Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Search Engine Optimization (MOSS SEO) explains how to optimize your SharePoint Search Engine & how to optimize your SharePoint site and content.
SharePoint Search Engine (Enterprise Search) and related SharePoint features, web parts and capabilities. Expose the potential of the SharePoint 2007 enterprise search engine:
· Actually give your users search results they are looking for - Relevancy
· Evolve your solution - Performance & Scalability
· Crawl your existing LOB systems - Business Data Catalog
· Taxonomy based search results - Meta Data Management
· Targeted searches - Search Scopes
· Security Trimmed Results or Not?
· What are they looking for and NOT finding - Search Usage Analysis
· Pre-set your results based on search terms - Best Bets
· Quickly find the right person - People Search
· Automatic Hit Highlighting (search results)
…and much, much more.
Search Engine Optimization (SharePoint SEO) - how to optimize your SharePoint site and content so internet users can find it using internet search engines.
SharePoint SEO explains how to optimize your public facing SharePoint 2007 WCM based web site for internet search engines. SharePoint 2007 running in “CMS” mode might just be the perfect opportunity to fully flex true Search Engine Optimization. All the necessary components are in place to help you finally achieve top search engine rankings (a rare find when talking about Content Management System driven web sites)! MOSS SEO will get your MOSS site on top where it needs to be.
The essence of this site is to share MOSS SEO techniques for implementing sound SEO. First lets touch base on some basics:
MOSS SEO Note: The terms “MOSS” and “SharePoint 2007” both refer to the same thing (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). The terms are used interchangeably. They are one in the same, synonyms, alike, identical… It can at times be annoying I know and for that I am deeply regretful, it annoys me too. I keep flipping back and forth between the two because I’ve been calling it MOSS for a very long time now – and now that it’s released as “SharePoint 2007” I’m finding it difficult to abandon its pet name “MOSS”.
SharePoint 2007 running in “CMS” mode is the best way I can describe what Microsoft now calls Web Content Management (WCM). The shift from CMS to WCM came naturally as a result of combining the content management capabilities of Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) with the collaboration capabilities of SharePoint. WCM refers to a SharePoint 2007 site which exploits the content management abilities SharePoint has inherited from MCMS.
Internet Search Engine Players
Google, Yahoo, MS Live Search and AOL are the big players right now. Google is out in front at the time of this writing, but keep a close watch on Microsoft. Either way, these are the only ones you need worry about being ranked well with as they represent nearly 100% of the search engines people actually use.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is how you get your web site ranked high in internet search engines. When somebody performs a search on Google or MS Live Search or Yahoo, etc… they get hundreds or thousands of results. These results can span across hundreds of pages all containing a “next page” link at the bottom of the page. Most people will click the “next page” link exactly one time. SEO is how you get your site listed within this extraordinarily tight list. It’s a discipline, a methodology and fortunately, MOSS provides lots of ways of implementing this very tall order.
If you are new to the world of MOSS SEO, please take a moment and read the advise freely given by Google called Webmaster Guidelines. This information should be taken pretty seriously if you are pretty serious about MOSS SEO. One of the things recommended not only by Google, but all the other major search engines is to take advantage of a site map. We are currently working on a control that can be added to your MOSS site via site feature which will dynamically update your site map when you publish a page. This will be shared freely, as well as the source code so your developers can further extend as necessary.
|
|
|
10/24/2008
Using SharePoint as a platform to support your organization's Social Networking needs is well worth looking at. SharePoint offers many Social Networking capabilities including activity tracking, colleagues, groups, memberships, profiles and more… You can read about some of SharePoint's Social Networking capabilities.
More and more organizations are using the SharePoint platform to support public facing sites with Social Networking capabilities as well. Here's on example:
http://www.schoolnet.com/Pages/ASKHome.aspx
I'm presenting on the subject at an upcoming Lunch and Learn in Alexandria, VA. The session is entitled "Professional & Social Networking with SharePoint". Should be a pretty good time - hope to see you there! 10/06/2008
Over this past year I’ve sat through a lot of “SEO” lectures (MS Conferences, User Group Conferences, Best Practices Conferences, you name it…) which frankly taught me one very important thing – there’s an awful lot of bad information and bad advice going around. I’ve heard it all, from “the more links to your site, the better ranking it will have” to “the site with the highest keyword-density gets the best ranking”. I’ve heard the “the more search engines you submit your site to, the better rankings it will have.” There’s actually “SEO Companies” out there that will gladly take your money in exchange for them submitting your URL to “thousands of internet search engines!” Come on! How many “internet search engines” do you actually use? What about your friends, family, co-workers… Anyone you know or have even heard of actually use more than 3 different search engines?
