SEO Theory

Posts about SEO Theory in general.

Recession-proof Search Engine Optimization

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 30, 2008 in SEO Theory

Here in the United States, people are losing their jobs, losing their ability to borrow against the equity in their homes, and they are using all their available credit card balances months in advance of the Christmas shopping season.
In a consumer-driven economy, the declining ability of consumers to spend money affects many industries. We’ve [...]

IBM Improves Similar Sites Search

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 25, 2008 in SEO Theory

IBM has produced a lot of significant research for information retrieval science, including Web search. Their HITS and CLEVER algorithms, for example, were incorporated into Teoma’s algorithm (Teoma is now owned by Ask). While it may seem strange that IBM has never gotten directly involved in the Web search market, they have put [...]

The Google Sandbox Patent

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 24, 2008 in SEO Theory

Bill Slawski is the search engine patent guru of the SEO industry. I occasionally make forays through the patent applications but I hate having to figure out what they are trying to say in their overly specific patent application jargon. Bill, who has spent far more time deciphering patent applications than I, does [...]

Nine lessons in search engine optimization

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 22, 2008 in SEO Theory

Out of nearly 1600 query expressions that have brought recent traffic to SEO Theory, I have selected ten to discuss in greater depth (ON UPDATE: Actually, you’ll find NINE because I merged two into one). I chose these ten expressions for one or more of several reasons: the visitor counts were high, or the [...]

What are you optimizing for?

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 17, 2008 in SEO Theory

This article is for all the SEOs out there.
Do you have a blog? If so, do you include Sphinn and other social media buttons on your blog?
If so, I have a challenge for you: take those buttons off your blogs.
Stop asking people to promote your blogs through their social media accounts.
We’re living and working [...]

SEO Best Practices - What ARE the best practices for SEO?

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 3, 2008 in SEO Theory

On a lark I did some quick query research about the term “best seo practices”. Did you know that hardly anyone seems to be searching for the expression? What does that say about the people look for search engine optimization guidance, help, and expertise?
A lot of blog posts and tutorials have been published [...]

Cuil, Microsoft, and the future of search

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 2, 2008 in SEO Theory

There are three parts of the searchable Web ecosystem: Publishers, Indexers, and Searchers. This ecosystem has evolved three areas of search optimization: Publishers adjust the quality and relevance of their content; Indexers adjust the quantity and metrics of the algorithms and databases; Searchers adjust their queries.
At a meta level, the searchable Web ecosystem forms [...]

Google query functions that don’t work

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 28, 2008 in SEO Theory

With everything Google does, I would not expect everything that Google does to work. That’s just the way it goes with software. You can always find something that is screwy with any application and search engines are no different.
Still, the SEO community puts a great deal of time and effort into using these [...]

How Microsoft Can Improve My Live Search Experience

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 22, 2008 in SEO Theory

If you’re studying search market share analysis, then you are undoubtedly aware that Microsoft is actually the second most visited search destination on the U.S. Web. Okay, you would know that if you weren’t being bamboozled by the nonsense that comScore, Compete, Hitwise, and Nielsen publish every month.
Still, the fact that Microsoft’s MSN and [...]

How Google sabotages your SEO efforts

Posted by Michael Martinez on August 20, 2008 in SEO Theory

The SEO community loves SEO tools, even tools that don’t work. Google loves gadgets, even gadgets that don’t work. This is a love story designed for misery.
Search engine optimizers need information and most of us will look at just about anything to get information, even information we feel may be unreliable because any [...]

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