KPMG Page Ranking Issues GLOBAL SERVICE/ INDUSTRY KPMG Page Ranking Issues Doug Smith, Business Analyst July 10, 2010 AUDIT / TAX / ADVISORY / LINE OF BUSINESS One of the items Lisa was interested in when we spoke on Wednesday, May 12 was SEO for SharePoint. My knowledge base page on SEO is in place but needs better guidance on how Metadata is used. The metadata on a SharePoint page looks the same as a non SP web page. To do this develop some links to sources on the Web discussing Metadata in general and it use for SEO as well as specific guidance on how Metadata is managed in the Master page. Update that results in SEO/seo.html.

Overview of Traffic – Google Keyword Tool Summarizes top search terms used to reach the site. Base Term Qualifier(s) Global Searches Local Searches kpmg   823,000 110,000 careers 18,100 4,400 india 14,800 720 llp 12,100 3,600 india careers 2,400 58 internship 2,900 880 corporate finance 480 jobs 1,000 consulting australia 170 kpmg.com

Only .6 % of the site traffic could possibly be new business opportunities, most of the traffic was job seekers – this site is not effective at generating new business. What to do?

Metadata

What does Metadata do? Describes the page in general terms Language it is written in Author and Copyright Information Indexing and Crawling Instructions Type of text contained Metadata in a traditional HTML page is not like Metadata on a SharePoint page. In a traditional page the Metadata is HTML tags with associated content. When the content is crawled, that information may be considered in the page’s ranking. The extent to which it is used by a specific content indexer is proprietary, and it may be not used at all. SharePoint has a different approach where additional fields can be associated with a content type, and these are stored in the database and not in the HTML. Implications: Only the metadata in the HTML is seen by non SharePoint indexers and will not improve a page’s search ranking outside of SharePoint. If most searches are run inside SP there is a benefit to requiring classification data for a document, if most search are run outside SP the benefit disappears. Establishing a taxonomy is a large topic and is not discussed here.

Issues with SharePoint Metadata Metadata in a traditional HTML page is not like Metadata on a SharePoint page. In a traditional page the Metadata is HTML tags with associated content that can be crawled. Only the metadata in the HTML is seen by non SharePoint indexers and will not improve a page’s search ranking outside of SharePoint. As the program goal is to increase content visibility on the public side a different approach is needed.

Keywords

Use of Keywords in SEO The Keywords metadata should mirror word frequency count on the page. The Dublin Core elements are available as Site Columns in SharePoint. The entire group of fifteen elements is available using the Dublin Core Columns content type. Dublin Core Columns (DC.xxx) are not used in SEO yet Description is used on the results link on the search results page so searchers see our slogan and/or mission statement Need to work with the client to understand who the target customers are and what search terms would the likely use to find KPMG. Although I can quess, the client knows best. Taking the existing KPMG home page and doing a word frequency count and eliminating the noise words, the keywords appear to be: kpmg, international, member, united, firms, business, tax, recovery. The metadata from the home page has only one of them: <meta name="keywords" content="KPMG" />. We would recommend additional keywords the reflect, at a minimum, the three practice areas: tax, accounting and advise. These would be some SEO benefits to minor wordsmithing to add those terms in a few more places. The W3C does not define a set of legal metadata properties (META Tags). The meaning of a property and the set of legal values for that property are defined in a reference lexicon called a profile, but no description of profile(s) was found. Most sources discount the importance of keywords in search relevance. The current metadata includes both Dublin Core and traditional tags: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="0"> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7″" /> <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-US" /> <meta name="description" content="KPMG is a global network of professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. We have 137,000 outstanding professionals working together to deliver value in 144 countries worldwide." /> <meta name="keywords" content="KPMG" /> <meta name="DC.Title" content="Home" /> <meta name="DC.description" content="KPMG is a global network of professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. We have 137,000 outstanding professionals working together to deliver value in 144 countries worldwide." /> <meta name="DC.Date" content="6/9/2009"> <meta name="DC.format" content="text/html" /> <meta name="DC.language" content="en-US" /> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" /> Prevailing opinion on DC metadata is that search engines are not using it yet. As of this date 2009-01-01, the Dublin Core META Tags do not appear to be supported by the major public search engines, see http://www.seoconsultants.com/meta-tags/dublin/.

Multiple Languages on the same page If you have prepared translations of this document into other languages, you should use the LINK element to reference these. This allows an indexing engine to offer users search results in the user's preferred language, regardless of how the query was written. Specify language variants of this document If you have prepared translations of this document into other languages, you should use the LINK element to reference these. This allows an indexing engine to offer users search results in the user's preferred language, regardless of how the query was written. For instance, the following links offer French and German alternatives to a search engine: <LINK rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="mydoc-fr.html" hreflang="fr" lang="fr" title="La vie souterraine"> <LINK rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="mydoc-de.html" hreflang="de" lang="de" title="Das Leben im Untergrund">

How well do the search terms work ? The keywords (based on frequency) worked well and KPMG was listed second behind Ernst & Young Adding the term ‘advisory’ significantly improves search results The right search terms can list KPMG first, but is that what people use to locate us? The phrase ““member firms business tax recovery advisory” causes KPMG to place first on a Google search results page. The keywords, based on just a frequency count, worked will and returned KPMG in second place. The order returned was Ernst&Young followed by KPMG. Several other combinations were tried to see if KPMG can be returned first. “member firms business tax recovery” returns PWC ahead of KPMG, and PWC links appear three time on the first page - but both placed behind Wincentive Corp. “member firms business tax recovery advisory” causes KPMG to place first on a Google search results page. There is no basis for assuming this is the most popular search terms that get referred to KPMG – that needs additional analysis and site analytics.