#25851
What's the Buzz About? An Empirical Examination of Search on Yahoo! 
We present an analysis of the Yahoo Buzz Index over a period of 45 weeks. Our key findings are that: (1) It is most common for a search term to show up on the index for one week, followed by two weeks, three weeks, etc. Only two terms persist for all 45 weeks studied — Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez. Search term longevity follows a power–law distribution or a winner–take–all structure; (2) Most search terms focus on entertainment. Search terms related to serious topics are found less often. The Buzz Index does not necessarily follow the "news cycle"; and, (3) We provide two ways to determine "star power" of various search terms — one that emphasizes staying power on the Index and another that emphasizes rank. In general, the methods lead to dramatically different results. Britney Spears performs well in both methods. We conclude that the data available on the Index is symptomatic of a celebrity–crazed, entertainment–centered culture.
Bladow, Nicole, Cari Dorey, Liz Frederickson, Pavla Grover, Yvette Knudtson, Sandeep Krishnamurthy and Voula Lazarou. First Monday (2005). Articles>Web Design>Search>Assessment
#25340
A developer friend of mine, before he knew I worked for an SEO firm, told me he thought of SEO as 'snake oil,' not an uncommon view among many Web professionals.
Wilkie, David. Search-This (2004). Articles>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization
#26493
One of the most fundamental steps when optimizing a website is writing a robots.txt file. It helps tell spiders what is useful and public for sharing in the search engine indexes and what is not. It should also be noted that not all search spiders will follow your instructions left in the robots.txt file. In addition, a poorly done robots.txt file can stop the search spiders from crawling and indexing your website properly. In this article I will show you how to be sure everything will work correctly.
Dixon, Clint. SEOchat (2005). Articles>Web Design>Search
#26721
There is a raging debate over the relative importance of on-page search engine optimization and off-page optimization. This case study that offers presents some intriguing findings.
Leonhardt, David. Klariti (2005). Articles>Web Design>Search
#26904
Google 的真实情况是怎样的呢？回答是：它并不简洁。 瞧，我喜欢 Google。它是个很棒的搜索引擎，但是我比较反感听到有人表扬它的外观优雅而简洁。见鬼，所有的搜索引擎都有一部分是优雅而又简洁的：在输入框中输入要查询的词语，然后按“回车”键。 “不”，有人会马上反对说：“Google的搜索页面是那样的简洁、优雅，没有和其它的功能挤在一起”。
Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2006). (Chinese) Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search
#32139
Applying Turing's Ideas to Search
Users hold search to a human standard of understanding that computers cannot as yet achieve. This is more than just a curiosity: The Turing test has something to tell us about how we can better design our website search interfaces today.
Ferrara, John. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search
#32273
Web Retrieval Systems and the Greek Language: Do They Have an Understanding? 
Searching the web is a common activity of web users. English and non-English speakers utilize international or local search engines so as to satisfy their information needs. Most of the attempts at evaluation of search engines focus on English queries and on English document collections. In this paper an evaluation methodology is presented and the capabilities of international and local web retrieval systems using Greek queries are evaluated based on this method. We aim at identifying difficulties and knowledge requirements when using a Greek supporting search engine. The importance of interface localization and the effects of standard information retrieval techniques such as case insensitivity, stopword removal and simple stemming are studied in international and local search engines. The evaluation methodology is applicable to other non-English natural languages as well.
Lazarinis, Fotis. Journal of Information Science (2007). Articles>Web Design>Search>Language
#32275
SHIL on the Web is the website of the Israeli Citizens' Advice Bureau. It provides information about rights, social benefits, government and public services and civil obligations. Activity on the site approaches 10,000 pages visited per day. It has interfaces in four languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. Logfile analysis of the SHIL website revealed to our surprise that about 60.7% of the requests reaching SHIL from external sites (excluding requests from robots) are from general search engines (e.g. Google and MSN), and users reach a specific page on the site linked from the search results page. This finding seems to indicate that the site is not known well enough to the public. On the other hand the site is very active, thus it seems to serve Israeli citizens well, even without being a well known brand. In this paper we analyzed the external requests coming from search engines. The analysis is based on the 266,295 queries from search engines that reached SHIL during March—October 2005. Studying queries submitted to search engines is a novel technique for analyzing the access patterns to the site and provides a better understanding of the user needs and intentions than analyzing the distribution of the visited pages only. We are not aware of any previous study that analyzed the relation between the query submitted to the search engine and the webpage the user clicked on the search results page. Since search engines provide snippets, when the user clicks on a specific page he already has some information on what is to be found on the page and the user makes a conscious decision to click on the specific result. Thus, this type of analysis provides additional information about the users' actual information needs.
