About Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
What is Search Engine?
Search engine is a kind of software that collects
information about web pages and presents it to the user. The information
collected consists of keywords or phrases describing the content of the site,
and the URL of the site, the code that creates the page, and the links to and
from the site. The collected information is then indexed and stored in the
database. All this information gathering is done by a software called search
robot (or spider).
In other words, the search engine is a query and
acquisition mechanism that compares each of the concluded information and
records by output, performs the necessary actions for the acceptability of a
query, and ensures the high performance of the captured data.
According to a study by Reach Local Company based on
USA users;
-
93%
of internet traffic is provided by search engines.
-
The
number of monthly searches from Google is around 100 billion.
-
An
average of 4.99 words are used in searches.
-
59% of adults living in the USA access
information from search engines on a daily basis.
According to StatCounter's latest data in October 2019, Google has 92.78% market share in the global market, 89.63% market share in Turkey's market. When the world search engine market share statistics of the last 5 years are analyzed, Google's lowest market share rate is 89.47% in December 2014.
Google Search Engine
Sergey Brin and Larry Page came together during their
graduate studies and started working on a project called BackRub using the
internet's connection structure. They soon realized that they had created a
search engine that adapted to the growing size of the internet. Later, the
project name was changed to Google. This name is given as a result of a typo.
While the duo actually wanted to give the term of mathematics written by adding
a hundred zeros to the number 1, Googol, they came up with the Google search
engine as a result of their common mistake.
Brin and Page developed the PageRank algorithm in this
process. In the processing of a search result in this algorithm, Google
combined the pre-calculated PageRank scores with text match scores, a general
ranking score for each web page. In 1998, the Google search engine company,
whose name was Google, was founded by the duo
PageRank is Google's way of measuring the importance
of a page. Given all other factors, such as the title tag and keywords, Google
uses PageRank to edit the results. Thus, the more "important" sites
proceed accordingly on the search result page displayed to the user
Although there are many other factors and algorithms
affecting Google's search engine result page rankings today, it is not rejected
that the algorithm is still the heart of Google search results, although it is
accepted by Google officials that the PageRank algorithm has undergone many
changes
When a search query is made in the Google search
engine search bar, a search is made in the Google internet directory. To create
this web directory, Google uses robots called spiders. Spider first brings a
few websites into the Google web directory. Then, by following the links on
these pages, it brings up other pages that these links point to. Billions of
pages are added this way to the Google web directory. When a user searches on
the Google search engine, the search term is searched in the Google web
directory with other software consisting of Google search algorithms. This
search is done first by using the methods of getting information from the text,
called IR. In this way, there are hundreds of thousands of possible results
suitable for the search term. More than 200 search factors are considered to
bring the best quality answer to the search term (Illyes, 2016). After this
analysis, called in-page search factors, the quality score of the search term
is checked. The formula that determines this quality score is known as
PageRank. PageRank is a formula that evaluates the importance of a web page based
on how many links are given to it and the level of importance of those links.
Google finally brings the search to the searcher in under half a second by
combining in-page factors (IR) and out-of-page factors (PR). With these two
multiplier values, the importance value of the page (rank) appears. In this
case, these two factors determine the total rank value.
Total
Score = IR Score x PR Score
Structure of Search Engines:
Search engines; it consists of 3 separate components:
web crawler, search index and user interface. Search engine robots, called
spider / web crawler, collect all the URLs of the content that should be
indexed to the engine directory (database) by scanning all websites on the
internet. Then it moves the information it collects to the servers in the
search engine's data center. By finding all the links on a website's site map
and pages, it relates it to the content on other websites on the internet and
records the link relationships with each other.
Web
Crawler: WebCrawler is
also called WebSpider or robot. The purpose of this component is to discover
new sources on the internet and add them to the search engine's database; in this
way, to ensure that these sources can be reflected in the search results.
Search
Index: Regular
recording of information from search robots, according to the method of search
engine index; it provides the user to answer the incoming search query.
User
Interface: Search engines
use the search engine interface to transmit queries from users to the search
engine index and to show the incoming answers to users.
Search
Engine Marketing
Internet marketing
methods that promote the websites by increasing their visibility on search
engine results pages (SERPs).
A systematic approach can lead to
search marketing success in any organization.
When people search on
search engines using one of your keywords, your ad may appear next to or above
the search results. You can now advertise to an audience that is already
interested in you. The word SEM means Search Engine Marketing. That is, it
finds its equivalent in our language as search engine marketing. Technically
speaking, it can be seen as a digital marketing method that aims to appear at
the top spots through the ads you see on search engines. You can increase the
awareness and visibility of your website with ads (text ads, display ads, video
ads, etc.) that you prepare according to the instructions of search engines.
