Web Site Visibility: The Theory and Practice of Improved Rankings

Citation

Calvert, P. (2010), "Web Site Visibility: The Theory and Practice of Improved Rankings", The Electronic Library, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 354-354. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471011033765

Web site management is a subject that intrigues many information managers and the past decade has seen many librarians become webmasters and web content managers. All people involved with web sites sooner or later become fascinated with the art and/or science of pushing their sites up the ranking in search engine results pages. Marcus Weideman has conducted research into web site visibility for many years and is well prepared to write this book.

After an introduction explaining how search engines work and the importance to almost all web sites of getting increased visibility by moving up the results page rankings, the author turns to the crucial factor in the whole system, how the search engine algorithm works. Having studied this for many years Weideman is ready to present his own model that lists and scores the factors that will get a web site the best results in the rankings. Not surprisingly the inlinks rate as the most important, followed by keywords. Yet it is always necessary to state that although the evidence seems to support these claims, we can never know for sure how the search engine algorithms work, and anyway they are most likely being changed by fine tuning all the time. Weideman is clear about this and I respect the way he presents his data, which is in contrast to some, perhaps rather less well‐informed people, who seem to claim to know precisely how to get your site up the rankings.

What emerges is that most of the techniques that can be used to improve rankings are really good site design anyway, so the whole subject of site engine optimisation comes into question. If the entire “white hat” SEO is really good site design, then we are left with the “black hat” SEO, most of which is unethical. Weideman explains the dark side of SEO in chapters four and five called “the bad ones” and “the ugly ones”, which shows just what he thinks of such practices.

If you want a clear explanation of what gets sites up the rankings then this is a very good book to choose. Although it covers some technical content the language is always clear, and will be well within the compass of anyone with a basic understanding of HTML and how the web works. It is a nicely presented book with case studies, an index and plenty of references. Highly recommended.