1. Search Search Engines Search Engine Optimization Search Interfaces
The openness of the Web changes everything
Access
Technological progress
Expectation

2. Designing search for USERS
Web Searching Metaphors
Are we there yet?
Is everything the same design?
How do people visualize the Web?
Is Browsing better?
Do we need new metaphors for using the Web?
Searching
Browsing
What else?

3. How is IA for search different?
Links are the difference that makes the difference
Internal links on a page
Internal links on a site
Relationships between sites
Link freshness
Popularity is very different for types of users
Kleinberg’s HITS method (1998)
Hypertext Induced Topic Search
Number of pages that point to (processed) query
Authorities (relevant content by links)
Hubs (links to varied authorities)

4. Problems with Hubs & Authorities
Are more links always better?
What about pages without many outgoing links?
How do you count multiple links from within one page to another?
Do automatically generated sites/pages have an advantage?
CMS systems may have linking “fingerprints”
Metadata
How varied are the link weights?
Simple counts
Modified by other IR measures

5. Popularity? Do you always want the most popular information source?
Talk Radio
New York Times Bestseller List
“Lincoln’s Doctors Dog”
“The C.S.I. Diet and Cookbook”
Trend or Fad?
Blogs, Editorials and Propaganda vs. “Facts”?
Result Diversity
Death of the Mid-List

6. Anatomy of a LS Web Search Engine
Initial Google Design
PageRank
PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) PR(Tn)/C(Tn))
“A model of user behavior”
probability of a random surfer visiting a page is its PageRank +
a damping factor (boredom)
Pages point to a page
Highly ranked pages point to a page
Anchor text is mined (the label for the link)
Proximity included

7. Anatomy 2 Repository of page content Document index
Forward (sorted)
Inverted (sorter)
Lexicon of words & pointers
Hit Lists of word occurrence(s)
Crawlers
Ranking
Feedback of selection (~)

8. Metasearch Issues One place for everything? First place to look?
Last place to look?
Better interface?
Combined results
Syntax Errors
State Information (monitoring)
Copyright
User, content and interface mismatches/challenges

9. Search Engine Optimization
Found by spiders and submissions
More links to and from site
Registration on major directories
Links to and from major directories
Real Contact information Helps prove validity
META tag
Header and footer of home page
About Us or Contact Us pages
Location/Map page

10. Good Design is SEO Basic interface Well-structured links
Comprehensive Site Navigation
Updated and accurate links
Easy to find (via the Web or on the site itself)
Clear labels
TITLEs
Headings
Term consistency
Link consistency
Small sizes to download quickly

11. Let’s look at some good pages
How well designed are these pages for SEO? UT
iSchool Main page
My home page
Who else?
Why do blogs have good SEO rankings?
Engadget.com
How do they use CSS, Metatags & XHTML?

12. Web Search Tests Perform searches with targeted keywords
Compare and contrast top results with your potential site
Similar terms
Links (external and internal)
Popularity (sites that link to the site)
Use Data to
Build a keyword list
Build an introductory text
Blurbs
Description (2 sentences max)
Any page found via a Web search engine should have search for the site itself
Regularly monitor Search with your terms

13. Internal Search Robots.txt Log and analyze search results
Measure success and failure
Tune for click-through productivity
Keep list of terms
Match terms to pages
Add terms
Script terms to certain pages
Provide list (links) of most recent search terms
Provide list (links) of most popular search terms

14. Page Design Use CSS Put JavaScript, etc. in external files
<style type=“text/css”>
Keep content in pages, not CSS templates
Put JavaScript, etc. in external files
<script language=“JavaScript” src=“scripts/myscript.js” type=“text/javascript”> </script>
<noscript> tag too for alternate content
Continually verify external links
ALT tags & Accessibility Compliance
Index link on Splash page (if needed)
Exact consistency on internal links (ending “/”s)
<noframes>
Redirects <META HTTP-EQUIV=“refresh” content=“0”; URL=

15. Search and MIME types Flash now supports internal text PDF files
Add comments and authorship info
Modify existing PDFs
Check Document PropertiesFonts with fonts shows that PDF can be indexed (not a group a graphics files)
Provide text abstract or summary of PDF
PPT, use text if possible
Java interfaces prove difficult
Dynamic pages should have key(word) static elements
FORMs not always completely indexed

16. Track your Tracking Keep list of sites submitted to
When, Who, address, exact URL submitted
Suggested categories, Current site description
Terms and Conditions
Keep list of “goal” keywords
Keep list of sites you check keywords
Keywords
Dates
Successes/Failures

17. BREAK

18. How can we re-design for SEO?
Good, consistent metatags
Mostly Dublin Core
Alternative search words & phrases
Good page naming conventions
External information in CSS, Javascript (& PHP)
Labels for links
Navigation
Anchor / link text on pages