Hands-on SEODan CohenGlobal SEO Engineering Leaddan.cohen@microsoft.com

What is Search Engine Optimization?2PaidOrganic

Why should you care?Large Sites>2MVisitors/ monthMedium Sites2M - 100kVisitors/ monthSmall Sites>100kVisitors/ month

MSN: We Are Our AudienceStatistics:465M People42 CountriesRussiaGermanyFranceChina21 Languages

MSN: Complete Online ExperienceAPPLICATIONSCONTENTSEARCH

Programmed Content Providers

MSN and Windows Live: A Dual Portal StrategyI know exactly what I want.What's going on in the world today?I can do it myself.Make it easy for me.

Search Explosion95% of web Users Search61B Queries142M Websites+$13B Revenue18,000 websiteshas grown to 142 million websites *130 billion queriesper month has grown to 61 billion queries per month *295% of internet users search the web*2Search revenue increased from $7.6 billion to $13 billion *3* Source: 1. NetCraft Monthly User Survey ( October 2007 ) 2. comScore q Search 2.0 Monthly Tracking ( September 2007 ) 3. ZenithOptimedia Report reflecting SearchAdvertising Revenue from 2005 to 2007 ( December 2006 ) MICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL

Evolution Of SearchPhase 1DirectoriesSearchImmatureMarketCPM/Paid InclusionEconomicsReachAdvertisersPassivePublishersBrowseConsumer

Evolution Of Search

Evolution Of Search

Evolution Of SearchPhase 1Phase 2KeywordDirectoriesSearchImmatureClosedMarketCPM/Paid InclusionCPCEconomicsReachROIAdvertisersPassiveReactivePublishersQueriesBrowseConsumer

Search PerceptionMICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL

Search RealityMICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL

Search FatiguePeople can’t find what they are looking for…..40% of queries go unanswered50% of queries need refinement* Source: Internal Microsoft ResearchMICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL

What Consumers WantRelevant resultsIn-depth & authoritative contentConvenience* Source: Sterling Market Intelligence Report (June 2007) / Internal Microsoft ResearchMICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL

Evolution Of SearchPhase 1Phase 2The Next PhaseKeywordRich Semantics & User ExperienceDirectoriesSearchTrendsUnknownOpenClosedMarketCPM/Paid InclusionCPA/Paid EngagementCPCEconomicsReachE2E VisibilityROIAdvertisersTrendsPassiveProactiveReactivePublishersTaskAccomplishmentQueriesBrowseConsumerTrends

The Computer Science ChallengeIndex the world’s informationDecipher the intent of questionSimultaneously across geographiesWithin milliseconds, andPresent the information for discovery

Search Engine Results PageNumber of relevant WebpagesTitle of a pageContent Description of a pageAdditional SEO InformationUnique URL

Relevance  User vs. MachineGoal of Users and Search EnginesFind relevant results related to the search query. Rank related Webpages in a order of Relevance.How to decide what is most or more relevant?How would you decide, which Webpage matches best with your search query?

Relevance  User vs. Machine

SEO MatrixEngineeringEditorial

Content Strategy

SEO Content Strategy

On-page Editorial

URL Consistency

URL ConsistencySearch engines assign value to URLsA single URL is given a score from 1 to 10 called PageRank (Google) or StaticRank (Live) based on many factorsEach URL is assumed to be an individual “page”When a site has multiple versions of a page under the “same” URL, this score is divided between themhttp://travel.msn.com/http://travel.msn.com/default.aspx

URL Consistencyhttp://www.example.com/http://example.com/http://Example.comhttp://Example.com/http://www.Example.com/http://www.example.com/index.htmlhttp://www.Example.com/index.htmlhttp://www.example.com/Index.htmlhttp://www.Example.com/index.htmlwww.example.comExample.comexample.com/ Example.com/index.htmlExample.com/Index.html

Image content and ALT textImages are content too!An ALT property on an <IMG> tag is supposed to describe the content of this imageMeant for accessibility, also used by Search Engines to discern meaning of an image, especially one that’s also a linkContent images should describe what’s in the image and then list any copyright information requiredNavigation images should describe the destination page’s contentALT text treated similarly to Anchor TextFilenames matter!How not to do it

On-page Technical

Flash and SilverlightMYTH: Search Engines can’t read FlashSearch Engines are starting to have the capability to extract links and text from simple .SWF filesThis does not apply to all sites or all Flash moviesThis does not apply to Silverlight moviesMYTH: Silverlight and Flash are BAD for SEOFlash and Silverlight should be used correctly and never for navigation – do you NEED that Flash movie?Can you offer a downlevel version of the movie to lower-spec browsers and crawlers?Downlevel version must contain exactly the same content to survive manual review if one should occurNo sniffing for capability should take placePage-load order and DIV substitution to achieve downlevel experience

MYTH: Search Engines can’t read Flash

Search Engines are starting to have the capability to extract links and text from simple .SWF files

This does not apply to all sites or all Flash movies

This does not apply to Silverlight movies

MYTH: Silverlight and Flash are BAD for SEO

Flash and Silverlight should be used correctly and never for navigation – do you NEED that Flash movie?