You can safely be concerned with 3 Internet search engines (Google, MS Live, Yahoo).
What do internet search engines care about?
Here are some of the usual answers:
· Quality in-bound links
· Keyword density
· Contextual relevance
· Page load time & site availability
· Query string parameters
· Click Through Rate
· Bounce Back Rate
· Domain name registration duration
· Code vs. Content
While all of the above bullet points (and then some) are right, you need to really understand what Internet search engines really, really, really care about.
Internet search engines care about making money.
How do they make money? Internet search engines make money with advertising.
According to IDC, Internet advertising will surpass $106 billion by 2011.
Internet search engines mostly place ad’s in two places: Search Results Pages and on web sites (although Google has branched out into newspapers and beyond, they tend to be more aggressive). So this means all those other things represent a means to an end. You see, Google, Yahoo, MS LIVE, they all need you to keep coming back. They need you to keep coming back so they can keep showing you advertisements. The only way they can get you to keep coming back is by providing you, the internet search engine user, with highly-accurate search results. Each and every search result displayed to you is a calculated risk taken in hopes of earning your continued usage. Those things are how internet search engines calculate if a web site PAGE is worth displaying to a user.
If you are responsible for your organizations SEO efforts, you need to really understand the similarities between internet search engine pay per click advertising and search engine optimization. From the initial copy the end user reads about the link on the search engine results page, to the copy they read after they click the link, to the conversion that takes places thereafter. I have learned a ton about SEO from online advertising initiatives. Pay per click campaigns can be easily had from all 3 major players. Understanding how MS LIVE differs from Google and Yahoo will help you improve your SEO efforts greatly.
09/20/2008
SharePoint provides a socially enabled platform for content management and collaboration but can come up short when it comes to streaming videos. This is mainly because SharePoint does not stream videos at all. While Microsoft has not claimed that SharePoint has video streaming capabilities, SharePoint experts are quick to point out how easy it is to upload a video file into a SharePoint document library. This method, while perfectly acceptable in many cases, is not always the best or even a physically viable solution. Video files are large by nature. This means the upload process can be time consuming and your SharePoint database (which carries ALL your SharePoint content, including video files) can quickly become full. On top of that, uploading video files into a SharePoint document library does not render the video appropriately for the web. You are relying on the video being uploaded to have been rendered correctly for the web. The end users attempting to watch the video must have the appropriate software installed to play the video. Not to mention, the video is still NOT being streamed – it’s at best being “progressively downloaded”. Progress download is performed by the web browser. The browser starts downloading the huge video file in its entirety. However, shortly after starting the download the browser will launch the end users video player to start playing the video. This process is sometimes choppy when the download process is not fast enough to stay in front of the video being played.
Streaming videos (like the ones you watch on YouTube) are generally preferred over progressive download because they play much smoother (in large part because they are being served by dedicated video streaming servers) and don’t require the end user to download the entire video file. The video is sent in bite sized chunks much faster, consumed by the video player and then discarded. This allows the video to be more rapidly downloaded and occupies virtually zero space on the end users hard drive.
