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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Search engine optimization</span></span>
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</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">"SEO" redirects here. For other uses, see <a href="Seo_(disambiguation)" class="mw-redirect mw-disambig" title="Seo (disambiguation)">Seo (disambiguation)</a>.</div>
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</style><table class="sidebar nomobile nowraplinks hlist"><tbody><tr><td class="sidebar-pretitle">Part of a series on</td></tr><tr><th class="sidebar-title-with-pretitle"><a href="Online_advertising" title="Online advertising">Internet marketing</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content">
<ul>
<li><a href="Local_search_engine_optimisation" title="Local search engine optimisation">Local search engine optimisation</a></li>
<li><a href="Social_media_marketing" title="Social media marketing">Social media marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="Email_marketing" title="Email marketing">Email marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="Referral_marketing" title="Referral marketing">Referral marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="Content_marketing" title="Content marketing">Content marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="Native_advertising" title="Native advertising">Native advertising</a></li></ul></td>
</tr><tr><th class="sidebar-heading" style="background:#ddddff;">
<a href="Search_engine_marketing" title="Search engine marketing">Search engine marketing</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content">
<ul><li><a href="Pay-per-click" title="Pay-per-click">Pay-per-click</a></li>
<li><a href="Cost_per_impression" title="Cost per impression">Cost per impression</a></li>
<li><a href="Search_analytics" title="Search analytics">Search analytics</a></li>
<li><a href="Web_analytics" title="Web analytics">Web analytics</a></li></ul></td>
</tr><tr><th class="sidebar-heading" style="background:#ddddff;">
<a href="Display_advertising" class="mw-redirect" title="Display advertising">Display advertising</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content">
<ul><li><a href="Ad_blocking" title="Ad blocking">Ad blocking</a></li>
<li><a href="Contextual_advertising" title="Contextual advertising">Contextual advertising</a></li>
<li><a href="Behavioral_targeting" class="mw-redirect" title="Behavioral targeting">Behavioral targeting</a></li>
<li><a href="Mobile_advertising" title="Mobile advertising">Mobile advertising</a></li></ul></td>
</tr><tr><th class="sidebar-heading" style="background:#ddddff;">
<a href="Affiliate_marketing" title="Affiliate marketing">Affiliate marketing</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content">
<ul><li><a href="Cost_per_action" title="Cost per action">Cost per action</a></li>
<li><a href="Revenue_sharing" title="Revenue sharing">Revenue sharing</a></li></ul></td>
</tr><tr><th class="sidebar-heading" style="background:#ddddff;">
Misc</th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content">
<ul><li><a href="Keyword_density" title="Keyword density">Keyword density</a></li>
<li><a href="Keyword_research" title="Keyword research">Keyword research</a></li>
<li><a href="PageRank" title="PageRank">PageRank</a></li>
<li><a href="WordPress" title="WordPress">WordPress CMS</a></li></ul></td>
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<p><b>Search engine optimization</b> (<b>SEO</b>) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of <a href="Web_traffic" title="Web traffic">website traffic</a> to a <a href="Website" title="Website">website</a> or a <a href="Web_page" title="Web page">web page</a> from <a href="Web_search_engine" class="mw-redirect" title="Web search engine">search engines</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> SEO targets unpaid search traffic (usually referred to as "<a href="Organic_search" class="mw-redirect" title="Organic search">organic</a>" results) rather than direct traffic, referral traffic, <a href="Social_media" title="Social media">social media</a> traffic, or <a href="Online_advertising" title="Online advertising">paid traffic</a>.
</p><p>Organic search engine traffic originates from a variety of kinds of searches, including <a href="Image_search" class="mw-redirect" title="Image search">image search</a>, <a href="Video_search" class="mw-redirect" title="Video search">video search</a>, <a href="Academic_databases_and_search_engines" class="mw-redirect" title="Academic databases and search engines">academic search</a>,<sup id="cite_ref-aseo_3-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-aseo-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> news search, industry-specific <a href="Vertical_search" title="Vertical search">vertical search</a> engines and large language models.
