Search engine optimization

Draft

Introduction

“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. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.” (Wikipedia, retrieved 18:59, 5 March 2012 (CET))

See also:

• Google analytics
• Google webmaster tools

Strategies and technology

Wikipedia makes the distinction between white hat (good design approved by search engines) versus black hat practices (using techniques such spamdexing or cloaking). This wiki was a strong target for such abusive tactics and this is why new user created is now being screened.

WebMaster Guidelines

The idea is structure web site and its contents in a way that search engines like, i.e. provide both structure and "real" content that will allow to match search terms to some kind of latent semantic indexing (LSI) vector space and latent semantic analysis (LSA).

Read Google Webmaster Guidelines and Yahoo! Webmaster Guidelines

Linking

SEO services usually try to insert links in other web sites, either in some acceptable "white" way or through agressive and counter-productive strategies like wiki spamming.

Software

Local web traffic tools

• You can install local tools to analyse traffic, e.g. Created by awstats.

Search engine services

• Google analytics (tracks user behavior with cookies)
• Google webmaster tools
• Bing WebMaster tools provides less functionalities, but includes some tools that google analytics does not have, e.g. search boxes for backlinks (you can filter by domain) or keyword search.
• Yahoo site explorer

SEO tools

• Search Metrics Read Searchmetrics Link Essentials: Open Beta Release (Feb 2012)

• SEMRush. Read Scaling Keyword Research & Competitive Analysis to new heights at SEO Takeways (nov 2012).

Links

• Search engine optimization

• Hansell, Saul (June 3, 2007). "Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine". New York Times, retrieved 18:59, 5 March 2012 (CET).

Bibliography

• Berry, M. W., and Browne, M., Understanding Search Engines: Mathematical Modeling and Text Retrieval, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, (2005).