Now that we’ve established what streaming video is, let’s dive into how to stream videos with SharePoint. Options are limited to standing up a video streaming server or linking to videos hosted on an external video streaming server (3rd party). Both of these solutions involve careful planning around security, integration and management. Both of these solutions will also require your content author to be trained on how to properly render (create) a video in the proper web format, how to upload and manage it and how to reference it from your SharePoint site. This is the point when most will turn to progressive download and try hard to ignore the associated problems. Well, that was then…
ShareTube, a product which allows you to realize true video streaming from your SharePoint site, is slated to be released next month! ShareTube provides the immediate benefit of online video streaming from your SharePoint site. Better yet, the video’s are not stored in your SharePoint database, nor will they add network chatter to your server’s pipeline when end users are watching them. This is accomplished by integrating the industry leader in online video streaming technology (Google’s YouTube) with the industry leader in content management and collaboration (Microsoft’s SharePoint). Content Authors can easily upload video files using a web part (note: these videos are NOT publicly accessible from the YouTube site). Uploaded video files are automatically re-rendered for optimal web based performance! Another web part is used for playing videos within your SharePoint site. All information about the video is stored in SharePoint while the video file itself is shipped to the YouTube video streaming federation. Your SharePoint site’s security will control who can upload videos and where they are permitted to do so. This means you can easily allow end users to share video’s within and across team sites as needed. Your SharePoint site’s search engine can crawl your video libraries and return relevant results. Another web part is used as a playlist which is connected to the ShareTube player web part. This allows you to pre-set a list of video’s to be played in the ShareTube player instance located on the same page. These web parts can be used in multiple places across your entire SharePoint site.
I’ve been very excited about this product throughout the entire development life-cycle. It’s a solid solution to a problem which has plagued many SharePoint Administrators, Managers, Content Authors and end users. I will post a link to ShareTube when the product is publicly released.
Update 10/15/08 - added below company slide related to ShareTube - Streaming Video in SharePoint:
08/22/2008
I recently read a good article on SEO Chat called “Clean Up Your Contact Us Page”. The article gracefully explains the importance of your sites Contact Us page and provides several pointers. It got me thinking about the differences between ‘one size fits all’ and ‘one size fits most’. The article gets to explaining how and why you should have email addresses listed on your Contact Us page, if for no other reason – helping your sites perceived legitimacy.
Of course adding email contact information is very common these days, not to mention expected by potential customers. I expect to quickly locate an email address when researching products and services.
However, on an SEO engagement for a company in Ohio a while back the owner opened my eyes to something I should have been thinking about all along – ROI. He was adamant on NOT listing email addresses on his site. This of course went against everything I was being paid to accomplish for him (increasing leads, quality traffic and ultimately conversions). I took a deep breath and calmly explained the importance of making it absurdly simple for folks to reach out to him – it doesn’t get much easier then email.
He patiently listened and then took his turn explaining to me some things. He explained that he ‘simply’ didn’t have the time to manually read, filter and follow up with what he called ‘tire-kickers’. To him it was a numbers game he had already played and was not interested in playing anymore. As it turned out, the percentage of quality leads (someone who was even remotely capable of paying for his services) from the email channel was alarmingly low. He explained it just wasn’t worth the low ROI. Phone calls on the other hand had a significant higher ROI. He would drop whatever he was doing in a heartbeat to speak with a potential customer on the phone.
Although I still feel email should almost always be used – ‘almost’ is the keyword and this decision should be based on ROI. In fact – all ‘contact us’ lines of communication should be dutifully tested and tracked so informed decisions can be made. Additionally, testing will also reveal strengths and weaknesses as they relate to picking up different channel leads and converting them. 08/16/2008
For about a decade Flash content has been largely ignored by internet search engines. Adobe, Google & Yahoo! have recently taken some steps to change all that. In the Adobe press release titled “Adobe Advances Rich Media Search on the Web” July 1, 2008 – Adobe explains the importance for internet search engines to crawl rich internet applications (RIAs). Google speaks to this point on their official blog post titled “Google learns to crawl Flash” June 30, 2008. This comes at a time when Microsoft is courting Flash developers for a blind date with Silverlight.
This (at least to me) begs the question – who’s crawling Silverlight? Bueller? The truth is Silverlight is already out front with respect to SEO concerns.
ZDNET’s article “Microsoft Silverlight Content is searchable, too” – July 2, 2008 – contains the following quotes from Microsoft: “Microsoft designed Silverlight from the beginning to be easily accessible by search engines. Because it is simply a ZIP archive, a Silverlight application packaged in a XAP (the Silverlight application-package file extension) file is easily accessible to search engines without a special software development kit (SDK). And because XAML is W3C-compliant XML, any static textual XAML content can be easily parsed by search engines. Furthermore, any metadata embedded in the ZIP file is easily indexed by search engines as well. Silverlight applications also support “deep linking” as they easily consume the URL they were loaded from, and use information on the URL query string to rapidly load and display appropriate data. Finally, the Silverlight DOM itself can be easily inspected to detect all text, links and images that are being visualized by the control.”