</p><p>As an <a href="Internet_marketing" class="mw-redirect" title="Internet marketing">Internet marketing</a> strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, the <a href="Algorithm" title="Algorithm">algorithms</a> that dictate search engine results, what people search for, the actual search queries or <a href="Keyword_research" title="Keyword research">keywords</a> typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by a target audience. SEO helps websites attract more visitors from a search engine and rank higher within a <a href="Search_engine_results_page" title="Search engine results page">search engine results page</a> (SERP), aiming to either convert the visitors or build brand awareness.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<meta property="mw:PageProp/toc">
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="History">History</h2></div>
<p><a href="Webmaster" title="Webmaster">Webmasters</a> and content providers began optimizing websites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early <a href="World_Wide_Web" title="World Wide Web">Web</a>. Initially, webmasters submitted the address of a page, or <a href="Uniform_Resource_Locator" class="mw-redirect" title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</a> to the various search engines, which would send a <a href="Web_crawler" title="Web crawler">web crawler</a> to <i>crawl</i> that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be <a href="Index_(search_engine)" class="mw-redirect" title="Index (search engine)">indexed</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>According to a 2004 article by former industry analyst and current <a href="Google" title="Google">Google</a> employee <a href="Danny_Sullivan_(technologist)" title="Danny Sullivan (technologist)">Danny Sullivan</a>, the phrase "search engine optimization" came into use in 1997. Sullivan credits SEO practitioner Bruce Clay as one of the first people to popularize the term.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Early versions of search <a href="Algorithm" title="Algorithm">algorithms</a> relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword <a href="Meta_tag" class="mw-redirect" title="Meta tag">meta tag</a> or index files in engines like <a href="Aliweb" class="mw-redirect" title="Aliweb">ALIWEB</a>. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using metadata to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Flawed data in meta tags, such as those that were inaccurate or incomplete, created the potential for pages to be mischaracterized in irrelevant searches.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Web content providers also manipulated attributes within the <a href="HTML" title="HTML">HTML</a> source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> By 1997, search engine designers recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank in search engines and that some webmasters were <a href="Spamdexing" title="Spamdexing">manipulating their rankings</a> in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as <a href="Altavista" class="mw-redirect" title="Altavista">Altavista</a> and <a href="Infoseek" title="Infoseek">Infoseek</a>, adjusted their algorithms to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.<sup id="cite_ref-infoseeknyt_9-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-infoseeknyt-9"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>9<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>By relying on factors such as <a href="Keyword_density" title="Keyword density">keyword density</a>, which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their <a href="Search_engine_results_page" title="Search engine results page">results pages</a> showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. This meant moving away from heavy reliance on term density to a more holistic process for scoring semantic signals.<sup id="cite_ref-Forbes_10-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Forbes-10"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>10<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Search engines responded by developing more complex <a href="Search_algorithm" title="Search algorithm">ranking algorithms</a>, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.
</p><p>Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, webchats, and seminars. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with website optimization.<sup id="cite_ref-g-wmguide_11-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-g-wmguide-11"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>11<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-ms-wmguide_12-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-ms-wmguide-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Google has a <a href="Sitemaps" title="Sitemaps">Sitemaps</a> program to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website.<sup id="cite_ref-googlesitemaps_13-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-googlesitemaps-13"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>13<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="Bing_Webmaster_Center" class="mw-redirect" title="Bing Webmaster Center">Bing Webmaster Tools</a> provides a way for webmasters to submit a sitemap and web feeds, allows users to determine the "crawl rate", and track the web pages index status.
</p><p>In 2015, it was reported that <a href="Google" title="Google">Google</a> was developing and promoting mobile search as a key feature within future products. In response, many brands began to take a different approach to their Internet marketing strategies.<sup id="cite_ref-14" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>In the 2020s, the rise of generative AI tools such as <a href="ChatGPT" title="ChatGPT">ChatGPT</a>, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini gave rise to a new approach called <a href="Generative_engine_optimization" title="Generative engine optimization">Generative engine optimization</a> or <a href="Artificial_intelligence_optimization" title="Artificial intelligence optimization">artificial intelligence optimization</a>. This approach focuses on optimizing content for inclusion in AI-generated answers provided by <a href="Large_language_models" class="mw-redirect" title="Large language models">large language models</a> (LLMs). This shift has led digital marketers to rethink content formats, authority signals, and how structured data is presented to make content more "promptable".<sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-15"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>15<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> It has also been argued that each of these tactics should be considered as subsets of "search experience optimization," described by Ahrefs as "optimizing a brand’s presence for non-linear search journeys over multiple platforms, not just Google."<sup id="cite_ref-16" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-16"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>16<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Relationship_between_Google_and_SEO_industry">Relationship between Google and SEO industry</h2></div>
<p>In 1998, two graduate students at <a href="Stanford_University" title="Stanford University">Stanford University</a>, <a href="Larry_Page" title="Larry Page">Larry Page</a> and <a href="Sergey_Brin" title="Sergey Brin">Sergey Brin</a>, developed "Backrub", a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, <a href="PageRank" title="PageRank">PageRank</a>, is a function of the quantity and strength of <a href="Inbound_link" class="mw-redirect" title="Inbound link">inbound links</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-lgscalehyptxt_17-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-lgscalehyptxt-17"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>17<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random web surfer.
