Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Analytics and Tracking

What is a Search Engine?

Recognize this?

What is a Browser (or a Search Engine)?

Two Basic Functions of any Search Engine

1. Provide answers to our search requests

2. Crawl & Index

Crawling the Web

• Crawlers, Spiders, and Robots

• Specialized programs that “travel the web”

• Indexing every page, file, piece of content

How Does Search Work?

Indexing

• Every piece of content found is indexed

• Indexed content is stored in huge databases

• …ready to be retrieved based on our search

Google Data Centers

Douglas County, GA Data Center Lenoir, NC Data Center

Dalles, OR Data CenterMayes County, OK Data Centerhttp://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/index.html

Provider of Answers

• Based on these huge indexes

• Leveraging thousands of dedicated servers

Goal is to return the "best" answer possible.

What is the Best Answer

• Relevance

• Importance

Relevance

• Early on, engines didn’t look much further than for just the "right words" on a page.

• Today, many factors influence relevance.

• With this evolution, engines can provide results that are "semantically" related to the original search term(s).

Sample Search: Hawaii Hotels

In our results, we will likely find terms like:

• Hawaiian Resorts

• Beach Vacations

• Island Getaways

Class Exercise1. Open a browser window with each of the

following search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo

2. Across each engine, search for a keyword phrase (2 or more words) in a topic of your choosing

3. Review the results returned in each case

4. What things do you see that are similar?

5. Do you see anything different across each?

BREAK

Importance

• Initially, major search engines have equated importance to popularity

• Assumption: The more popular a site or page, the more valuable the information contained therein.

Today,"Popularity" is giving way to...

Authority

The Algorithm

• Complex mathematical equation used to rank the results that we see.

• Each search engine has their own.

• Drive the calculation to determine the relevance of words on web pages in relation to search queries that are issued.

Search Algorithms

• Proprietary to each search engine.

• Closely guarded secrets.

• Even patented...e.g., PageRank – Patent #6285999

Algorithms and their Updates

Have you heard of these Google algorithm?

• Penguin 3.0: Oct 2014

• Panda 4.1: Sept 2014

Google Mobile-Friendly Update

• Released April 21, 2015

• Boosts mobile-friendly pages in Google’s results

• Consternation for many “old” sites

Mobile-Friendly Test tool

google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Algorithms: Why care?

• Purpose: to raise the quality of search results

• Essence of what makes Search Engines work the way they do

• We need to understand how Search Engines work

“What worked yesterday, may not work tomorrow.”

Search Engine Optimization

• Involves a fair degree of trial and error

• We can draw on 15 plus years of "industry experience."

• Much of the information is available for FREE

...and Free Tools

• Google Keyword (Adword) Tool

• Google Webmaster Tools

• Bing Webmaster Tools

• Google Analytics

A Few Resources

• searchengineland.com

• moz.com

• mattcutts.com

Homework

• Watch the SearchEngineLand video: What is SEO (http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo)

• Thinking of the site you are building (or have built), create a list of 5 search terms or phrases that you think people might use to find your site. Bring these with you to class.