Contents Overview 1 Introducing the PositionAgent Service 2 Using PositionAgent to Check Web Site Ranking 3 Interpreting Reports Generated from Search Engines 4 Review 6 Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking Information in this document is subject to change without notice. The names of companies, products, people, characters, and/or data mentioned herein are fictitious and are in no way intended to represent any real individual, company, product, or event, unless otherwise noted. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation. If, however, your only means of access is electronic, permission to print one copy is hereby granted. 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Murali (NIIT) Instructional Designers: Sangeeta Nair (NIIT), Vijayalakshmi Narayanaswamy, (NIIT) Technical Contributors: Scott Swigart (3 Leaf Solutions, LLC); Gary Gumbiner (Great Barrier Technologies) Program Manager: Steve Merrill Graphic Artist: Scott Serna Editing Manager: Lynette Skinner Editor: Dennis Rea Copy Editor: Ed Casper (S&T Consulting) Publications Manager: Miracle Davis Test Manager: Eric Myers CD Build Specialist: Jenny Boe; Eric Wagoner Production Coordinator: Marlene Lambert (Online Training Solutions, Inc.); Susie Bayers (Online Training Solutions, Inc.) Manufacturing Manager: Bo Galford Manufacturing Support: Laura King General Manager: Robert Stewart Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking iii Instructor Notes This module provides students with information about how to check the ranking of their Web sites on Internet search engines. The module provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to use the PositionAgent service from Microsoft ® bCentral ™ to check Web site rankings. After completing this module, students will be able to: ! Describe the benefits of using the PositionAgent service. ! Check the ranking of Web sites by using PositionAgent. ! Interpret reports generated by PositionAgent. Materials and Preparation This section provides the materials and preparation tasks that you need to teach this module. Required Materials To teach this module, you need the following materials: ! Microsoft PowerPoint ® file 1933A_09.ppt ! Module 9, “Checking Web Site Ranking” Preparation Tasks To prepare for this module, you should: ! Read all of the materials for this module. Presentation: 20 Minutes Lab: 00 Minutes iv Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking Module Strategy Use the following strategies to present this module: ! Introducing the PositionAgent Service Explain the use of the PositionAgent service by highlighting the fact that after a user submits a Web site to search engines, it is necessary to check the status of the site to confirm the listing. ! Using PositionAgent to Check Web Site Ranking Demonstrate the procedure for using the PositionAgent service to check Web site ranking on search engines. Do this by specifying URL and keyword pairs. ! Interpreting Reports Generated from Search Engines Explain the concept of the Web Presence Score and what it indicates about the ranking of a Web site, before demonstrating the procedure for viewing a report. Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking 1 Overview ! Introducing the PositionAgent Service ! Using PositionAgent to Check Web Site Ranking ! Interpreting Reports Generated from Search Engines When you submit your e-commerce Web site by using the SubmitIt! service of Microsoft ® bCentral ™ , your site is listed on search engines and in directories on the Web. The PositionAgent service of bCentral helps you to check the ranking of your Web site on search engines. After completing this module, you will be able to: ! Describe the benefits of using the PositionAgent service. ! Check the ranking of Web sites by using PositionAgent. ! Interpret reports generated by PositionAgent. Topic Objective To provide an overview of the module topics and objectives. Lead-in In this module, you will learn how to check the status of your e-commerce Web site on Internet search engines by using the PositionAgent service from Microsoft bCentral. 2 Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking Introducing the PositionAgent Service The PositionAgent service: ! Enables you to check the ranking of your Web site on various search engines ! Performs automatic searches based on a specified URL/keyword combination After you submit your e-commerce Web site to search engines on the Web by using the SubmitIt! service from Microsoft bCentral, you need to check the ranking of your Web site on these search engines. The ranking of your site is an important indicator of the effectiveness of your site-promotion strategy. When you submit a page from your Web site to a search engine, the engine indexes and ranks the page based on the following parameters: ! The <TITLE> tags on your Web pages ! The keyword <META> tags on your Web pages ! The descriptive <META> tags on your Web pages ! The number of links to and from other sites The search engine uses these parameters to compare your submission with submissions from other sites, and then assigns a ranking based on the parameters. If your site includes all of the parameters listed above, it will have a better chance of being ranked highly on search engines. A high ranking means that the site will be listed near the top of all results generated by the search based on a particular keyword. If your site has a low ranking, the site has a lower chance of attracting visitors. The PositionAgent service allows you to check the ranking of your Web site on various search engines. These include MSN ® , AltaVista, Excite, InfoSeek, Lycos, WebCrawler, and Yahoo!, among others. By using PositionAgent, you can obtain Web page rankings by simply specifying URL and keyword combinations that people may use to search for your site. Topic Objective To provide an introduction to the PositionAgent service. Lead-in The PositionAgent service of Microsoft bCentral helps you to check the ranking of your e-commerce Web site on Internet search engines, so that you can resubmit your site if needed. Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking 3 Using PositionAgent to Check Web Site Ranking ! To use PositionAgent to check your Web site ranking, specify the following: # The domain or URL that search engines should use for the search # The keyword or phrase that should be used for the search # Whether or not you want PositionAgent to generate a weekly e-mail notification of the report PositionAgent allows you to check the ranking of your e-commerce Web site on various search engines on the Web. Instead of manually checking individual search engines for your Web site by using keywords, you can use the PositionAgent service to perform the same task automatically. Based on the URLs and keywords you provide, PositionAgent generates reports on your site’s ranking on various search engines. PositionAgent checks the status of your Web site on a selection of key search engines on the Web, such as MSN, AltaVista, HotBot, InfoSeek, Northern Light, and Yahoo!. You only need to provide your Web site URL and a keyword on which you want to base the search for your site, and PositionAgent simultaneously checks the ranking of your site on each of the key search engines. If you have signed up for the bCentral Traffic Builder service, you do