Open AccessOptimizing websites in the post panda world
Author(s) -
Sweeny Marianne
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
bulletin of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8366
pISSN - 0095-4403
DOI - 10.1002/bult.2012.1720390106
Subject(s) - computer science , relevance (law) , focus (optics) , meaning (existential) , world wide web , semantics (computer science) , social media , information retrieval , matching (statistics) , user experience design , quality (philosophy) , human–computer interaction , psychology , philosophy , statistics , physics , mathematics , optics , epistemology , political science , law , psychotherapist , programming language
EDITOR'S SUMMARY Webmasters' traditional approach to search engine optimization was long based on matching query terms with word tokens. The result was a machine‐oriented reflection of presumed relevance among retrieved items. Yet humans interpret content differently, focusing more on meaning than match, prompting programmers to focus on semantics, applied ontologies and predictive machine learning. Google Panda upended tradition with a focus on internal content quality and user engagement as well as the external influences of social media interaction, comments and reviews. Information architects can support a better search user experience through page layout, a flatter architecture, simpler site navigation and strong semantic connections between content and external authority resources.