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. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
#33585
Sphere: Balancing Power and Simplicity
The Sphere team had already put a lot of work into returning fresh, relevant search results, and had several ideas about how to evolve the standard search experience. Filtering results appropriately (to let users easily get at the exact result they were after) would be paramount. Deep context for results would also be offered, along with related items (from traditional media to podcasts).
Freitas, Ryan. Adaptive Path (2006). Articles>Web Design>Search
#33632
Semantics Continues to Not be RDF, But Enrichment, Classification and Taxonomy
Within the realm of computational semantics, there is still a fairly broad disconnect between triple pair semantics, the use of RDF (or turtle notation) to create atomic assertions, and the realm of semantics as reflected on the web. I do not expect this to change much in 2009, save perhaps that the gulf between the two will likely just get wider.
Cagle, Kurt. O'Reilly and Associates (2009). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search
#33679
Every help authoring tool seems to have a different approach to presenting search results. Offerings range from ranked results to alphabetical lists, with additional features thrown in such as the inclusion of chunks of topic text with highlighted search keywords. Each method of presenting search results offers different benefits to users. Since help tools offer mixed approaches, I feel perfectly comfortable throwing my own opinions into the mix.
Haiss, Craig. HelpScribe (2009). Articles>Documentation>Search>Help
#33721
Design Research Methods for Experience Design
There is a trend among some in the UX community to take the U out of UX and refer to our discipline simply as experience design. One reason for this change in terminology is that it lets us talk about a specific target audience in terms that resonate with business stakeholders more than the generic term user—for example, customer experience, patient experience, or member experience. The other reason for using the term experience design rather than user experience design is that it recognizes the fact that most customer interactions are multifaceted and complex and include all aspects of a customer’s interaction with a company or other organizational entity, including its people, services, and products.
Hawley, Michael. UXmatters (2009). Articles>User Experience>Research>Methods
#33750
Right to Reply: SEO's Glory Days Are Not Over
In a recent article on Netimperative, Mike Grehan examined if the traditional role of SEO was becoming outdated, given the rise of social media. In this article, Eliza Dashwood, Director of Sales and Marketing, Ambergreen Internet Marketing offers a counter-point to Mike’s argument.
Dashwood, Eliza. NetImperative (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization>Search
#33777
XML-Centric Workflow Offers Benefits to Scholarly Publishers 
During the transitional paper–electronic period, a nonprofit STM publisher faces the challenge of publishing a scientific journal in both digital and analog formats while controlling costs and ensuring consistency between electronic and printed representations of an article. This must be achieved, as its sophisticated constituency expects a constantly expanding range of information products and services. In a few short years the American Geophysical Union (AGU) leapfrogged from the paste-up era, when authors prepared their own “camera-ready copy” to be pasted on boards for a printer, to the age of XML, when an article marked up in accordance with a custom-designed DTD serves both as a version of record and a source for generating PDF and HTML article representations. Bibliographic and reference metadata are then extracted from the XML article instance into a relational database, which serves as a basis for generating online and print access mechanisms/products, including various tables of contents and author and subject indices.
Schwarzman, Alexander B., Hyunmin Hur, Shu-Li Pai and Carter M. Glass. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Publishing>Research>XML
#33867
Common Sense SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Checklist
I don’t “really” know anything about SEO. What I do know is the folks at Google and other big search engines are just human beings like us who have created and constantly tweak the search algorithms. Their goal is to give us what we want when searching, the best possible websites relevant to what we are searching for. So let’s set aside all the fancy technical stuff and just use some good ol’ common sense.
Coyier, Chris. CSS Tricks (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization
#33925
Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide 
Welcome to Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This document first began as an effort to help teams within Google, but we thought it'd be just as useful to webmasters that are new to the topic of search engine optimization and wish to improve their sites' interaction with both users and search engines. Although this guide won't tell you any secrets that'll automatically rank your site first for queries in Google (sorry!), following the best practices outlined below will make it easier for search engines to both crawl and index your content.
Google (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization
#33947
The words we use when we search are not always the words we like to read when we arrive at a website. Over the years, I have discovered that the way we think and the words we use when we search give strong clues as to what we want, but only clues. The words that will help us complete the task we came to the website to complete can be subtly-and sometimes substantially different-to the words we used when searching for it.