not need to sign up separately for Position Agent. To check the ranking of your Web site on search engines, first log in to PositionAgent, and then specify the following information in the sign-up form: ! The URL of your Web site ! The keywords on which you want to base the search ! Whether or not you want the search engine results to be e-mailed to you Check the information that you entered, and then save it. Topic Objective To outline the procedure for checking the ranking of a Web site on search engines by using the PositionAgent service. Lead-in Instead of checking each search engine separately to determine the ranking of your Web site, you can use PositionAgent to perform the same task with less effort. Delivery Tip Demonstrate the procedure for checking the ranking of a Web site on search engines. Enter the URL of the Web site that you created, and then enter a keyword that you used when filling out the SubmitIt! Master Form. 4 Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking Interpreting Reports Generated from Search Engines ! A Web presence score of: # 100 indicates that your Web site is listed in the top ranks by all of the search engines # More than 100 indicates that your Web site is listed more than once by a search engine # Zero indicates that your Web site is not listed in the top 100 ranks by the search engines PositionAgent generates reports on the status of your Web site on various Internet search engines. These reports detail the ranking of your Web site on each search engine that PositionAgent searches. PositionAgent reports the page on which your Web site is listed in the search results for each search engine. For these reports, PositionAgent uses the keyword you specified on the PositionAgent Summary form. The service also calculates a Web Presence Score for your Web site for each search engine. The Web Presence Score is a scale for measuring the ranking of a Web site on search engines. A Web Presence Score of 100 indicates that your Web site is listed in the top ranks on all of the search engines. A Web Presence Score of more than 100 indicates that your Web site is listed more than once on a search engine. Conversely, a Web Presence Score of zero indicates that your Web site is not listed in the top 100 ranks of the search engines. Topic Objective To demonstrate how to interpret reports generated by PositionAgent on the ranking of a Web site on search engines. Lead-in You can check the ranking of your Web site by using the reports generated by PositionAgent. Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking 5 On average, PositionAgent takes 48 hours to generate a ranking report for a Web site after you submit a request. Also, PositionAgent needs to check the search engines twice for your Web site in order to generate a ranking graph as shown in the preceding slide. If the Web Presence Score for your Web site is zero, it means that your site has not been listed and you need to take remedial measures. In such a situation, you can: ! Review the <TITLE> tags, keyword <META> tags, and descriptive <META> tags on your Web pages and check all of the tags for their content. Verify that the descriptive content and keywords in the tags are appropriate to the content and nature of your Web site. After you review the tags, you can submit the Web pages again by using the SubmitIt! service from bCentral. ! Verify that all of the links on your Web pages are functioning properly. Make sure that all links point to the correct destinations and are not missing or broken. ! Include links to all of the main pages of your Web site on each Web page, as well as links to other related Web sites. ! It is possible that you might not have provided PositionAgent with the correct URL and keyword combination on which to search for your site. To make sure, specify a different keyword on which to perform the search, and then check the report generated by PositionAgent. It is likely that the graph generated by PositionAgent will show you a high ranking. However, it is possible that your Web site may be ranked highly on a single search engine only, and that PositionAgent has ranked your site on that basis. To ensure that your Web site is ranked highly on all search engines, you must regularly verify that all of the tags and links on your submitted pages are optimized and functioning properly. Delivery Tip In the class, you will not be able to demonstrate the procedure for viewing the reports generated by PositionAgent. However, you can access the site http://positionagent.bcentral. com and use the Free PositionAgent Trial service to demonstrate how it works. You can specify the URL http://bcentral.com and then type the keyword as businesses or small businesses. You can also try affiliate program. Click Search and show students the chart where the position of the site is shown on various search engines. Then, go to the site of a search engine such as http://www.altavista.com, type the keyword businesses, and show students the position where the bCentral home page is listed. Note Note 6 Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking Review ! Describe the benefits of using the PositionAgent service ! Check the ranking of Web sites by using PositionAgent ! Interpret reports generated by PositionAgent 1. Why should there be a time gap between submission of a Web site and checking the position of the site on search engines? You should use PositionAgent to generate a report only after a reasonable amount of time has elapsed since you submitted your site to search engines, because search engines take time to process, approve, and list your submission. 2. What is the Web Presence Score in the reports generated by PositionAgent? The Web Presence Score is a scale for measuring the ranking of a Web site on search engines. A Web Presence Score of 100 implies that your Web site is ranked in the top ranks on all of the search engines. A score of zero indicates that your Web site is not listed in the top 100 ranks. A score of more than 100 means that your Web site is ranked more than once on individual search engines. Topic Objective To reinforce module objectives by reviewing key points. Lead-in The review questions cover some of the key concepts taught in the module. [...].. .Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking 3 What measures should you take to increase the ranking of your Web site on search engines if the report generated by PositionAgent is not satisfactory? You should take either or both of the following measures if the rank of your Web site is very low in PositionAgent reports: • Check the tags, keyword tags, and descriptive tags on your Web. .. tags, keyword tags, and descriptive tags on your Web pages again Optimize the descriptive content and keywords in the tags according to the content and nature of your Web site • Ensure that all links on your Web pages are functioning properly, point to the correct destinations, and are not missing or broken 7 THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK . Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking iii Instructor Notes This module provides students with information about how to check the ranking of their Web sites. check the ranking of your e-commerce Web site on Internet search engines, so that you can resubmit your site if needed. Module 9: Checking Web Site Ranking