1. Search Overview
March 26, 2012

2. Search Introduction
• Google, Bing, Yahoo are the three main
players in search
• In 2010, Yahoo & Bing agreed to join up; Bing
providing the results, Yahoo still controlling
how they are ranked
• Hint: It’s easy to estimate a person’s age by
what/how they search.

3. • For the most part we
still consider them
three separate
competitors
• Google >65%
• Bing 15%
• Yahoo <15%

5. Ranking the Results
• Google has thousands of computers all linked
up that send out “spiders” that crawl the
internet for new information and websites
• When it finds new information it reads the
site, stores (indexes), the content, formatting,
links and moves on.

6. Still Ranking…
• Someone searches for “marketing agency in
High Point”
• Google then uses multiple algorithms to
combine pieces of indexed information on
each page and to help rank the results
• PageRank, common keywords, page titles,
where links are coming from, where links are
going, anchor text, etc.

7. Relevancy
• Once it does this for the original site, it
compares it to all the other sites its found and
ranks them based on how relevant your
search term was to the website.
• Because it has so much information, the
search doesn’t have to be exact and Google
will consistently return quality results.
• Google ranks by what’s the authority.

8. Frequency
• The more popular and relevant (authority) a
site is, the more often Google will be indexing
it for updated results. News sites, YouTube,
etc.
• Just a few years ago it would take months to
have your site updated, now it can be just a
few days.

9. Modifications
• From time to time, Google will update their
algorithms to weed out people who try and
cheat the system.
• Keyword stuffing, paid links, etc

10. More Modifications
• This can cause changes to how sites are
ranked for certain keywords, but it is always
for quality and relevancy in results.
• Latest update is called Panda and is focused
on the low quality “info” sites just trying to
pass along links and SEO

12. Advertising/Optimizing
• Two main ways to have Google work for you
• Search Engine Optimization or SEO
• Pay Per Click or PPC

14. Search Engine Optmization
• SEO means you’re literally optimizing websites
for search engines.
• Taking the bits of information Google uses to
rank site and working in the best keywords,
best links, appropriate content.
• Also called “organic” search because you can’t
pay Google to rank your site. It has to take a
natural progression up the results page.

15. Pay Per Click
• PPC or SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
• You can pay to have your ad available instantly
rather than having to “earn” it with SEO.
• Google makes it clear you’re looking at an ad
with the “Sponsored Links” and dividing line.
• Two flavors: Display (banner) and text ads
• Rich ads, video ads, etc. for later.