CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE AN ANALYSIS OF THE APPLICATION OF SELECTED SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) TECHNIQUES AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS ON GOOGLE’S SEARCH RANKING ALGORITHM A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Science In Computer Science By Edgar Damian Ochoa May 2012 The thesis of Edgar Damian Ochoa is approved: Gloria Melara, Ph.D. Date John Noga, Ph. D. Date Rick Covington, Ph. D., Chair Date California State University, Northridge II Acknowledgements To Professor Covington, who through his useful feedback and guidance, helped me take this thesis from a “rock” into a polished piece of art. Thank you. III Dedication I dedicate this thesis to my mother and father. Although I can’t bring back all those long hours that I spent away from you, I hope it’ll be worth it. To my sisters. Thank you for all your support. To my brothers. I hope I can make you proud. And finally to Chiquiya. Thank you for being there through the stressful times. You’re my rock. IV Table of Contents Signature Page ……………………………………………………………………………………II Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………...III Dedication ……………………………………………………………………………………….IV Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………..X Chapter 1 - Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Topic ..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Purpose and Motivation ........................................................................................................ 1 1.3 Target Readers ...................................................................................................................... 5 1.4 Key Definitions ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.5 Overview of the Rest of the Paper ........................................................................................ 8 Chapter 2 - Background .................................................................................................................. 9 2.1 Related Work ........................................................................................................................ 9 2.1.1 Study and Analysis of Key Influence Web Search Factors ........................................... 9 2.1.2 An Empirical Study on the SEO Technique and Its Outcomes ................................... 11 2.1.3 SEO Research Based on Six Sigma Management ....................................................... 13 2.1.4 How to Improve Your Google Ranking: Myths and Reality ....................................... 15 2.1.5 The Application of SEO for Internet Marketing: An Example of the Motel Websites 16 2.1.6 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 17 2.2 History of the Internet ......................................................................................................... 18 2.2.1 The Beginning .............................................................................................................. 18 2.2.1 Internet History Timeline ............................................................................................. 19 2.2.2 The First Top-level Domains ....................................................................................... 22 2.2.3 Early Browsers ............................................................................................................. 23 2.2.4 Explosive Growth of the Internet ................................................................................. 24 2.2.5 Early Rise of Search Engines ....................................................................................... 25 2.2.6 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 27 2.3 Birth of Google ................................................................................................................... 27 2.3.1 How It All Started ........................................................................................................ 28 2.3.2 How Google Ranks Pages ............................................................................................ 29 V 2.3.3 Google PageRank Explained ....................................................................................... 29 2.3.4 Links: The Currency of the Internet ............................................................................. 31 2.3.5 Link Importance: A Case Study ................................................................................... 32 2.3.6 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 34 2.4 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) .................................................................................... 34 2.4.1 SEO Early Beginnings ................................................................................................. 35 2.4.2 SEO Goals .................................................................................................................... 36 2.4.3 On-page SEO ............................................................................................................... 39 2.4.4 Off-page SEO ............................................................................................................... 39 2.4.5 White-hat SEO ............................................................................................................. 40 2.4.6 Black-hat SEO ............................................................................................................. 40 2.4.7 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 41 Chapter 3 - Problem Statement ..................................................................................................... 43 3.1 Research Questions and Aim .............................................................................................. 44 3.2 Objectives ........................................................................................................................... 44 3.3 Data Collection and Analysis ............................................................................................. 45 Chapter 4 - Description of Approach and Methods ...................................................................... 46 4.1 Topic Website Research ..................................................................................................... 46 4.2 Domain Name and Website Setup ...................................................................................... 49 4.2.1 Domain name selection ................................................................................................ 49 4.2.2 Web hosting service ..................................................................................................... 50 4.2.3 Website setup ............................................................................................................... 53 4.3 Keyword Research .............................................................................................................. 53 4.3.1 Long-tail Keywords ..................................................................................................... 56 4.3.2 Keyword Research Process .......................................................................................... 57 4.3.3 Keyword Selection for SEO ......................................................................................... 63 4.4 Data Collection ................................................................................................................... 67 4.4.1 Google Analytics installation ....................................................................................... 67 4.5 On-Page SEO Strategies ..................................................................................................... 69 4.5.1 Title tag ........................................................................................................................ 70 4.5.2 Description meta tag .................................................................................................... 72 VI 4.5.3 Effective use of robots.txt ............................................................................................ 75 4.5.4 Optimized URLs .......................................................................................................... 77 4.5.5 Content first ................................................................................................................. 80 4.5.6 Headings tags ............................................................................................................... 81 4.5.7 Images .......................................................................................................................... 83 4.5.8 Effective use of the “rel=nofollow” attribute ............................................................... 84 4.5.9 Keyword Placement ..................................................................................................... 87 4.5.10 Sitemaps ..................................................................................................................... 90 4.6 Off-Page SEO Strategies ...................................................................................................