Search Engine Basics

• Search engines are programs that search documents for

specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the
keywords were found.

• Some of the popular Search Engine are

Google,Bing,Ask,Bing,Baidu,e.t.c
Working of Search Engine
A Search Engine operates is a three manner-:
•Web Crawling
•Indexing
•Ranking and Serving Results
Types of Search Engine
TYPES OF SEARCH ENGINE
Search Engine are categorised in two categories based on their result
gathering-
•Crawler-Based Search Engines
•Human-Powered Directories
Search Engine Basics
• Crawler-Based Search Engines
These Search Engine create their listings automatically by “crawl” or
“spider” the web.
• Human-Powered Directories
A human-powered directory, such as the Open Directory, depends on
humans for its listings.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of
improving the visibility of a website or a web page in
search engines via the "natural," or un-paid ("organic"
or "algorithmic"), search results.
Need of SEO
If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content
cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on the
incredible opportunities available to websites provided via
search - people who want what you have visiting your site.
How to Conduct Keyword Research
• Brainstorming
• Surveying Customers
• Applying Data from KW Research Tools
• Term Selection
• Performance Testing and Analytics
Page Ranking
The ranking is the basic criteria by which organic Search Engines index
and then retrieve documents.
•Page rank calculation tools
• Google Toolbar
• www.faganfinder.com/urlinfo/
• www.alexa.com
How page Ranking Done
• An organic search engine software spider is a piece of software that
acts like an electronic librarian who cuts out the content pages of
every book of library in the world sorts them into a extremely large
master index.

• The basic principal is that the index is made from the actual content
of site.
Key Concepts
• Web site appears in the returned matches depends on 5 factors:
• -Which Keywords the user entered
• -Your web page Keyword Density for these keywords
• -Your web page Keyword Prominence (page location) for these
keywords
• -Your Link Popularity – the number of other sites that link to you
• -Your link and keyword Relevancy
ADVANTAGES OF SEO
• Perspective (Global / Regional)
• Targeted Traffic
• Increase Visibility
• High ROI (Return on Investment)
• Long term positioning
• Cost-effective
• Flexibility
DISADVANTAGES OF SEO
• You may be prevented from competing on a level playing field,
because competitors and even affiliates may use less ethical black hat
SEO techniques.
• As a consequence, the biggest disadvantage of SEO is a lack of
control. You are subject to changes in the algorithm.
• In competitive sectors it may be very difficult to get listed in the top
few results for competitive phrases
DISADVANTAGES OF SEO
• You may be prevented from competing on a level playing field,
because competitors and even affiliates may use less ethical black hat
SEO techniques.
• As a consequence, the biggest disadvantage of SEO is a lack of
control. You are subject to changes in the algorithm.
• In competitive sectors it may be very difficult to get listed in the top
few results for competitive phrases
Application of Search Engine Optimization
• 6 times more effective than a banner ad
• Delivers qualified leads
• Most user sessions begin at the search engines
• Most online purchases are made on sites found through search
engine listings
SEO is NOT Paid Advertising
• SEO – influence rankings in the “natural” (a.k.a. “organic”, a.k.a.
“algorithmic”) search results
• PPC – paid search advertising on a pay-per-click basis. The more you
pay, the higher your placement. Stop paying = stop receiving traffic.
• SEM – encompasses both SEO and PPC
 Paid

Natural Paid
Most Important Search Engines
 Google – 67.6% market share
 Bing – 18.7%
 Yahoo – 10%
 Ask – 2.4%
 AOL – 1.3%

