The client hired Cognitiative to lead the effort to develop a new Web site strategy and to redevelop and deploy their Web site.

Objective
It was determined through preliminary research that the site should be organized to address customer segments, based on their job roles. On the front page of the site, visitors were able to select from several pathways to find the content most relevant to their job task. The objectives of the site included: build relationships with customers, prospects and suspects; pull visitors through the purchase decision cycle; create repeat visits; provide a vehicle for customers to get the latest information; create a content update methodology to enable easy updates; and reinforce the company brand.

Description
Cognitiative and the client developed Web site strategies to be employed in the Web site revamp. In collaboration with the client, Cognitiative created a working prototype of a new Whole Experience Web site. Upon completion of the prototype, usability research was conducted to test the new site’s content and functionality. Cognitiative then executed a multi-month, multi-phase Web site workplan that addressed content development, legacy content migration, graphical design, technical development and project management.

Deliverables
Many deliverables were created throughout the process, including:

• Strategic plans
• A working Whole Experience site prototype
• Alpha and beta test findings
• Usability research findings
• Web site content
• Technical specifications and site design documents

Results
Company has clearly addressed the unique needs of target market segments, as evidenced by the Usability Research findings.

Company has a new content publishing model that enables the distribution of content development responsibility throughout the product marketing and development groups.

Company has better data on site visitors and can now track frequency of visits.

Web personalization backfires when customers perceive that use of their personal information is being abused. Customers say that personalization can: feel intrusive, invade privacy, limit their options, and too often forces them down the wrong path.

For example, of the Web customers surveyed by Cognitiative, 32% dislike sales-oriented e-mail so much they actually avoid doing business with the sender, and 90% of Web customers prefer broad choice over vendor-controlled personalization.

On the positive side, respondents noted that they feel empowered by trusted vendors with whom they have a relationship, and that Web personalization and appropriate communications help them save time and broaden their exposure. Respondents said they like being able to design their own pages; control what information is presented to them; request information based on their specification; and link to other sites that interest them.

“It’s all an issue of control,” explains Laurie Windham, founder and chief executive officer of Cognitiative. “Online users feel very strongly about intrusive marketing practices, and are choosing via their keyboards with whom they do business.”

“Companies who recognize and work to further empower this new breed of customer will emerge as the winners in the new economy,” adds Ken Orton, chief strategist, e-business at Cognitiative.

The study also provided some interesting findings regarding how Web users find new sites.

Consumers discover/find new Web sites via word of mouth (100%), Web site links (83%), advertising (67%), magazine articles (61%), newspaper articles (50%), and conferences (17%).

Business users discover/find new Web sites via magazine articles (94%), Web site links (88%), advertising (76%), word of mouth (71%), newspaper articles (53%), and conferences (47%).

Link building is the most important part of search engine optimization activity targeting the Google search engine. As an overview, this search engine relies on links to determine the reputation of the page. This is analogous to citations in the world of scientific or academic papers. A single quality and relevant link from a trusted and authoritative source is equivalent to thousands of low-quality and irrelevant links.

It is common sense that links from these types of sources are desirable because they are powerful. Sources of such links speak with authority and are popular and expert in their own fields. Therefore if you get references from these types of documents, there is something in your work that catches their attention, and in the long run, you may become trusted and authoritative also.

For example, in the scientific or academic environment, scientists and scholars often cite each other in research papers, to give reference or acknowledge a certain source. Of course, the more trusted and authoritative the source, the higher the number of citations it receives from other published scientific or academic works.

One example of this is Albert Einstein’s paper on the Theory of Relativity, where Einstein cited Isaac Newton’s Universal Laws of Gravitation. The same concept works when applied to the online world. Quality documents are referenced by other quality and relevant documents.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, researchers from Stanford University, translated this very simple analogy of finding quality documents in the academic world into an application in the online world, resulting in the birth of Google and its algorithm: Page rank. Google then leads the multi-billion dollar search industry that still remains strong even today (2009).

This article aims to educate the search engine optimization community as to what particular qualities or factors the search engines used to rate the quality of the linking page in assessing back links.

Page Quality Factors for Link Building – Relevance of the page:

Do not get me wrong, but if you like to get quality links, you must get them from a related web page. Why? Google (and other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN) aims at giving its users a satisfying search experience on the web, and as we all know, the web is powered by hyperlinks.

