1. #C3NY
ONE PERSON ONE BILLION PAGES
Stefan Pioso
Director Search Marketing, Ancestry.com

2. #C3NY
STEFAN PIOSO
2
Ancestry.com
Linkedin.com/in/spioso
Facebook.com/Ancestry.com
spioso@ancestry.com
Leading Online Family History Resource
@ancestrydotcom

3. #C3NY
AGENDA
• Who is Ancestry.com
• How one approaches one billion
• Building the team [spoiler alert]
3

4. #C3NY
WHO WE ARE

5. #C3NY
WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE…
5
• Largest online family history resource
• 11+ billion records
• 50 million family trees
• 5 billion profiles
• 1+ billion indexed pages
• Products
• Records & tools subscriptions
• Desktop & mobile Apps
• DNA
• 1x Public | 2x Private
• Sold to Permira $1.6b in 2012

6. #C3NY
WHO WE ARE NOT…
6

7. #C3NY
CAN ONE MANAGE ONE BILLION?
• Sure…
• Caveat 1
• Caveat 2
• Caveat 3….
• Wait, it depends…
• The answer is not binary…
7

8. #C3NY
HOW ONE APPROACHES ONE BILLION

9. #C3NY
SCOPING PROBLEMS & OPPORTUNITIES
9
Tools Assessment
- Tracking systems
- SEO configuration
- CMS / publishing
Site Audit
- Inventory content
- Tech assessment
- Link profile audit
Find Stakeholders
- SEO proponents
- Content creators
- Standards owner(s)

10. #C3NY
SITUATION OVERVIEW
• Assets
• Domain authority
• Link profile
• Scale of available content
• Challenges
• 100+ subdomains
• 5k owned domains
• Duplicate content
• Few tools to influence site
• Disparate platforms, high dependencies
10

11. #C3NY
MY REVOLUTIONARY THREE STEP APPROACH
11
Maintain Improve Grow

12. #C3NY
ANCESTRY’S APPROACH
12
Maintain
 You can’t grow if the baseline is shrinking!
• Benchmark
• Set SEO standards
• Configure & monitor early warning
systems
• Ensure you have the tools to react

13. #C3NY
ANCESTRY’S APPROACH
13
Improve
 Make proven entry points work harder &
cultivate new ones.
• Test what you can change & build what
you can test
• Leverage common conversion paths
where possible.
• Focus on template-level SEO
enhancements.

14. #C3NY
ANCESTRY’S APPROACH
14
Grow
 Exploit available content & build
where necessary.
• Growth opportunities
• Collections porting
• Data aggregation

15. #C3NY
BUILDING THE TEAM

16. #C3NY
ANYONE KNOW WHAT THIS IS?
16

17. #C3NY
CAN ONE MANAGE ONE BILLION?
 Yes, but you’ll need help!
• Build credibility
• How: Training & data feedback
• Demonstrate opportunity
• How: Do it, then talk about it
• Define clear, measurable plan
• How: Create your top 100
• Use skillset to expand into adjacent
channels
17

18. #C3NY
…IN CLOSING

19. #C3NY
WHAT EXCITES US ABOUT THE FUTURE…
• Building more content at scale
• Asset consolidation
• Exploring what big data and cross
channel search optimization can
deliver
19

20. #C3NY
SHAMELESS PLUG…
 Very competitive salary & relocation to San Francisco available for
the right candidate.
• SEO Product Manager
• Description: http://goo.gl/MhzirT
• SEO Manager
• Not yet listed…contact me directly in interested
20
Contact me: spioso@ancestry.com

21. #C3NY
QUESTIONS?
21