</p><p>Page and Brin founded Google in 1998.<sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-18"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>18<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Google attracted a loyal following among the growing number of <a href="Internet" title="Internet">Internet</a> users, who liked its simple design.<sup id="cite_ref-bbc-1_19-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-bbc-1-19"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>19<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Off-page factors (such as PageRank and hyperlink analysis) were considered as well as on-page factors (such as keyword frequency, <a href="Meta_tags" class="mw-redirect" title="Meta tags">meta tags</a>, headings, links and site structure) to enable Google to avoid the kind of manipulation seen in search engines that only considered on-page factors for their rankings. Although PageRank was more difficult to <a href="Gaming_the_system" class="mw-redirect" title="Gaming the system">game</a>, webmasters had already developed link-building tools and schemes to influence the <a href="Inktomi" title="Inktomi">Inktomi</a> search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaming PageRank. Many sites focus on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale. Some of these schemes involved the creation of thousands of sites for the sole purpose of <a href="Spamdexing" title="Spamdexing">link spamming</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-20" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-20"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>20<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation.<sup id="cite_ref-nyt0607_21-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-nyt0607-21"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>21<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The leading search engines, Google, <a href="Bing_(search_engine)" class="mw-redirect" title="Bing (search engine)">Bing</a>, and <a href="Yahoo" title="Yahoo">Yahoo</a>, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Some SEO practitioners have studied different approaches to search engine optimization and have shared their personal opinions.<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-22"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>22<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Patents related to search engines can provide information to better understand search engines.<sup id="cite_ref-23" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-23"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>23<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In 2005, Google began personalizing search results for each user. Depending on their history of previous searches, Google crafted results for logged in users.<sup id="cite_ref-24" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-24"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>24<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>In 2007, Google announced a campaign against paid links that transfer PageRank.<sup id="cite_ref-25" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-25"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>25<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> On June 15, 2009, Google disclosed that they had taken measures to mitigate the effects of PageRank sculpting by use of the <a href="Nofollow" title="Nofollow">nofollow</a> attribute on links. <a href="Matt_Cutts" title="Matt Cutts">Matt Cutts</a>, a well-known software engineer at Google, announced that Google Bot would no longer treat any no follow links, in the same way, to prevent SEO service providers from using nofollow for PageRank sculpting.<sup id="cite_ref-26" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-26"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>26<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> As a result of this change, the usage of nofollow led to evaporation of PageRank. In order to avoid the above, SEO engineers developed alternative techniques that replace nofollowed tags with obfuscated <a href="JavaScript" title="JavaScript">JavaScript</a> and thus permit PageRank sculpting. Additionally, several solutions have been suggested that include the usage of <a href="HTML_element#Frames" title="HTML element">iframes</a>, <a href="Flash_animation" title="Flash animation">Flash</a>, and JavaScript.<sup id="cite_ref-27" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-27"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>27<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>In December 2009, Google announced it would be using the web search history of all its users in order to populate search results.<sup id="cite_ref-28" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-28"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>28<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> On June 8, 2010 a new web indexing system called <a href="Google_Caffeine" class="mw-redirect" title="Google Caffeine">Google Caffeine</a> was announced. Designed to allow users to find news results, forum posts, and other content much sooner after publishing than before, Google Caffeine was a change to the way Google updated its index in order to make things show up quicker on Google than before. According to Carrie Grimes, the software engineer who announced Caffeine for Google, "Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index..."<sup id="cite_ref-29" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-29"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>29<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="Google_Instant" class="mw-redirect" title="Google Instant">Google Instant</a>, real-time-search, was introduced in late 2010 in an attempt to make search results more timely and relevant. Historically site administrators have spent months or even years optimizing a website to increase search rankings. With the growth in popularity of social media sites and blogs, the leading engines made changes to their algorithms to allow fresh content to rank quickly within the search results.<sup id="cite_ref-30" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-30"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>30<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>In February 2011, Google announced the <a href="Google_Panda" title="Google Panda">Panda</a> update, which penalizes websites containing content duplicated from other websites and sources. Historically websites have copied content from one another and benefited in search engine rankings by engaging in this practice. However, Google implemented a new system that punishes sites whose content is not unique.<sup id="cite_ref-31" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-31"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>31<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The 2012 <a href="Google_Penguin" title="Google Penguin">Google Penguin</a> attempted to penalize websites that used manipulative techniques to improve their rankings on the search engine.<sup id="cite_ref-32" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-32"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>32<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Although Google Penguin has been presented as an algorithm aimed at fighting web spam, it really focuses on spammy links<sup id="cite_ref-33" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-33"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>33<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> by gauging the quality of the sites the links are coming from. The 2013 <a href="Google_Hummingbird" title="Google Hummingbird">Google Hummingbird</a> update featured an algorithm change designed to improve Google's natural language processing and semantic understanding of web pages. Hummingbird's language processing system falls under the newly recognized term of "conversational search", where the system pays more attention to each word in the query in order to better match the pages to the meaning of the query rather than a few words.<sup id="cite_ref-34" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-34"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>34<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> With regards to the changes made to search engine optimization, for content publishers and writers, Hummingbird is intended to resolve issues by getting rid of irrelevant content and spam, allowing Google to produce high-quality content and rely on them to be 'trusted' authors.
