What is a Search Engine?

2. It is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored in a computer system What is a Search Engine?

3. Evolution of Search Engine - A Timeline - Lycos (active)- Featured qord matching & word proximity. Jumpstation (inactive) - 1st WWW resource-discovery tool to combine the three essential features of a web search engine (crawling, indexing, and searching). AltaVista (inactive) - 1st to provide natural language queries, had search tips & allowed users to add/remove an URL within 24hrs of publication. ARCHIE- 1st search engine (retired in 1995). Was created by Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan and J. Peter Deutsch, computer science students at McGill University in Montreal. W3catalog (retired in 1996) - Mirrorred web pages reformatting contents into individual entries. Excite (active) - Major "dotcom" portals in 1990s. Daum (active) - Popular web portal in South Korea. AliWeb (retired in 1994)- Allowed user to submit pages they wanted along with a description. Jughead - Veronica (retired in 1994). Searched files by their names in the Gopher listings. Yahoo (active) - Began as a collection of webpages (directory), then evolved into a search engine. WebCrawler (still alive)- 1st search engine to provide full text searches. Now, it is a metaresearch engine that blends top search results from Google, Yahoo etc. Vlib (retired in 1994) - A virtual library of web servers in collaboration between Time Berners - Lee & CERN. LookSmart (active) - Competed with Yahoo but became a pay-per-click provider later on. 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

4. Evolution of Search Engine - A Timeline - AskJeeves.com (ask.com) - Natural search engine that uses human editors to match search queries. Yandex (active)- Holds the largest search market share in Russia Google - adopted the idea of selling search terms MSN was launched. BackRub (later became Google) - search engine which utilized backlinks for search. Uses PageRank technology becoming the most important search engine in the world. AlltheWeb (Yahoo) - Presented a sleek interface w/ some advantages like direct FTP search Info.com (active) - Metasearch engine which provided pay-per-click results. Partnered with White/Yellow Pages. Vivisimo (active) - Awarded the contract to power the search portion of Firstgov.gov (now USA.gov) Yahoo Search (active) was relaunched with its own search engine. Inktomi/Hotbot - Hotbot was the internet search engine of the Wired Magazine & was incorporated into Inktomi. Baidu (active)- China's giant search engine. A9 (active) - Amazon search engine 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

5. Evolution of Search Engine - A Timeline - ChaCha (active) - A question-answering service with human-guided help. LiveSearch (active as Bing) - Microsoft announces launch of Live Search product. Sproose (inactive) - Consumer engine that re-arranges ranks due to users' votes for websites Cuil (inactive) - Search engine that organized web pages by content & displayed relatively long entries along with thumbnail pictures. SearchMe (inactive) - A visual search engine that organized results as snapshots of web pages. Powerset (inactive, redirects to Bing) - Microsoft owned company. Yandex (active) - Launched global (English) search. Snap (inactive) - This search engine showed volumes, revenues and advertisers but proved to be too complicated for average users. wikiseek (inactive) - Indexed Wikipedia and linked-to Wikipedia pages. WikiSeek was funded by SearchMe. Bing (active) - Current web search engine from Microsoft. Provides video, search suggestions & other features. OpenDrive (active) - Cloud file search from Google 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

6. It operates in the following order: Web crawling Indexing Searching How SE works?

7. Web Crawling A Web crawler is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web, typically for the purpose of Web indexing. A Web crawler may also be called a Web spider, an ant, an automatic indexer, or a Web scutter.

8. Web Crawling

9. PANDA & PENGUIN: Google’s Algorithm Updates Penalize websites of low quality and those with low-quality content. It was first introduced in 24thFebruary, 2011 as Farmer Update in USA. Bring down websites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and use  black-hat SEO techniques

10. : collects, parses, and stores data (keywords or keyphrases) to facilitate fast and accurate information retrieval. Indexing

11. : is the activity of obtaining information resources relevant to an information needed from a collection of information resources. Searching

12. SERP Search Engine Results Page

13. You have a website, but are you SEARCHABLE?

14. Search Engine Optimization

15. SEO or Search engine optimization is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or unpaid (organic) search results.

16. PAID Search result } Organic Search results

17. Purpose of SEO

18. 1. Brand awareness- A web site having a high ranking means more people see the name of the company and become familiar with the company and its products.

19. 2. Targeted Traffic- Search engine optimization brings paying customers to your door step as they enter your websites by using relevant keywords/phrases into the search engines.

20. 3. Long term cost benefit - Once you have achieved a good ranking for a specific keyword, you will not pay for the traffic it generates. Although it has a higher entry cost, long term, its very cost effective.

21. 4. Brand credibility - There is a higher level of brand trust when a visitor finds you organically. They are more likely to bookmark your site, spend more time reading your site and return as a customer.

22. 5. Your competitors - Keeping ahead of your competition in the organic search results can help boost the perceived position of your company in your marketplace.

