Florida Update One Year Later - The Year Google Grew Up

The Florida Update effected more than site rankings in the SEO industry. Jim Hedger looks at Google one year later after the disaster.

Hedger, Jim. Search-This (2004). Articles>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Fluctuations in Document Accessibility: A Case Study of Five Search Engines    

This paper presents an empirical investigation of the stability of five search engines, namely Altavista, Google, Hotbot, Scirus and Bioweb, carried out over two different time periods with different search queries selected from 'LC List of Subject Headings' with a closer examination of the URLs and their contents. The three different fluctuations identified, one of them being significant, show that Hotbot is prone to result fluctuations while Scirus is inclined to indexing fluctuations, and Bioweb is the most stable.

Shafi, S.M. and Rafiq Ahmad Rather. International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Web Design>Search

Four Tips For Raising Your Search Engine Rankings

Search engine rankings are an important factor to consider when you have a web site that needs more traffic. If your web site doesn’t have a good position in the rankings then it will be hard to find.

Pires, Halstatt. Ezine Articles (2005). Articles>Web Design>Search

Frames and Search Engines

When it comes to framed sites and the effect that the use of frames by a site has on its search engine ranking, there are two schools of thought. Some people say that framed sites, if done properly, have no problems in getting good rankings in the search engines. Others claim that if search engine optimization is important to you, never use frames. In my opinion, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Roy, Sumantra. 1stSearchRanking (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

From E-Sex to E-Commerce: Web Search Strategies  

The authors examine the idea that human information needs and searching behaviors are evolving along with Web content.

Jansen, Bernard J., Tefko Saracevic, Amanda Spink and Dietmar Wolfram. Pennsylvania State University (2002). Design>Web Design>Search>E Commerce

The Fundamentals of Quality Search

Explores how a web site can improve the way it allows its readers to search and provides nine guidelines for designing a search feature.

McGovern, Gerry. ClickZ (2001). Design>Web Design>Search

Fuzzy Matching as a Retrieval-Enabling Technique for Digital Libraries

This paper advocates an often-neglected search-support technique, approximate or 'fuzzy' matching of user search terms. When properly deployed, fuzzy matching can significantly enhance the benefits of other, more common approaches to end-user answer retrieval from online reference collections. We compare crude with more sophisticated approximation techniques to explain how astute fuzzy-match software can convert many different near-miss situations (such as those involving faulty prefixes or suffixes, character misplacement, nonstandard word stems, or unanticipated redescription of concepts) into more adequate results. We also suggest practical ways to overcome fuzzy matching's own major drawbacks (namely, problems with search speed, search imprecision, and misinterpretation of search results). The resulting analysis clarifies how to deploy fuzzy matching for maximum effectiveness. We conclude that appropriate fuzzy matching enables more frequent, more flexible search success than do ordinary retrieval-improvement techniques used without it.

Girill, T.R. and Clement H. Luk. CSU Chico (1996). Articles>Content Management>Web Design>Search

Garbage In, Garbage Out: The Dirt on Google's New Algorithm

In 2004, Google's new search algorithm has search-engine savvy web marketers scrambling for content instead of search engine rankings.

Janisch, Troy. Icon Interactive. Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

A Glossary of Search Engine Ranking Terms

A glossary of commonly used terms in the world of search engine ranking.

Roy, Sumantra. 1stSearchRanking (2003). Design>Web Design>Glossary>Search Engine Optimization

Google 2.0

People using Microsoft's Internet Explorer are now being redirected to Microsoft's MSN when they make certain kinds of mistakes. This means that Microsoft is taking control of another part of the user experience. This article discusses how Google might be able to help users and solve a few other problems others along the way.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search

Google Optimization Secrets From The Trenches

What do learning how to outline a research paper and optimizing your website to rank highly in Google have in common? Much more than you might think at first glance.

SEOchat (2004). Articles>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

The Google Sandbox and How To Get Out

The Google Sandbox is a filter that was put in place in about March of 2004. New websites with new domain names can take 6 to 12 months to get decent rankings on Google. Some are reporting stays of up to 18 months. The Sandbox seems to affect nearly all new websites placing them on probation. Similarly, websites that have made comprehensive redesigns have been caught up in this Sandbox. Does this Sandbox Really Exist, or is it just part of the Google algorithm? This has been a big controversy with many different opinions. Most now believe that this is an algorithm. In either case, the Sandbox functions to keep new sites from shooting to the top of Google in just a few weeks and overtaking quality sites that have been around for many years. This appears to be an initiation period for new websites.