</p><p>In October 2019, Google announced they would start applying <a href="BERT_(language_model)" title="BERT (language model)">BERT</a> models for English language search queries in the US. Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) was another attempt by Google to improve their natural language processing, but this time in order to better understand the search queries of their users.<sup id="cite_ref-35" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-35"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>35<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In terms of search engine optimization, BERT intended to connect users more easily to relevant content and increase the quality of traffic coming to websites that are ranking in the <a href="Search_engine_results_page" title="Search engine results page">Search Engine Results Page</a>.
</p><p>On May 20, 2025, Google announced that AI Mode would be released to all US users. AI Mode uses what Google calls a "query fan-out technique" which breaks down the search query into multiple sub-topics which generates additional search queries for the user.<sup id="cite_ref-36" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-36"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>36<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Methods">Methods</h2></div>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Getting_indexed">Getting indexed</h3></div>
<p>The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing, <a href="Brave_Search" title="Brave Search">Brave Search</a> and Yahoo!, use <a href="Web_crawler" title="Web crawler">crawlers</a> to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine-indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically. The <a href="Yahoo!_Directory" class="mw-redirect" title="Yahoo! Directory">Yahoo! Directory</a> and <a href="DMOZ" title="DMOZ">DMOZ</a>, two major directories which closed in 2014 and 2017 respectively, both required manual submission and human editorial review.<sup id="cite_ref-37" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-37"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>37<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Google offers <a href="Google_Webmaster_Tools" class="mw-redirect" title="Google Webmaster Tools">Google Search Console</a>, for which an XML <a href="Sitemap" class="mw-redirect" title="Sitemap">Sitemap</a> feed can be created and submitted for free to ensure that all pages are found, especially pages that are not discoverable by automatically following links<sup id="cite_ref-38" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-38"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>38<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> in addition to their URL submission console.<sup id="cite_ref-39" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-39"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>39<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Yahoo! formerly operated a paid submission service that guaranteed to crawl for a <a href="Pay_per_click" class="mw-redirect" title="Pay per click">cost per click</a>;<sup id="cite_ref-40" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-40"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>40<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> however, this practice was discontinued in 2009.
