SEO Search Engine Optimization

The question is; “What Is S.E.O., Search Engine Optimization?

This was the question I found myself unable to answer a few days ago when my web guy tried to explain to me how and why the SEO WordPress Plugin kept crashing my server. It went something like this:

The server is running. The root cause for the outage is the ‘cron‘ or scheduled jobs from the SEO and social network plugins. The ‘fix’ for the missed schedule causes Apache to crash and not recover. The WordPress ‘cron’ or wordpress-cron has issues. This function does not always work as its designed, and since Apache does not have the ability to self recover, it shuts down the websites that it crashes. This is a known issue with WordPress, and they are working on a real solution to the issue.

Now if you’re like me, that made muddle sense to you. I go, “Oh, Apache, I’ve heard that word before. Open-source UNIX, right?” And I get a verbal pat on the head for being a Humanities Major that’s just done a mildly intresting trick.

But this YouTube.com video will likely help.

“What Is Search Engine Optimization / SEO,” by Search Engine Land

So again, accoring to SearchEngineLand.com:

What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

Clear as mud? Yeah, try this Wiki on for size:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

The plural of the abbreviation SEO can also refer to “search engine optimizers,” those who provide SEO services.

Yeah, I think I’ll stick with the librarian video explanation.