SEO…From Past to Present
Brent D. Payne
TRIBUNE INTERACTIVE
Once Upon a Time…
Not So Long Ago…
LMFAO!!! That’s
@BrentDPayne
with a mullet!!
…There Were No Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1992
But Then Things Changed…
The #BaldSEO
begins to
emerge!
…And There Were Lots of Search
Engines
Launched
Circa: 1993
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1994
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1994
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1994
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1994
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1994
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1995
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1995
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1996
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1996
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1996
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1996
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1998
Lots and Lots of Search Engines
Launched
Circa: 1999
Back Then… Google Was Insignificant
1.25%
0.85%
I had less than
1% of the
market in ‘99.
0.80%
1.58%
2.76%
5.05%
8.91%
11.18%
55.81%
11.81%
Yahoo!
Excite
Altavista
Infoseek
Lycos
Go To
Snap
MSN
Northern Light
Google
But Now… There are Just a Few
And Google Dominates Market Share
Yahoo!
15%
Bing
8%
Ask
3%
All Others
2%
Google
72%
Oh…And I No Longer Have a Mullet...
Look…no hair!!
…I’m Now Bald
Plus, Now 70% of Users Don’t Go
Beyond the First Page . . .
Well, looks like
getting to that
first page is
REALLY
important then.
And There Are Many Ways to Rank In
Google Universal Search
I am actually
quite a
complicated
robot.
I serve content
from many
different indexes
on a single page.
I am launching
more and more
One-Box items, like
the Music One-Box
and Real-Time
One-Box.
…So It Becomes Rather Important to
Learn More About How Google Works
Ahhh. I feel
special that you
want to get to
know me better.
How Does Google Find Content?
Specialized Googlebots
Differing Functions of Googlebot Crawlers
•
•
•
•
•
•
Googlebot News
Googlebot Titles
Googlebot Content
Googlebot Links
Googlebot Images
Googlebot Blogs
How Does Google Store and Index a
Page’s Content?
Can you discover
which pages contain
“civil” and “war” and
“reconstruction”?
[Answer: Only documents 35, 48, and 91 contain all three words "civil" and "war" and "reconstruction."]
How Does Google Rank Content
We All Know the Basic Ranking
Factors…
Popularity
Popularity
LOCAL BLOGS
CNN
SMALL
WEBSITES
NYTIMES
PERSONAL
PROFILES
LATIMES
AUTHORITY
Popularity
RELEVANCE
On-Page
Link
Text
OffPage
URL
But For News Sites…PageRank is a
Smaller Piece of the Puzzle
SocialMedia
Buzz
Domain
Mentions
Clickthrough
Link
Structure
Local
Coverage
Freshness
NewsRank
Authority
Content
Expertise
So What Can We Do as News Sites to
Get Our Content to the Top of Google?
This is a great piece
of content. I can’t
wait to share it
with the world!
Google News: It’s About
the One-Box
Google News One-Box
• Appears on first page of Google Web for breaking news content
• Is piped into several other Google products
• THIS IS WHAT MATTERS MOST!
Google News Homepage
• Decent traffic (though not like Yahoo! Homepage)
• Increases crawl and indexing in alternative search engines
Google News: Inclusion Submission
Google News Inclusion Submission Form
• Google News is by submission only. Furthermore, the site must be approved by Google to be in
Google News.
Submission Form URL
• http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/request.py?contact_type=suggest_content
Recent Changes to Google News
What Google States…
• Google has stated repeatedly that they recrawl news
articles
• Google states there is no need to create new URLs
for updates to stories
• Google states they can detect the originator of news
stories
• Google states they don’t follow ‘nofollow’ links
• Google states to just create ‘quality content’
• NEW GOOGLE NEWS SITEMAP FORMAT!
Recent Changes to G’News: The Things
Tribune is Seeing
Recrawl Rate
New URLs for
Updates
Originator of
News Story
NoFollow
Links
• Google is recrawling between 35% to 45% of the Tribune stories/columns
• Recrawl is based most significantly on topic of the content in relation to the
day’s news
• Google is following links in the recrawled stories, updating content in index
• Google has significantly slowed how quickly ranking factors are transferred in
a 301 redirect
• Canonical tag is working well when the following match: Title tag, H tags, etc.