Ravid, Gilad, Judit Bar-Ilan, Shifra Baruchson-Arbib and Sheizaf Rafaeli. Journal of Information Science (2007). Articles>Web Design>Search>Language
#32327
Use of Collaborative Recommendations for Web Search: An Exploratory User Study
This study investigated use of collaborative recommendations in web searching. An experimental system was designed. In the experimental system, recommendations were generated in a group report format, including items judged relevant by previous users, search queries and the URLs of documents. The study explored how users used these items, the effects of their use, and what factors contributed to this use. The results demonstrate that users preferred using queries and document sources (URLs), rather than relevance judgment (document ratings). The findings also show that using recommended items had a significant effect on the number of documents viewed, but not on precision or number of queries. Task difficulty and search skills had significant impact on the use. Possible reasons for the results are analyzed. Implications and future directions are discussed.
Zhang, Xiangmin and Yuelin Li. Journal of Information Science (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search>Metadata
#32332
An Analysis of Failed Queries for Web Image Retrieval
This paper examines a large number of failed queries submitted to a web image search engine, including real users' search terms and written requests. The results show that failed image queries have a much higher specificity than successful queries because users often employ various refined types to specify their queries. The study explores the refined types further, and finds that failed queries consist of far more conceptual than perceptual refined types. The widely used content-based image retrieval technique, CBIR, can only deal with a small proportion of failed queries; hence, appropriate integration of concept-based techniques is desirable. Based on using the concepts of uniqueness and refinement for categorization, the study also provides a useful discussion on the gaps between image queries and retrieval techniques. The initial results enhance the understanding of failed queries and suggest possible ways to improve image retrieval systems.
Pu, Hsiao-Tieh. Journal of Information Science (2008). Articles>Web Design>Visual Rhetoric>Search
#32452
Does Advanced Search Sound Too Advanced?
Should advanced search be called something else to sound more friendly and inviting, and would it make more people to use it when they need to?
Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search>User Centered Design
#32529
Semantic HTML and Search Engine Optimization
So what is POSH? No, it's not just some new clothing fashion hype amongst web designers - POSH is the acronym for Plain Old Semantic HTML. The term Semantic HTML is used for a variety of things, but it has it's origin in one objective: creating (X)HTML documents using semantic elements and attributes, as opposed to using presentational HTML.
De Valk, Joost. Opera (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Search Engine Optimization
#32550
Intelligent Site Structure for Better SEO!
Search engines are one of the most important traffic drivers to sites these days, which is why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is becoming more and more important. SEO is often thought to be just a set of some technical tricks, and as a professional SEO, I confess to spending a lot of time with clients fixing technical issues. A site's structure though, is just as important. Your site's structure determines whether a search engine understands what your site is about, and how easily it will find and index content relevant to your site's purpose and intent. By creating a good structure, you can use the content you've written that has attracted links from others, and use your site's structure to spread some of that "linkjuice" to the other pages on your site.
De Valk, Joost. Opera (2008). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search Engine Optimization
#32740
Five Ways to Increase Targeted Website Traffic
Website visitors do not arrive magically… they follow recommendations from others, such as links, display ads, or even offline word of mouth. As 2007 turns into 2008, here are 5 easy ways to substantially increase the amount of traffic coming to your site.
Jason, Chris. ChrisJason.com (2007). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization
#32752
Findability/SEO Cheat Sheet: Quick Guide to Web Standards SEO
A findability strategy cheat sheet that will guide you through all of the stuff you should be doing when creating new websites or even redesign existing ones.