23. Optimization On- Page SEO

24. Title Tags • The title tag tells search engines what the page is about and that the page on your website is relevant for that keyword or keyword phrase. Title tags should be unique for every page. • In search results, search engines will highlight your keyword phrases if a user has searched for those terms. This increases visibility and click-through rate. • Example of Title tag in SERP • Best Practices: • Your title tag should be written like this: Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name • Use a dash in between your keyword phrases and a pipe at the end before your brand name • Avoid duplicate title tags • Keep title tags at 66 characters or less in length, including spaces

25. Meta descriptions • Meta descriptions should include a compelling description on which a user would want to click on. Much like title tags, the SERPs will highlight keywords that the user searched for, increasing the likelihood of the user clicking through to your website. • Example of Title tag in SERP • Best Practices: • Write compelling meta descriptions • 150 to 160 characters is the recommended length • Avoid duplicate meta descriptions • Do not use quotes or any non-alpha characters (Google, cuts them out of the meta description)

26. Content with Targeted Keyword Phrases • With the latest Google Panda updates, it is extremely important that your content is unique and relevant. • If you have multiple pages with the same content (or if you have your content on other people’s websites), you will run the risk of getting penalized by Google and your search rankings will suffer. • Best Practices: • Create content that is extremely relevant for that keyword phrase • Use your keyword phrase 4 times within your content • Use multiple variations of that keyword phrase – singular and plural versions, abbreviations, acronyms (SEO vs. search engine optimization) and synonyms • Include links from other pages within your website that point back to this page • Create unique content for every medium (press releases, blogs, guest blog posts, etc…).

27. Example of Web Content with highlighted keywords

28. Website’s Meta data

29. Header Tags and Keyword Phrases • A header tag, also known as an H1 tag, is much like the subject line of your web page. You should only use your keyword phrase once in the H1 tag. • This should be included on a page to which you are trying to drive unique traffic to. You can also use H2 tags (second header) if there are multiple sections. • Best Practices: • Use your keyword phrase once in your H1 tag • Use H1 tags on pages you are trying to drive unique traffic to (SEO page) • Use H2 tags if there are multiple sections

30. Example of an H1 tag being optimized for ‘nfc reader’: header tag 

31. Internal Page Linking with Anchor Text • Internal linking refers to a link on a page that points to another page on the same website. Internal linking is important because it helps strengthen those keywords internally for those pages, it allows users (and search engine robots) to navigate through the website, and it tells the search engines that the page is relevant for that keyword phrase. • Example of how to use anchor text in your internal links: • Best Practices: • When linking to another page on the same site from within content, select good anchor text (keywords) to use in the actual link and do this often.

32. Image ALT Tags and Filenames/Image Optimization • An alt tag is essentially the name of an image. All images should use appropriate alt tags. Not only are alt tags good for search engines; they are also good for accessibility. • Example of image in a website with an alt tag. • Best Practices: • Name all of your images in a way that describes what they are • Use dashes between the words, rather than underscores ( purple-hat.jpg rather than purple_hat.jpg) • Do not use non-alpha characters in your image or file names (so no %, &, $, etc…)

33. How to Optimize Images

34. Make Content Easy to Read • This is not a huge factor in search engine rankings, but will help your users easily scan your content and find the keywords they are looking for. • You should use bolding and bullet points to set apart words in the text, and this further tells the engines what is important on the page. • Best practices: • Paragraphs should be roughly three sentences long. Extremely long sentences will lose the users’ attention • Use bullet points and bolding to break up large blocks of content. Users tend to scan content looking for keywords • Do not overuse bullets and bolding

35. Meta Keywords • Keywords or key phrases are the search terms someone types into a search engine, when they are looking for certain information. • Why do KEYWORDS matter? • People are constantly using keywords whether they are in search of a specific product or just browsing to conduct personal research.

36. XML Sitemaps • is an xml page on your website that incorporates a list of links in every single page on your site. • It can also detail the hierarchy of pages on your site. Sitemap content/code: Note: Without a quality sitemap, pages that are buried more than a couple of clicks from the home page will take longer to get indexed and in some instances, Google (and other search engines) may not index them at all.

37. Robots.txt • A Robots.txt file complements your XML sitemap by providing search engine crawlers with instructions on how to read and index your website. Robots.txt tells search engines which pages to index and which to skip, so that private information stays protected.

38. Example: Inside ACS’ robots.txt file… Not indexed by Google

39. SEO Friendly URL • SEO-friendly URLs are purely structural URLs that do not contain a query string: • [e.g., www.example.com/?p=578544] • but use keyword-rich naming conventions instead: • [e.g., www.example.com/products/smartcardreader]

40. Optimization Off- Page SEO

41. Off-page SEO is all about building online authority – trust and reputation – for your website. It has been defined by the quantity, quality, and relevance of links to your website that establish your SEO authority and ultimately influence your search results ranking.

42. Link Building • Is the practice of building inbound links to help give your website authority.

43. WHY SEARCH ENGINES CARE ABOUT LINKS?

44. The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page. Search engines’ major ranking factors that is put into consideration :

45. Search Engine Signals SERP ranking

46. The Wrong Way to Build Links • Spamming • Buying a massive number of links • Publishing low-quality article • Over-using one article

47. Social Media • is a new platform presenting an opportunity to connect and have real conversations with your audience.  Social media signals are search engines’ signals as natural ranking factors.

48. a. Bookmarking • A social bookmarking service is a centralized online service which enables users to add, annotate, edit, and share bookmarks of web documents.

49. b. Sharing • Sharing represents the extent to which users exchange, distribute, and receive content.

50. c. PR • Press Releases boost exposure online and is usually recognized and indexed by all major search engines. • Press release is a good tool for reputation management and search engines’ ranking factor.