Talk:Search engine optimization/Archive 5

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Practical SEO

Let's discuss whether the following material is necessary. My concerns are that the material is unsourced, we don't know if it's correct, and it seems like it may be redundant with other sections already in the article. Wikipedia is not meant to be a how-to manual. The material appears to be unique. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 01:39, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Practical SEO marketing

To improve a website's page ranking and ultimately increase traffic, the basic rules and logic of search engine ranking need to be taken into consideration, namely the relevancy and form of the content, and the number of visitors and links, which indicate the site's popularity. However, a gentle balance is required in order to optimize your position in search engine results, because the search engine's algorithms and crawlers have become so sophisticated that they can detect even the very subtle methods of "spamming" a website with content and links. The most efficient "white hat" method of getting around this problem seems to be complying with the search engine's requirements, i.e. writing and linking a website which truly serves the visitors. These are a few of the basic guidelines to successful SEO:

• New content is one of the most valuable resources in the web. The content of the website must be relevant, coherent and exclusive to its location.
• The website's interface must be usable and convenient, including helpful features such a site index, a Q&A page and means of contacting the administrators for tech support.
• The links to and from the site must be of reasonable quantity and high quality, meaning they link to and from sites with similar relevancy and high page ranking.
• Web crawlers also analyze the site's design and graphical aids, evaluating the work put into the website as a part of its relevancy.
• The actual traffic to the website is also calculated into the page ranking, so unless the site offers unprecedented content and/or service, successful advertisement of the site is also an important part of successful SEO.

Since links between sites are what actually make up the internet, and are the means of search engine's crawlers of exploring and noticing new websites, smart and careful linking can be the key to dramatically boosting a site's traffic and page ranking. In 2006 Google revised the way their algorithm evaluates links, and many sites with high ranking which were actually "link dumpsters", plummeted in the search engine results. The location of a link within a body of text, the relevance of the surrounding text, the title of the link word, and the location to which the link word points, now have more influence on page ranking. This has prompted the creation of many link directories and article directories, which are content-based websites, to which any visitor with a website may submit articles and link words or phrases from the article to his/her website, either for free or for money. For example, a person who owns a site that supplies gardening equipment can post an article about gardening, and link the word "water" from the article to an inner-page on his/her website which discusses irrigation systems. When done properly, this method has a good chance of increasing page ranking by following the SEO guidelines: quality, hand-picked, relevant link words, surrounded by relevant text, linking to relevant content in the target website.

Big Edit

The following edit isn't sourced, and reads like a strong POV defense of SEO, likely a response to the recent article by Jason Calacanis that claims SEO is 90% snakeoil. I think the content needs to be put in perspective, have references, and be recast to be more encyclopedic. We've raised the standard of this article significantly. Let's not backslide. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 19:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

This was not just a response to the article from Jason Calacanis. This is building up for months and Jason Calcanis post, Digg Response and ProBlogger post and comments did only provide the last little bit of motivation to do something. I was busy with the Affiliate Marketing article. Yesterday did I check the SEO article and discovered some serious flaws and missing items and missing references (not just the top section of the article, but throughout the article). The Social media aspect and that it is not SEO is missing in the article. Complaints from people about the quality and accuracy of the article mounted as well. Yesterday did I finally had it and sat down to work on the article and extended it, modified some parts that are simply misleading and cleaned up references. Did you check some of the references? There was a "Blog Comment"!!!! used as reference which was 2 sentences. Search Engine Watch (the homepage) was used as reference for the ranking factors. The article also does not include any clarification what the technical and for non technical folks "mysterious" changes to a site are that make it suddenly rank better. Also the clarification that SEO consists of two segments, the optimization of the target website (on-site) or everything in direct control of the site owner AND the factors the website owner does not control, the Off-site factors.

My additions were not meant as 100% perfect and tweaking was necessary. A complete reversal to the old version is the wrong action and I strongly suggest that you revert it back and have us together tweak it to get it right. You have to admit that the points I made clear in this comment (which are basically the point made in the additions to the article) can not simply be ignored. I am looking forward to your answers. Thank you. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 02:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Can someone summarize the dispute? I'd like to weigh in on it as a professional in this field. (Don't worry, I'm not here to promote anything of mine) NetOracle 04:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's a dispute. We need to go through the material below and do a bit of cleanup, and then add it to the article. I'd like to make sure the material has an encyclopedic tone and reliable sources. Right now it reads a little like a how to article. That should be easy to fix. I don't disagree with the substance. NetOracle, do you want to tell us your real world identity? Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 05:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

At this point, no. I've seen enough other notable people suffer grief for their contributions here, and I'd just like to operate here in an uneventful manner. I enjoy learning and writing, especially about deep subjects, and so I will continue on here out of recreation and constructive purpose, but not as part of a commercial endeavor. NetOracle 18:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Jehochman is right, it's not a dispute but a matter how to incorporate the suggested changes into the article. Thanks NetOracle. Jehochman, how about you rephrase my content as you see it fit, put it here at the talk page and then I will go over it and double-check that everything I believe should come across is still in there and then take it from there? --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 08:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Hyphens as a penalty - the evidence of that is too flimsy to include here, too variable by search engine, and if it was included there would need to be a huge amount of clarification.--AndrzejBroda 20:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I saw something that provided strong circumstancial evidence that too much hyphens are triggering either a penalty or at least manual review. We are not talking about one or two hyphens here, but more than that. Regarding the Clickthrough Rate. I read somewhere, but need to find the source, that hyphen in the name reduce clickthrough rates by US users, but not europeans, especially non-english speaking countries, like germany. A hyphen in the name makes it easier to identify and translate the words. Being a German who lives in the states for almost 7 years, I have to agree to that. I have to admit, that my first site was a two word domain with a hyphen as separator, on purpose. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 04:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

In a broad sense, SEO is marketing by appealing first to machine algorithms to increase search engine relevance and secondly to human visitors. SEO, however, does not necessarily imply that the content itself is favorable to algorithms at the expense of human visitors; a subfield within SEO concerns itself with optimizing a site's presentation and structure, without making noticeable changes to human visitors.

SEO is often very technical and not transparent for the average person. Some of the work of SEO's is not even visible to the human eyes (see Metadata for example), which supports the misconception that SEO is a way of "gaming" the search engines, which gives this young and mostly misunderstood industry sometimes a bad name..

The Service

The term SEO can also refer to "search engine optimizers", an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients.

On Site Factors and Off Site Factors

The work of SEO can be broken down into two major categories, "on site factors" and "off site factors".

"On site factors" are everything regarding the website that is being optimized itself, the content (text, images, multimedia), the html code, the hidden content (Meta Tags, page title (not headline), use of proper HTML elements), robots.txt (also invisible to humans), site structure, which includes internal linking, site navigation, URL format, error pages, duplicate content etc.

"Off site factors" are usually not or only in limited form controllable by the owner of the website. The most important off site factor are the type, location and target of links from other websites to "your" website. The importance of links from other websites did cause the development of complete business models around this. Examples are services like TextLinkAds or ReviewMe. A popular form of gaining links became what is now called Linkbaiting.