McGovern, Gerry. CMSwire (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search>User Centered Design
#33950
Choosing the Right Search Results Page Layout: Make the Most of Your Width
Page layout forms the foundation in presenting search results. Your layout decisions for search results pages will have tremendous impact on the user experience for your entire site. Choosing the right width for search results is important, and the optimal width for search results may be a great deal narrower than some people using big monitors would believe.
Nudelman, Greg. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search
#33955
One of the key objectives of user research is to identify themes or threads that are common across participants. These patterns help us to turn our data into insights about the underlying forces at work, influencing user behavior. Patterns demonstrate a recurring theme, with data or objects appearing in a predictable manner. Seeing a visual representation of the data is usually enough for us to recognize a pattern. However, it is much harder to see patterns in raw data, so identifying patterns can be a daunting task when we face large volumes of research data. Patterns stand out above the typical noise we’re used to seeing in nature or in raw data.
Baty, Steve. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Research>User Experience
#33956
Starting from Zero: Winning Strategies for No Search Results Pages
Search results pages are some of the most visited pages on typical e-commerce sites—to say nothing of a search engine like Google. Many articles appear each year about optimal search algorithms, database performance, and the like. In contrast, very few publications focus on improving the search experience from the customer’s perspective.
Nudelman, Greg. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search>Usability
#33997
Annals. Computer Science Series 
Annals. Computer Science Series (Romanian original title Anale. Seria Informatică) was founded in 2003 by the collective of researchers of Computers and Applied Computer Science Faculty in "Tibiscus" University of Timişoara, being an annual – in printed form - international journal. The journal publishes scientific research papers presented in the framework of the International Conference "Actualities and Perspectives in Hardware and Software", event under the high patronage of the Romanian Academy, as well as research articles exposed on the "European Conference on Computer Sciences & Applications". Annals. Computer Science Series is an e-journal with free publication of original scientific work in any Computer Science area, as well as its applications to other domains such as Mathematics, Economics, Technical Sciences or Medicine. We accept to publish, after reviewer’s evaluation, theoretical and applicative studies, wishing to offer to interested audience interpretations and analyses of most recent approaches and results in above mentioned areas.
University of Timisoara (2008). Academic>Research>Computers and Writing>Online
#33998
Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship
Social network sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of academic and industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and reach. This special theme section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication brings together scholarship on these emergent phenomena. In this introductory article, we describe features of SNSs and propose a comprehensive definition. We then present one perspective on the history of such sites, discussing key changes and developments. After briefly summarizing existing scholarship concerning SNSs, we discuss the articles in this special section and conclude with considerations for future research.
Boyd, Danah and Nicole B. Ellison. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (2007). Articles>Web Design>Research>Social Networking
#34061
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data
Follow the data. Choose a representation that can use unsupervised learning on unlabeled data, which is so much more plentiful than labeled data. Represent all the data with a data. Of course, we’ll find immense opportunities to create interesting data sets if we can automatically combine data from multiple tables in this collection. This is an area of active research. Another opportunity is to combine data from multiple tables with data from other sources, such as unstructured Web pages or Web search queries.
Halevy, Alon, Peter Norvig and Fernando Pereira. IEEE Intelligent Systems (2009). Articles>Language>Search>Theory
#34076
Mapping the Research Questions in Technical Communication 
Agreement about research questions can strengthen disciplinary identity and give direction to a field that is still maturing. The central research question this article poses foregrounds texts, broadly defined as verbal, visual, and multimedia, and the power of texts to mediate knowledge, values, and action in a variety of contexts. Related questions concern disciplinarity, pedagogy, practice, and social change. These questions overlap and inform each other. Any single study does not necessarily fall exclusively into one area. A mapping of a field’s research questions is a political act, emphasizing some questions and marginalizing or excluding others. The emphases may change over time. This mapping illustrates reasons for the tensions between the academic and practitioner areas of the field. It also points out their shared research interests and opportunities for future research.
Rude, Carolyn D. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>TC>Research
#34077
Most technical communication practitioners conduct research throughout their careers. Yet, a survey of the Web sites of 114 undergraduate technical communication programs between September 2006 and April 2007 revealed that 65% (about two thirds) of these programs are providing minimal or no exposure to research instruction and therefore are not sufficiently preparing students to handle the types of research they will encounter in their upcoming careers. Given the disconnect between the centrality of research in the work that technical communicators do and the low presence of research instruction at the undergraduate level, academics need to look for ways to overcome institutional and other constraints in order to give research training greater priority in their undergraduate programs.
