1. Search Engine Optimization
A Presentation to CBC News Online
by
Blake Crosby
Media Production Support
CBC Technology
March 2009

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What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of
improving the volume and quality of traffic to a
web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic"
or "algorithmic") search results. - Wikipedia
In other words…
SEO is a tool to use to modify the way your site
appears to search engines so that your site appears
more frequently in search results.

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Scope of Presentation
•Description of how Google crawls our website
•Rundown of a typical Google search result
•Reported problems/frustrations
•How we’re currently using SEO
•How we should be using SEO
•How to use diagnostic tools from Google.
•Q&A Session

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How Google Crawls cbc.ca
1. Google starts with an entrance page.
2. It indexes the text and compiles a list of links to follow.
3. It follows a link in the list, indexes the text and finds more links
to follow.
4. Lather, rinse, repeat.

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Google Search Results (Glossary of Terms)
Search Query
One Box (Google News)
Snippet
Title

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Problems to solve…
•Results ranking too low

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Problems to solve…
•Incorrect Snippet Data

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Problems to solve…
•Missing stories from Google News, but…

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Problems to solve…
•They appear in regular web search results!

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Problems to solve…
•Speed of crawling/index too slow
Some users have complained that it takes too long
for news stories to appear in the Google index.

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Problems to solve…
•Lower page rank for most cbc.ca pages

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How we’re currently using SEO
•We are doing some SEO:
• Using META tags (description, keywords)
• Using unique URLs (sort of)
• We have a HTML site map. (www.cbc.ca/sitemap)
• Using proper heading tags (h1, h2, etc..)

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What more can we do?
•Provide a news site map to Google
•Ensure proper keywords are used
•Ensure the description tag is accurate
•Encourage users to link to our news stories
•Provide relevant outbound links to other sites
•Use the webmaster tools
•Reconsider story sharing
•Talk to Google!

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Google News Best Practices
•Be Unique
• Each news story needs to have a unique URL.
•Be Permanent
• Each news story URL must not change.
•Display a three-digit number (dates don’t count).
• A unique number at least three digits must be in
the URL. Exceptions are made for Google News
Sitemaps.
•Links To Articles
• Should be 22 words (not characters) or less.

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Google News Ranking
Google news ranks which news source appears at the top of a
particular story based on the following criteria:
•Freshness of content
• Being first (breaking the news) isn’t always the best
•Diversity of content
• Make sure your story contains a lot of relevant
information
•Rich contextual content
• Make sure your story contains keywords that people are
likely to search for

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Google News Sitemap
A Google News sitemap allows you to submit your
article URLs (and metadata) directly to Google to
be crawled and indexed.
A sitemap will include the following information:
•URL to news story
•Story publication date
•Story keywords
The sitemap will also be used by other search
engines as well.

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Using Proper Keywords
Poor Keywords:
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/03/02/markets.html
“markets,s tocks”
Good:
•Keyword matches word in URL
Bad:
•Only one valid keyword (“s tocks” doesn’t count)
•Article is about more than just market and stocks.
Suggested Keywords:
“tsx, stock market, canada, closed down,weakness”

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Using Proper Keywords
Poor Keywords:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2009/03/02/canada-reads-starts.html
“canada reads, book battle, champion”
Good:
•Keyword appears in the URL
Bad:
•Will users actually search for “book battle”?
•Story is not about “book battle” or “champion”
Suggested Keywords:
“canada reads, campbell, slean, lewis, withenshaw, books”

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Using Proper Keywords
Good Keywords:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/03/03/speeding-bust.html
“speeding, stunt-driving, toronto, ontario, highway
400, street racing”
•Keywords appear in the URL & story
•Sums up contents of article well
•Keywords most likely used by users performing a
search
•Not too many (not overloading META tag)

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Using Proper Keywords
It’s important to remember:
•Ensure keywords are correct (no typos or spelling
errors)
•No need to supply synonyms (ie: “bc” and “british
columbia”)
•4-6 Keywords are sufficient
•Try to use words that users will use when
performing a search
•Use keywords that are found in the URL, header,
and first paragraph of the story

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The META Description Tag
The contents of the description tag will appear as
the snippet in search results.
This is important to get users to click on your search
result instead of somewhere else.

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The META Description Tag
Poor Example:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/harper_stephen/
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Stephen Harper">
•Description too small. Google will compile its own
snippet instead.
•In this example, it’s the image caption

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Inbound & Outbound Links
Google ranks pages based on the number and
quality of links to and from your pages.
Try to link to other sources that have a high page
rank, and vise-versa.
You can adjust the position you appear in search
results based on who links to you.
For Example:

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Inbound & Outbound Links
“stephen harper”
•Wikipedia: 1
•CBC: 16 (second page of results)
“conservative party”
•Wikipedia: 3
•CBC: 5
WHY?

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Inbound & Outbound Links
“stephen harper” (Rank: 16)
•Wikipedia Pagerank: 6/10
•CBC Pagerank: 5/10
•Conservatives website Pagerank: 7/10
Wikipedia article links to Conservative Party in depth. (NOT
Stephen Harper in depth)
•Change article to point to Steven Harper in depth instead.
•Update in depth to point to Wikipedia Article
•Update in depth to point to Stephen Harper bio on
Conservatives website

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Inbound & Outbound Links
“conservative party” (Rank: 5)
•Wikipedia Pagerank: 6/10
•CBC Pagerank: 5/10
•Conservatives website Pagerank: 7/10
Wikipedia article links to OTHER pages and not in
depth.
•Add link to Wikipedia page to point to
Conservative Party in depth.
•Update in depth to point to Wikipedia Article and
Conservatives website.

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Improving Pagerank
•Link to pages that have a higher pagerank than
you:
• Link to Stephen Harpers website from in depth &
news stories.
•If possible, get higher pagerank sites to link back
to you:
• Edit Wikipedia articles to cite cbc.ca or add a link
to “see also” section
•The more inbound links the better.
•Use Google Toolbar to find out a sites pagerank

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Story Sharing and SEO
•Google expects to only find one copy of a story at
one URL
•Story sharing makes available the same copy at
multiple URLs
•Google sees this practice as “spammy” and may
lower the page rank for those pages or cbc.ca

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Google Webmaster Tools
Demo Webmaster Tools
http://www.google.com/webmaster/

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To Recap…
•Results ranking too low
• Increase page rank by linking to other pages
•Incorrect snippet data
• Make sure your META description tag is correct
•Missing stories from Google News
• Use a news sitemap
•Speed of indexing/crawling
• Remember: Google News prefers “fresher”
content.

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To Recap…
Some suggestions:
•Copyedit the keywords field
•Contact DP&BD to set up a Google News sitemap
•Ensure stories have “related” links that leave
cbc.ca. for example: to wikipedia, official sites,
press releases.
•Use inline links (see Arts stories)
•Reduce use of story sharing (or eliminate).

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Further Reading…
Google’s Own SEO Guide
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide.html
Google Website Optimizer
http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer
Google Support Pages
http://www.google.com/support/
Search Engine Optimization Bible
by Ledford, Jerri L.
ISBN:978-0-470-17500-2

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Thank You!
Any Questions?