On site factors used to be the only factors in the early days of search engines, but off site factors gained more and more importance over the years. Google's PageRank and Inktomi's HITS algorithm (now owned by Ask.com) are good examples and demonstrate the importance of links from other sites to your own today.d

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

With the rise of social media and networking was a whole new form of marketing created as a side effect of that, called "social media optimization" (SMO) or "social media marketing" (SMM). SMO gets often confused with SEO. SMO is related to SEO, but are not the same. A complete different skill set is needed for SEO than it is for SMO. SMO is more related to Buzz Marketing or Word of mouth marketing, with some positive SEO side-effects.

part of the article --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 04:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Glossary?

Reading this page I was struck by the number of Acronyms and web-related terminology that could do with clarification. E.g. "PPC" (Pay per click), "organic search results", SERPs, etc. Blibbka 10:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can feel free to hit my talk page if they would like a SEO related clarification in any article on WP. NetOracle 01:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The section that was just added by Searchbliss and then deleted by Jehochman was pretty huge. It should probably be a separate article titled Search engine glossary similar to the E-learning glossary article. That way the search engine article could link it as well. After all, search engines and search engine optimizers are two factors in the same equation. This article shouldn't be written exclusively for SEOs. Oicumayberight 21:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Overreaching Obfuscation?

Is it just me or does this article seem to be over-stretching and obfuscating the domain of SEO to include or blur distinction between SEO, search engine marketing, internet marketing and marketing? I see clear distinctions between the boundaries of those domains in all of the above articles but this one. Oicumayberight 21:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It's partially you, and partially the nature of the topic. The distinctions in reality aren't clear or convenient, and I don't believe that there is any intent to overreach nor obscure. The term "SEO" had been in use for a number of years before the use of "search engine marketing" was suggested by people like Danny Sullivan back in 2001, and many consider SEO to be "search engine marketing." The same with "internet marketing" and "marketing." Back before search engines like Altavista and Google were around, we often referred to the practice as "web site promotion." A person practicing SEO often takes a holistic approach in their efforts that encompass SEO/marketing/internet marketing/search engine marketing. That may not make it easy for someone attempting to build an encyclopedia, but the wikipedia entry is reflection of the actual practice of SEO if the boundaries between those efforts aren't all that clear. No intent to deceive or confuse or mislead. Do you, or have you ever worked as an SEO? SEO isn't just tweaking title elements and fixing robots.txt files. SEO practitioners engage in competitive marketing analysis, SWOT analysis, defining business objectives and marketing strategies, understanding market segments and audiences, writing copy, and so on. SEOs are marketers - but marketers who understand something about how search engines work.Bill Slawski 00:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Even if the profession started out needing to re-invent the wheel in order to adapt, it doesn't give it the right to re-name the wheel. I understand that marketing for the web, marketing the web, marketing via the web, advertising via the web, and copywriting for the web all involve a level of understanding the technology that didn't exist before the web. However, that doesn't make whatever was known about marketing, advertising, and copywriting, "obsolete" since the advent of the web. And yet they all are applied to search engine optimization. The object of the game doesn't change as fast as the rules. The old rules may apply to new technology just as easily as new technology changes rules. SEO is still primarily a subset of search engine marketing, a subset of internet marketing, a subset of marketing. The only part of SEO that doesn't serve the function of marketing is SEO for non-profit organizations, if it's not considered "non-profit marketing". Oicumayberight 01:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Keyword selection, content building, site organization are all efforts involving marketing research i.e., (Q: do you structure a site around products and services, around specific audiences, around price points, etc. - A: You research the market, the competitors, the audiences, and others, and develop a marketing strategy based upon that research). SEO is marketing, and not an IT department function, even though it requires a much greater techical knowledge to be successful. SEM was an attempt to rename aspects of SEO, and not the other way around. I've done SEO for nonprofits that were marketing organizations. Those efforts involved creating marketing strategy as much they did building web pages to support those. SEO can as easily be considered "marketing including search engines" as it can be a "subset" of marketing. While it would be nice to find a simple definition, least common denominator based entries in the wikipedia serve no one responsibly. I'm hoping that we can avoid that. Can you clearly define which parts of the article that you take exception to? That might be more constructive than broad accusations of purposeful obfuscation.Bill Slawski 02:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It's the general tone of the whole opening section. If you want specifics: "a process of improving the volume of traffic to a web site from search engines, usually in "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results" couldn't be broader. That almost defines marketing in a nutshell. If you are talking about optimization in the broadest sense of the word, anything any business does to improve it's market share will effect search engine traffic, even if that business doesn't have a website. You could say that any marketing tool has its own set of problems that involve a specialized understanding. I could say post card optimization, brochure optimization, tradeshow booth optimization, television commercial optimization. It wouldn't make it any less a part of marketing. We understand that the web is a complicated medium. So is any form of mass media. It doesn't mean that all things important begin and end with the web.

We all know that search engine relevance is either based on algorithms or other marketing methods. I don't have a problem with SEO summing up the challenge in dealing with algorithms. Once SEO gets into explaining the challenges outside of algorithms, it gets into well established domains that have been around long before SEO. Oicumayberight 02:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Have you ever done SEO, or are you just writing about what you think SEO is, without any actual knowledge? I ask not to accuse or attack, but rather to understand your stance. The challenges in SEO go beyond algorithms to things such as understanding why someone might link to or visit one page over another. That's not a function of algorithm, but rather of marketing. Another example involves the choice of words within meta descriptions on pages. They aren't part of the index of Google or Yahoo, and the main reason to include them is to persuade people who see them as snippets on a search result page to visit the pages that they are associated with. SEO is more than algorithm chasing. I don't see how "improving the volume of traffic to a web site from search engines" is misleading.

And yes, there are even things that you can do that fall under the practice of SEO that don't require that a business have a web site, such as making sure businesses are verified within Google's local search.Bill Slawski 03:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the broader definition from this article, I have done search engine optimization. But I wouldn't consider myself a search engine optimizer. I've edited copy, but I don't call myself a copywriter. I've made marketing decisions, but I don't call myself a marketer. I have interviewed search engine optimizers, and I do think what they do is unique within the domain of SEO. When they step out of that domain, they are still in the domain of marketing, more specifically marketing communications. Keywords become buzzwords and soundbytes. Content placement becomes page layout. Content development becomes communication design, professional writing, visual arts and software development. It may still be for the purpose of gaining search engine prominence, but that's only for the purpose of market share, circulation, readership (surprised there's no article), sales, and everything else that serves marketing. I would be surprised if there was any SEO concern aside from algorithms that wasn't synonymous with a marketing equivalency established years before SEO.

What next? Education becomes a domain of e-learning? Business becomes the domain of E-commerce? I understand if SEO is too much of a specialty to stay busy and pay the bills. I have no problem with SEOs going out side of their domain to find work. I do have a problem with the world having to relearn most of our established vocabulary every time a new technology effects the market. Oicumayberight 04:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with it, but I am trying to understand your point of view, especially when it comes to the specific portion of the article that you pointed out. To me, "a process of improving the volume of traffic to a web site from search engines, usually in "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") is pretty clear and distinquishable from marketing as a whole. If you were to rewrite it, what would you say? Bill Slawski 05:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, that's a brilliant user name that you have. Wish I had been more creative in my choice. (Forgive me the aside, please.) Bill Slawski 05:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

There's a reason why there is no bachelors degree in "optimization" but there is a degree in "marketing". There is a reason why there is no bachelors degree in "learning" but there is a degree in "education". I'm just tired of all the re-labeling to suit the purpose of the profession, rather than the profession suiting the purpose of what feeds it. It's easy to see why someone who didn't major in marketing would resist adding the word "marketing" to what they do. I'm not accusing you specifically, but I know that the culture of computer science tends to overreach and relable everything in terms of the rigid dualistic logic that work so well with their crisp 1s and 0s. Some programmers act like they work and live in a vacuum.

