Search Engines and SEO Flashcards
What is a bot?
A computer robot is a program that automate repetitive tasks.
What is the most common origin of website traffic?
Search on a search engine (ex Google)
What are three different methods for arriving a specific URL?
- Direct visits
- Referrals (including social)
- Search (paid and organic)
What is a web crawler?
Web crawlers/spiders find hyperlinks in pages and follow the links to find new sites and pages
What are two methods which a web crawler can retrieve information?
Either by processing the HTML code or Rendering the document
What is indexing?
Web crawlers go through pages and assign them IDs in order to index their content. Add it to the collection
What is page ranking?
Algorithms that rank websites based on a variety of factors. They consider the pages’ relevance, content quality, popularity etc.
What happens to a search engine URL when performing a search?
The search engine URL is combines with search terms to form a new URL that contains a query string variable
What does SEO do?
Improve long term reputation of a site, as well as relevance of the content and increasing popularity
Explain a white hat SEO
- Use logical page structure to help search engines find relevant content.
- Position important content where its more visible to search robots
Explain a black hat SEO
- Exploit specific weakness in search engine algorithms to inflate the search ranking
- Use dishonest techniques to trick search engines
How are search engines aware of new sites?
Direct submission or organic crawling
How do you optimise metadata for relevance?
Write descriptive and concise titles and unique descriptions for each page
How do you optimise content for relevance?
Use the proper language for your intended audience
How do you optimise media for relevance?
Ensure image elements have descriptions and position rich media near relevant text
