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Future Internet
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Search Engine Optimization
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Search Engine Optimization

A special issue of Future Internet (ISSN 1999-5903). This special issue belongs to the section "Techno-Social Smart Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2019) | Viewed by 76207

Printed Edition Available!
A printed edition of this Special Issue is available here.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Andreas Veglis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Media Informatics Lab, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: information technology in journalism; new media; course support environments; data journalism; open data; distance learning; content verification; algorithmic journalism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Mr. Dimitrios Giomelakis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Media Informatics Lab, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 541 24 Thessaloniki, Greece
Informatics and Telematics Institute (ITI) of the Centre of Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH), 570 01 Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: online journalism; media technology; SEO; Web Analytics; Web 2.0; social media

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The introduction of the WWW 25 years ago, considerably altered the manner that people obtain information. Soon after the introduction of the WWW it was evident that traditional browsing was totally insufficient for internet users to locate the information that interests them. This need was addressed with the development of search engines. Today search engines play one of the most important roles in disseminating content. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a collection of strategies that improves a website’s presence and visibility on a search engine results page, or SERP. In other words, the higher and more frequently a site appears in search results, the more visitors it will receive through the use of search engines. The importance of SEO can be understood by the fact that many web sites toady receive the majority of their web traffic through search engine’s organic results.

SEO methods can be divided into four major categories: key word research/selection, search engine indexing, on-page optimization and off-page optimization. On-page optimization includes the management of all factors associated directly with someone’s website (e.g., keywords, appropriate content, internal link structure), while off-page optimization includes all the efforts made away from the website such as link building or social signal strategy. Undeniably, the world of search engine optimization has changed and evolved drastically over the years, with a shift away from traditional ranking factors to deeper analysis and factors such as quality, multi-form content and social signals. However, even though SEO has changed a lot, it remains an important part of any digital marketing strategy.

This Special Issue is soliciting theoretical and case study contributions, discussing and treating challenges, the state-of-the-art, and solutions related to search engine optimization, including but not limited to the following themes:

  • Theory of SEO
  • Different types of SEO
  • SEO criteria evaluation
  • Search engine algorithms
  • Black-hat SEO
  • Social media and SEO
  • SEO applications in various industries
  • SEO on media web sites

Prof. Andreas Veglis
Mr. Dimitrios Giomelakis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Internet is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • search engine optimization (SEO)
  • black-hat SEO
  • mobile SEO
  • search engines
  • organic results
  • theory of SEO
  • social SEO
  • web metrics
  • social signals

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

2 pages, 167 KiB  
Editorial
Search Engine Optimization
by Andreas Veglis and Dimitrios Giomelakis
Future Internet 2020, 12(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi12010006 - 31 Dec 2019
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 9788
Abstract
The introduction of the World Wide Web (WWW), 25 years ago, has considerably altered the manner in which people obtain information [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Search Engine Optimization)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

15 pages, 551 KiB  
Article
SEO inside Newsrooms: Reports from the Field
by Dimitrios Giomelakis, Christina Karypidou and Andreas Veglis
Future Internet 2019, 11(12), 261; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi11120261 - 13 Dec 2019
Cited by 30 | Viewed by 10118
Abstract
The journalism profession has changed dramatically in the digital age as the internet, and new technologies, in general, have created new working conditions in the media environment. Concurrently, journalists and media professionals need to be aware and possess a new set of skills [...] Read more.
The journalism profession has changed dramatically in the digital age as the internet, and new technologies, in general, have created new working conditions in the media environment. Concurrently, journalists and media professionals need to be aware and possess a new set of skills connected to web technologies, as well as respond to new reading tendencies and information consumption habits. A number of studies have shown that search engines are an important source of the traffic to news websites around the world, identifying the significance of high rankings in search results. Journalists are writing to be read, and that means ensuring that their news content is found, also, by search engines. In this context, this paper represents an exploratory study on the use of search engine optimization (SEO) in news websites. A series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews with professionals at four Greek media organizations uncover trends and address issues, such as how SEO policy is operationalized and applied inside newsrooms, which are the most common optimization practices, as well as the impact on journalism and news content. Today, news publishers have embraced the use of SEO practices, something that is clear also from this study. However, the absence of a distinct SEO culture was evident in newsrooms under study. Finally, according to results, SEO strategy seems to depend on factors, such as ownership and market orientation, editorial priorities or organizational structures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Search Engine Optimization)
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25 pages, 1173 KiB  
Article
Academic Excellence, Website Quality, SEO Performance: Is there a Correlation?
by Andreas Giannakoulopoulos, Nikos Konstantinou, Dimitris Koutsompolis, Minas Pergantis and Iraklis Varlamis
Future Internet 2019, 11(11), 242; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi11110242 - 18 Nov 2019
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 7890
Abstract
The academic excellence of universities around the globe has always been a matter of extended study and so has the quality of an institution’s presence in the World Wide Web. The purpose of this research is to study the extent to which a [...] Read more.
The academic excellence of universities around the globe has always been a matter of extended study and so has the quality of an institution’s presence in the World Wide Web. The purpose of this research is to study the extent to which a university’s academic excellence is related to the quality of its web presence. In order to achieve this, a method was devised that quantified the website quality and search engine optimization (SEO) performance of the university websites of the top 100 universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) Shanghai list. A variety of tools was employed to measure and test each website and produced a Web quality ranking, an SEO performance ranking, as well as a combined overall web ranking for each one. Comparing these rankings with the ARWU shows that academic excellence is moderately correlated with website quality, but SEO performance is not. Moreover, the overall web ranking also shows a moderate correlation with ARWU which seems to be positively influenced by website quality and negatively by SEO performance. Conclusively, the results of the research indicate that universities place particular emphasis on issues concerning website quality, while the utilization of SEO does not appear to be of equal importance, indicating possible room for improvement in this area. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Search Engine Optimization)
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21 pages, 10546 KiB  
Article
Ranking by Relevance and Citation Counts, a Comparative Study: Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, WoS and Scopus
by Cristòfol Rovira, Lluís Codina, Frederic Guerrero-Solé and Carlos Lopezosa
Future Internet 2019, 11(9), 202; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi11090202 - 19 Sep 2019
Cited by 46 | Viewed by 13118
Abstract
Search engine optimization (SEO) constitutes the set of methods designed to increase the visibility of, and the number of visits to, a web page by means of its ranking on the search engine results pages. Recently, SEO has also been applied to academic [...] Read more.
Search engine optimization (SEO) constitutes the set of methods designed to increase the visibility of, and the number of visits to, a web page by means of its ranking on the search engine results pages. Recently, SEO has also been applied to academic databases and search engines, in a trend that is in constant growth. This new approach, known as academic SEO (ASEO), has generated a field of study with considerable future growth potential due to the impact of open science. The study reported here forms part of this new field of analysis. The ranking of results is a key aspect in any information system since it determines the way in which these results are presented to the user. The aim of this study is to analyze and compare the relevance ranking algorithms employed by various academic platforms to identify the importance of citations received in their algorithms. Specifically, we analyze two search engines and two bibliographic databases: Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic, on the one hand, and Web of Science and Scopus, on the other. A reverse engineering methodology is employed based on the statistical analysis of Spearman’s correlation coefficients. The results indicate that the ranking algorithms used by Google Scholar and Microsoft are the two that are most heavily influenced by citations received. Indeed, citation counts are clearly the main SEO factor in these academic search engines. An unexpected finding is that, at certain points in time, Web of Science (WoS) used citations received as a key ranking factor, despite the fact that WoS support documents claim this factor does not intervene. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Search Engine Optimization)
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13 pages, 2028 KiB  
Article
SEO Practices: A Study about the Way News Websites Allow the Users to Comment on Their News Articles
by Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, Evangelos Lamprou, Matina Kiourexidou and Nikos Antonopoulos
Future Internet 2019, 11(9), 188; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi11090188 - 30 Aug 2019
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 6759
Abstract
In the current media world, there is a huge debate about the importance of the visibility of a news website in order to secure its existence. Thus, search engine optimization (SEO) practices have emerged in the news media systems around the world. This [...] Read more.
In the current media world, there is a huge debate about the importance of the visibility of a news website in order to secure its existence. Thus, search engine optimization (SEO) practices have emerged in the news media systems around the world. This study aimed to expand the current literature about the SEO practices by focusing on examining, via the walkthrough method, the ways that news companies allow the users to comment on their online news articles. The comments on the news websites are related to the notions of social influence, information diffusion, and play an essential role as a SEO practice, for instance, by providing content and engagement. The examined sample was collected by the most visited news websites’ rankings of alexa.com for a global scale and for the countries Greece and Cyprus. The findings reveal that the news websites throughout the globe use similar features and ways to support the comments of the users. In the meantime, though, a high number of the news websites did not allow the users to use their social media accounts in order to comment the provided news articles, or provided multiple comment platforms. This trend goes against the SEO practices. It is believed that this finding is associated with the difficulty of the news organizations to regulate and protect themselves by the users’ comments that promote, in some case harmful rhetoric and polarization. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Search Engine Optimization)
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12 pages, 731 KiB  
Article
Important Factors for Improving Google Search Rank
by Christos Ziakis, Maro Vlachopoulou, Theodosios Kyrkoudis and Makrina Karagkiozidou
Future Internet 2019, 11(2), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi11020032 - 30 Jan 2019
Cited by 83 | Viewed by 21725
Abstract
The World Wide Web has become an essential modern tool for people’s daily routine. The fact that it is a convenient means for communication and information search has made it extremely popular. This fact led companies to start using online advertising by creating [...] Read more.
The World Wide Web has become an essential modern tool for people’s daily routine. The fact that it is a convenient means for communication and information search has made it extremely popular. This fact led companies to start using online advertising by creating corporate websites. With the rapid increase in the number of websites, search engines had to come up with a solution of algorithms and programs to qualify the results of a search and provide the users with relevant content to their search. On the other side, developers, in pursuit of the highest rankings in the search engine result pages (SERPs), began to study and observe how search engines work and which factors contribute to higher rankings. The knowledge that has been extracted constituted the base for the creation of the profession of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This paper consists of two parts. The first part aims to perform a literature review of the factors that affect the ranking of websites in the SERPs and to highlight the top factors that contribute to better ranking. To achieve this goal, a collection and analysis of academic papers was conducted. According to our research, 24 website characteristics came up as factors affecting any website’s ranking, with the most references mentioning quality and quantity of backlinks, social media support, keyword in title tag, website structure, website size, loading time, domain age, and keyword density. The second part consists of our research which was conducted manually using the phrases “hotel Athens”, “email marketing”, and “casual shoes”. For each one of these keywords, the first 15 Google results were examined considering the factors found in the literature review. For the measurement of the significance of each factor, the Spearman correlation was calculated and every factor was compared with the ranking of the results individually. The findings of the research showed us that the top factors that contribute to higher rankings are the existence of website SSL certificate as well as keyword in URL, the quantity of backlinks pointing to a website, the text length, and the domain age, which is not perfectly aligned with what the literature review showed us. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Search Engine Optimization)
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