Before new terms are forced into our vocabulary or technical terms are stretched beyond there usefulness, every effort should be made to see if an existing well-established term suffices. Oicumayberight 06:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

You are not the only one who is tired of that. You will love to hear that there are stronger movements active today, supported by search engines that work on a curriculum for certified SEO's that will be accepted by the industry. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 06:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Let's just hope they will include marketing in that curriculum. Otherwise they will find it difficult to predict what goes on in the head of the user. Oicumayberight 07:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Please don't get offended if I find humor in this discussion. I do. I'm going to be a guest speaker in a marketing class at a local university later this semester - I'll try not to mislead them too much. Bill Slawski 07:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No offense. I'm glad you have a sense of humor. Maybe the guest appearance will be a two-way learning experience.

I see you have a law degree. I'm curious as to how that translates to SEO or the reverse. I guess we all have a lot to learn with this still very young medium that is rapidly reshaping our planet. Oicumayberight 08:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Lots of ways, probably not quite the appropriate context here to go into in detail. I'm still learning a lot about marketing Web sites after 10 years, though I think that mobile search may have an even bigger impact and provide more for us to learn.Bill Slawski 15:30, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The two of you, did you see the template at the top of the page? It states: "This article is a frequent source of heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when commenting here". I was breaking down the Internet marketing category here. I intended to create a project to clean up the current mess that still exists in a lot of areas to Internet Marketing. Internet Marketing becomes more and more integrated and lines between once clearly separate types of marketing got blurred. Affiliate Marketing and Display Advertising are already overlapping each other to some degree, which was not the case a few years ago. Paid Search overlaps with SEO and if you want to be successful today and in the future, you better integrate all marketing method, including email marketing and what have not together and see it as a combined effort. This does not mean that you have to repeat everything in all articles, but that you will have some overlapping content across multiple articles. It should stop at a certain point and being referenced to the specific article that is more appropriate at a certain point, but that requires that all topic related articles are in a shape that allows to do that. Regarding SEO. It's the nature of the business to touch everything "physical" about a website and what affects it. That includes Website Design, Proper HTML Code usage, Copy writing and also some 100% SEO related things such as Meta Tags and Robots.txt. What it does not mean is that SEO's are designing and code your website and write all the copy for you. Most of the time consists the work of SEO the FIX and TWEAKING of the mentioned without re-doing it from scratch. Correct me if I am wrong Bill, because I am not the professional here and consider myself an amateur when it comes to SEO. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 05:39, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I seem to be heating things up to a boil. But this discussion needs to be had. I don't know why my experience came into question on a democratic forum. I know that this article is not being written to be read exclusively by professional search engine optimizers by title. Oicumayberight 06:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with democracy, but facts. If you tell a car mechanic what he is doing to fix your car and he says nope, I do this and also x other things you did not know about, the answer would be: Interesting, I did not know that. But insisting that you know better than the car mechanic what he is doing while he is at work is ridiculous. Do you expect the car mechanic to agree with you, just because you read the stuff you insist upon in a Car magazine? This has nothing to do with democracy. The SEO article needs improvement and there are clearly things that are open for debate, even among SEO's themselves. Those need to be discussed, yes, but don't tell a SEO what he is doing every day to earn his money for living. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 06:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see myself as telling the mechanic how to fix my car so to speak. I saw my self as telling the mechanic that "customer service" is broader than fixing the customers car, even if the customer service is for auto repair. That's putting it lightly. Boiling marketing down to SEO is like boiling the entire automotive experience (manufacturing, sales, warranty, insurance, maintenance) down to auto repair. Oicumayberight 07:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

unless you are an SEO yourself. And you will be surprises, not all SEO do exactly the same. There are specializations and niches. Like doctors, they all have the same basic understanding and knowledge and then they go off and specialize. The fixes brains, the other intestines etc. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 06:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

So now it's a practice or a science. That's fine, as long as it's not the practice of re-inventing and renaming the wheel. Oicumayberight 07:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to see that we are at the end on the same page after all. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 07:30, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I might rephrase it a little. SEO is not reinventing marketing but to some degree reinvents how the actual marketing is being done. Hands-on. The reason why SEO is still necessary is that algorithm based search engines are unfortunately not as smart as humans. I web page that can be clearly seen by a human does not mean that a search engine sees it properly, only because a human can navigate to a page does not mean that a search engine can, content that is perfectly clear to humans is not automatically clear to search engines. Now in order to tweak the technical sides of the business is it important to do that in alignment with the general marketing strategy of the website owner. You gain nothing if you have a perfectly SEO optimized site, if humans don't know what to do with it. Also some thinking needs to be a bit different than in traditional marketing. The thinking in terms of keywords and phrases used by THE CUSTOMER to find your site in the search engines. This concept is new and something companies have to learn to adapt to. Then it comes to the off-site strategies which have to equivalent in the offline world. The offline world is defined by physical space which is irrelevant on the Internet. A mom and pop shop can be in direct competition with a giant like walmart, because the two have the same size on the Internet and are closer than what we call next door in the offline world. Most Internet marketing methods need to consider those things. Some more than others and there are subtle differences between the ones that seem awfully similar, such as Paid search and organic. The beginning of the campaign will look very similar, if not identical to each other, but will become very different down the line. So nothing is being reinvented, but rather adopted to the different environment. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 06:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Technical problems have always changed the rules without changing the object of the game throughout history. And yet the establishment adapts. At one time it was thought that desktop publishers would need to hand code postscript.

It sounds to me that there's less adoption of working terms than there is strategic exclusions of those terms if they are from the perceived competition. You can just look at the history of some of these articles and see that dirty word "marketing" being edited out with no explanation. Marketing is a fact of life, no matter how many times it gets re-labled.

Again, I don't have a problem with the use of SEO and it's unique terms for it's unique problems. Once problems spill in to other domains and professions, it's time to use that profession's terminology if it suffices, not force the new terminology on the establishment. We all have a stake in this. Oicumayberight 07:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you and you will like this article from 2001 [1] and this one [2]. I hope that will make you feel better, because you are right too, you know. It's only that you can't change things over night. Regarding terminology. I come from a SAP background (German Software) which tend to re-label the same old thing to something new and used marketing to sell it as the great new thing to customers. Technically was it the same old, only the interface was redone. So I hear you.--roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 07:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

It looks like we are on the same page with the goals of the article. SEO has a place in the big picture, and the boundaries of the domain are slowly becoming clearer.

Thanks for the links. I found the phrase "search engine positioning" especially interesting. I use to think that the word "positioning" summed up marketing, until I heard of guerilla marketing. I guess the black hat methods would fall under the category of guerilla marketing. Consumers are getting too smart for guerilla marketing. Maybe the web will bring us back to good ol' fashioned positioning. Oicumayberight 08:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

(resetting indent) For what it's worth, I am an SEO, but I hate the term and avoid using it to describe myself because I think it's too narrow. I'm a marketing consultant because I have to help people with all aspects of their marketing (most of which focuses on the web). It would be daft to only look at organic search when so many aspects of marketing depend on each other. I still like the lead of this article, because SEO is a hugely popular term and the article reflects the current understanding that people have. I am sorry if the world is confused, but we have to take the facts as we find them. This POV -- that SEO as commonly used has expanded to include areas of traditional marketing, and that some people think it's silly to use a highfalutin phrase instead of just "marketing" -- could be added to the article if we can find a reference. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 12:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Possible Addition to External links

Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Tutorial

• http://www.htpcompany.com/internet_marketing_seo_tutorial_free.html - This well written SEO Tutorial explains in detail the steps of practical SEO, not just vague theories. The sample results speak for themselves and prove the author is one of the top experts on Internet marketing and search engine optimization in the world.

