Measuring Relevance and Popularity

Here’s a quick history lesson for you: did you know that modern commercial search engines rely on the science of information retrieval (IR)? IR has been a science since around the 1950s, when computer-powered retrieval systems first came into use in libraries, research facilities and government labs. Early in the development of search systems, IR scientists realized that two critical components made up the majority of search functionality:

Relevance - the degree to which the content of a document matched the user’s query intention and terms. The relevance of a document increases if the terms or phrase queried by the user occurs multiple times and shows up in the title of the work or in important headlines or subheads.

Popularity - the relative importance, measured via citation (the act of one work referencing another, as often occurs in academic and business documents) of a given document that matches the user’s query. The popularity of a given document increases every time another document references it.

These two items were translated to Web search 40 years later in what search engine marketers now know as document analysis and link analysis.

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Understanding Search Engine Speed Bumps & Walls

In Part One of our “How Search Engines Work” series, we showed you  how search engines go to work the nanosecond you submit a query. But search engines aren’t perfect machines, and some very basic navigation errors can hinder or entirely prevent search engines from reaching your website’s content.

As search engine spiders crawl the Web, they rely on the architecture of links to find new Web pages and revisit those that may have changed. Complex links and deeply buried site content often create “speed bumps” in the search engines’ process. And data that cannot be accessed at all by spider-friendly links qualify as “walls.”

Possible “Speed Bumps” for SE Spiders:

• URLs with 2+ dynamic parameters –take this beast for example http://www.url.com/page.php?id=4&CK=34rr&User=%Tom%.  Spiders may be reluctant to crawl complex URLs like this because they often result in errors with non-human visitors.
• Pages with more than 100 unique links to other pages on the site. Spiders may not follow each one.
• Pages buried more than 3 clicks/links from the home page of a website. Unless there are many other external links pointing to them, spiders will often ignore deep pages.
• Pages requiring a “Session ID” or Cookie to enable navigation. Spiders may not be able to retain these elements the way your browser can.
• Pages that are split into “frames” can hinder crawling and cause confusion about which pages to rank in the results.

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This week’s guest blogger, TruePresence Area President Bob Blake, shows us why we should stop thinking of websites as a business expense–and start treating them more like a business extension.

What, exactly, is Internet marketing and why do I need it, anyway?

It’s a question I get every day in my new life as a TruePresence local owner.  And it’s one that I enjoy answering.  Nearly every one of the businesses that I speak with each day already has a website; it’s pretty much a pre-requisite today for starting a business – like having business cards and a cash register.  However, I find that too many businesses still consider their website as simply a business expense – like business cards and a cash register.

I like to share with them that their website is a 24/7 front door to their business.

It’s available at 2am on Thursday or 7am on Sunday morning even if they are not.  A well designed website will reflect their business, their style and their personality and be available for their customers at all hours.  A well designed website will help potential new customers find their services and can help fulfill their needs by providing a shopping cart or means to contact the business at any time of the day or night.

Internet marketing simply extends the concept by using the website as a platform for Finding, Getting and Keeping customers.  In short, leveraging the website can be one of the most profitable parts of a well organized business. 

What has your website done for you lately?

As TruePresence Area President, Bob Blake brings more than twenty years of technology experience to his Fairfield County, Connecticut based customers.  He’s worked with customers in Finance, Transportation, Telephony and Insurance and truly enjoys helping his customers succeed in their businesses.