Talk:Search engine optimization

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Contents 1 Notable SEOs not acceptable 2 Spamdex / "Black hat" -- Isn't Spamdex a subset of Black hat? 3 SEO related email spam 4 Glossary? 5 Practical SEO 6 Practical SEO marketing 7 Big Edit 8 The Service 9 On Site Factors and Off Site Factors 10 Social Media Optimization (SMO) 11 The Service 12 More than Just Rankings 13 References 14 Adding a link to an article 15 Cleanup 16 DMOZ - Directory Made (itself) ObZolite 17 Web Reporting for Search Engine Visibility 18 GA 19 Whats Up with this Blatant Advertising? 20 The Names Aren't Name Drops 21 nofollow 22 Editing help needed at search engine marketing and Search Engine Land 23 Mobile 24 Main page 25 Black hat POV? 26 "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" 27 New Diagrams 28 International Markets 29 SEO organizations 30 Listings Language Incorrect 31 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Link exchange 32 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ken Jurina 33 Andy Beard and other notable SEOs 34 Discussion on adding outbound link. 35 OutBound Link Review 36 PageRank 37 Commentary on SEO 38 SEO is Common Sense 39 Template 40 Web 3.0 Search Engine Optimization 41 Better choise of Words 42 Candidate(s) for addition to list of internal links 43 Possible link to orphaned article Authority site 44 Major search engines 45 Concerns about the quality of this article

[edit] Notable SEOs not acceptable

What is the justification for this language? Notable SEOs, such as Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Aaron Wall and Jill Whalen, have carried out controlled experiments to gauge the effects of different approaches to search engine optimization, and have published results through their online forums and blogs.

These people may be notable but they don't carry out "controlled experiments" and their opinions are hardly worth more mention than those of any of dozens of other SEOs in the field.Michael Martinez 18:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

See my comment at the bottom. It's customary to add new threads at the end, not the beginning. Jehochman ^Talk 18:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree there is no justification on including a section on notable seos if it excludes smart-traffic.co.uk who have been Googles no1 seo specialist for a very long time and will continue to be so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.136.120.44 (talk) 11:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That section has been removed; you are commenting on an old discussion. (Now there is an internal link to the category for notable individuals within the SEO industry, but that is a different matter.) The new section you added was pure site promotion. If the company is indeed notable, at some point somebody will presumably create an article about it. You should not do so yourself, and you should not add external links to the company. Thank you. --Bonadea (talk) 11:45, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spamdex / "Black hat" -- Isn't Spamdex a subset of Black hat?

My understanding of Spamdex, and the Wiki page on it, are very specifically define what it is, while Black hat as defined here includes Spamdexing. Subtitle should be Black hat only. Libertate 18:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to edit this article to make it better. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 21:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to create a page for Jasmine Batra, she's leading the field of SEO here in Australia. She Founded Arrow Internet Marketing, I'm going to place a link to the page in Notable SEO's. She has made SEO more understandable and accessable to everyone. She's also done a heap of stuff on SEO as a way of allowing small businesses to compete with larger competitors. I might also make a page for Arrow Internet Marketing. Thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Napper52 (talk • contribs) 03:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] "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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Link exchange

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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Commentary on SEO

Hello, where would I link this article? The Rise Of The Linkmeisters: a look at the culture of SEO --Jjzeidner (talk) 22:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You wouldn't, IMO. Seems a random blog post, and not fitting within WP:EL guidelines. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 22:17, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention the conflict of interest since it is your own blog. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 22:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree with ZimZalaBim, I don't see encyclopedic value of the article, and being written by you would be a conflict of interest. Not to mention the large amount of advertising on the webpage; I counted 5 seperate ad units. SDSandecki (talk) 04:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SEO is Common Sense

SEO is nothing but common sense

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the science of increasing traffic to a website from search engines via "natural" ("organic") search results.

If you are searching for "cars" in a search engine, what kind of websites do you expect to show up? shoes? pets? Obviously not. Search engines have the responsibility of serving their customers by showing them what they want. Searching for relevant websites has always been a big challenge for the search engines too, as there are zillions of websites out there on the web. More over, search engines have to fish out the best in seconds. So, any website which has all the criteria that a search engine is looking for, would be he winner. If you learn how sear engines look for best sites, you are on the right track. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raviamblee (talk • contribs) 01:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template

I've made and added a template to help bring about the SEO related articles amongst themselves, and accordingly I've inserted it here, since it is clearly a far tidier and more presentable way of presenting these links. WilliamH (talk) 00:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Web 3.0 Search Engine Optimization

Content from a deleted article, that may be useful here:

Web 3.0 Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of improving the volume of traffic to a web site based on human input and “future web” standards.

Web 3.0 SEO will be based on standardized formats which specify concepts used in web sites and describe web sites’ structure and content. SEO formats will be used by web crawlers to get more accurate data.
Nowadays a few organizations have been already engaged in Web 3.0 search technology standards development process, such as W3C that defined Semantic web concepts with RDF/OWL specifications, OMFICA which developed Internet Content Description Language (ICDL) oriented to Web 3.0 SEO approaches.

see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Web 3.0 Search Engine Optimization - Nabla (talk) 00:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Better choise of Words

Please let us start to choose better words and sentences on the Internet.

For instance: "Search engine optimization"

This is a totally wrong use of words. It's trying to take a shortcut that only creates confusion. It leads to unnecessary search hits and search time.

Better use of words would be: "Optimization of Search Engines" and "Optimization for Search Engines"

Which both have a totally different meaning that should be clear and not be confused by our misuse of words.

So, we have to start to be more clear in the basic use of our language otherwise optimization either way will lead to nothing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.168.243.40 (talk) 12:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Candidate(s) for addition to list of internal links

Please consider adding a link to the orphaned article Exploit Submission Wizard in a new list section "Automated search engine submission tools" (or whatever is appropriate) under the heading "See also". (I made the grammatical number nonspecific -- "Candidate(s)" -- because this one might not be the only one for this talk page section. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Possible link to orphaned article Authority site

Please consider adding a link to the orphaned article Authority site. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Major search engines

I see the list has grown, and now it includes MSN which surely isn't a search engine. I'd discourage any additions to this list as there's already a List of search engines page. What do other think? --Northernhenge (talk) 13:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I've trimmed and condenses this into a more standard See Also section. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 14:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Concerns about the quality of this article

I was just casually reading through this article to find out more about the topic. While I was reading, I noticed some issues that should not be present in a featured article. In rough order of decreasing severity:

• The section on the various "hats" of SEO needs work. The last three paragraphs were copied word-for-word from the source until I rewrote it, summarizing the passage. The prose in the whole section still has problems.
• I am also concerned about the source I mentioned above. Is "www.websitepublisher.net" a reliable source of sufficient quality for a featured article? Judging from the proliferation of sentence fragments and unclear wording in its article on white, gray, and black hats, I would be inclined to think that it is not.
• The article's prose overall, while acceptable, in my opinion does not meet the FA standard of prose being "engaging, even brilliant" in all areas of the article.
• Some areas of the article are rather sparse on internal links. I can see quite a few places where links would be helpful to the reader but are absent.

This article strikes me as closer to A-class or GA quality than featured. I am not at all familiar with SEO myself, so I suggest that someone more knowledgeable on this matter and more familiar with the article resolve these issues. Thanks, Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 19:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)