Voting on above - be the first to vote and comment on above.

Gladly-- No. It appears to be promoting the company, first and foremost. -- Mwanner | Talk 00:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Seo Techniques - Seo tech contain all information about search engine optimization, which is the sub set of searchengine marketing.SEO manage and improving the quality and visitors of a web site. it makes website content more search engine friendly to attract traffic by ranking higher.the seo helps that site is accessible to search engine and improve the chance that site will be shown by the search engine.

Voting on above - be the first to vote and comment on above.

75.82.249.29 16:32, 20 December 2006 (UTC)"Yes, some of what you say is partially true, however Wikipedia promotes itself also. Please focus on the important point of what can the average person learn from this practical search engine optimization tutorial? Also why would anyone believe what this SEO tutorial says without proof of results, so some company promotion comes with this. The current Wikipedia search engine optimization page is too technicial for over 80% of the average Joe's that may read it. Also it offers no proof that any thing it says will work. So I think adding this external link complements the theory given in the Wikipedia search engine optimization page. I like the Wikipedia search engine optimization page and fully understand it, I can tell you for sure that is not the case for every one that reads it. I showed it to ten people and only 2 out of 10 told me they understand what it is talking about. Also how does an external link to a dieing Directory (DMOZ) with a list of thousands of SEO companies of which most of them do not know what they are doing help any one? You need to add some external links to this main SEO page if you want to help people learn about this subject. The only current external link is of little value."

Link Building Resources

• linkMarket.net - Directory of Sites willing to trade links.
• google.com/trends - Google Trends - Use Google Trends to choose your anchor text wisely.
• EzineArticles.com - Ezine Article Submission - Submit Your Best Articles For Massive Exposure.
• getyourcontent.com - Post Free Articles - Post your articles at Getyourcontent.com. Allows authors to post unique content with Adsense code.

^---- I assume that this was also added recently --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 09:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

1. Please sign posts with --~~~~ and 2. also use ":", "::", ":::" and so forth for indenting your responses to another wikipedians note. Nobody is able to tell stuff appart otherwise. Now to the comments. 1) References to sources of more information are provided in the article (plenty for that matter). 2) The article had just until a month ago or so an External Links Section with Links to Matt Cutts Blog, WebmasterWorld, Threadwatch, HighRankings and SearchEngineWatch (which would have been replaced or extended by SearchEngineLand by now). A list of lists without additional purpose is an invitation to add any link you want to that is more or less related to the topic. Check the Dmoz listings and you will get an idea how much links the article would have in under 1 year since every english speaking SEO will be linked to from it. 3) last but not least, the section with links to other websites has to be titled "external links" see here. The section in the seo article was renamed back then because of that, before it was removed completely.--roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 09:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

75.82.249.29 16:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC) I am new to this and am sorry if I am not formating things properly. Please feel free to correct my formatting mistakes. I am willing to edit my own external documents based on feedback I recieve here. I am also sorry I do not fully understand what you wrote above. I am coming into this with a fresh persective of what the average person sees and understands when they first look a topic up on Wikipedia. I only see the one current external link that I think is not useful. Please help me understand why more and better quality external links do not show up on the search engine optimization page where the one DMOZ link shows up? That is what the average person will see and understand. WebmasterWorld will just try to get people to pay, so I do not think that would be a good external link.

75.82.249.29 17:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC) Also some of the ways you are doing things in Wikipedia appear to be causing Google to give you a penality or it is a Google defect. For a specific example look at search engine optimization vs. Internet Marketing in Wikipedia, the Internet marketing page has been recently penalized and taken out of the Google cache. You can see this yourself by noting that the Wikipedia Internet marketing page shows as a PR5, however it is not in the Google cache, which may indicate a recent penality or a Google defect.

Voting

I vote no. We're not creating a directory here. Those sites may indeed be very useful, but they aren't sources of info for the article, nor are they among the best available sources of info about SEO. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 07:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

• No is my vote as well. Primarily because the sites are not about SEO, but are tools and methods employed for different SEO Techniques and Research. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 08:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

• No for the same reasons as above. I'm not link-phobic, I've pressed for this article to contain more external links back when it had almost none, but these particular links are not worthy. -MichaelBluejay 09:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

• No! this is essentially a spam link. -- Mwanner | Talk 23:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong NO I am an SEO professional, and there is no way in hell I'd give up anything that wasn't already widely known. Anyone offering strong SEO techniques for less than an astronomical price is either an idiot or a fraud. Nobody is going to give away anything of high value, because keeping it private results in huge profits. NetOracle 01:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Link Suggestion for SEO

Shouldn't we include a more direct link to a page that contains the rules.

like: [3]; so that they can choose their favorite format (http coming soon, RSS, Blog)?

I couldnt find these things easily on those big sites, especially the forum... I think this is more what people are looking for at wiki; fast, easy info ontopic. This page disrecommends spamming.

Koen

Koen, Wikipedia isn't a directory that facilitates search. It's a compilation of knowledge. We don't add links, we add content, then cite the most authoritative source so users can verify the information they find in Wikipedia. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 04:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand. Some content is real hard to add; like http://video.google.nl/videosearch?q=matt+cutts since havent seen video on wikipedia yet. I bet it should be linked although its matt cutts personal vision and not google's. Can someone more experienced help out?

Rob Thrasher

I pulled this content because the editor is the subject of the discussion, and his article is subject to a { { notability } } discussion.

The first mentions of Search Engine Optimization do not appear on Usenet until 1997, a few years after the launch of the first Internet search engines. Although, the earliest mention of search engine optimization is in the New York Times on November 11th, 1996. A New York Times article about Search Engine Optimization was published about a small group of Web site developers in Utica, New York. This group claimed they used search engine optimization techniques geared at attaining a higher rank for customers that was prefectly legitimate to the business and Web site they were building. In this article Rob Thrasher agreed with Srinija Srinivasan, who helped develop the directory system for Yahoo, that keyword stuffing Web sites with impertinent keywords is bad Netiquette.

Let's discuss this before proceeding to add this material. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 01:19, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

sorry, I removed the block from the article. See this post by Danny where he mentioned the stuff Rob provided. The post is part of this thread at SEW Forums which I refered to from the Bruce Clay Article (Talk Page). See also my SEJ Blog post. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 10:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge from

Mergefrom|SEO Services & Search Engine Optimization Company|date=December 2006 Rich257 18:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I nominated that article for deletion join the discussion here. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 11:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The article was deleted. No need to merge. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 22:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

permanent semi-protection

I just requested permanent semi-protection for the article. The anonymous spam every day is getting old. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 16:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

New SEO tool

I think there is an useful tool: Site Information Tool Information about site/page including domain registration data (whois), Alexa Rank, IP Address, server response headers, page data (title, meta tags, links count) and more.