“So does this mean that Silverlight offers customers superior search engine optimization (SEO)? Yes. Not only was Silverlight architected to offer superior searchability, but Silverlight excels at enabling dynamic content published from content management systems to be easily indexed by search engines. By publishing dynamic content to Silverlight via XAML and XHTML mirroring, users are able to dramatically reduce the time it takes to optimize content for search engines.”
Now back to the Flash news. This is actually a great step in the right direction for sure. But, here’s some shortcoming you should be aware of. Google does NOT index the following:
1. Flash files (SWF) that only include images
2. Flash buttons which have no associated text
3. Video (it doesn't index FLV files)
4. Flash files that are loaded by using JavaScript will likely not be indexed because Google & JavaScript are largely ignoring each other for the most part.
The point is you need to consider any Flash being used on your site because it's going to start effecting and very likely diluting your content theme. If this is the case, you need to replace your Flash text with Flash images. Also, so far it looks like Flash files will carry less weight then HTML based files. Knowing this, you should be sure that the HTML based files which are beating out your Flash files are your own.
You could of course always just give Silverlight a go as it’s been architected from the ground up with SEO considerations in mind. 07/23/2008
SharePoint relays on the SharePoint Database server more so then any other server farm component. Bottlenecks related to the database server will hinder performance across the entire server farm. It is crucial to maintain the good health of the SharePoint farm’s database server if you hope to achieve anything close to high end performance out of your SharePoint farm. Although the database server is not the only SharePoint farm component to consider, it is the one I would start with when performance optimization is desirable.
Here are some general recommendations for optimizing your SharePoint database server performance:
Do not scan databases files with antivirus software.
Use 16 GB memory.
Move the SSP databases onto a different physical database server.
Use four 64-bit multi-core processors.
Segregate the configuration database and content databases into different SCSI disks in a RAID 5.
Segregate search databases, temporary databases, and temporary database logs onto different high-speed SCSI disks in a RAID 10. Add additional drives to the disk array to increase total I/O.
Defrag databases and drives on a regular basis.
Build a temp data file for each processor core on the server. 07/08/2008
I’m at the 2008 WPC in Huston, TX and wow what an event! There is so much to share I’m not sure where I should start. Undoubtedly the biggest news is Microsoft’s announcement around Microsoft Online. The specifics on Software as a Service (SaaS) were unveiled and you can bank on this making a huge difference in our industry (for the better in a big way). Basically it boils down to enterprise level hosted offerings, from Microsoft! That means your MOSS solution (Standard edition) can be hosted by Microsoft at a Microsoft data center. This will not include My Sites and the ability for the Search Engine to crawl your local network and of course exclude the Enterprise edition features such as Excel Services and InfoPath Forms Services.
SharePoint chatter is everywhere. Keep in mind this is not a “SharePoint” conference per say. It’s about bringing MS Partners together to learn where MS is heading and how we can help each other to get there. It’s about getting connected with other MS Partner companies and forming mutually beneficial relationships. It covers topics ranging from Visual Studio Team System and Windows Presentation Foundation to Windows Vista and Mobility. None the less, SharePoint chatter is intermingled across all topics. This is not surprising considering the wide reaching functionality stack SharePoint offers as a platform on which to build upon. My biggest problem is choosing which session to attend during a given time period, and I guess one more thing - it’s quit hot here in Huston.
I’ve been focusing much of my attention on Microsoft Dynamics and Software as a Service and SharePoint and of course any sessions having anything to do with Search (Search Server 2008, Fast Search, etc…). I’ve seen some pretty cool stuff not really related to my domain also; for instance, a robot that cleans your house for you (driven by a program written using MS Robotics Development Studio 2008 of course). Also a very cool demonstration on the WorldWide Telescope which you can play around with yourself at: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ .
Chris Capossela gave a great talk entitled “Realizing the Power of the Business Productivity Infrastructure”. This session covered some very cool BI and high-end Search capabilities. I couldn’t pass up the “Microsoft Office SharePoint Server: Best Practices…” session. That session re-affirmed how we do things (nice to know we’re still on track). I was also exposed to some solution specific tools that I will undoubtedly try out the first chance I get and let you know all about.
