21.04.2006

Optimised news - Google instead of esprit

By Holger Dambeck

Surprising, witty, ironical - this way many a reader would want a good headline to be. But news search engines assess headlines by different criteria. For them, only keywords count.

What distinguishes a good caption is a controversial subject heftily debated on journalist workshops. Some people are into wordplays, others go for sassy, straightforward addressing. News writers in contrast prefer it precisely and objective. This clash can be solved - at least if the texts are to be published online and aimed at a large readership. So in this case, to be found more easily, headlines should preferably be optimised regarding the specifications of search engines.

Google News: High keyword density
Up to 30 per cent of news websites' visitors in the United States come via search engines like Google News or MSN News. This already has an impact on some headlines, according to "New York Times". Captions are rewritten, to make them fit better into the patterns of the software which collects, categorises and assesses it.

The more keywords appear that are relevant for the article, the higher the whole text is ranked. "This is, what we tell our customers every day" says Tim Ringel, CEO of the German Search Engine Optimiser metapeople. Amongst others, the company advises Lufthansa and Daimler-Chrysler on their web presences.

Such statements cause veteran pressmen like Ed Canale from the Californian newspaper 'The Sacramento Bee' a serious bellyache: "For more than hundred years now, contriving astute captions has been an important part of the journalist trade" he told the New York Times. "Now Google comes along, saying: 'Who cares?'"

The New York Times editorial department as well has mixed feelings about the new shears in the heads called Google, MSN or Yahoo. 'This boring headline was written in favour of Google' is flaunting above a text.
However, in practice search engine optimised headlines are already reality - at least within the Anglophone web.

One text - two headlines
The gazette 'The Sacramento Bee' redefined categories. 'Real Estate' became 'Home', 'Scene' is now 'Lifestyle'. BBC even assigns two captions to certain texts: A firm one can be seen on the welcome page, the more factual will appear when the article is opened.

In the search engine sector this is referred to as keyword density, the one which has to be enhanced. Who ever got astray on a Google spam site, knows what maximum keyword density means: a never ending string of terms like car leasing, car purchase, car letting and so on.

Of course keywords shouldn't appear that closely in a news article. Who hides away the most important terms at the bottom of the continuous text, is inevitably ranked worse. 'What is written in the headline is more important than what is written in the text and is thus up-rated' explains metapeople's Tim Ringel.

Yet even more important than the headline are the internal link texts that lead to the news website. These are for instance ranked higher by Google than captions.

"Google does not understand images"
Daily newspapers in Germany turn to specialists for advice too, if it comes to Search Engine Optimisation - Ringel knows a supra-regional newspaper that does. His company also trains online editors - not newspapers’ editors but companies’. "We also provide these editors with a white paper containing all important standards."

Ringel declines reproaches of Search Engine Optimisation being a dubious business: "We do not attempt to cheat on Google. We want to optimise pages the way, Google is able to understand them better." For instance, many customers aren’t really aware of the way a search engine works: "Google does not understand images, Google does not understand Flash."

For newsmen intending to publish in the web, possibly a keyword research will come along with the article research in the future. These two, three most important terms must be placed preferably within the headline and the first couple lines of the text. "This is not taught at journalist schools" Danny Sullivan from the Search Engine Watch website writes in a newsletter. "But it should be in the future."