Walter, Aarron. AarronWalter.com (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search Engine Optimization
#32753
Free Search Engine Tools and Services 
You can communicate information about your site to search engines and see your site from their perspective using some free services and utilities from Yahoo! and Google.
Walter, Aarron. Building Findable Websites (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization
#32755
You’ve built a great site-now get the word out! There are plenty of places where you can promote your site for free.
Walter, Aarron. Building Findable Websites (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization
#32757
Black Hat SEO Techniques to Avoid
Desperation, ignorance, and a moral compass that doesn’t point due north often get perfectly logical, good people and companies in trouble with search engines. Because being listed high in search results is such a desirable goal to attain, many people search for shortcuts to the front of the line—which can land them in serious trouble.
Walter, Aarron. Building Findable Websites (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization
#32769
SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Why It Works Best With Quality Writing
Attracting the attention of Google and other search engines is crucial for bringing visitors to your website. To achieve this effectively, search engine optimised copy should run parallel with good website construction.
Ward, Merlin. Webcredible (2008). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Search Engine Optimization
#32838
Accessibility as Part of The Search Engine Marketing Strategy
In traditional marketing you're looking to define your targeted audience for your business or organisation. In Internet marketing things work in the same way. Unfortunately, with the growing popularity of the Internet in the past years and with the growing number of people building sites, a certain part of the online audience has been overlooked.
Big Mouth Media (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Search Engine Optimization
#32862
Secret Benefits of Accessibility Part 2: Better Search Ranking
One of the main benefits of Web accessibility is that a Website that's more accessible to people is also usually more accessible to search engines. The more accessible your site is to search engines, the more confidently they can guess what the site's about, giving your site a better chance at the top spot in the search engine rankings.
Moss, Trenton. SitePoint (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Search Engine Optimization
#33035
Metadata: Seven Tips for Writing Better Keywords
The shift in how search engines treat keywords is significant. They tend to ignore the keyword metatag and rather look for keywords in the actual page content. This means that you need to figure out your keywords before you write any content. Then, you include them throughout your content, particularly in headings and summaries.
McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Web Design>Metadata>Search Engine Optimization
#33038
Web Search: How the Web Has Changed Information Retrieval
Topical metadata have been used to indicate the subject of Web pages. They have been simultaneously hailed as building blocks of the semantic Web and derogated as spam. At this time major Web browsers avoid harvesting topical metadata. This paper suggests that the significance of the topical metadata controversy depends on the technological appropriateness of adding them to Web pages. This paper surveys Web technology with an eye on assessing the appropriateness of Web pages as hosts for topical metadata. The survey reveals Web pages to be both transient and volatile: poor hosts of topical metadata. The closed Web is considered to be a more supportive environment for the use of topical metadata. The closed Web is built on communities of trust where the structure and meaning of Web pages can be anticipated. The vast majority of Web pages, however, exist in the open Web, an environment that challenges the application of legacy information retrieval concepts and methods.
Brooks, Terrence A. Information Research (2003). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search
#33046
Be a White Hat SEO for Your Intranet: It's Good for Accessibility
The SEOs with white hats conduct legitimate optimising of web pages to make the site come up appropriately in the Search Engine Results Pages (also called SERPs). The back hat SEOs implement tricks to appear high in the results pages even if the web site is not necessarily relevant. The range of tricks is astonishing. But most of the techniques used by white hat SEOs were similar if not identical to the guidelines given by accessibility experts.
NetStrategy-JMC (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Search Engine Optimization
#33085
Nine Ways to Fix Intranet Search
Search is often the greatest source of frustration on intranets. Irrelevant results, hard to read results pages and ‘untitled document’ entries plague many intranet searches. With the size and scope of most intranets, search is a key tool used by staff to find information. While the expectation is that it should be quick and easy to find information on the intranet, this is often not the case. Beyond generating staff frustration, these problems can reduce trust and confidence in the search tool.
Robertson, James. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Search