Wikipedia isn't a directory of useful tools. That link would not be appropriate for this the article. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 22:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

it is a nice tool and I added it to my site, but as Jehochman said, it is not appropriate for this article. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 07:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Photo

It would be nice if the article had a photo, or several photos. Which photos should we use? Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 18:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• The present photo is uninformative and looks pretty much useless. Shabda 11:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

  Please come up with something better first before you take it off. SEO is boring enough as it is without a picture. I would upload mine but you peepz would probably prefer the Yahoo one... Just be creative Wit 18:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

  What should be done to make Wikipedia better? Shabda, what photos do you think would be appropriate? Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 01:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Does this article even need a photo? There is nothing to illustrate. NetOracle 01:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Seocontests

A Portuguese seocontest, called esquillo seocontest is currently ending - ends the 8th of January. It would be interesting to publicize this regional seocontests. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.241.129.109 (talk) 12:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

Addition to External links

Mobile Phone Search Engine Optimisation

• http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/mobile-phone-search-engine-optimisation.asp/3311/ - This article gives an insight into SEO for mobile phones and handheld devices which is inevitably a major future topic of SEO. This has not been covered and is not mainstream enough to deserve a completely new heading under 'Future SEO' but can offer a resource for possiblities of future SEO.

The article was credited on the http://www.w3.org/Mobile/Articles-2006 - W3C Mobile website for W3C MWI in the press 2006.

Tambourinos 21:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• This piece seems to be located on the web site of an SEO firm. There's no independent editors reviewing the article. As such, I think it fails Wikipedia:Reliable sources -- Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 05:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• I would suggest to start a new article about mobile search and also one about mobile search marketing and seo and reference from the general seo article to it. It's still a new thing and would be a useful addition to the Wiki. How about it Tambourinos? Interested? Lets face it, there is no authority if something is new. Everybody is equally clueless until experience is gained. The early adopters will become the authorities of tomorrow. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 08:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• The article clearly qualifies as an additional source that will help and offer extended information and knowledge on the topic of search engine optimisation, but on a different media source. The article provides information that is possibly not mainsteam enough to deserve a seperate category as it is directly related to seo and is more a spin-off of seo, but it is resource that offers additional guideance on seo that many users may be completely unaware off. Agree on resource addition?

81.129.245.37 20:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

No, this article is too small and trivial, and located on SEO "optimisation" company website. Futurix 23:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

No, again, Wikipedia isn't a directory, nor a search engine, nor a place to publish original research or thought. It doesn't matter how informative the article may be. Until the content has been published by a reliable source, it should not be cited as a reference. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 04:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Both comments are complete contradictions. If you see my above proposal, the W3C are happy to add it as a reliable source; that clears up any reference issues. How can you justify how informative an article is by length? Wikipedia is a encyclopedia - so any comments of whether it is listed on a seo companys website is irrelevant. Please review the article and my comments and rethink why this article should be added, instead of why not to add the article.

86.147.53.82 18:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Your passion for adding a link is unexplained. If this article is so great, it should be published somewhere with editorial review, not on a corporate web site. Please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Frankly, W3C can link to whatever they like. That makes no difference to us. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 19:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

SEO related email spam

The way that this is written seems to draw the connotation that SEO is spam: "By 1996, SEO related email spam was commonplace.[2][3]" By 1996, all kinds of spam, on all kinds of subjects were commonplace. You can find spam from 1995 from people selling Valentine's Day candy through unsolicited bulk commercial emails. A good percentage of the email spam I receive these days involve stock tips, but that doesn't mean that stock brokers are spammers. I understand that this statement supports the next sentence, which states that the first place people can find a public statement referring to the use of the phrase "search engine optimization" was in a spam message on usenet. But, I think that this is misleading.Bill Slawski 10:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

• Then fix it! Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 16:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC) There, I took care if it. Feel free to re-edit. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 16:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The Service

The term SEO can also refer to "search engine optimizers", an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients.</nowiki>

....

SEOs widely agree that the signals that influence a page's rankings include:

SEOs widely agree that the signals that influence a page's rankings include:

implemented in article --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 04:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

....

More than Just Rankings

Factors that may improve search listing quality include: an attention-grabbing title, an interesting description, and a domain and URL that reinforce the legitimacy of the site. Some commentators have noted that domains with lots of hyphens look spammy and may discourage click throughs.

Factors that may improve search listing quality include: an attention-grabbing title, an interesting description, and a domain and URL that reinforce the legitimacy of the site. Some commentators have noted that domains with lots of hyphens look spammy and may discourage click throughs and even cause penalties by search engines.

references added to article and blog post comment references (6) removed from article. I also did not add the phrase "... and even cause penalties by search engines" due to the lack of substantial evidence. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 04:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment

The best use of page titles SEO'Brien, December 2006 Paul 17:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Adding a link to an article

Hello, I'd like to add a link to an interesting article about SEO and branding. The link is: http://www.easynet.co.il/sem_articles/seoing_a_brand.php

The article does appear in a commercial site, but I think it has an added value for the readers of this wiki entry. What do you think?

Davidoff 13:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Forget it. There will be no links to any articles located at websites of search marketing firms like yours. Futurix 13:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Remember your happy face. He's probably just inexperienced, not evil. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 18:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Davidoff, feel free to add content to the article, but make sure you look at Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Reliable sources before adding links. This article wouldn't be appropriate because it's self-published, so it hasn't been subjected to editorial control or independent fact checking. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 13:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

Sorry, but this article is a mess. It rambles, is redunant, and often off-topic. Please help me clean it up. In short, this should be an encyclopedia article explaining what SEO is, not how to do it. Not a dog 06:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

One requires the other IMO. SEO is for the most part a number of specific things you have "to do". Those things you should do and the priority of them are changing constantly, because of the always changing algorithms and other methods used by search engine to collect, aggregate, return and rank references to websites on the internet in their search result pages. I believe that what you have in mind is what is called "Search Engine Marketing". SEO might not be as technically as it used to be and gets better integrated into other internet marketing strategies and affords by webmasters, but at it's core is it nothing else then "Do this" and "do it this much" and "do it this way" for optimal results. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 10:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

DMOZ - Directory Made (itself) ObZolite

Professional Web Site Design

Anyone working in the SEO field must have realized that DMOZ has self desctructed over the last few years. There seems to still be so much talk about the directory and Google has even built a directory around it. WHY? The information in the directory (at least in many of the obsolete categories) is out of date and some does not even exist any longer. What is worse than that is that it is near impossible to get any new information into it!

So, why does Google still have a directory that uses dead information if they are the half baked Wikipedia of the internet. If anyone can offer insight to the continued existence of the DMOZ then please share it with us. If anyone has any influence on the DMOZ please flex your muscle and get it back online and up to date so we all can enjoy a real time internet and not an antique shop of outdated links and information. --President Subnetconsulting.com 11:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)CraigSeverance—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cseverance (talk • contribs) 11:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

• I don't think this is the proper forum to discuss this question. Maybe you want to go post at Webmaster World, HighRankings, or Search Engine Watch. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 13:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Web Reporting for Search Engine Visibility

Most people who are trying to find out if their site shows up on search engines do not understand the processes involved. First the site must be indexed. Then, if it was built or optimized correctly, the site might show up for searches intended by the site owner. More about that later...

Indexing of your site simply means having the site recognized by a search engine. This happens when the search engine spiders go through the pages of the site, starting with the index, or main page. Spiders are robots operated by search engines whose purpose is to find out what content a site has in the form of text and images.

