SEO Terminology_SEO Notes 1

Zero. What is SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of affecting the relevance and importance of query results

Relevance: The degree to which the returned file content matches the user's search intent. If the keywords the user queries appear multiple times on the page, appear in the page title or important subheadings, or the page has links from related pages using related anchor text, relevance will be improved

Importance (Popularity): Relative importance, measured by the number of citations. The more times a page is referenced by other pages, the higher its popularity

I. Long-tail Keywords

Keywords are the search terms entered by users. Long-tail keywords are relatively uncommon and long keywords or phrases, even short phrases. According to statistics, long-tail searches account for a high proportion of all searches. Hot keywords naturally bring a lot of traffic, while multiple uncommon keywords are likely to bring more traffic than hot keywords

Therefore, keyword research and the use of long-tail keywords is also an important method of SEO

II. Organic Results

Organic results refer to ranking results obtained through natural search, as opposed to paid results

Google, Baidu and other search engines all have advertising platforms that provide paid rankings, such as the famous Putian System Incident. Paid results are generally ranked in the top three or displayed in the sidebar. Apart from these paid ranking results, the rest of the search result entries and their order are organic results

Organic results are a very strong signal indicating that the search engine recognizes the value of the page. SEO effectiveness is mainly reflected in organic results. The higher the organic result ranking, the easier it is to get clicks (traffic), and it's also easier to attract potential customers and increase brand influence

III. Vertical Results (Onebox)

Search engines display vertical results for certain categories of queries. For example, Baidu search 2 to the 10th power, the first search result directly gives the calculation result 2^10 = 1 024, instead of giving a list of search results that need to be clicked again to get the answer like a general search. This is a vertical result

Vertical results are services provided by the search engine itself (not third-party services). Music, images, maps, weather and other types of searches will display vertical results. It's a way for search engines to improve user experience (users can get the answer directly through one search without needing to jump to other pages)

IV. Citation Analysis

The user search process is as follows:

User enters keywords
Search engine returns a list of relevant pages in the order most likely to satisfy the user

First, find results related to the user's query keywords from the vast number of indexed pages

Then rank the results according to importance (trustworthiness/authority). This process is called citation analysis, which is the process by which the search engine determines the ranking order of search results based on relevance and importance

View search results, adjust keywords, search again
Find satisfactory results, stop searching

V. Common Search Types

Proximity Search

Proximity search finds relevant pages according to the order of search terms provided by the user. The user has a clear goal, such as "summer skirt Taobao"

Fuzzy Search

Logic that cannot be expressed in a clear black-and-white right-or-wrong manner. Fuzzy search can be used to correct spelling errors. For example, Baidu search for "Putian System" (misspelled) will prompt: Showing search results for "Putian System" instead. Still search for: Putian System (misspelled)

Boolean Search

Search using Boolean operations (AND, OR, NOT), which can be used to limit search results. For example, Baidu search "fruits | vegetables" (note the spaces before and after |) displays search results for "fruits" + search results for "vegetables"

Term Weighting

In search keywords, different words have different weights. For example, "my" has very low weight, while "clothes" has relatively high weight. Distinguishing the weight of search terms helps produce more reasonable search results

VI. Factors Affecting Search Rankings

Positive Factors

Using keywords in title tags

Title tags have high weight and represent the page theme. Putting important parts in the first half of the title content is a small trick. For example, "SEO Terminology_SEO Notes 1" is better than "SEO Notes 1_SEO Terminology", because the latter half of the title is likely meaningless keyword stuffing, which search engines don't like
Import link anchor text

That is, external links. The text content of external link a tags is important
Overall link authority of the website

Indicates the search engine's trust in the entire site. For example, Baidu weight provided by站长之家 (Webmaster Tools), and the PR value of the homepage (although the homepage is not necessarily the page with the highest PR value, it generally has great reference value)
Website age

Website age is also considered as a factor because spam sites generally don't last long, so old sites are generally more trusted than new sites
Link importance formed by the internal link structure of the website

Pages that are deeper (reachable only through multiple jumps from the homepage) have lower importance. If many links within the site point to a certain page, it indicates that the page is important
Thematic relevance of import links

The relevance of the page where the external link is located to the theme is also important. External links from blog sites on commercial sites naturally don't have as high quality as external links from similar blog sites
Link importance of the website in relevant topic communities

That is, the authority of the site. If there are many external links in relevant communities, it indicates that the site has high authority and everyone is willing to cite the site content
Using keywords in page text

Search engines also check page content to determine relevance to the theme
Overall link importance of the link source website

The higher the weight of the site where the external link is located, the higher the quality of the external link

Negative Factors

Spiders often cannot access

If access is frequently unavailable, not to mention that updated content cannot be indexed in time, just the user experience is much worse. Search engines care a lot about user experience, so they will consider this a low-quality site
Content similar or identical to other pages

Search engines hope to display a large amount of unique content. If site content is poor or stolen from elsewhere, it will also be treated as a negative ranking signal
Linking to low-quality/spam websites

If there are a large number of links to spam websites on the site, it will definitely be downweighted
Participating in link schemes or actively selling links

Search engines don't like webmasters selling links for the purpose of passing weight, nor do they want webmasters to participate in link alliances, link farms and other link schemes with cheating suspicions
Many pages have duplicate titles or meta tags

Titles have relatively high weight, but if there are a large number of duplicate titles, it will be suspected of cheating, so it's also a negative ranking signal

Other Factors

Speed of acquiring links

The growth rate of external links should be slow and natural. If a large number of links are suddenly acquired, it will definitely be suspected. Of course, it's not excluded that the page suddenly becomes very popular. Search engines will count and judge whether it's cheating over time. Time will tell the truth
Usage data

If users exit the page quickly after entering, or if pages ranked behind yours in search results get higher click-through rates than yours, these are negative signals. But only search engines know how important these data are
User data

Search engines can obtain user information, such as geographic location. Localization is a key point of SEO. If the site prepares localized long-tail keywords, there will be more opportunities to get high rankings in local searches

Reference Materials

"The Art of SEO": A very old book, with cases mainly focusing on Google and foreign websites. Not recommended for reference