If certain documents on a certain topic are linking out to irrelevant documents, this can result in a poor user experience. This is because the flow of thoughts and knowledge is being cut off. Sometimes a visitor will need to look at several web pages to be convinced and feel confident of the knowledge acquired from them. Below is a simple diagram of a web surfer’s learning process for a certain topic in which he or she is interested:

It starts when a web surfer likes to find information about Topic “X.” If the user does not have any bookmarked pages to look for that information, he/she will use the Google search engines to look for the relevant topic.

When search engines give the most relevant search results, the web surfer will click on that link from the search results page and then start reading. Now if the web surfer finds that information to be insufficient, he or she will look for relevant information by clicking on the most relevant link that matches his or her query.

What is the lesson? If Google does not evaluate links in terms of relevance, it will tend to return pages that are neither referenced from related sources nor linking out to related websites. This will not return the most relevant pages, which will affect the user’s experience.

The relevance of the page is therefore the most important inbound linking factor. It directly relates to the user’s satisfaction level. The user does not have any SEO knowledge to assess whether the page is an authority, but he does read the content and decide if it answers the query.

It makes sense that the relevance of the page will surely get a high rating in Google’s algorithm. Again, beware of paid posts and paid links, as you can easily get links from relevant pages by means of sponsorship. Organic links from related pages get referenced naturally. This means that the link itself is part of the web page’s content. Without it, the document cannot stand by itself.

This is an easy distinction between paid and organic links. It is possible to comprehend and read the page’s content without the paid or advertisement links. But it is impossible to thoroughly understand the page’s content without the organic links supporting it.

Page Quality Factors for Link Building – Number of links on the page:

Of course, if a certain relevant page links out to a single page (no other external links to other domains can be found on the page), then that target page must be of absolute importance. If a certain document links out to several web pages, then the location of the links on the linking page itself determines the importance and value of that link. If the link appears on a prominent part of the web page, it’s more important than one that appears in the footer section. If a link appears in the page’s content itself, it is more valuable than one that appears in the sidebar or navigation.

A spammy link page, like that of a link farm or low quality directory, consists of hundreds or thousands of links on the page. This is because this type of page exists not to satisfy users, but just for search engine purposes. As a result, this type of link is awarded zero value by Google search engines. If you get links from these types of sources, they are useless and a waste of time.

If you completely understand the mathematics behind Page Rank, you will be amazed; if a certain page has fewer external links, then the link density is very high, and this means it carries more Page Rank weight.

Google Page Rank, as the patent suggests, is a measure of the importance of the page. It is used to assess the quality of a linking page, when combined with content relevance factors as discussed above.

For example if we were to design a link algorithm to evaluate page relevance and importance, then it might be:

Rating of Page Rank (importance): 1 to 10 (where 1 is least importance and 10 to absolute importance)

Rating of Page Relevance (content): 1 to 10 (where 1 is least relevance and 10 is a perfect match for the query)

Then the relevance rating based on these two factors might be:

Relevance rating = Page Rank x Page Relevance

As we expect, quality related documents are rated by both page importance and relevance. It is a clear objective for search engines to return a page that is both important and relevant.

Page Quality Factors for Link Building – Trust and authority of the domain:

As we have previously discussed, links from trusted and authoritative websites will get a higher value in search engines algorithm. But why?

Search engines believe that experience is the best teacher, so if a certain website has been in existence for a long time (old domain), the knowledge and expertise it displays in that specific topic is very solid and profound when compared to young domains. But an old domain alone does not equal a site with trust and authority. The domain should also be highly referenced by other sources. To measure this quantitatively is to directly see the Page Rank of the home page.

Page Rank is also the measure of the incoming links to the page. The higher the number of links, the higher the Page Rank will be. Or if a certain domain is being referenced by high Page Rank domains, it will also get a higher Page Rank through its very nature (a link from an important page will make your page important also).

Other factors associated with trusted and authoritative websites, aside from domain Page Rank and age of domain, include the size of the domain. Frequently updating a certain domain will make the website grow bigger with each update, so after years of existence the website will become very big and will be able to provide lots of useful information.

Summary of the overall desirable factors in a link:

To sum up, below are the most important factors for which major search engines (Google in particular) will give a higher rating pertaining to the quality of the link:

1. Relevance of the page – Links from a relevant page help both search engines and users find the information they need.

2. Number of links in the page – A lower number of links ensures that the link itself is more important and become an indispensable part of the content.

3. Trust and authority of the domain – Links from expert sites mean that your website is deemed important and contains highly valued content. A vote from important sites will also make your site important and be valued by search engines.

Mathematically it can be:

Inbound link rating = (Relevance of the page x Trust/Authority factor of the domain)/ (Number of links on the page)

If you are doing link building, go for these types of links. It is not as easy as it sound, because you must pass their content quality standards. Good luck!

Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI:
Latent semantic indexing is the science of natural language processing. LSI analyzes relationships between words and is designed to distinguish naturally written text from keyword-stuffed documents. Latent semantic indexing considers natural and synonymous relationship between words.
For example, if you’re examining an article about an airplane, LSI will look for synonyms: aircraft, plane, aero plane. It will also look for related words, which are NOT synonymous to the word, but are often mentioned when discussing airplanes: ailerons, turbulence, fuel, clouds, sky, roll, pitch, etc.

The point of LSI is to detect natural writing and distinguish it from robotic copy written to manipulate search results. Google purchased the company Applied Semantics, which developed advanced LSI technology. Their know-how was incorporated into AdSense, and possibly into search algorithms.

As a webmaster, write naturally and forget about measurements such as keyword density. Also mix related and synonymous phrases into your anchor text.
Ranking Search Results by Reranking the Results Based on Local Inter-Connectivity :
This is the name of a patent issued to Google on February 25th 2003.
A search engine for searching a corpus improves the relevancy of the results by refining a standard relevancy score based on the inter-connectivity of the initially returned set of documents.
The search engine referred to above finds a good set of documents using other algorithms (such as PageRank and Trust Rank), and then re-ranks search results based on the inter-connectivity of those documents.
If you have many links from authoritative domains, but still have a hard time ranking on search results, you might need to get links from several websites included in a “set” determined by this algorithm. In other words, you need links from sites that rank at the top for your terms, or links that are better than those of your competitors. If you lack “community” exposure, your rankings may be recalculated and lowered in favor of sites that have more “community” links, even at the cost of some authority.

Google Algorithms – Google Site and Link Analysis:

Google Site and Link Analysis refers to the analysis of information about websites, pages, links and patterns. Patented in 2005, Google looks at factors such as the following:
The length of domain registration
Domain ownership changes
WHOIS data and physical address information
C-Class IP information
Keyword and non-keyword domains
The discovery date of new domains/pages
Document change frequency and the amount of change
The number of linked internal documents
Link anchor text
Link discovery date
Link changes and deletions
External link growth patterns
The authority of external links
Link quality ratios
The distribution of links
The lifespan of links
Link patterns (new vs old and old vs new)
Anchor text variety
This is not a complete list. You can get a detailed analysis of this document by GrayWolf at Thread Watch.
It’s not clear whether this has been incorporated into Google over the years, but it’s a good idea to keep this information in mind when you do link building.
Link spikes can be measured against the search volume in a specific topic. If link spikes are not supported by search volume trends, Google can discount or penalize websites. If the linking pattern exceeds the natural or usual pattern, Google will pay more attention to your website, triggering specialized algorithms to determine whether links are spammy or natural. Remember, Google also owns Google News and can correlate events to link patterns.
Topic Sensitive PageRank TSPR
Topic Sensitive Pagerank Whitepaper
Topic Sensitive Pagerank (TSPR) bases results on the topical relationship of the query to the documents. This relationship is determined by user input, search history and the Open Directory Project. By matching the topic according to ODP listings, TSPR can return more refined results.

Topic Sensitive Pagerank also takes into account “corrupt” ODP editors who sell listing access. TSPR calculates relevancy based on topical communities rather than pure link power.
Try getting a link from the Open Directory Project. If you’re having a hard time, there are editors who sell those listings for a few hundred bucks. Topic Sensitive Pagerank also shows that Google places a lot of emphasis on links from topically related websites. The algorithm itself is very old and has probably undergone changes, or even been replaced by better successors created in-house at Google. Keep in mind the importance of links from related websites.
Topic Sensitive Trust Rank:
To understand Topic Sensitive Trust Rank, you need to understand Trustrank.
Trust Rank is an algorithm that requires human input. Humans analyze pages and determine different “seed pages.” “Seed pages” are high content, high quality web pages with independent, authoritative, un-affiliated links to other websites. Links from “seed pages” pass Trust Rank to websites. If page X is a seed page linking to pages A, B and C, then Trust Rank is equally distributed between those pages. If A, B and C link to other pages, then Trust Rank continues to flow, but has less power. The further a page is from the “seed,” the less Trust Rank is passed.
This algorithm requires humans to identify seed pages.
Topic Sensitive Trust Rank works on the same principle, but relies on seed pages which help determine the topics of websites. DMOZ, Yahoo Directory and other high quality directories can help with this.