Spilka, Rachel. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>TC>Education>Research
#34078
The Competencies of a Business Analyst
The first step in developing as a business analyst is to understand the competency required of a business analyst in your organization. This should include an assessment both the current and the future competencies required. The HR department provides an outline definition of the competencies required of the business analyst in the organization. Future competencies are more difficult to assess and depends on the factors such as projects that may develop in future, business issues and technological developments.
Balchandani, Narain. IQTI (2009). Careers>Business Communication>Research
#34079
The Technical Communication Research Landscape
This article reports data from questionnaires assessing the day-to-day experiences that members of the technical communication field have in carrying out their research. The data revealed that most members experience at least some frustration and numerous constraints that prevent them from doing the kinds and amounts of research that they want to do and that may affect the quality of their research. In short, technical communication scholars face an array of challenges. This article presents examples of these challenges and ideas that respondents had both for lessening the challenges scholars face and for better preparing graduate students. It suggests several practical initiatives for addressing these challenges along with realistic strategies for implementing those initiatives.
Blakeslee, Ann M. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>TC>Research
#34163
A Guide to the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations in Science and Engineering
This guide is intended to help you write the best thesis you can by anticipating and answering common questions about content, structure, format, figures, and language. We have also included some suggestions on how to manage the process of turning your research -- your testing and reading, your findings and conclusions -- into a clear, complete, well-written, and convincing thesis or dissertation.
Hart, Hillary. University of Texas (2005). Resources>Style Guides>Research>Engineering
#34175
Talking 'Bout My Generation: The Evolution of Online Marketing Research
Utilizing reliable market research on an ongoing basis is the most effective way to ensure a successful marketing campaign. Nevertheless, for many companies, the benefits of conducting marketing research and the costs of conducting marketing research always seem to be at odds. Marketing research can be expensive. Not knowing your customer's needs can be costly.
Janisch, Troy. Icon Interactive (2007). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Research
#34177
University Publishing In A Digital Age
This paper argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.
Ithaka (2009). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online
#34178
Investigating Behavioral Variability in Web Search
Understanding the extent to which people’s search behaviors differ in terms of the interaction flow and information targeted is important in designing interfaces to help World Wide Web users search more effectively. In this paper we describe a longitudinal log-based study that investigated variability in people’s interaction behavior when engaged in search-related activities on the Web. We analyze the search interactions of more than two thousand volunteer users over a five-month period, with the aim of characterizing differences in their interaction styles. The findings of our study suggest that there are dramatic differences in variability in key aspects of the interaction within and between users, and within and between the search queries they submit. Our findings also suggest two classes of extreme user--navigators and explorers--whose search interaction is highly consistent or highly variable. Lessons learned from these users can inform the design of tools to support effective Web-search interactions for everyone.
White, Ryen W. and Steven M. Drucker. WWW 2007 (2007). Articles>Web Design>Search>User Centered Design
#34181
Do Not Crawl in the DUST: Different URLs with Similar Text
We consider the problem of dust: Different URLs with Similar Text. Such duplicate URLs are prevalent in web sites, as web server software often uses aliases and redirections, and dynamically generates the same page from various different URL requests. We present a novel algorithm, DustBuster, for uncovering dust; that is, for discovering rules that transform a given URL to others that are likely to have similar content. DustBuster mines dust effectively from previous crawl logs or web server logs, without examining page contents. Verifying these rules via sampling requires fetching few actual web pages. Search engines can benefit from information about dust to increase the effectiveness of crawling, reduce indexing overhead, and improve the quality of popularity statistics such as PageRank.
Bar-Yossef, Ziv, Idit Keidar and Uri Schonfeld. WWW 2007 (2007). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization
#34188
Why We Search: Visualizing and Predicting User Behavior
The aggregation and comparison of behavioral patterns on the WWW represent a tremendous opportunity for understanding past behaviors and predicting future behaviors. In this paper, we take a first step at achieving this goal. We present a large scale study correlating the behaviors of Internet users on multiple systems ranging in size from 27 million queries to 14 million blog posts to 20,000 news articles. We formalize a model for events in these time-varying datasets and study their correlation. We have created an interface for analyzing the datasets, which includes a novel visual artifact, the DTWRadar, for summarizing differences between time series. Using our tool we identify a number of behavioral properties that allow us to understand the predictive power of patterns of use.
Adar, Eytan, Daniel S. Weld, Brian N. Bershad and Steven D. Gribble. WWW 2007 (2007). Articles>Web Design>Search>Research
