One of the factors that constitute the (high) value of search engines is the data gathering process behind the search. With this they are able to produce information and knowledge. This information reveals human (search) behavior, but most of all it reveals search trends.
The most commonly known analysis methods in financial (investment) analysis are technical and fundamental analysis. The fundamental analyst observes the stock values on bases of company analysis. The technical analyst (TA) is less involved with the collateral value but merely interested in the trends of the stock-price.
The interesting aspect of TA is that it provides you a signaling system. Without knowing the cause you are signaled which stocks (bonds, currencies, etc) move in what direction. Take care however with TA, because it is said that TA is like looking outside the rear-window of a van and signaling the driver which way to go to.
If you observe the search market and especially the demand for search you can in the same way signal search trends. To give an example with data from Overture on management:
Doing such an analysis is nearly impossible without the services from the mayor search engines. First you need to know the overall search growth on all the entries in order to get the main index (to serve as a benchmark). And also two measures are never sufficient to calculate a trend.
Yet this analysis, how simple or profound as you might want to pursue it, shows interesting information;
Although searches on management show a stable horizontal trend (in absolute figures, perhaps relatively spoken the trend could be descending), the changes between different types of management are significant. To give some examples:
A next step would be to add the fundamental part to the analysis. What is the drive behind these changes This simple demonstration is focused on management, but you could apply this to any area. Ask you search engine for data or start with a simple analysis yourself.
For SEO the trend analysis could help you in anticipating changes. Just take care to turn left at the right moment.
2006 Hans Bool
Hans Bool is the founder of a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days.You can apply for a
Introduction
Imagine that you would like to find information on red widgets. Since you dont know any online resources for red widgets, you will have to use a search engine. How will you do this
Most likely you will use either Google, Yahoo, or MSN. After searching, you will see a number of different things on your screen. The top section of your results will most likely display pay-per-click ads. This simply means that any link you find here was put here by somebody paying for it. You will also find these ads usually running down the right side of the screen. However, the largest section of the results page is in the center, where you will find the natural search engine results. You notice that there are thousands, if not millions of results returned. Each individual search engine must have a way of ordering these websites in order to display the most relative results to you.
This is where the term search engine optimization (or SEO) comes in. This leads us to the first frequently asked question.
What is SEO
Search engine optimization is the art of employing certain methods which, in the end, have the intent to move your own website as high as possible in the search results for specific keywords or keyword phrases. This is also what is meant when you hear ads about boosting your ranking or something similar.
These methods cover a wide range of factors, including both on-site optimization and off-site optimization. What is also interesting about search engine optimization is that there really are very few objective factors which affect your rankings. Webmasters and SEOs have a pretty good idea of what factors have at least minimal impact on your rankings - but the significance of each factor is largely disputed. So why do you hear about SEO firms and companies that claim to be able to help your ranking
Many theories on search engine optimization are actually theories. Meaning, they have actual data to back up any conclusions. Other than the largely accepted theories, different people develop their own hypothesis on what they feel to be important. These are often supported by many different SEOs but often do not have any evidence or data to back it up.
How do you know what to do
Google, the single largest and most used search engine, has provided webmasters with quality guidelines for getting your site included in their results. This should be the most basic set of guidelines any webmaster should follow. There are, however, many factors which the majority of search engine optimizers agree on. These factors are based on research, observation, and accounts of experiences from webmasters and search engine optimizers.
What are the factors
Although this list could be overwhelmingly long, the factors below are a brief list of basic factors which are known to have some type of effect on website ranking. Keep in mind, that each search engine most likely weights each factor differently, which is partly why you see different results at Google, Yahoo, and MSN. More information on how to optimize these factors can be found in the articles section....
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Lee Schmidt is a website analyst for a small business, and also writes for .