Once spiders have read each page from top to bottom of a site, the information is gathered into a database and an algorithm computes the site's relevancy. Search engine algorithms are the holy grail of search engine optimization. Their function, for obvious reasons, are a tightly guarded secret. The major search engine's algorythm differ in their ranking technique, giving each of them a kind of personality.

Did I miss the coverage of this in the article? What is this, entertainment for Wikipedians? Wolfline: Did you check first how much traffic this talk page gets, who is coming here, how long the content will stay on the page before being move to the archive and if this page and other archive pages are indexed by Search Engines such as Google at all? No? mmmh... --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 10:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

How one optimized their site should depend on which search engine they are trying to get high ranking or visiblity. Once the optimization process has been implemented, search engines can take anywhere from a few days to recognize a site's content to several months. Search engine algorithms are always being tweaked and adjusted as the engineers who operate them learn more and more about web sites. This process can appear as an ebb and flow of ranking and visibility to all sites.

Okay, when did you write that? 10 years ago? You sound like that there are as diverse choices, even initial choices as there used to be back in the days when the SE landscape looked a bit dufferent than today.

"on which search engine they are trying to get high ranking or visiblity",

"Google" and then everything else that makes the time spent on it worthwhile. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 10:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The best way to stay on top of a particular site's visibility is to run a regularly scheduled report that performs automated searches. Using an automated report generator can remove the painstaking and time consuming process of hunting for a site's search engine ranking and position. The report can be set up to use a list of search phrases, or "search strings", that the owner wants their site to show up for. It can also track the visibility of competitor's site.

Scraping the SE results? Sure, SE's love that and help you with support in case you run into some issue or have some question. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 10:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The author of this article employs such a report generator, WebPosition Gold 3.5. Another useful aspect of this program is its ability to upload the finished report to a web site for online viewing. This can be valuable to a search engine optimization company that shares the report's results with its clients. Almost always customers of SEO firms want to know if the service they paid for is actually panning out.

good luck finding V3.5. But this narrows down the probable time window down of when the article was written, between March 15, 2005 and September 12, 2005 . From the sound of it, would I gesss early 2005 rather than towards the end in september. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 10:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Visibility will not always translate to sales for a web site owner. Just because a site shows up high for a search result does not mean that site will necessarily get the desired result. Many factors play a part; demand for the product, econony, etc. An SEO firm can protect itself by supplying the report to its customers for proof of work performed. That way, if the desired result was not obtained, the SEO firm can point to the search engine visibility for success.

The author of this article provides search engine optimization service as well as reporting. The report is an integral part of the service. Clients feel a level of comfort knowing they will get a report on the performance of the services they paid good money for.

More information about this service can be found by visiting MyWebReporter.com Wolfline 20:45, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yawn *cough* promo *cough* Wit 14:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I took the liberty to remove the link to the site in this "article", even with nofollow in place.

Hey Wolfline, are you offering 2005 SEO retro packages? --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 10:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

GA

Congratulations, the article is now a GA. The article is quite well written delving fairly deep but maintaining accessibility to laymen; while being broad in coverage of topics as well. It is mostly properly and verifiably referenced and overall not much PoV.

But, there is a bit lacking as well, mainly the More sophisticated ranking algorithms section, which focusses too deply on one approach to appear evanelizing it and appearing like an editorial rather than an encyclopedia article. That is compounded with lack of references with that. It needs to be fixed before the article can get to the FA status. --soum (0_o) 19:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Whats Up with this Blatant Advertising?

Header: Getting into search engines' databases has a link to a Blogspot blog. I don't think this is appropriate!217.194.34.103 12:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)jasonjnoble

Then delete it. If that is the case, it may be sneaky vandalism. Jehochman (^talk/_contrib) 13:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The Names Aren't Name Drops

Michael, there was a specific request from one of the featured article reviewers to replace "some experts" with a specific list of names, with a source. That's what was done, and it represents the consensus. You've now twice reverted against the consensus. Please don't make the same edit twice without discussing first. I will gladly discuss this with you. If we can't substantiate the statement with names and a source, we may have to remove the statement completely. See WP:WEASEL. Jehochman ^Talk 18:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Are there any leading non-profit organizations related to SEO we could cite instead of a collection of people? But, I say, if it's sourced, keep it in. If we don't name names, we have to take it out. --Ceas webmaster 19:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The way it is now is the way it started. AnonEMouse requested naming names to satisfy WP:WEASEL. I complied. Now another editor comes along and requests the opposite. I'm caught in the middle and could be happy either way. Which is best? My inclination is to follow AnonEMouse since he seems to be more familiar with Wikipedia policy. Jehochman ^Talk 19:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The article is about Search Engine Optimization. Mentioning SEO experts is par for the course. Our article on Chess mentions dozens of important chess players, our article on Baseball mentions important baseball players, our article on Physics mentions important physicists. That's beside the WP:WEASEL point that we shouldn't just say "Some SEOs" or even "Many SEOs", since that naturally begs the question - "like whom?" We should say whom. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

How do you quantify something that was not exactly measured but becomes apparent if you look to places where it is debated or an opinion is expressed without the option to discuss it? If you look at lets say 100 places and 95 support it and 5 do not. How do you refer to either of the two things. You can't refer to all 100 to enforce "some" if you are referring to the 5 and "many" if you are referring to the 95. Well you could refer to all the 100, but you do that with a few of such cases and Dmoz Editors might become jealous of your collection of links (that's meant as a joke). Seriously, how do you solve that problem, if you can't find a source that did the aggregation and quantification for you (by counting the opinions or doing a survey)? A lot of people (WEASEL) don't like to have an accident. Does there exist a reliable statistic or survey that confirms that? Probably not. That makes it tough to write about safety features and why they were developed. It created jobs, I am sure that there is a statistic that shows that. Does this make sense? --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 20:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

nope. --Rebent 20:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

We are talking about emotions and believes here, because the problem with the subject is that the facts are not known to the public in a lot of cases. "Your guess is as good as mine." is a saying that fits the description. If a lot of people have the same feeling or believe (based on incomplete facts), chances are good that it is true. This can not be applied to everything, but I think it can be applied to things that are scientific to some degree and only the "last few pieces" of facts are missing and have to be replaced by believes and feelings. Without an acknowledged genius or guru available is it pretty inaccurate if you pick only a few people's believes and feelings. You probably end up picking the ones that feel and believe as you do. Does this make sense? :) --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 20:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

These happen to be four SEOs who have Wikipedia pages, some even tested by AfD. I believe they are clearly notable, and probably the most prominent names in the industry. If somebody wants to change the names, the burden should be on them to come up with a justification. Deleting the names was wrong, probably POV pushing, and could be reverted if we have a consensus. I am not going to revert Michael Martinez again myself, but another editor could. Jehochman ^Talk 21:04, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Including the names is wrong for the very same reason so many other SEOs have been deleted from various articles. Whether they have Wikipedia articles is really not germaine to the issue. These people are no more expert in SEO than anyone else who runs a popular blog or forum and they certainly don't publish the results of "controlled experiments". I've been involved with the SEO world since 1998 and I have yet to come across anyone who publishes credible research on the topic. You're asking the Wikipedia community to promote this article to featured status and you're dropping in names on the basis of who has a Wikipedia article. Sorry, Jonathan, but that doesn't qualify anyone (in my opinion) to be deemed representative of the SEO community.