</p><p><a href="Web_search_engine" class="mw-redirect" title="Web search engine">Search engine</a> crawlers may look at a number of different factors when <a href="Web_crawler" title="Web crawler">crawling</a> a site. Not every page is indexed by search engines. The distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.<sup id="cite_ref-cho_41-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-cho-41"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>41<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Mobile devices are used for the majority of Google searches.<sup id="cite_ref-42" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-42"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>42<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In November 2016, Google announced a major change to the way they are crawling websites and started to make their index mobile-first, which means the mobile version of a given website becomes the starting point for what Google includes in their index.<sup id="cite_ref-43" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-43"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>43<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In May 2019, Google updated the rendering engine of their crawler to be the latest version of Chromium (74 at the time of the announcement). Google indicated that they would regularly update the <a href="Chromium_(web_browser)" title="Chromium (web browser)">Chromium</a> rendering engine to the latest version.<sup id="cite_ref-44" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-44"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>44<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In December 2019, Google began updating the User-Agent string of their crawler to reflect the latest Chrome version used by their rendering service. The delay was to allow webmasters time to update their code that responded to particular bot User-Agent strings. Google ran evaluations and felt confident the impact would be minor.<sup id="cite_ref-45" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-45"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>45<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Preventing_crawling">Preventing crawling</h3></div>
<div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="Robots_exclusion_standard" class="mw-redirect" title="Robots exclusion standard">Robots exclusion standard</a></div>
<p>To avoid undesirable content in the search indexes, webmasters can instruct spiders not to crawl certain files or directories through the standard <a href="Robots.txt" title="Robots.txt">robots.txt</a> file in the root directory of the domain. Additionally, a page can be explicitly excluded from a search engine's database by using a <a href="Meta_tag" class="mw-redirect" title="Meta tag">meta tag</a> specific to robots (usually <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> ). When a search engine visits a site, the robots.txt located in the <a href="Root_directory" title="Root directory">root directory</a> is the first file crawled. The robots.txt file is then parsed and will instruct the robot as to which pages are not to be crawled. As a search engine crawler may keep a cached copy of this file, it may on occasion crawl pages a webmaster does not wish to crawl. Pages typically prevented from being crawled include login-specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as search results from internal searches. In March 2007, Google warned webmasters that they should prevent indexing of internal search results because those pages are considered search spam.<sup id="cite_ref-46" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-46"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>46<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>In 2020, Google <a href="Sunset_provision" title="Sunset provision">sunsetted</a> the standard (and open-sourced their code) and now treats it as a hint rather than a directive. To adequately ensure that pages are not indexed, a page-level robot's meta tag should be included.<sup id="cite_ref-47" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-47"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>47<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Increasing_prominence">Increasing prominence</h3></div>
<p>A variety of methods can increase the prominence of a webpage within the search results. <a href="Methods_of_website_linking" class="mw-redirect" title="Methods of website linking">Cross linking</a> between pages of the same website to provide more links to important pages may improve its visibility. Page design makes users trust a site and want to stay once they find it. When people bounce off a site, it counts against the site and affects its credibility.<sup id="cite_ref-:0_48-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-:0-48"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>48<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Writing content that includes frequently searched keyword phrases so as to be relevant to a wide variety of search queries will tend to increase traffic. Updating content so as to keep search engines crawling back frequently can give additional weight to a site. Adding relevant keywords to a web page's metadata, including the <a href="HEAD_tag" class="mw-redirect" title="HEAD tag">title tag and meta description</a>, will tend to improve the relevancy of a site's search listings, thus increasing traffic. <a href="URL_canonicalization" class="mw-redirect" title="URL canonicalization">URL canonicalization</a> of web pages accessible via multiple URLs, using the <a href="Canonical_link_element" title="Canonical link element">canonical link element</a><sup id="cite_ref-49" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-49"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>49<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> or via <a href="301_redirect" class="mw-redirect" title="301 redirect">301 redirects</a> can help make sure links to different versions of the URL all count towards the page's link popularity score. These are known as incoming links, which point to the URL and can count towards the page link's popularity score, impacting the credibility of a website.<sup id="cite_ref-:0_48-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-:0-48"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>48<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="White_hat_versus_black_hat_techniques">White hat versus black hat techniques</h3></div>
<p>SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories: techniques that search engine companies recommend as part of good design ("white hat"), and those techniques of which search engines do not approve ("black hat"). Search engines attempt to minimize the effect of the latter, among them <a href="Spamdexing" title="Spamdexing">spamdexing</a>. Industry commentators have classified these methods and the practitioners who employ them as either <a href="White_hat_(computer_security)" title="White hat (computer security)">white hat</a> SEO or <a href="Black_hat_hacking" class="mw-redirect" title="Black hat hacking">black hat</a> SEO.<sup id="cite_ref-50" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-50"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>50<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing.<sup id="cite_ref-51" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-51"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>51<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>An SEO technique is considered a white hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines<sup id="cite_ref-g-wmguide_11-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-g-wmguide-11"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>11<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-ms-wmguide_12-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-ms-wmguide-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-52" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-52"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>52<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see. White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the online "spider" algorithms, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,<sup id="cite_ref-53" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-53"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>53<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> although the two are not identical.