Google Algorithms – Supplemental Index:                                                                        The supplemental index is where Google puts websites and pages it doesn’t trust. The regular index features the search results that you usually see. Results from the supplemental index will show when there are not enough documents that match the query in the main index.
If your website or pages are in the supplemental index, it means that Google doesn’t trust your website.

There are several ways to get into the supplemental index:
Too many low quality links
Not enough links
Too many low quality outbound links
Duplicate content
Too many pages for your pagerank (low PR, many pages)
Your site is new and has a low link profile. To fix this, get more authoritative links.
There’s no way of knowing if your website is in the supplemental index apart from a good guess. If you have a new website, Google may place you in the supplemental index by default, until the site ages and gains some authority. If you’re in the supplemental index, Google is not likely to crawl all your URLs. Also, be sure that you do not have broken links and 404s, since those can get you into the supplemental index.

Spam Detection:
As a quality website owner, you will get plenty of spam links. There’s no way to offset it, but accept the fact and focus your efforts on something more productive.
As you get spam links, Google will compare inbound and outbound links from your site. If you link to bad neighborhoods, you be will considered part of the spam network, so be careful to whom you link. Assuming you get spam inbound links by default, and don’t link to spam from your site, you can offset inbound spam link effects by getting more quality and authoritative links. Aaron Wall states that every single quality link is equal to 40 – 60 spam links, thus if you have two quality links and 60 spam links, in Google’s eyes you will only have one quality link (this is a very rough example).

Human Reviewers and Behavioral Data:
Some SEOs claim Google has up to 10,000 human reviewers who check search results for integrity and review websites flagged by algorithms. In his column Search 4.0, Danny claims that search engines are putting humans back into the task and taking behavioral aspects into account in algorithms.

Google Algorithms – Human Quality Raters :

Someone at Google leaked the document titled Quality Rater Guidelines (go read it). The document details how quality raters review search results and also details what Google considers spam. We will not go into detail about the document in this post, but it shows that raters are very real.
Unlike algorithms, you cannot trick human review, so make sure that your content reads as naturally as it possibly can, because once you’re flagged by a human, it’s very hard to get your position back.

Behavioral Data and Personalized Search:
Behavioral data analysis includes click-through rate, time spent on each site, pages visited and more. Google and other search engines monitor and analyze this data. On top of the tracking listed above, Google is likely to be monitoring users with a long history of specific searches.

Personalized Search:
If you have a Google account and use Google search on a regular basis, it adjusts search results based on the sites you visit the most, search queries you frequently use, blogs you track with Google Reader and other content you find/read using Google services. It uses this data to bring you partially customized results that are different from its regular results.
With this in mind, we can hypothesize that once Google has enough data from a pool of users, it can cross-compare and determine if a number of users with specific topics of interest share the same site-visiting patterns. If 1000 users interested in SEO read “SEO Chat” via Google Reader, then it’s a good indicator that SEO Chat is an important website.
Based on collected behavior information, Google can adjust its search results. I would say that they would not go so far as to determine search results based on behavior, but they definitely use it to adjust and improve SERPs.
Microsoft Browse Rank is another example of how search engines use behavioral data. With the focus on behavioral data, now more than ever you need to build your site with your human visitors in mind. After all, that’s truly the point of Google’s algorithms: to return sites that human searchers will find relevant.
DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware.

Content Writing:
Submit Express employs professional copywriters to create content that is not only well optimized and grammatically correct, but also is appealing to your readers and potential customers. Keywords will be integrated in your content using proper SEO keyword densities. Our writers will consult with you to ensure that the essence of your website is not compromised and that you are happy with the content we create. For sites with very little content or a greater degree of industry competition, we can also write original, 300 to 600-word articles which are keyword rich and related to your products or services. The articles would then be posted on your website to increase its content.
Website Optimization:
Our optimization engineers are well-experienced Web developers and programmers who have knowledge of all kinds of website technologies such as PHP, ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, etc. The optimization engineers will take care of the technical parts of your optimization and tweak the backend of your website to make it search engine friendly. This process will include creating or modifying meta tags, title tags, alt image tags, internal linking structures, site maps, duplicate content, flash content, session ID problems, dynamic content and shopping carts.
Link Development :
The development of incoming links from well-established websites is one of the major variables in attaining high search engine rankings. Link development is absolutely essential to your website’s success and is a major part of the optimization service that we offer. A high quantity of quality links can be developed through a variety of means, including:

