 Introduction

 How Search Engines Work

 SEO Building Blocks
◦ Keywords
◦ Crawler
◦ Links
 SEO Tools
 Black Hat Methods
 Summary and Conclusion

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"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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 Iterative process
 Dynamic environment
 Art
 Science

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 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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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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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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1. Gather Content
◦ Crawler or spider moves recursively downloading
content
2. Builds sophisticate index
3. Individual web searches run against index
◦ Results are retrieved and ordered
 PageRank & Relevance

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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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 Keywords
◦ Keyword selection and keyword-rich text
 Crawler
◦ A crawler-friendly site navigation scheme
 Links
◦ Link popularity

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 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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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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 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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 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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 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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PageRank (Popularity, importance)
 Number and quality of links pointing to a

website
 Measure of usefulness of site

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 Advantage
◦ it is dynamic, cumulative, and difficult to imitate
 Disadvantage
◦ takes time (vs. advertising)

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 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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 Google
 Yahoo
 MSN Search

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 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)

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

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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_GuidelinesforOpt
imizingSite.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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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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Website Success
 Search-friendly
 User-friendly
 Persuasive

Search-friendly Optimization components

 Keywords
 Crawler
 Links

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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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5
Laratro, Joe. “Dos and Don’ts of Search Engine Optimization.”
MoreVisibility. 15 Nov. 2006
<http://www.morevisibility.com/whitepaper/2006/SEO_Do_a
nd_Donts_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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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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 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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