</p><p><a href="Spamdexing" title="Spamdexing">Black hat SEO</a> attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines or involve deception. One black hat technique uses hidden text, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible <a href="Span_and_div" class="mw-redirect" title="Span and div">div</a>, or positioned off-screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as <a href="Cloaking" title="Cloaking">cloaking</a>. Another category sometimes used is <a href="Grey_hat" title="Grey hat">grey hat SEO</a>. This is in between the black hat and white hat approaches, where the methods employed avoid the site being penalized but do not act in producing the best content for users. Grey hat SEO is entirely focused on improving search engine rankings.
</p><p>Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black or grey hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms or by a manual site review. One example was the February 2006 Google removal of both <a href="BMW" title="BMW">BMW</a> Germany and <a href="Ricoh" title="Ricoh">Ricoh</a> Germany for the use of deceptive practices.<sup id="cite_ref-intwebspam_54-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-intwebspam-54"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>54<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Both companies subsequently apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's search engine results page.<sup id="cite_ref-55" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-55"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>55<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Companies that employ black hat techniques or other spammy tactics can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the <i><a href="Wall_Street_Journal" class="mw-redirect" title="Wall Street Journal">Wall Street Journal</a></i> reported on a company, <a href="Traffic_Power" title="Traffic Power">Traffic Power</a>, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.<sup id="cite_ref-56" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-56"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>56<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <i><a href="Wired_(magazine)" title="Wired (magazine)">Wired</a></i> magazine reported that the same company sued blogger and SEO Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.<sup id="cite_ref-wired09082005_57-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-wired09082005-57"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>57<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Google's <a href="Matt_Cutts" title="Matt Cutts">Matt Cutts</a> later confirmed that Google had banned Traffic Power and some of its clients.<sup id="cite_ref-58" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-58"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>58<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="As_marketing_strategy">As marketing strategy</h2></div>
<p>SEO is not an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be more effective, such as paid advertising through pay-per-click <a href="Pay_per_click" class="mw-redirect" title="Pay per click">(PPC)</a> campaigns, depending on the site operator's goals. <a href="Search_engine_marketing" title="Search engine marketing">Search engine marketing (SEM)</a> is the practice of designing, running, and optimizing search engine ad campaigns. Its difference from SEO is most simply depicted as the difference between paid and unpaid priority ranking in search results. SEM focuses on prominence more so than relevance; website developers should regard SEM with the utmost importance with consideration to visibility as most navigate to the primary listings of their search.<sup id="cite_ref-59" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-59"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>59<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> A successful Internet marketing campaign may also depend upon building high-quality web pages to engage and persuade internet users, setting up <a href="Web_analytics" title="Web analytics">analytics</a> programs to enable site owners to measure results, and improving a site's <a href="Conversion_rate" class="mw-redirect" title="Conversion rate">conversion rate</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-60" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-60"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>60<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-61" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-61"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>61<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In November 2015, Google released a full 160-page version of its Search Quality Rating Guidelines to the public,<sup id="cite_ref-62" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-62"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>62<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> which revealed a shift in their focus towards "usefulness" and <a href="Mobile_local_search" title="Mobile local search">mobile local search</a>. In recent years the mobile market has exploded, overtaking the use of desktops, as shown in by <a href="StatCounter" title="StatCounter">StatCounter</a> in October 2016, where they analyzed 2.5 million websites and found that 51.3% of the pages were loaded by a mobile device.<sup id="cite_ref-63" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-63"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>63<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Google has been one of the companies that are utilizing the popularity of mobile usage by encouraging websites to use their <a href="Google_Search_Console" title="Google Search Console">Google Search Console</a>, the Mobile-Friendly Test, which allows companies to measure up their website to the search engine results and determine how user-friendly their websites are. The closer the keywords are together their ranking will improve based on key terms.<sup id="cite_ref-:0_48-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-:0-48"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>48<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>SEO may generate an adequate <a href="Return_on_investment" title="Return on investment">return on investment</a>. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantee and uncertainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.<sup id="cite_ref-64" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-64"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>64<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Search engines can change their algorithms, impacting a website's search engine ranking, possibly resulting in a serious loss of traffic. According to Google's CEO, <a href="Eric_Schmidt" title="Eric Schmidt">Eric Schmidt</a>, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes – almost 1.5 per day.<sup id="cite_ref-65" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-65"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>65<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> It is considered a wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.<sup id="cite_ref-66" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-66"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>66<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In addition to accessibility in terms of web crawlers (addressed above), user <a href="Web_accessibility" title="Web accessibility">web accessibility</a> has become increasingly important for SEO.
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="International_markets_and_SEO">International markets and SEO</h2></div>
<p>Optimization techniques are highly tuned to the dominant search engines in the target market.
