SEO for the OLPC wiki

From OLPC

Contents 1 Immediate Open Tasks 2 Appropedia Chris' suggestions on SEO 3 Footnotes 4 Also see 5 External links

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It typically is used to increase traffic to a given website, but it can also be used to direct specific types of traffic in specific ways and to specific content on a site. We are working to 'optimize' how searching works so people show up at the most appropriate places.

[edit] Immediate Open Tasks

Increase inbound links to key pages. Some of these key pages include Pootle, Support gang, and the FAQ? Clearly these need to be defined.

• Convert wiki.laptop.org links on WikiMedia projects to OLPC: Pagename. (This could be done most easily by someone who runs a bot on these projects.)
  • Standard links are not indexed by google, but interwiki links are
  • Don't add new links unless super appropriate, we're not spammers.

• Categorize, categorize, categorize

[edit] Appropedia Chris' suggestions on SEO

Search engine optimization strategies for the OLPC wiki:

• Improve linking between pages. This helps the most suitable page to rank most highly for a given search.
  • The work that Appropedia is doing on a wikilink bot^[1] will be of relevance here.
  • Categorization
• Page names and category names should be separate words if they are regular phrases, not CamelCase - unless they are more commonly written in CamelCase (e.g. BarCamp) or run together. If not sure, mention both ways of writing within the page.
• Synonyms, including alternate spellings should be included on pages where relevant. This also helps searching within the site.
• Good landing pages, especially for key topics.
  • One model of landing page which doesn't require constant updating is that used at Appropedia:Portal:Appropriate technology.
  • A given topic should have one good landing page - if there are separate pages (subpages, alternative approaches...) they can be linked from there.
• Relevant links from sites that carry a lot of weight for search engine ranking:
  • Especially .gov and .edu sites.
  • Wikipedia - but only if in the form [[OLPC:Pagename]], as interwiki links don't suffer from the "rel=nofollow" tag. Important: Only add to Wikipedia articles when it's of value and relevance to the Wikipedia article.
  • Other sites that rank highly.
• More active pages are ranked more highly by search engines, so ranking is one extra benefit to greater activity.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ↑ The wikilink bot page, describing the use of replace.py, is under development, and is working to an extent - see Appropedia:Project:Pywikipedia bot, or contact Chriswaterguy for info or to help out.

[edit] Also see

• Wiki analytics for feedback and data to base work on.
• /sitemapgen a script for creating a sitemap
• WebdeW SEO tools (is this a valuable link for the OLPC wiki?)

[edit] External links

• Appropedia's equivalent page