You can see that mostly e-commerce sites take advantage of SEM today. Google
Adwords ads are part of SEM. With AdWords, you can reach your desired goals and
audiences more easily and easily. So you can increase your sales. If you are a
new business owner, you can easily increase brand awareness.
Targeted
Reach
You can now advertise
for people searching on the search engine. In fact, if you already appear in
the search results of search engines, SEM can help you target new audiences and
our advertising network in search engines.
SEM
(Search Engine Marketing) Search Engines You Can Buy
Google:
http://adwords.google.com
Yandex:
http://direct.yandex.com.tr
Bing and Yahoo: https:
//bingads.microsoft.com
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Kaan Gülten made the following definition of search
engine optimization in his "SEO from Expert" book. “It is the whole
process that enables the development of the search engines in the most
appropriate way to the functioning structure of the search engines in order for
the websites to take a better position in the search results in the related
keywords. Its purpose is to be listed at the top in search engines. This aim is
to ensure that the information, services or sales on the sites are delivered to
more audiences. ”
The first goal in SEO is to get traffic (visits) from
natural search results. The words that users type in search engines have
extraordinary values. Studies have shown that traffic from search engines can
affect an organization's success either positively or negatively. Investing in
search engine optimization (SEO) studies for a firm can have an outstanding
rate of return compared to other types of marketing and promotion
SEO studies are also a marketing discipline that
focuses on increasing visibility in organic search engine results, and covers
the technical and creative elements needed to improve rankings on search
results pages, attract traffic and raise awareness of a website and pages in
search engines. There are many aspects of SEO work, from the word order on your
page to the way of other sites link to your website. SEO studies are classified
in two categories in practice. Off page SEO studies and on page SEO studies.
Off page SEO requires and involves creating backlinks on well-known, common and
reliable websites, thereby increasing the reputation level at the domain and
page level. On site SEO requires optimization of web pages using target
keywords in the title, text and URL. Adding additional semantically related
terms to the target keyword is considered an advanced SEO technique and gaining
popularity
In addition to all these definitions, between 2000 and
2019, the academic literature containing search engine optimization (SEO) was
searched by searching the Google Scholar index, the definitions were made and
their common aspects were examined. As a result of the scan, the following
definitions were reached;
·
SEO
forms part of search engine marketing (SEM), which defines the steps taken to
organically grow a site's relevance by building links, writing powerful
content, or sending it to search sites.
·
Search
engine optimization is the process of improving a website's location. Thus, the
web page will appear higher in the search results of the major search engines.
·
SEO
is the process of influencing the visibility of a website or a web page in the
"natural" or unpaid search results of a search engine.
·
SEO
is a set of processes that enable websites to be developed in the most
appropriate way to the functioning of search engines in order to take place in
search positions on related keywords in better positions.
·
Search
engine optimization (SEO) is about making minor changes to certain parts of the
website. Looking at these minor improvements individually, these changes do not
make much sense, but when combined with other optimization processes, they can
have a noticeable effect on the user experience of the web page and its
performance in organic search results.
·
The
main purpose of SEO is to help websites or web pages rank high in organic
search results by increasing the relevance of the search query written by users
on the search engine.
·
Search
Engine Optimization is about applications that aim to increase the visibility
and traffic (visitors) of a website or a web page in organic search engine
results.
In the search engine optimization (SEO) definitions in
the literature, it was observed that the ranking in organic search results was
emphasized. With a specific definition, SEO is the name given to all of the
work done to make web pages perform better in organic search results.
Why the Site Optimization is Necessary?
No matter how useful the website is, this benefit does
not matter unless it receives visitors. Successful site optimization brings
quality visitors and customers potential to the site. For this reason,
optimization for search engines is very important. If the position of an
unoptimized site in the search engine is in the end, this is quite normal, but
if it is optimized but its position in the search engine does not change after
a certain period of time, the optimization is not successful. In the
infographic published as a result of the research conducted by BlueCaribu *
firm, the following information about SEO is included.
• There are 863 million websites in the world, and there
are 164,000 videos on YouTube about SEO.
• 3.5 people per second are doing SEO related research
on Google. This means that 9.1 million internet users per month are interested
in SEO.
• Most searched words about SEO; SEO Services, SEO
Companies, SEO Tools.
• Top 3 countries that are most concerned with the word
SEO are India, Pakistan and Philippines
• There are 2969 books about SEO on Amazon.
