news vs web search fabella

Need To Get Found?

Allison FabellaSEO / Social Media Manager, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

@alli12

Navigating the Waters of Web Search and News Search

About AllisonTwitter: @alli12

- SEO/Social Media Manager, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

- Directs all strategic & tactical SEO & SM– AJC.com– accessAtlanta– AJCHomefinder– AJCCars– AJCExchange

– AJCJobs

Where Can You Be Found?

Web Search Results

News Search Results

Web Search vs. News Search(No Need to Choose a Favorite)

Web Search Process

Crawling- Same as news search

Indexing- Open

- Anyone can play- Indexes fast

Ranking- PageRank algorithm- Links very important

Sitemap- Aided w/sitemap.org

protocol

News Search Process

Crawling- Same as web search

Indexing- Closed to news sites only

- Must request inclusion- Indexes faster

Ranking- 2-step process/algorithm- Links part of criteria

Sitemap- Aided w/Google News

sitemap

IndexingNews Search Inclusion Request

- Google News– http://

www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40787

- Yahoo News– http://

help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/news/forms/submitsource.html

RankingThe Google News Process

1. Categorizing

2. Ranking- Story Ranking- Article Ranking

Categorizing

- A story-level event

- Identify stories by topic and location

- Cued by keywords in article- Location, language, subject

- What you should do:

– Open story with City, State- i.e. “Atlanta, GA – A fire broke out at ...”

- Put stories in relevant categories on site

- i.e. www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-braves- Basic SEO keyword best practices

Ranking: Story (Clustering)

• Top trending stories

• In each category

Ranking: Article

- Localness of source

- Freshness- Latest update of a story

- Quality/trustworthiness of source- % of original content- Readers’ preference

- Citation- Original source attribution

- Note: Links NOT a factor

Sitemaps“Skipper, Do We Really Need a Sitemap?”

“NO, Little Buddy!”

- Perfect code

- Perfect navigation

- Perfect URL structure

- A URL with 3-digit article ID

- If you don’t have all this, then you need a Sitemap!

Not As Long as You Have...

The Differences

Web Sitemap

URLs- Any date OK

Publication Date- Not required

Sitemap generator- Can use

News Sitemap

URLs- 48 hours of articles

Publication Date- Required

Sitemap generator- Cannot use

More News Sitemap Attributes (Tags*)

- Specify articles with/without registration

- Genre (i.e. blog, press release, user generated)

- Keyword classifications (i.e. Sports, Business...)

- Ticker Symbols

- Max = 1,000 articles- Use multiple sitemaps via index- Organize by category

*See Google Webmaster Tools for Tag Options

More Considerations“And the rest...”

In News Search, Image Counts

- JPEG

- Inline/non-clickable

- Alt text & Captions

- Large format

- Good ratio aspects

Consider the Following:

Get Scientific About Your Data

Google Webmaster Tools

When Things Go Wrong

Google Webmaster Forumhttp://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/label?

lid=401d0e67c19e20e9&hl=en

Yahoo News

- A big player in the news space- Possibly even bigger than Google News

- Formerly 100% selected editorially- Still editorial selection, but an algo-influenced process- Based on search queries

In a Nutshell

• Request inclusion

• SEO best practices

• Use sitemaps

• Images count

• Use GWMT for

feedback

Allison FabellaSEO/Social Media Manager,

The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionafabella@ajc.com / 404-526-2246

@alli12