• One-way links from directories and other related sites
• Reciprocal link exchanges with related sites
• Fee-based directory submissions
We may also offer the following services on a case-by-case basis:
• Article writing and submission to article directories
• Blog postings and/or creation
• Press release writing and submissions
• Social Media Optimization (SMO) and postings
Submission:
After the optimization process is complete, we will submit your website to all the major search engines and directories, including Google, Yahoo and MSN. In addition, we will submit your website to fee-based directories such as Yahoo Directory, Best of The Web, GoGuides, Business.com and others. We will also manually “hand submit” your website to 300 to 500 directories that we have researched and found to help in developing link popularity. Lastly, if your website has indexing issues, we will create and submit sitemaps to both Google and Yahoo via their respective programs.
Reporting:
We provide a baseline ranking report before we start work to show you how you rank prior to optimization; additional reports are then provided on a monthly basis. Our staff will monitor your results to make sure you are on the right track. To ensure your satisfaction, our staff will periodically be in touch with you via phone or email and provide you with project updates. As an optional service, we also offer installation of Google Analytics on your website for detailed traffic reporting.
Foreign Language SEO:
We offer foreign SEO in the following languages: Spanish, French and Russian. We employ in-house copywriters in all the mentioned languages. We also offer translation services for all of the above. For all other languages, please contact us as we work with several partners that could help us in other languages.

• One-way links from directories and other related sites
• Reciprocal link exchanges with related sites
• Fee-based directory submissions

We may also offer the following services on a case-by-case basis:

• Article writing and submission to article directories
• Blog postings and/or creation
• Press release writing and submissions
• Social Media Optimization (SMO) and postings
Submission:
After the optimization process is complete, we will submit your website to all the major search engines and directories, including Google, Yahoo and MSN. In addition, we will submit your website to fee-based directories such as Yahoo Directory, Best of The Web, GoGuides, Business.com and others. We will also manually “hand submit” your website to 300 to 500 directories that we have researched and found to help in developing link popularity. Lastly, if your website has indexing issues, we will create and submit sitemaps to both Google and Yahoo via their respective programs.
Reporting:
We provide a baseline ranking report before we start work to show you how you rank prior to optimization; additional reports are then provided on a monthly basis. Our staff will monitor your results to make sure you are on the right track. To ensure your satisfaction, our staff will periodically be in touch with you via phone or email and provide you with project updates. As an optional service, we also offer installation of Google Analytics on your website for detailed traffic reporting.
Foreign Language SEO:
We offer foreign SEO in the following languages: Spanish, French and Russian. We employ in-house copywriters in all the mentioned languages. We also offer translation services for all of the above. For all other languages, please contact us as we work with several partners that could help us in other languages.
Optimization Fees:
Fees will depend on how competitive your keywords are. If you are interested in a quote, please request a quote online. Also, provide your phone number and when the best time is to reach you. One of our analysts will evaluate your page and get back to you.

Interactive advertising using interactive media such as banner ads and Flash to get an active response from visitors. Promote their products and services and inform customers. If they are well designed, interactive advertising allows you to engage customers in a direct and personal, and this creates a communication other than that may affect purchasing decisions. RTN Europe produce presentations, mini websites and online advertising campaigns to help you compete.
E-mail marketing:

E-mail marketing, including email newsletters and online, is a form of relationship marketing based on obtaining the authorization of the client. Once people agree to receive periodic announcements about your products and services have the opportunity to turn your potential customers to existing customers, retain customers and create value for your business. We help you build cost-effective campaigns that reach e-mail directly to potential customers, strengthening your brand and establish lasting relationships with existing customers.
Marketing “White Paper” :

The White Paper is designed to promote your business solutions with reference to specific topics. They also help to position your company as a leader in a given sector. The White Paper can be very effective in generating clues, which are normally distributed after having obtained the customer’s contact information. Our development team can write and research content and content of this document for you. Our teams of marketing and development partners to generate and collect clues.
Blog Marketing :
From the viewpoint of corporate marketing, blogs offer many advantages. First, they provide an easy way to introduce new content to your site on an ongoing basis. The presence of newly added content attracts more attention from search engines, therefore it is likely that your site has a higher ranking with a blog than without it. Our services can help you develop a blogging strategy, integrating a blog into your website or ghostwrite “your content.

Ensuring the quality of inbound links, links that bring traffic
Links from sites with relevant keywords for your business model
Links from sites with high rankings in search engines
Links spread over different areas

The inverse of the techniques mentioned above, there are links that should be avoided:
Links link farms
FFA Links (Free-For-All) link networks
Links paid or time-limited
Links to pornographic, violent and other sites containing offensive content

RTN is experiencing in Europe to improve the quality and volume of traffic to your site. Ask our satisfied customers. You can adjust our services to your budget and give you an excellent return on your investment.