SEO Terms
With the explanations described under this title, the
logic of the SEO terms is also briefly explained. The explanations of the
related terms are taken from Kaan Gülten's specialist SEO published in 2017.
On Page SEO: Page-based, in-site SEO works. It is an SEO section
based on the design of a website, code structure, use of elements such as
links, images, mobile compatibility, content, articles.
Off Page SEO: It covers all kinds of promotional and sharing
activities made outside the site such as externally received links, social
media usage.
PageRank: It is a form of scoring that Google minimizes its effect with Caffeine
algorithm. These are the ratings arranged according to the link entries and
exits of the sites. PageRank system, which has no effect in terms of Google
ranking, has lost its importance with the latest developments
Google Caffeine: With Google Caffeine, current issues will be
highlighted, and ranking will be prioritized and minor updates in past articles
on the site will revive the archive. With Caffeine, Google has made a 50%
innovation in terms of indexing and presentation.
Trust rank: Google is a second scoring system whose way of
working and reviews are not fully known. Trust rank, which has a direct effect
on SEO, is a value given for all the work done by the sites in accordance with
the natural structure. User intervention is limited.
Link: These are the links used to direct users to different sites or pages by
directing them online. They are clickable text.
Link Farm: It is the name given to the pages containing hundreds
of unrelated links. Linking to sites of this nature or getting links from such
sites is not approved in terms of SEO.
Inbound Links: These are the links given to our site or pages from
other sites. Although its number is important in terms of SEO, its effective
use is more decisive in terms of ranking.
Backlink: The only difference with inbound links is that the backlink can be used
for links to other pages within the site itself.
Outbound Links: It can be seen as outbound links from the site. The
quality and similarity of the links given to other sites are also very
important for the SEO of the site.
Search Engine Friendly: It refers to the SEO compliance of the applied
techniques. The term, which takes more link structures into account, can
actually be used for the compliance of all SEO work with the search engine.
Spam: It is the name given to all the work done to deceive the search
engines. Its target is the search engine oriented and unethical studies,
ignoring the visitor. As a result of the detection of spam, a penalty system
called filter is applied to the sites. Sites in this situation are thrown to
the back rows or deleted completely. In cases where search engines cannot
notice, users can create notifications.
Spider: It is a different term used for search engine bots. These bots, which
are also pronounced as search engine spiders, reflect the new data obtained by
navigating sites and pages to Google search results.
Hit:
Indicates the number of visits. The size of the sites is compared according to
the number of visits daily. The number of visits that can be used as daily hits
and monthly hits can be done with many different counters.
Instant Hit: Indicates the number of visitors on the site at the
time of measurement. (pg 20)
Unique Hit: The number of visits counting different users.
Multiple visits of a person are not considered.
Plural Hit: It is a type of counting where visitors' repeat
visits are also taken into consideration. More than one visit of a visitor is
taken into account.
Broken Link: Links that are opened incorrectly or never opened. It
is not recommended for use due to the spam phenomenon that may occur in terms
of SEO. Old type links can be perceived as broken by changing the structure of
the links previously used on the site.
Meta Tag: These are various informative tags about the site. It provides many
information such as description of the site, target keywords, geographical
location, owner, author, software and version of the site to search engines and
provides convenience. They are the spammiest sections due to their misuse.
Description Meta Tag: These are summary descriptions containing information
about what the site or pages contain. It should not exceed 160 characters.
Keyword Density: It means keyword density. It is mostly used for
on-site SEO. The keywords should be used at certain rates on the site. These
rates vary according to the competitive difficulty of the keyword and the
structure of the sections used.
Filter: It is the evaluation method by which Google determines the sites aiming
to rise with unethical values. The filter, also called Google Penalty, is the
inactivation of the search engine results by quarantining the sites until they
correct their mistakes.
Sandbox: The largest of Google fines and the most difficult filter to
compensate. The erroneous work done to get rid of the Sandbox application,
which comes into play as a result of fast and intense SEO work, should be
cleaned.
Index: The term that refers to being listed in search engines. The number of
pages listed by search engines is also expressed as the number of indexes.
Google Fluctuation: Algorithm change that occurs in certain periods
causes collective or partial changes in the rankings. These changes in search
results are called Google fluctuations.
Link Exchange: It is the name given to the process of mutually
adding links of sites by agreeing to contribute to each other in terms of SEO.
Alt Tag: Search engines cannot see the picture content, so they cannot evaluate
the picture results related to the searches according to their content. In this
case, the alt tag, that is, the image description tag is used. The alt tag is
the description text that explains the pictures to the search engines where
they are depicted.