Source: searchenginewatch.com:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2345837/google-search-
engine-market-share-nears-68
What Are Searchers Looking For?
• Keyword Research
• “Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts will be in vain.”
• The “right” keywords are…
• relevant to your business
• popular with searchers
Keyword Research
• Tools to check popularity of keyword searches
• http://WordTracker.com
• http://KeywordDiscovery.com
• http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
• http://www.google.com/trends/
• http://ubersuggest.org/
SEO. A Moving Target.
• Lots is changing…
• Personalization & customization
• Vertical search services (Images, Video, News, Maps, etc.)
• “Universal Search”
• Fortunately, the tried-and-true tactics still work…
• Topically relevant links from important sites
• Anchor text
• Keyword-rich title tags
• Keyword-rich content
• Internal hierarchical linking structure
• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
The Search Engines Are Your Friend
• Sitemaps.org
• Webmaster tools (e.g. Google Webmaster, Bing Webmaster)
Seven Steps to SEO: Begin The 7 Steps
1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
2) Get Your Pages Visible
3) Build Links & PageRank
4) Leverage Your PageRank
4) Encourage Clickthrough
6) Track the Right Metrics
7) Avoid Worst Practices
1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
 Search engines are wary of “dynamic” pages - they fear “spider
traps”
 Avoid stop characters (?, &, =) ‘cgi-bin’, session IDs and unnecessary
variables in your URLs; frames; redirects; pop-ups; navigation in
Flash/Java/Javascript/pulldown boxes
 If not feasible due to platform constraints, can be easily handled through
proxy technology (e.g. GravityStream)
 The better your PageRank, the deeper and more often your site will
be spidered
1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
 Page # estimates are wildly inaccurate, and include non-indexed pages
(e.g., ones with no title or snippet)
 Misconfigurations (in robots.txt, in the type of redirects used, requiring
cookies, etc.) can kill indexation
 Keep your error pages out of the index by returning 404 status code
 Keep duplicate pages out of the index by standardizing your URLs,
eliminating unnecessary variables, using 301 redirects when needed
Not Spider-Friendly
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com --> 302 Moved Temporarily
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do --> 302 Moved
Temporarily
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do?targetURL=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.bananarepublic.com%2Fbrowse%2Fhome.do&CookieSet=Set --> 302
Moved Temporarily
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/cookieFailure.do --> 200 OK
2) Get Your Pages Visible
• 100+ “signals” that influence ranking
• “Title tag” is the most important copy on the page
• Home page is the most important page of a site
• Every page of your site has a “song” (keyword theme)
• Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text, headings (H1 & H2 tags), alt
tags, and high up in the page (where they’re given more “weight”)
• Eliminate extraneous HTML code
• “Meta tags” are not a magic bullet
• Have text for navigation, not graphics
Pretty good title
Not so good title –
where’s the phrase
“credit card”?
Good link text
and body copy
Good link text
and body copy
No link text or
body copy
No link text or
body copy
Take a peek
under the
hood
The “meta
tags”
Unnecessarily
bloated HTML
3) Build Links and PageRank
• “Link popularity” affects search engine rankings
• PageRank™ - Links from “important” sites have more impact on your Google
rankings (weighted link popularity)
• Google offers a window into your PageRank
• PageRank meter in the Google Toolbar (toolbar.google.com)
• Google Directory (directory.google.com) category pages
• 3rd party tools like SEOChat.com’s “PageRank Lookup” & “PageRank Search”
• Scores range from 0-10 on a logarithmic scale
Google’s Toolbar –
with handy PageRank
Meter
4) Leverage Your PageRank
• Your home page’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue
of your hierarchical internal linking structure (e.g. breadcrumb nav)
• Pay attention to the text used within the hyperlink (“Google bombing”)
• Don’t hoard your PageRank
• Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”
4) Leverage Your PageRank
 Avoid PageRank dilution
 Canonicalization (www.domain.com vs. domain.com)
 Duplicate pages: (session IDs, tracking codes, superfluous parameters)
 http://company.com/Products/widget.html
 http://company.com/products/widget.html
 http://company.com/Products/Widget.html
 http://company.com/products/Widget.html

 In general, search engines are cautious of dynamic URLs (with ?, &, and =
characters) because of “spider traps”
 Rewrite your URLs (using a server module/plug-in) or use a hosted proxy service (e.g.
GravityStream)
 See http://catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/
Duplicate
pages
Googlebot got
caught in a
“spider trap”
Search engine
spiders turn
their noses up
at such URLs
Thus, important
content doesn’t
make it into the
search engine
indices
5) Encourage Clickthrough
• Zipf’s Law applies - you need to be at the top of page 1 of the search results. It’s
an implied endorsement.
• Synergistic effect of being at the top of the natural results & paid results
• Entice the user with a compelling call-to-action and value proposition in your
descriptions
• Your title tag is critical
• Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence what’s displayed here
Where do
searchers
look?
(Enquiro, Did-it,
Eyetools Study)
Search
listings –
1 good,
1 lousy
6) Track the Right Metrics
 Indexation: # of pages indexed, % of site indexed, % of product inventory
indexed, # of “fresh pages”
 Link popularity: # of links, PageRank score (0 - 10)
 Rankings: by keyword, “filtered” (penalized) rankings
 Keyword popularity: # of searches, competition, KEI (Keyword
Effectiveness Indicator) scores
 Cost/ROI: sales by keyword & by engine, cost per lead
Avoid Worst Practices
• Target relevant keywords
• Don’t stuff keywords or replicate pages
• Create deep, useful content
• Don't conceal, manipulate, or over-optimize content
• Links should be relevant (no scheming!)
• Observe copyright/trademark law & Google’s guidelines
Spamming in Its Many Forms…
• Hidden or small text
• Keyword stuffing
• Targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords
• Automated submitting, resubmitting, deep submitting
• Competitor names in meta tags
• Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes
• Spamglish
• Machine generated content
Spamming in Its Many Forms…
 Pagejacking
 Doorway pages
 Cloaking
 Submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) sites & link farms
 Buying up expired domains with high PageRanks
 Scraping
 Splogging (spam blogging)
 BMW.de
hosted many
“doorway
pages” like
this one
 “Sneaky
redirect” sent
searchers to
this page
Not Spam, But Bad for Rankings
 Splash pages, content-less home page, Flash intros
 Title tags the same across the site
 Error pages in the search results (eg “Session expired”)
 "Click here" links
 Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning of titles
 Spreading site across multiple domains (usually for load balancing)
 Content too many levels deep
What Next? Conduct an SEO Audit!
• Is your site fully indexed?
• Are your pages fully optimized?
• Could you be acquiring more PageRank?
• Are you spending your PageRank wisely?
• Are you maximizing your clickthrough rates?
• Are you measuring the right things?
• Are you applying “best practices” in SEO and avoiding all the “worst
practices”?
Before SEO
Before SEO
After
SEO
After
SEO
In Summary
• Focus on the right keywords
• Have great keyword-rich content
• Build links, and thus your PageRank™
• Spend that PageRank™ wisely within your site
• Measure the right things
• Continually monitor and benchmark