Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users. Another class of techniques, known as "Black Hat" SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm search engine user experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove their listings.
Marketing / SEO
The initialism "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers", a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.
Webmasters and search engines
By 1997 search engines recognized that some webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and even manipulating the page rankings in search results. Early search engines, such as Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords.[Laurie J. Flynn (November 11, 1996). Desperately Seeking Surfers. New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.]
By Due to the high marketing value of targeted search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web,[AIRWeb. Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, annual conference. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.] was created to discuss and minimize the damaging effects of aggressive web content providers.
By SEO companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal profiled a company, Traffic Power, that allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.[David Kesmodel (September 9, 2005). 'Optimize' Rankings At Your Own Risk. Startup Journal (Wall Street Journal). Retrieved on 2007-05-09.] Wired reported the same company sued blogger Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.[Adam L. Penenberg (September 8, 2005). Legal Showdown in Search Fracas. Wired Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.] Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.[Matt Cutts (February 2, 2006). Confirming a penalty. mattcutts.com/blog. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.]
By Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with site optimization.[Google's Guidelines on Site Design. google.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.],[Site Owner Help: MSN Search Web Crawler and Site Indexing. msn.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.],[Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines. help.yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.] Google has a Sitemaps program[Google Webmaster Tools. google.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-09] to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website. Yahoo! Site Explorer provides a way for webmasters to submit URLs, determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and view link information.[Yahoo! Site Explorer. yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.]
Getting listings
The leading search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically. Some search engines, notably Yahoo!, operate a paid submission service that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or cost per click.[Submitting To Search Crawlers: Google, Yahoo, Ask & Microsoft's Live Search. Search Engine Watch (2007-03-12). Retrieved on 2007-05-15.] Such programs usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but do not guarantee specific ranking within the search results.[Search Submit. searchmarketing.yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.] Yahoo's paid inclusion program has drawn criticism from advertisers and competitors.[Questionable Results at Revamped Yahoo. Washington Post (2004-03-11). Retrieved on 2007-05-23.] Two major directories, the Yahoo Directory and the Open Directory Project both require manual submission and human editorial review.[Submitting To Directories: Yahoo & The Open Directory. Search Engine Watch (2007-03-12). Retrieved on 2007-05-15.] Google offers Google Sitemaps, for which an XML type feed can be created and submitted for free to ensure that all pages are found, especially pages that aren't discoverable by automatically following links.[What is a Sitemap file and why should I have one?. google.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-19.]
Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.[Cho, J., Garcia-Molina, H. (1998). Efficient crawling through URL ordering. Proceedings of the seventh conference on World Wide Web, Brisbane, Australia. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.]
As a marketing strategy
Eye tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a search results page from top to bottom and left to right (for left to right languages), looking for a relevant result. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit a site.[A New F-Word for Google Search Results. Search Engine Watch (March 8, 2005). Retrieved on 2007-05-16.] However, more search engine referrals does not guarantee more sales. SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator's goals.[What SEO Isn't. blog.v7n.com (June 24, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-05-16.]A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic search results to pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site's conversion rate.[Melissa Burdon (March 13, 2007). The Battle Between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion: Who Wins?. Grokdotcom. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.]
SEO may generate a return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.[Andy Greenberg (April 30, 2007). Condemned To Google Hell. Forbes. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.] According to notable technologist Jakob Nielsen, website operators should liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.[Jakob Nielsen (January 9, 2006). Search Engines as Leeches on the Web. useit.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-14.] A top ranked SEO blog Seomoz.org[SEOmoz: Best SEO Blog of 2006. searchenginejournal.com (January 3, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-05-31.] has reported, "Search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines." Instead, their main sources of traffic are links from other websites.[A survey of 25 blogs in the search space comparing external metrics to visitor tracking data. seomoz.org. Retrieved on 2007-05-31.]
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