How Does Google Realize The Site?
Being listed in the top position on Google is the best
type of advertising. All the advertising work done has a positive effect
indirectly on SEO. In short, the sites rise to the top as a result of all
promotions and advertisements made to become popular.
Google understands that a site is becoming popular
with the regular increase in the number of visitors and the links and
information sharing about the site. A As the channels and number of these
sharing increase, it becomes more natural and solid. The popularity of a site
is evaluated by considering its development from the moment the site is opened
and it is directly reflected in the search engine results.
Google bots are programmed to automatically find new
sites and pages. Under normal circumstances, Google bots start indexing new
sites that they have noticed only with server visits, and they visit the
indexed sites periodically. They strengthen their archives by indexing the new
pages they encounter during these visits.
It can take quite a long time for a site to be noticed
by search engines without any attempt. Therefore, there are various ways to
speed up the site's first introduction to the search engine. One is to manually
add sites to the Google Directory.
With this method, site owners can send notifications
to Google without having to wait for the Google bot. This is like identifying a
newborn baby.
How Does Popularity Occur?
In summary, the popularity of a site is the more it is
promoted by the different number of people on different platforms and the more
it is linked. If there is an excess of only one of these criteria, there is no
popularity or there is a manipulation. In other words, an unnatural, artificial
popularity occurs.
To give an example from daily life, a popular artist
or statesman is people whose names are pronounced in different environments
such as newspaper, internet, television, radio, news, magazine, discussion, and
documentary. If it is being promoted with any of these, it has not been popular
or manipulated. Just as the sentences of a popular artist and statesman are
taken into account by people, the article written by a popular site is equally
important and listed directly in the top.
Concept
of Taking Links and Giving Links
Taking links and giving links are essential concepts
of SEO. In terms of SEO, giving links as much as getting the right and
effective link is of great importance. The popularity of the sites is achieved
by receiving links, and benefiting from the popularity of others by providing
links.
Getting links means being advised, useful, and
recommended. In order to preserve these meanings, the links should give the
appearance of being added from the user. Links added by the site owner will not
give the impression that it is a suggested site and it can damage the site as
it can be seen as deceptive works.
There are two effective elements on the basis of
linking. One of them is the link text (anchor text) and link title structure.
These two items should contain keywords in the links received, and a variety of
keywords should be provided in this regard.
The fact that the linked sites are similar in content
is a more important issue for Google. Because it is more believable and effective
to be recommended and found useful by a site in the same industry. For this
reason, SEO studies are tried to be done in the form of getting links by
finding sites with similar content. Due to the difficulty of getting links from
similar sites, studies equivalent to this situation can be carried out. Due to
the need for similar sites, the concept of front site is created, and the
content that will be opened at low costs is provided by linking through similar
sites and permanent and effective SEO studies are provided.
Sites that provide permanent benefits by search
engines and visitors are gold sites. For example, we can add Google.com to
these. Linking to Adobe.com, w3.org, alexa.com and hundreds more proven sites
is as important as getting links. In addition to linking to popular sites in
general, linking to less popular sites in your industry is also an important
issue. If a link from a page belonging to another website has been linked to a
page on your website, this link is considered a backlink. Analyzing the
backlinks given from one page to another website, the reliability of the
linking website, its relevance to the subject and the status of http determines
the effect of backlinks
REFERENCES
Anatomy of a SERP. (2012, Nisan 2).
http://resource.reachlocal.com/infographics/anatomy-serp adresinden alındı
Wills, R. (2006). Google’s PageRank: the math behind the
search engine. Department of Mathematics North Carolina State University.
VURAN, E. G. (2019). Arama motoru optimizasyonu / Search
engine optimization. https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezSorguSonucYeni.jsp.
Mike
Moran, B. H. (tarih yok). Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search
Traffic to Your Company's Website.
Search Enginie Marketing. (2017, Aralık). https://www.digitatek.com/sem-arama-motoru-pazarlamasi-nedir-blog
adresinden alındı
Gülten, K. (2019). Uzmanından Seo. İstanbul: Ceres
Yayınları.
Gülten, Y. K. (2017). Uzmanından SEO.
Hootsuite. (2019). Hootsuite and We Are Social.
Fishkin, R. (2018). The basics of search engine friendly
design and development.
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-enginefriendly-design-and-development.
Gennaro, S. (2015). Brevity and clarity: titles, key words,
and search engine. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47.
How big is th SEO industry on the Internet ? (2012, Mart 10). BlueCaribu:
http://www.bluecaribu.com/seo-industry adresinden alındı