The search engines' market shares vary from market to market, as does competition.
In 2003, <a href="Danny_Sullivan_(technologist)" title="Danny Sullivan (technologist)">Danny Sullivan</a> stated that <a href="Google" title="Google">Google</a> represented about 75% of all searches.<sup id="cite_ref-67" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-67"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>67<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In markets outside the United States, Google's share is often larger, and data showed Google was the dominant search engine worldwide as of 2007.<sup id="cite_ref-68" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-68"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>68<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> As of 2006, Google had an 85–90% market share in Germany.<sup id="cite_ref-grehan-1_69-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-grehan-1-69"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>69<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> While there were hundreds of SEO firms in the US at that time, there were only about five in Germany.<sup id="cite_ref-grehan-1_69-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-grehan-1-69"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>69<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> As of March 2024, Google still had a significant market share of 89.85% in Germany.<sup id="cite_ref-70" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-70"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>70<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> As of June 2008, the market share of Google in the UK was close to 90% according to <a href="Hitwise" title="Hitwise">Hitwise</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-71" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-71"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>71<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> As of March 2024, Google's market share in the UK was 93.61%.<sup id="cite_ref-72" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-72"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>72<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Successful search engine optimization (SEO) for international markets requires more than just translating web pages. It may also involve registering a domain name with a <a href="Country_code_top-level_domain" title="Country code top-level domain">country-code top-level domain</a> (ccTLD) or a relevant <a href="Top-level_domain" title="Top-level domain">top-level domain</a> (TLD) for the target market, choosing web hosting with a local IP address or server, and using a <a href="Content_delivery_network" title="Content delivery network">Content Delivery Network</a> (CDN) to improve website speed and performance globally. It is also important to understand the local culture so that the content feels relevant to the audience. This includes conducting keyword research for each market, using hreflang tags to target the right languages, and building local backlinks. However, the core SEO principles—such as creating high-quality content, improving user experience, and building links—remain the same, regardless of language or region.<sup id="cite_ref-grehan-1_69-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-grehan-1-69"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>69<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Regional search engines have a strong presence in specific markets:
</p>
<ul><li>China: <a href="Baidu" title="Baidu">Baidu</a> leads the market, controlling about 70 to 80% market share.<sup id="cite_ref-73" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-73"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>73<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></li>
<li>South Korea: Since the end of 2021, <a href="Naver" title="Naver">Naver</a>, a domestic web portal, has gained prominence in the country.<sup id="cite_ref-74" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-74"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>74<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-75" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-75"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>75<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></li>
<li>Russia: <a href="Yandex" title="Yandex">Yandex</a> is the leading search engine in Russia. As of December 2023, it accounted for at least 63.8% of the market share.<sup id="cite_ref-76" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-76"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>76<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></li></ul>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="The_evolution_of_international_SEO">The evolution of international SEO</h3></div>
<p>By the early 2000s, businesses recognized that the web and search engines could help them reach global audiences. As a result, the need for multilingual SEO emerged.<sup id="cite_ref-77" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-77"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>77<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In the early years of international SEO development, simple translation was seen as sufficient. However, over time, it became clear that localization and transcreation—adapting content to local language, culture, and emotional resonance—were far more effective than basic translation.<sup id="cite_ref-78" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-78"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>78<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Legal_precedents">Legal precedents</h2></div>
