search engine optimization for your web site dr. soe, dr. westfall & cis dept. california...
TRANSCRIPT
Search Engine Optimization for Your Web
Site
Dr. Soe, Dr. Westfall & CIS Dept.California Polytechnic University, Pomona, March 2013http://www.csupomona.edu/~rdwestfall/120common/searchplace120.ppt
Agenda Introduction Steps to take to make your pages
show up higher in search engines How do search engines work? How do you get your web site
listed? Search engine exercise
Introduction: Search Engines Search engines return lists of links
based on search words entered by user Most users only look at 10-20 items in
search output before changing words Placement--how high a web page is in
the listings--is critically important in generating traffic from search engines
High Search Engine Placement
"We can guarantee you a top 10 ranking" What's it worth? How can they do it? zapmeta.com search on Mrs. Westfall
shows high rankings in Yahoo, MSN, Altavista and Teoma
Does not include Google, but see next page
High Search Engine Placement Google searches on specified
words Mrs. Westfall Westfall telecommuting forget evolution textbook ripoff
What Are "Key Words?" Words that are what your web
page is really about Just as the words in the title of a text
book are what it's about Usually are found in your page a lot
Words that people would use to search for a web page like yours
Putting Key Words in Pages In the text of your pages, using an
authoring tool like Dreamweaver Make sure that keywords are in the
visible text of your page fairly often, especially in prominent places such as near top, in links, headers, etc.
In the code of your pages Using an editor like Notepad Or using authoring tool's code window
Putting Keywords in Code Put keywords into <title> tag Put keywords in <H1> tag at page top Put keywords into <img alt=" "> tags Put keywords in the text of links and in
the letters of the URL also if possible e.g., www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/
Code Examples Include some keywords in phrases in
important HTML tags, but do it in a natural phrase that describes things Replace <title>Untitled-1</title> with
a <title>[keywords]</title> in <head> area
If no <title> tags in <head> section, put <title>[keywords]</title> there
Example: <title>Cindi's Cat</title>
Code Examples - 2 Image tags
Replace <img src="file1.jpg"> with <img src="[keywords].jpg" alt="[keywords]">
Example: <img src="cindiscat.jpg" alt="Cindi's cat">
Header tags (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 or h6) Replace <p>[some words at top of page]
with <h1>[keywords among words]</h1>
What Not to Do Don’t use keywords that are not
related to the content of the page Don’t repeat keywords in any ways
that don’t make sense Not in very small text Not in text color similar to
background color Not repeated many times in a row
Register your Web Site with Search Engines
Register individually with top sites Yahoo! , MSN, Open Directory Project
(goes into Google, etc.) Try site submission web sites?
Manta submits business web sites for free to Google, Yahoo and Bing
But will probably send you a lot of spam Change content, resubmit every so
often?
Search Engines Deliver Indexes
User requests information via search page
Query engine searches database Delivers list of web resources
Creates results web page based on search Listed in order of a calculated index
Index values based on search words, and also on "popularity" of site
But usually preceded by "paid placements"
Web DirectoriesBuilt by Human Indexing
Analyze site’s purpose Classify sites by broad subject area
Hierarchical classification schemes Yahoo! - has many people reviewing
web site submissions Doesn't have to accept submissions 6 week delay unless pay for priority
service?
Meta Search Engines Don't have their own databases or
indexing Instead, combine results from other
search engines Examples
Dogpile, Vivisimo Ixquick (top 10 listings in other search
engines)
Search Engines Ranked by % of People that Use Them Google 56.3% Yahoo 21.5 MSN 8.4 AOL 5.3 Source: Nielsen/Net Ratings
quoted in Wikipedia Search engine article as of July 2007
Get Site Into Directories Directories (e.g., Yahoo!) require
careful selection of search categories & keywords
Search for your keywords on Yahoo! to find appropriate categories
Yahoo! asks for a 25-word description of content Make it really good to impress human
indexers
Targeting Spiders
Pick "keywords" that people would use to find a page like yours
Make these keywords prominent in your web pages, especially in the entry page
Meta Tags Keywords meta tag used to be
important <meta name="keywords" content=
"telecommuting, research, telecommuting research, telecommute, telecommutes, telecommuter, telecommuters">
Search engines generally ignore them now because of widespread attempts to use them to manipulate rankings
Meta Tags - Description Even though not used much in
rankings anymore, contents of following tag are shown in Google outputs <meta name="description"
content="Westfall research and papers on telecommuting, telecommuting productivity, telecommuting economic analyses, telecommuting strategies">
Keywords for Spiders All keywords are not created equal -
spiders give heavier weights to: Keywords in the <title> (more than once?) Keywords in <h1> and other headers Keywords in other text near top of page Keywords in <img alt="[keywords]"> tags Keywords in links (seen by user or in URLs) How Search Engines Rank Web Pages
More Keywords for Spiders Use keywords frequently, but don't repeat
same word more than once in a row OK: pizza pizza Not good: pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza
Use variations of keywords (plurals) Use keywords in alternate text for images
<img src "file.jpg" alt="[keywords]"> Google Search Engine Optimization 101 My lis
t
Links for Spiders Number of pages linking to a site
has become extremely important Google pioneered this If high ranking pages link to a site on
the same topic, it must be good Quality of links is also important
Need to be relevant both to page they are on and to linked page
Trying to Fool Spiders Search Engine "Spamming":
Spiders are being programmed to detect it
Examples: Repeat hidden keywords
in background color, or <font size=1> Keywords not related to site content Irrelevant links: "link farms" or "link
stuffing" (ethical issues)
"I can guarantee a top 10 …" Junk mail and web sites True, but…
Not for your 1st choices of key words Use relatively unique combination
of several words, and put them into key parts of page (<title>, <H1>, etc.) Probably not many people will search
for this combination of words e.g., telecommuting productivity
Guaranteed Top 10 Listing Use misspelled words
Including 2 words ran together (no space between e.g., muhammedgonzales)
Search for these made-up words Keep trying until you find a "word" not
found on any other page Put in page, get links to page in
another page(s), submit to search engine(s)
Googlewhacks Identify two words, NOT in
quotation marks, that get only one result in Google
Examples Exercise: find another
Googlewhack
"Google Bombing" Drives traffic to other pages by
links and keywords Early (2001) Google bombing
campaign Wikipedia Google bomb article Wikipedia Political Google bombs
article
Search Engine Exercise Search for your keywords on any
automated search engine For top 2-4 sites, look for keywords in:
<meta...>, <title>, <h1>, <a href="…>, <img… alt="…>, etc. (use View, Source)
Words in page, esp. near top Also use Google advanced search (Page-
Specific) to find pages linking to these sites
Report any patterns you see