swap it on the server with the "real" page once a
position has been achieved. also sometimes done to keep others from learning exactly how the page ranked well.
Bait and Switch: Another technique combines word stuffing with "bait-and-switch," which loads the page with a popular search word such as sex, travel or antivirus, even though the word has nothing to do with the site content.