<p>On October 17, 2002, SearchKing filed suit in the <a href="United_States_district_court" title="United States district court">United States District Court</a>, Western District of Oklahoma, against the search engine Google. SearchKing's claim was that Google's tactics to prevent spamdexing constituted a <a href="Tortious_interference" title="Tortious interference">tortious interference</a> with contractual relations. On May 27, 2003, the court granted Google's motion to dismiss the complaint because SearchKing "failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted."<sup id="cite_ref-79" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-79"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>79<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-80" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-80"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>80<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>In March 2006, KinderStart filed a lawsuit against Google over search engine rankings. KinderStart's website was removed from Google's index prior to the lawsuit, and the amount of traffic to the site dropped by 70%. On March 16, 2007, the <a href="United_States_District_Court_for_the_Northern_District_of_California" title="United States District Court for the Northern District of California">United States District Court for the Northern District of California</a> (<a href="San_Jose%2C_California" title="San Jose, California">San Jose</a> Division) dismissed KinderStart's complaint without leave to amend and partially granted Google's motion for <a href="Federal_Rules_of_Civil_Procedure#Title_III_.E2.80.93_Pleadings_and_Motions" title="Federal Rules of Civil Procedure">Rule 11</a> sanctions against KinderStart's attorney, requiring him to pay part of Google's legal expenses.<sup id="cite_ref-81" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-81"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>81<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-82" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-82"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>82<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2></div>
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<ul><li><a href="Competitor_backlinking" title="Competitor backlinking">Competitor backlinking</a></li>
<li><a href="List_of_search_engines" title="List of search engines">List of search engines</a></li>
<li><a href="Search_engine_marketing" title="Search engine marketing">Search engine marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="Search_neutrality" title="Search neutrality">Search neutrality</a>, the opposite of search manipulation</li>
<li><a href="User_intent" title="User intent">User intent</a></li>
<li><a href="Website_promotion" title="Website promotion">Website promotion</a></li>
<li><a href="Search_engine_results_page" title="Search engine results page">Search engine results page</a></li>
<li><a href="Search_engine_scraping" title="Search engine scraping">Search engine scraping</a></li></ul></div>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2></div>
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<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769">Webmaster Guidelines</a> from Google</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf">Google Search Quality Evaluators Guidelines (PDF)</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://help.yahoo.com/kb/search/SLN2245.html">Webmaster resources</a> from Yahoo!</li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/webmaster-guidelines-30fba23a">Webmaster Guidelines</a> from <a href="Microsoft_Bing" title="Microsoft Bing">Microsoft Bing</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html">The Dirty Little Secrets of Search</a> in <a href="The_New_York_Times" title="The New York Times">The New York Times</a> (February 12, 2011)</li></ul>
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</style></div><div role="navigation" class="navbox" aria-labelledby="Search_engine_optimization117" style="padding:3px"><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible autocollapse navbox-inner" style="border-spacing:0;background:transparent;color:inherit"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><div id="Search_engine_optimization117" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"></div></th></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Exclusion standards</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="Robots_exclusion_standard" class="mw-redirect" title="Robots exclusion standard">Robots exclusion standard</a></li>
<li><a href="Meta_element" title="Meta element">Meta element</a></li>
<li><a href="Nofollow" title="Nofollow">nofollow</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Marketing topics</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="Online_advertising" title="Online advertising">Online advertising</a></li>
<li><a href="Email_marketing" title="Email marketing">Email marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="Display_advertising" class="mw-redirect" title="Display advertising">Display advertising</a></li>
<li><a href="Web_analytics" title="Web analytics">Web analytics</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Search marketing</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="Search_engine_marketing" title="Search engine marketing">Search engine marketing</a></li>
<li><a href="Social_media_optimization" title="Social media optimization">Social media optimization</a></li>
<li><a href="Online_identity_management" title="Online identity management">Online identity management</a></li>
<li><a href="Paid_inclusion" title="Paid inclusion">Paid inclusion</a></li>
<li><a href="Pay_per_click" class="mw-redirect" title="Pay per click">Pay per click</a></li>
<li><a href="Google_bomb" class="mw-redirect" title="Google bomb">Google bomb</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Search engine spam</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="Spamdexing" title="Spamdexing">Spamdexing</a></li>
<li><a href="Web_scraping" title="Web scraping">Web scraping</a></li>
<li><a href="Scraper_site" title="Scraper site">Scraper site</a></li>
<li><a href="Link_farm" title="Link farm">Link farm</a></li>
<li><a href="Link_building" title="Link building">Link building</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Linking</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="Backlink" title="Backlink">Backlink</a></li>
<li><a href="Link_building" title="Link building">Link building</a></li>
<li><a href="Link_exchange" title="Link exchange">Link exchange</a></li>
<li><a href="Organic_linking" title="Organic linking">Organic linking</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">People</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="Danny_Sullivan_(technologist)" title="Danny Sullivan (technologist)">Danny Sullivan</a></li>
<li><a href="Matt_Cutts" title="Matt Cutts">Matt Cutts</a></li>
<li><a href="Barry_Schwartz_(technologist)" title="Barry Schwartz (technologist)">Barry Schwartz</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Other</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul><li><a href="Geotargeting" title="Geotargeting">Geotargeting</a></li>
<li><a href="Human_search_engine" title="Human search engine">Human search engine</a></li>
<li><a href="Stop_word" title="Stop word">Stop words</a></li>
<li><a href="Content_farm" title="Content farm">Content farm</a></li></ul>
</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
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