Wikipedia is loaded with biased, misleading content as it is. Choosing names on the basis of who won the Wikipedia Celebrity Contest doesn't improve the quality of an article that still has errors of fact.Michael Martinez 21:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

comment'. I have to agree with Michael Martinez regarding the use of names in this context. They are irrelevant and replaceable. You can find the voices out there and then make up your own mind or own research. I was for this reason argueing about the WP:WEASEL critism and that there are cases where general quanitifications like "some", "few", "many" or "most" are a better choice than names that mean nothing. If a statistic or survey result can be found to support the statement, perfect, use it. Only reliable and representative statistics and surveys though. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 08:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Please sign your posts on talk pages. Also, avoid using multiple account identities in the same discussion as that could be construed as sock puppetry. Jehochman ^Talk 21:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Jonathan, please give me a little credit for knowing how to do the basics. My boss came by and wanted to talk so I closed the browser window.

Please focus on the issues and stop nit-picking over small stuff. Michael Martinez 21:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Let's not nit pick. I've spent a lot of time going over this article with several editors who have a huge amount of experience with Wikipedia. Do you want to help improve the article? You've made edits that went against a consensus that was carefully developed, including this specific issue of naming SEOs. There are many ways to improve this article, and there are related articles such as Internet marketing that are in desperate need of attention. If you want to suggest changes or make edits, that's fine, but please don't cause disruption just to make a point. Jehochman ^Talk 22:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

As someone who has contributed to this article and related topics in the past, I appreciate the amount of time and effort you have invested, Jonathan. However, the consensus of Wikipedians means nothing with respect to accuracy and bias. It could fairly be said that you and I have implemented extreme bias in the SEO article because we have cleaned out alternative points of view that you and I know are not sensible.

In my opinion, the article is too brief and as written relies too much on sweeping generalizations. But the reason why I picked on the four names is the lack of standards in our industry. The article does not even address the issue. Therefore, to hold forth anyone as an expert or authority is misleading. There are no authorities in the industry. For certain related topics, such as Google's quality guidelines, people like Matt Cutts are certainly highly authoritative. For documenting the history of the field, Danny Sullivan is a very credible source of information. Even Barry Schwartz is a very credible source of information with respect to the history of popular topics in the SEO discussion communities.

But I draw the line there. No one else needs to be mentioned, certainly not in the context provided. Just consider for a moment the negative impact additional names will have on the way the article will be perceived. People will say it's extremely biased toward "your friends" -- a very common complaint made about who gets selected for certain SEO events. There are no exceptional qualifications that people like Aaron Wall, Jill Whalen, and Rand Fishkin bring to the table. They blog. They run SEO communities. Big deal. A lot of other people do, too.

Our industry has no universally accepted certifications of quality. No one has earned the right to be used in a feature article as an example of "notable" SEO this or that. I guarantee you that Aaron, Rand, and Jill are not cutting edge SEO theorists. They certainly don't publish credible research results. I have no objection to the article saying that many SEOs share their opinions through newsletters, white papers, blogs, forums, and freelance artilces but I cannot accept any sweeping generalizations about people who are chosen because they have Wikipedia pages or because they may be popular. That's a total disservice to the SEO community and to the Wikipedia community, which is struggling with a huge credibility issue.Michael Martinez 02:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Michael, I'm willing to hear a better suggestion. Until then, we have to live with the imperfections of both the SEO community and Wikipedia consensus and "popularity contests" (I assume you mean Wikipedia:Notability). It's like arguing whether Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth or Pete Rose or Ty Cobb should be mentioned in the Baseball article. Each have their boosters and their detractors, we can probably have a fine article without mentioning any one of the (it looks like we don't mention Rose right now for example), but we really can't live without mentioning any of them. The perfect is the enemy of the good - Voltaire. If you can make it better, do so. If you can find SEOs that are somehow even more worthy of mention by objective criteria, mention them as well or instead. Just deleting all the names because you can't find better ones, makes it worse. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I am enjoying this discussion, so let's see if it goes somewhere productive. Here are some possible choices for namable SEOs.

1. Jill Whalen - been around a very long time, regular conference speaker, top ranking for terms like "search engine optimization expert", has an SEO newsletter with ~25,000 subs.
2. Bruce Clay - long time expert who consistently ranks on the first page of Google for "Search engine optimization"
3. Rand Fishkin - his blog, SEOmoz.org was rated best SEO blog [4] in a poll by Search Engine Journal.
4. Aaron Wall - another regular speaker, wrote SEO Book, and was ranked third in the above poll. Got sued by Traffic Power for speaking out against black hat SEO.
5. Danny Sullivan (technologist) and Barry Schwartz (technologist) we agree on. Barry's SEO Roundtable was ranked second in that poll of blogs.

We've covered the first, second and third ranking blogs, and the top two ranking experts (evidence that they know their stuff), plus Danny, who is considered the godfather of this industry. If you want to name others, please make a list with evidence. Jehochman ^Talk 16:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Michael, you think SEO is a messy industry? Affiliate marketing is worse and "no universally accepted certifications of quality" is only one of the smaller issues there. Anyhow, that can't be changed, but is an important point. I would suggest to add a paragraph to the article that explains the state of the industry to make sure that readers will be able to see the remaining content of the article in the right context. I did that in the affiliate marketing article. It's not perfect, but explains some of the other things pretty well. It also allows the addition of some names, if you can't do without, without to much problems that those names will be credited with something they should not be credited for. This kind of "disclaimer" might be something that could be stardardized, because SEO and Affiliate marketing are not the only industries that lack standards, regulations, organization and generally accepted certifications.--roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 09:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

nofollow

nofollow is not mentioned anywhere. I thought it was. No need to go into full details since I extended the article to nofollow quite a bit. Any comments? --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 05:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

We could expand the article to discuss ways of controlling indexing, and then mention nofollow, and robots.txt briefly. Jehochman ^Talk 06:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

another option would be to do something like I did at the affiliate marketing article. See the "see also" section. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 08:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I just extended and structured the "see also" section of the article where I also included the robots.txt, meta elements and nofollow amoung a bunch of other articles that I believe to be relevant. You might be able to think of more, but those were the ones I could think of, right out of my head. --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 11:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Editing help needed at search engine marketing and Search Engine Land

Both of these article have been nominated for deletion. Please consider volunteering your time to make improvements. Jehochman ^Talk 06:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Mobile

This article seems to be biased towards PC search, with Mobile Search being completely ignored. Mathiastck 15:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to add mobile search to the article using appropriate references. Jehochman ^Talk 22:23, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Main page

I'd like to feature this article on the main page, but it lacks a copyleft image. I leave it up to your collective imaginations to think of a suitable copyleft image. Raul654 04:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

We'll come up with something, even if we have to convince somebody to donate an image. GFDL works too, eh. Jehochman ^Talk 05:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This seems like the sort of topic that might benefit from a diagram or two.--Pharos 07:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The challenge is that the diagram would have to be semi-legible at 100px wide for it to be useful on the main page. Jehochman ^Talk 12:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Black hat POV?

