Tokyo PC Users Group

This month's topic: Search Engine Optimization

[takagi]

The Tokyo PC Users Group [tokyopc.org] (TPC) is Japan's oldest IBM compatible support network for the Tokyo community. It was founded in 1982 to help the English speaking members keep up with the barrage of new technology in the PC industry. The monthly meetings on the first Thursday of the month feature industry guest-speakers, product demonstrations and a question-and-answer session for computing problems. The scope is no longer limited to IBM PC's but now also includes Linux, Java, Palm, network safety etc. This month's topic is Search Engine Optimization. Read more about Amir Ayalon's presentation on Thursday March 4 at this page [tokyopc.org]. Although it is about the basics of SEO I guess, it could still be nice for WebmasterWorld members living at/near Tokyo to go there. If my work allows it, I will be there too.

[kazonik]

Another nice find Takagi :)

Peace,
Kaz

[Woz]

To those who do go, if possible, could we please have a short report on salient points? This might be helpful to members who cannot attend.

Onya
Woz

[kazonik]

Hi Everyone,

IMHO....

An interesting presentation. In my opinion quite accurate, but I also think that alot of the breaking news is always available here on WebmasterWorld.

The SEO info although geared to a broad audience, was still fairly technical and probably helped to re-enforce what most of you people here should already know.

The software looks very cool, built in Japan for Japan, very nice interface.

Peace,
Kaz

[bill]

Is that the Japanese do-it-yourself SEO software? I've seen ads for it but never really looked at it. I was under the impression it was like a Japanese WPG.

[kazonik]

Hi Bill,

Japanese DIY SEO software, Good way to describe it :)

I guess its kind of like WPG but handles Japanese nicely, the other main difference is that its all online.

Peace,
Kaz

[takagi]

The product kazonik mentioned is SeoSpy. Search for that word, and you can easily find the site about it. AFAIK there is only a Japanese version of it.

The audience at TPC was a group of about 40 people with interest in computers and electronics etc. About 50% of this group raised their hands when asked if they knew something about HTML. As you can read in message 4, it was more about the basics of SEO but sometimes with a nice Japanese angle. For example, when somebody asked about separating words for the keywords meta-tag, Mr. Ayalon said that spaces and comma's are OK, but don't use double-byte comma's. He showed a list of sites used for searches which also included Goo, Infoseek and Yahoo Japan.

[kazonik]

Thanks Takagi for adding the extra details. I wasn't sure if I should mention the products name here.

I believe there is a little english info on the companies corporate website for those who don't read Japanese. Also, I agree with Takagi in that IMO no english version available (yet).

Takagi > what was your overall impression of the software?

Peace,
Kaz

[anallawalla]

Takagi,

It would be interesting to hear a report about that meeting, since the link no longer contains info about the past meeting. Perhaps a link to the magazine when it becomes viewable to the public.

I am the editor of the Melbourne PC User Group (largest in the world) magazine and I usually see Ken Cotton at Comdex each Fall. It is amazing that most Tokyo residents can get fibre to their home at a decent price.

[takagi]

You are right; the original text on the page isn't there anymore. Since several members here specifically asked for some short report, I will write down from what I remember of the presentation. A week has passed since that meeting and I didn't make any notes or record it, so some details might be incorrect/incomplete. Just for your information, I'm in no way linked to the company or products mentioned in this post.

The presentation itself was from about 19:45 to 21:00 on March 4, 2004 at the monthly TPC meeting in Tokyo.

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Search Engine Optimization

Mr. Ayalon's presentation covered the following points:

• An introduction to Search engine optimization and how you can benefit from it.
  A long time ago it was easy to have a high ranking in Search Results for specific keywords. Although it is now much harder, you can still influence the ranking of your own site/pages. Search Engine Optimization is no art or so. Search Engines use some algorithm/logic to sort the pages that match the search query so with some understanding of that logic, you can do things to improve your ranking. Analyzing why some pages have a good ranking for a given keyword (combination) helps to understand the logic of the SE's. For a business having a higher ranking for their site means more visitors to the site, more potential customers, improving brand name recognition, etc.
  
• How to make sure you optimize for the right keywords.
  Make sure your pages contain the right keywords. Don't forget synonyms. Google can help you finding those words by searching for:

  ~keyword -keyword

  (doesn't work right now in Japanese only in English) but you can also use tools like the one on the site of Overture. That last one also helps you to find out what keywords are really used for searches on SE's. The statistics of a lot of sites are available on internet, some are even indexed in SE's like Google. So maybe you can have a look at the statistics of one of your competitors to find out for what keywords they do well. But even if you cannot see those statistics, you can still find important keywords by looking at the site of your competitor. Don't try to optimize for too competitive keywords or keywords not relevant to your site.
  
• The fastest way to submit your site to a search engine.
  For Google there is no need to submit your site but others have paid inclusion. It depends on your situation if PFI is worth it or not.
  
• How search engine's determine the rank of a web page.
  Basically there are two classes: on-page and off-page factors. On-page is the information on the page and to improve these factors you have to make sure the keywords are in the title, meta-tags (keywords, description), alt-tags for images, at prominent places in the text (first paragraph), they should occur several times in the text and if applicable using h(1,2..)-tags/bold/italic/underline to make them special. For keyword combinations make sure the words appear close to each other in the text. Also fresh content can help your ranking. Off-page factors are PageRank, incoming links (especially from other sites/IP blocks), link-text, etc. The PageRank of a page can be found by visiting the page after installing the Google Toolbar. BTW, it is a common misconception that the word 'Page' in PageRank stands for the page of a web site. It stands for the name of one of Google's founders: Larry Page. Being linked from an important page helps your PageRank more than being linked from just a normal page on Internet. It is easy to prove that link-text is really working by looking at the image-search at Google. SE's cannot read/understand the images, but even if the filename doesn't have the keyword in it, Google can still match images with keywords from the link-text. Different SE's have different algorithms. Keyword-metatags might not work for Google but it seems to work for Yahoo. PageRank is specific for Google but other SE's will have something similar.
  
• A technical overview of how to optimize your own web site.
  Understanding how the ranking is working, you can easily work on the on-page factors and for bigger sites make sure different pages are optimized for different keyword (combinations). Also by the way you link, you can influence the PageRank flow through your site.
  
• Whats working now?
  The keyword meta-tag used to work, but most SE's stopped using them. Alt-tags seem to loose their importance. Search Engines are often changing the algorithms so what works now, might not work tomorrow.
  
• The future of SEO.
  Because of these changes in algorithms, SEO-companies need to find out how to keep/improve rankings for their customers. With the internet still growing, it will be harder to get a good ranking for a competitive word.
  
• A brief demonstration of the SeoSpy software.
  Ayalon noticed a few years ago there was no Japanese SEO-tool to easily check ranking in SE's and to verify if on-page factors are implemented correctly, so he started his company (Sozon.com) and made such a tool. At the end of the presentation he gave a demonstration of that product.
  

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The above is not necessarily my opinion. For example, I'm not sure if links from the same IP-block but different sites are handled differently by SE's than links from other sites from a different IP-block. Or another point, IMHO the reason Google says 'Page' in PageRank stands for Larry Page is just to make it easier to prevent other SE's from using the word PageRank. I'm sure it is not a coincidence that Google's ranking of a web page is called PageRank. Anyway, it is just how I remembered the presentation.

[kazonik]

Great post Takagai :)

no notes, no recording; with a memory like that,
who needs computers anyway!

Peace,
Kaz