Search Engine Mechanics and User Search Intent

The 5A Framework and Search Traffic

Important in the 5A framework are Awareness and the Act phase, which represents the biggest strength. This can generate a lot of sales. The worst scenario would be a lack of Appeal (where you do not appeal to people).

1. Search engines can drive targeted traffic (potential customers). By using the right keywords, we can reach our desired audience.
2. This happens via search queries: the words that users type into the search box.
3. CTRs (Click-Through Rates) are calculated by taking the number of clicks on a mobile advertising campaign, dividing it by the overall impressions, and then expressing the resultant figure as a percentage.

How Search Engines Work: Crawling and Indexing

How do search engines work?

1. Think of the WWW as a city map. Mapping identifies what exists (e.g., which pizza places exist in Barcelona). Links are the streets of the internet, and documents are the houses. If you live in the middle of the woods, you probably won’t appear in Google Street View; you need recommendations to be found.
2. Search engines crawl through the web. This is primarily a text-based process, which is easy to analyze because text requires less data than photos.
3. They index everything they find.
4. Bots are the principal link; through the first link, you can discover how many pages are related to you.

Understanding Query Intent: Responsive and Incidental

Responsive intent satisfies the query directly (e.g., searching for "real good golf clubs" leads to an ad to "buy real good golf clubs cheap").

Incidental intent occurs when a user's need is not directly specified in the query:

• Related: Local golf course specials.
• Competitive: Sureshot golf clubs.
• Associated: Rolex watches for golfers.
• Spam: Vitamins.

Ranking Factors: Relevance and Popularity

If you have fewer connections, your link will appear less frequently than others with many connections.

1. The system answers queries.
2. Relevance and popularity are key; having relevant and trustworthy institutions pointing to your site is much better for your ranking.
3. Algorithms use many variables to function.

Limitations of Search Engine Bots

What search engines can’t do:

1. Access logins: When a website requires payment, the bot only sees a small part of the information.
2. Understand poor link structures: Bots cannot navigate through chaos.
3. Differentiate duplicate pages: If a website has two versions with the same information, engines may not differentiate them.
4. Understand non-text: Text is analyzed quickly via keywords, but images are harder to analyze and require significantly more computational power.

We need to index the content with text, including pictures, videos, and Flash content.

Categorizing User Search Behavior

How do people use search engines? There are three main types of searches:

• "DO" (Transactional queries): The strongest motivation on Google, aimed at completing an action.
• "KNOW" (Informational queries): Looking for information about a specific topic.
• "GO" (Navigational queries): Trying to reach a specific website or location.