06/26/2008
Business Data Catalog: Surface existing (non-SharePoint) business data using the Business Data Catalog (BDC) integration feature. The BDC bridges the gap between your Office SharePoint Server 2007 site and existing business systems by integrating various business applications with SharePoint Server 2007 lists, web parts, search, user profiles and more…
I am speaking about the Business Data Catalog at the upcoming SUGDC Summer Regional SharePoint Conference in Dulles, VA.
Topics include; What is the BDC, the SharePoint 2007 BDC Feature, core BDC components and walking through the steps of implementing the BDC from start to finish.
Hope to see you there! 06/09/2008
Since this post on WSS 3.0 & Search Server 2008 Express - I have been involved with integrating Search Server 2008 Express with MCMS (Microsoft Content Management Server which has not yet been upgraded to MOSS). This integration involved deploying WSS 3.0 beside MCMS. We decided it would be best to start out with a simple proof of concept on the development server.
The POC involved installing Search Server 2008 Express. Search Server 2008 Express was configured to crawl the MCMS site using an account with elevated permissions to ensure all content would be crawled. We then stood up a Search Center site used for displaying search results. The final step in the POC involved writing a JavaScript driven form used to capture search keywords and pass them to the Search Center site for processing. This form was placed on the MCMS sites header.
Although the look and feel of the POC leaves something to be desired, the functionality portion proved highly successful. Now the MCMS site can take advantage of the powerful Search Server 2008 capabilities such as search scopes, best bets, and highly relevant result sets.
Future integration improvements will involve speaking to a Search Server 2008 Express web service from within MCMS. This will take care of the UI issues, including not having to move the user to the search center site and back. 06/01/2008
Content migration into SharePoint 2007 can be divided into two main categories:
-
Migrating page content from your existing site into SharePoint.
-
Migrating files into SharePoint (PDF’s, MS Word, Excel, Videos, etc…).
A successful content migration into MOSS requires careful planning, testing and execution. Many options exist which can save you time, money and ultimately lead to a successful migration - including 3rd party tools such as Metalogix, AvePoint and more. 3rd party tools offer some great time saving advantages, but you will still need to do some work to ensure the migration into SharePoint 2007 is a successful one. One popular advantage of using such a tool for migrating files is automating the process of renaming illegal filenames. If you have a lot of files to be migrated, this capability by itself may be enough. Also, if you have a lot of pages from your existing web site to migrate into SharePoint, a 3rd party migration tool can really save the day.
Automation can be used for migrating files (category 2 above). 3rd party tools such as DocAve 4.5 File System Migrator for SharePoint runs about $50 per Gigabyte of data being transferred. Additionally, files can be bulk uploaded into SharePoint 2007 using out-of-the-box methods such as drag and drop. In either scenario, subject matter experts must classify these files by assigning metadata values during or after migration. You can’t get out of this if you want your content to be classified correctly.
Migrating page content (category 1 above) can be automated when moving from MCMS into MOSS from the MOSS Central Administration. Additionally, migrating existing web pages can be effectively handled as part of the pilot group training process (if you have a reasonable number of pages). Metalogix offers a tool for migrating your existing web site pages (regardless of its platform) into SharePoint 2007. It’s called Website Migration Manager for SharePoint. Again, subject matter experts must classify these pages by assigning metadata values during or after migration.
Regardless of how you migrate content into SharePoint, you are still looking at tagging your content appropriately, and possibly learning how to master a 3rd party migration tool. Your planning should include realistic timeframes, governance and quality assurance. Before purchasing 3rd party migration software, make sure you know how much content (pages and files) you need to migrate. Have a plan which includes who’s doing what and when. And make sure your team is familiar with MOSS and its many time saving capabilities.
Your migration strategy should include identifying the right people to perform the migration and training them appropriately. If you’re using a 3rd party tool to assist in the migration process, consider training a smaller team on the migration tool so your content experts can spend their time on tasks related to content classification. Also consider performing a proof-of-concept content migration pilot run. This will allow you to work out any kinks prior to opening it up full speed. It’s always easier to make changes and improvements during a POC then after the effort is half way done. | | | |