Search Engine
Optimization (SEO)

Topic Outline
• Introduction
• How Search Engines Work
• SEO Building Blocks
• Keywords
• Crawler
• Links
• SEO Tools
• Black Hat Methods
• Summary and Conclusion
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3
Introduction

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)
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SEO
• Iterative process
• Dynamic environment
• Art
• Science
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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
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Variation in Approaches
White Hat
• Abide by terms and conditions set forth by search
engines
Black Hat
• Breaches search engine terms and conditions
• May provide short-term gains
• You run the risk of being penalized by search
engines
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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
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How Search Engines Works

Search Engine Operations
1. Gather Content
• Crawler or spider moves recursively downloading content
1. Builds sophisticate index
2. Individual web searches run against index
• Results are retrieved and ordered
• PageRank & Relevance
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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)
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SEO Optimization

SEO Optimization Categories
• Keywords
• Keyword selection and keyword-rich text
• Crawler
• A crawler-friendly site navigation scheme
• Links
• Link popularity
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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
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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
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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”
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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
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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
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Link Development Inbound
Links Impact PageRank
PageRank (Popularity, importance)
• Number and quality of links pointing to a website
• Measure of usefulness of site
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Link Development Tradeoffs
• Advantage
• it is dynamic, cumulative, and difficult to imitate
• Disadvantage
• takes time (vs. advertising)
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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)
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SEO Tools

Search Engine Term and
Conditions
• Google
• Yahoo
• MSN Search
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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) 29

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Black Hat Methods

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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33http://www.searchenginegenie.com/seo-blog/images/matt.gif
http://www.searchenginegenie.com

Link Exchange Advertisement
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Keyword Consulting Advertisement
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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 36

Online Resources
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Search Engine Standards
Google
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349&ctx=related
Yahoo
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-18.html
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/basics-17.html
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/basics/index.html
MSN
http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_REF_GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm
Web Robots
http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp/index.html
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=8843
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Keyword Tools
Overture tool
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion
Wordtracker tool [recommended]
http://our.affiliatetracking.net/wordtracker/a/12246
Google Sandbox Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox
Espotting Tool
http://www.espotting.com/popups/keywordgenbox.asp
Related Pages
http://www.related-pages.com/adwordskeywords.aspx
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Conclusion and Summary
Website Success
• Search-friendly
• User-friendly
• Persuasive
Search-friendly Optimization components
• Keywords
• Crawler
• Links
40

Bibliography
1
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 >.
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Bibliography
5
Laratro, Joe. “Dos and Don’ts of Search Engine Optimization.”
MoreVisibility. 15 Nov. 2006
<http://www.morevisibility.com/whitepaper/2006/SEO_Do_and_D
onts_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/>
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43
Backup

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 sites
Keywords 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)
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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.
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