The document outlines Google's practices for webmasters, detailing the structure and functions of Google search, including crawling, indexing, and serving results. It emphasizes the use of webmaster tools for identifying crawl errors, optimizing content, and enhancing search visibility. The goal is to support webmasters by providing equal access to resources and improving the relevance of search results for users.

1. Google Site Clinic Uli Lutz, Adel Saoud, Google Search Quality Team February 2010

2. Agenda Google Search Google Webmaster Tools Information sources for webmasters

3. Anatomy of Google search results Paid search AdWords advertising program. Paid listings . Natural search Ranking determined algorithmically . Unpaid, unbiased listings.

4. Our goals Support for all webmasters Provide the same tools for all sites, large or small 100M+ sites on the web; we need something that scales Better search results The most objective and relevant search results Better information -> better web sites Better web sites in our index -> better search results for users Better understanding of web sites -> better ability to handle them

5. Crawling and Indexing Crawling: Create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches. Google’s web crawler has the username googlebot Indexing: Google determines the content of each page (e.g. PR, keywords) and stores static information about those pages in an index. Serving: Process of returning search results that are relevant and match the user query

6. So…what does the Googlebot read on a website? Text in HTML Files such as .doc, .xls, .pdf Incoming and outgoing links Name of a link („Anchor text“)‏ Meta tags (title, description)‏ Googlebot understands less about: Non text- files like movies, images Flash (only to a certain extent)‏ Java Script (and AJAX)‏

7. Examples of what Google sees on a site Non text- files like movies, images … Alt text should be brief, but accurate Image is not displayed for some reason but at least the alt text is

8. Webmaster Tools front to back Explore it all and come back often!

9. Solving problems with Webmaster Tools One of my sitelinks is outdated! Oh no! I didn't mean for that page to be in Google! I redid my site and now my traffic dropped! My images aren't showing up in search - why? My site's a .com but it's targeted to people in Ireland! My previous SEO did spammy stuff; how do I get my site back in Google? My competitors are doing spammy things. What can I do about it?

10. Dashboard Crawl errors Links to your site Queries your site ranks for

11. Tip #1: Content analysis Title tags, alt attributes and descriptions: Make them descriptive and accurate

12. Content analysis Sitelinks Title Description

13. Content analysis - Sitelinks Manage your site links

14. Tip #2: Identify crawl errors “ Make sure search bots can crawl your site”

15. Crawl errors Error details List of URLs Error categories

16. Tip #3: Give information that users are looking for “ Users type words to find your pages: Make sure that your site includes those words within ”

17. How do users find your site? Top search queries your site ranks for Top searches for which users reached your site

18. Tip #4: Set a geographic target Tell Google the location of your web site: Improve geographic targeting

19. Set a geographic target If your site targets several different regions (e.g. all English speakers), you don’t need to set a target We also look at TLD and server location

20. Get the information you need Make the most of Google resources

21. Webmaster Central www.google.ie/webmasters

22. Webmaster Guidelines

23. Official Webmaster blog

24. Help Center

25. Feel free to use " Ringsend " in the subject to raise our attention Google Help Forum

26. www.google.ie/webmasters Explore it! Thank you!