Can you offer a downlevel version of the movie to lower-spec browsers and crawlers?

Downlevel version must contain exactly the same content to survive manual review if one should occur

No sniffing for capability should take place

Page-load order and DIV substitution to achieve downlevel experience

Flash and SilverlightSeparate content of Flash movie from presentation layer. Externalize in XML.Render XML as XHTML in your content <DIV>Use JavaScript to overwrite the content <DIV> innerHTML property with the Flash or Silverlight movieFlash or Silverlight movie should reference the same XML for its content

Flash and Silverlight<DIV><DIV>(XHTML)<DIV>(SWF)XML

Flash and Silverlighthttp://specials.uk.msn.com/ford-fiesta

Flash and Silverlighthttp://specials.uk.msn.com/ford-fiesta

Flash and Silverlighthttp://rally.no.msn.com/

Flash and Silverlighthttp://rally.no.msn.com/

URL StructureSome links are more equal than othersJavascript links and anchor links won’t get crawledThe closer a page is to the root, the betterA URL should include keywords if possibleAlways use absolute URL not relativeAlways use lower caseHere’s how not to do it<A HREF=“javascript:goToPage(“1”)”>Bad link</A><A HREF=“#section1”>Another Bad Link</A><A HREF=“/my-folder/danspage.html”>Not another bad link!</A><A HREF="http://msn.com/my-folder/another-folder/yetanotherfolder/page.html">You're kidding. ANOTHER bad link?</A>

<HEAD> tagThe <HEAD> tag should follow this order<head> <title>A unique title that describes what a user can find on this page</title> <meta name="description" content="This is a unique description of the content of this page, different to the TITLE tag." /> <meta name="keywords" content="one, two, three, four, five" /> <metaHTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" content="EN-GB" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html" /><!-- anything else you need --></head>

Crawlability

404 pagesIs this Page Not Found? Are you sure?The 404 page should return a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) Status CodeSome 404 pages return a 200 (OK) Status Code, this is a “soft” 404These soft 404 pages can make it into the index as valid pages

XML Sitemaps and Robots.txtThe Search Engines need a helping hand to find your pagesBy submitting an XML Sitemap (http://sitemaps.org) you can inform the search engines which pages you would like them to crawl<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><urlsetxmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"> <url> <loc>http://www.example.com/</loc> <lastmod>2005-01-01</lastmod> <changefreq>monthly</changefreq> <priority>0.8</priority> </url></urlset> Tell the crawler what not to crawlBy adding a robots.txt file to the root of a domain, you can exclude pages or sections of a site from being crawledUseful for transactional pages or “print version” pages and the like

Server OptimizationHTTP CompressionHaving a large website and millions of pages or URLs means a crawler takes a long time to crawl and index your entire siteXML Sitemaps and proper link strategy aren’t always enoughHTTP Compression works like a .zip fileReduces download time for users and crawlersConditional GETDo your pages change often? Why waste time having crawlers re-spider your site?Tell browsers and crawlers that your pages haven’t changedImproves index coverage quickly

Case StudySEO for MSN Video

Case Study: MSN Videohttp://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-gb

Case Study: MSN Videohttp://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-gbFlashVideo in FlashAJAX and FlashAJAX

Case Study: MSN Videohttp://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-gb

Case Study: MSN Videohttp://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-gb

Case Study: MSN VideoReal URLs – One page per videohttp://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-gb&vid=b098ff42-994c-4ebd-8741-1c34737318b7&playlist=search:q:plane:mk:en-gb:sf:ActiveStartDate:vs:1:cs:ENGB_Stupid%20Videos&tab=s1204718424896&from=video_module...becomes http://uk.video.msn.com/videos/woman-in-airport-strop/Build links to the Video pagesEmpower users to share via Social Media and blogging with a single clickAchieve scale by using the inline player on MSN content pagesShow related videosMake the pages CrawlableGet rid of the AJAXCorrect down-level experienceBuild topic relevanceExpose user generated content such as ratings, comments, submitted videosDisplay relevant content from around the network in an automated fashionFull index coverageGeo-target individual countries’ Video destination site with Webmaster Tools validation, META tagging and domainXML Sitemaps and Robots.txt for each market

Thank youQuestions?