Williams, Doug. stevenforsyth.com (2006). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Engine Optimisation and their 80/20 Rule

Google's increasing use of anti-spam features has meant that optimising websites for Google has become much harder and it's now not just a case of opening your websites source files in notepad, adding some keywords into your various HTML tags, uploading your files and waiting for the results. In fact in my opinion and I'm sure others will agree with me, this type of optimisation, commonly referred to as onpage optimisation will only ever be 20% effective at achieving rankings for any keywords which are even mildly competitive. Those of us who aced maths in school will know this leaves us with 80% unaccounted for.

Callan, David. stevenforsyth.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Engine Optimisation and their 80/20 Rule

Google's 80/20 rule means they apply a lot of of importance to off-page optimisation, such as inbound link text. On-page optimisation is now considered to be far less important.

Callan, David. Webcredible (2006). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Google, the Naked Emperor

Google rules. Wherever you turn you hear about a new Google initiative. Clearly, Google has the money to do some interesting things. But with all the hype and hullabaloo, it can be all too easy to overlook some serious flaws in Google's services. As librarians, we should not be giving Google a 'pass' that we would not afford other vendors. By being clear about Google's strengths and weaknesses, we can make effective decisions about when and how to use Google's services and advise our users appropriately.

Tennant, Roy. Library Journal (2005). Articles>Web Design>Search

Google's Advice For Your Website: Content

Google seems to be awarding more and more importance to good content - find out why and what you need to do.

Walsh, Joel. Webcredible (2005). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Google广告有害吗？

Google是一个什么样的公司？对于大多数人来说，对这个问题的回答会是“搜索”。虽然说Google确实是一个关注搜索的公司，它却并不靠搜索来生存。与之相反，和其它公司一样，由利益来决定。并且就像John Gruber所指出的，它通过出售广告来生存。 这使得Google成为一家广告公司。这意义也许比你一开始猜测的要深远的多了。 不过让我们不要走得太远。让我们来谈一会儿可用性。我将要向您解释Google对于广告的必要关注可以让我们学到很多可用性的内容。更严格的讲，这篇文章将描述一个困境，一个与Google对于发布商如何防止广告的建议紧密相关的困境。可用性解决了这个困境，也因此告诉我们许多如何将商务与用户体验结合起来。

Rhodes, John S. uiGarden (2006). (Chinese) Articles>Web Design>Ethics>Search

Guide to Buying Traffic

While many niches depend on PPC search traffic, there’s a wide group of sites that benifit from bought traffic from individual sites. Often times you can get very high quality traffic that converts very well from niches that tend to deal in a more direct site to site type traffic deal, rather than 3rd party ad networks. This guide is mostly to be used when buying traffic from forums, from individual websites, and from “plug” type packages, yet there are many things that transfer over to more traditional PPC outlets.

Robbins, Kyle. ReEncoded (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization>E Commerce

Gunning for Google

Recent redesigns at Yahoo!, Microsoft Live Search, and Ask.com are providing graphically rich alternatives to the minimalist search giant.

Vella, Matt. BusinessWeek (2007). Design>Web Design>User Experience>Search

Has Google Taken Away Your Right to Vote?

Google, the first search engine to factor link structures into their algorithm, is readjusting the value of some of the links and this is making life difficult for some websites.

Angeletti, Mark. Search-This (2005). Design>Web Design>Search

High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization

It’s no coincidence that search engines love highly accessible websites; in fact, by designing for accessibility, you’re already using effective search-engine optimization techniques. Andy Hagans explains yet another reason to pay attention to accessibility.

Hagans, Andy. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Search

Hiring a Search Engine Marketing Company

You want to achieve a high search enigne ranking so you're thinking about getting some outside help. Selecting a search engine marketing company can be a daunting task so read through these essential guidelines to find out what you should be looking for.

Claiborne, Scottie. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Home Stayers And Trench Diggers

This paper offers some observations on the ways 9 to 12 year children search for information on websites and how this may differ from the search behaviour of adults.

Hudson, Roger. Usability.com.au (2002). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search

How to Find Good Keywords

Learn how to find the best keywords for your website: ones which are heavily searched for but not being targeted by many other websites.

Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

How to Get Higher Search Engine Rankings  

In the early days of the Internet, you did not have to do much to drive traffic to your Web site. Simply listing your site with search engines (and all were free back then) could yield a lot of traffic. When I listed one of my sites with Yahoo!, my site hits increased by 10,000 in just one week. Back then, ranking was more a game of optimizing your TITLE and META tags than anything else. But in response to the mammoth growth of the Internet and abuses of META tags by unscrupulous Web designers, search engine spiders have became more sophisticated: The game now focuses on optimizing Web page content.

Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. Intercom (2004). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization