Main conference presentation

Search engine optimization and IA: the beginnings of a beautiful friendship

Marianne Sweeny

Sunday March 25 2007, 1:45 - 2:30PM

How often did you use a search engine today? 1x? More than 1? Did you use the search engine to make your travel arrangements to this conference, look up additional information on speakers, find the answer to a specific question, find information on a certain topic, or locate restaurants nearby? Machine mediated search is now the dominant form of information seeking. The emergence to intrusion of search engines complicates as much as complements our relationship with the Web. There is so much more than we can imagine going on behind the simple box and it is changing fast. Taking Paul Saffo’s advice not to “walk backwards towards the future”, I will take a look at what is going on behind the scenes of today's search technology, what is in the pipeline for tomorrow's search technology and how information architects can work with this technology to create optimal online wayfinding systems. In this presentation we will examine:

• Search Today: Wayfinding today is achieved less by traditional left/global navigation and more by technology-mediated “aboutness” and determination of relevance to what the searcher wants. Here we will examine recent search technology changes that use external metadata, site structure, and page structure to determine content context and relevance.
• Personalized search: How our users are creating their own solutions using niche search, personal search engines, social bookmarking, and more.
• Search Tomorrow: Next generation search applications are using refinements such as: Hilltop algorithm that determines "content authorities", Orion algorithm that suggests query refinements for more relevant results, site structure [url depth and click distance from Authority pages], query analysis, semantic indexing, mechanical distinction of narrative text and more.
• SEO Challenges and Opportunities for Information Architects: Here is where specific illustrations of search optimization through IA will be presented: what is search friendly site structure [the HITS Algorithm and Authority scores], how to enhance relevance through association [outlinks and inlinks with a point of view], relational content ["birds of a feather" or where to send them once they arrive and why], the importance of taxonomy, and more.

Teresa of Avila could have been speaking of search engines when she said that there are more tears wept over answered prayers. Search engines help us find what we want while lacking the ability to understand the context of our needs. Information architecture is crucial to resolving this dilemma by communicating the site message in an organic as well as structured way that is visible to the primary technology users employ to find information online.