• Less weight on updating of content based on link structure, more on content
• Textual mentions of the originator of a news story is still spotty (at best)
• Even with links back to the originator of a news story, Google often fails in
G’News and G’Web
• Use of canonical tag is powerful in designating the originator
• Google is following links mentioned in powerful social media profiles
• Google is following links retweeted significantly on Twitter but only if topical
• Google is following links on high PageRank pages to other internal pages if
those links are topical to high volume search queries of the day
Recent Changes to G’News: As for
‘Quality Content’
We Get Paid As SEOs to Gain An
Advantage… There are Still
MASSIVE Opportunities to Gain
an Advantage by Doing Proper
SEO
Recent Changes to G’News: New
Google News Sitemap Format
Faster Crawl Rates
• Google is accessing the information in the Google sitemaps faster than before
• Takes less than 5 mins on all Tribune sites now
• Topically related content to Google search trends gets more attention
Breadth of Crawl on Articles
• They are digging deeper into the sitemap even on less important sites
• Topically related content to Google search trends gets more attention
More Accurate Article Information
• Nearly flawless indexing of information
• Used to have issues with them grabbing wrong headline or dates
Details Regarding Content
• Be careful of your designations of content types
• There are specific types you will want to avoid (sorry, proprietary)
So…Do Your Keyword Research!
Weather
Local
News
Fashion
What are
people
searching for?
How can I find
out?
Sports
Movies
Politics
Food
Horoscopes
Travel
<Relevance>
Google Keyword Research
Tool
Provides long list of
related terms (exports)
Shows approx. search
volume
Shows advertiser
competition for terms
Shows keywords by URL
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Google Hot Trends:
Introduction
Top 40 Search Terms
• Shows highest volume
search terms by percentage
of increase
• Updated every hour on the
hour
Powerful for . . .
• Breaking news
• Historical top terms by date
http://www.google.com/trends
Google Trends: Michael
Jackson’s Death
http://www.google.com/trends
Google Hot Trends: An Indication
of Hourly Search Trends
Hotness Factor
• Volcanic – Extreme volume, usually high competition
• On Fire – High volume, considerably less competition
• Spicy – Strong volume, not worth chasing unless it’s a
hyperlocal term or you’re a small site though
• Medium – Medium volume, not worth chasing after
Other Things to Consider
• Graph – Watch it and catch terms while they’re still peaking
• Related Searches – Use them in your body text,
subheadlines, etc.
http://www.google.com/trends
Google Trends: Compare
Search Volume by Terms
Compare multiple terms to
determine which term
receives the highest volume of
search traffic.
Use the drop down menus to
change the date range and
regional data sets.
Export the data to a CSV
(Opens in Excel, must be
logged into Google Account).
http://www.google.com/trends
Find Top Volume Search Terms
by Category (3 Day Lag)
Discover the top volume search terms by
category
Discover fastest rising search terms by category
http://www.google.com/insights/search
Microsoft’s xRank: Celebrity
Keyword Research
Trends Data
• Updates multiple times per
day
• Graph of trend history
Categories
Hmm.
Gates, got
xRank
right at
least.
• Celebrities
• Musicians
• Politicians
Related Articles
• News
• Images
• Videos
http://www.bing.com/xrank
Put The Keywords People Are
Searching for In the Content
Homepage/Content
HTML Title Tag
• The most important SEO field
• Communicate loudly but don’t spam
• Must be unique!
Meta Description
• Important mainly due to click through
• The goal is to entice the human click to your link
• Write a unique description for each page on your site
H1 Tag/Headline
• Beat up your designers that use if tor ‘style’ instead of SEO
emphasis
• Should be used for the main heading of the page (i.e. headline)
First Paragraph
G’ News Categories,
Bold/Italics, URL
• Keep the first paragraph close to the H1 tag in the HTML code
• Do not break up the code within the paragraph with other HTML
• All pages MUST have at least a paragraph of text
• Use Google News categories for increased visibility
• Bold/italics puts heavier SEO emphasis on keywords
• URL is important for relevance with inbound links
Relevance
Learn More About How Social &
Search Are Merging
Google’s
‘Social Circle’
Results
Contact Info
Brent D. Payne
• Director, Search Engine Optimization
• Tribune Company, 435 N. Michigan, Chicago, IL 60611
• Cell: 312.324.3344
• Instant Messenger/Personal Email:
bpayne@gmail.com
• Twitter: @BrentDPayne (follow w/ caution)
• Personal Website: http://www.brentdpayne.com
• Driver’s License Number: BDP24456U8
• Passport Number: 443876284