In hacking, "black hat" always implies unethical, and it sounds suspiciously self-serving of that source to say the word doesn't carry the same meaning in the SEO context. Black hat SEO attempts to pollute search engine indexes to give less valuable results, for the sake of personal gain. If left unchecked it can make searches almost useless. It's pretty clearly unethical behavior by my lights, and I don't like the way this article seems to minimize it. First, by not mentioning in the lead (in my circles, "SEO" is often a shorthand for spammy tactics), and then by claiming it's not so much unethical as a difference in "business model". Yeah, in the same way that insider trading and options backdating is a different "business model" in the financial industry. I edited the lead to mention spamdexing and removed the line claiming it's not unethical. Redquark 02:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I've edited for brevity to prevent the lead from growing too long. Jehochman ^Hablar 03:07, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, and making sure that the content is easily indexed by search engines and also appeals to human visitors"

I found this sentence rather interesting, considering this is a featured article. "Human visitors"? As opposed to what? I don't think there are many animals or aliens visiting search engines. Just something I thought I should point out. I'll leave it to up to other people whether or not they want to edit it, as it is a minor detail. --Mathew Williams 09:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Bots are visitors too. They aren't human. Jehochman ^Hablar 10:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Like User:Jehochman says, humans aren't the only things that browse the internet. See Web crawler and Internet bot, for example.--Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 11:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

New Diagrams

I reverted to the last good version before an editor added some diagrams. Problems with the diagrams include:

1. Improper licenses. The images contain a copyright notice.
2. Unsourced statements. Controversial assertions are presented as fact, and aren't supported by a reliable source.

Feel free to discuss, but please do not re-add these materials until there is a consensus. Jehochman ^Hablar 05:47, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

International Markets

I made the addition below, after spending a considerable amount of time gathering the data involved in this research. It is an important survey for the international section that can be informative to both international companies considering SEO and for compines wishing to target these markets and wanting some cold hard data to either justify it or not. Please let me know if you can come up with better wording or if you believe the referenced article should have more detail.

As a result, an increasing number of international companies are contacting U.S. based firms to help market their services or products.[45]

Semnews 06:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC) semnews

Your own blog doesn't meet Wikipedia's requirement for verifiability. I suggest you publish this study in a third party journal, and then post a link to it on this talk page. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

"In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers." This does not exclude my information from inclusion." ClickZ footnote 49 and many other sites do not meet this guideline. The mere fact that it is not in a university Journal does not make this study unverifiable. I have marketed websites for over ten years back before Goto changed its name to overture. I have data backing up the study and all information is verifiable. Did I have PWHC audit the information? No, of course not, but the fact that it is my own blog does not take away the credibility or verifiability of the study. I am happy to publish more of the much of the actual data used in the study if you believe this to be necessary. However, unless thre are objections from other members of the wiki community over the next few days, then I will and have every right to publish this information on the page.

Semnews 22:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)Semnews

It's a conflict of interest to add links to one's own work into Wikipedia, especially when others are opposed. I strongly recommend that you avoid doing that. - Jehochman ^Talk 00:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that this is a featured article, and that the references have been reviewed extensively. Wikipedia doesn't treat paper references as more valuable than online sources. The distinction between your own site and ClickZ is that ClickZ has editorial staff who review submissions and decide what to publish. They also provide independent fact checking. Really, believe me, your best course of action is to publish your study on a third party site that has editorial review. Then I'd be happy for somebody (but not the author) to cite your study as a source. I might even cite it myself. - Jehochman ^Talk 11:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice. That sounds fair enough. I understand the concerns with credibility. Do you have suggestions on where I might be able to publish the information? One problem is that I do not want the study on my own site to be viewed as duplicate content by the search engines. Thank you for the guidance.

Semnews 19:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)semnews

I would try some of the sources listed in the article, such as Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land, and WebProNews. As for duplicate content, I wouldn't worry about it. You want to get your name out there and spread your ideas. It's not necessary to drive people to your own site. If they see that you've written a useful article or study, that will help you more. Best wishes - Jehochman ^Talk 20:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

SEO organizations

SEMPO does it need to be there?ceo 10:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It's the leading SEO professional organization. Yes, I think it belongs, even though I don't particularly like them. I grudgingly pay my membership dues. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There are many more similar organizations. But, I think it is not good to include them. It will be a problem adding all of those. It is like authorizing unnecessary importance. Again Paid membership is always a problem. ceo 09:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, SEMPO is the organization within this industry that meets Wikipedia's notability requirement. If any others qualify and have articles, they can be listed too. SEMPO operates worldwide too. - Jehochman ^Talk 13:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Listings Language Incorrect

Listings exist in directories. Search engines have rankings. We should change the language to be more accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabriel Goldenberg (talk • contribs) 19:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I made a few adjustments to the article. Btw. search engines have indexes that either include or not include content from your site. That is the equivalent of a "listing" in a directory. search engines and directories both have rankings (directories rank often simply alphabetically, but some rank also by importance or popularity). Just FYI :) --roy<sac> ^Talk! .oOo. 12:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

P. Karthickeyan is greatest SEO in india

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Link exchange

FYI, see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Link exchange. --A. B. ^(talk) 18:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ken Jurina

FYI, see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ken Jurina. If any SEO types here know of any reliable sources that meet the very particular requirements of our Notability Guideline please let us know at the AfD. Note that in this case, the reliable sources we need are a small subset of what you might think of as reliable sources --see the guideline.

Likewise, if Mr. Jurina is not notable and such sources don't exist, we'd appreciate knowing that as well.

Thanks! --A. B. ^(talk) 17:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Andy Beard and other notable SEOs

Can someone take a look at Andy Beard and see if we can bring the article back to life. I thought we were getting a positive consensus until an admin killed it. User:Igorberger/Andy_Beard Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Andy_Beard

Andy Bear is an SEO and a social media consultant.

If you say he is not is like saying Aaron Wall, Jehochman, Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Danny Sullivan are not SEOs. IMO something wrong here. Michael Gray and David Naylor should be added as well. Any thoughts? Igor Berger (talk) 07:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Discussion on adding outbound link.

This is actually my first attempt to suggest anything in a wiki, so forgive me if I'm doing it wrong. I was told I should ask and discuss things before posting them into wiki articles.

I'm currently building a knowledge database for search engine optimization, I'd like to be able to display a link to it on this wiki entry, I feel it could help users further their optimizing needs for more direct questions. The URL is below, if it can be reviewed and someone give me an answer I would greatly apperciate it.

http:// www.civicseo.com

I've been using my current SEO knowledge plus common questions i find on forums to build this knowledge database if anyone is in question where the data is coming from.

Civicseo (talk) 02:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Please don't add the link; see WP:EL and WP:COI. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 02:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for a quick response. Civicseo (talk) 02:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for asking. You're more than welcome to contribute content to the article. Cheers, OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 02:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sort of new to this, so what is the proper way to go by on and add content to a wiki article? Civicseo (talk) 02:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

OutBound Link Review

I Read in the Contact Wikipedia section that I can have my Site Reviewed for an Outbound Link! I would greatly appreciate this. The site for review is... Webpromo.zxq.net.

There is beautiful content on Search engine Optimization, and much more about Internet Marketing. Thank you for you time.

j —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.243.8.86 (talk) 17:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Please do not add the link, you can add content directly to the article.

SDSandecki (talk) 21:08, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

PageRank

Please make reference to PageRank where you feel is fit in the article. PageRank is the foundation and the most integral part of SEO. Igor Berger (talk) 23:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a reference to Pagerank in this article already, it also interlinks to the Pagerank article. SDSandecki (talk) 23:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh okay, I found it. I must have missed it being that I watch for Spammers and vandals all the time and have not really read the article from top to buttom but just summarized it. Over the years I know the story by heart..:) Igor Berger (talk) 23:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

It happens, I had to double check. :) SDSandecki (talk) 23:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)