Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of getting web traffic from search engine results. In simple terms, it is about ensuring that a person who is using a search engine to find information will reach the web site with the information as it is listed at the top of the search results.
Last month, while I was I taking a quick look at the news headlines, I noticed that there was a news article about a web site ranking on Alexa. As I mentioned Alexa ranking previously, I made a note to read the news article later as it would entail verifying the information.
I used www.google.mu to search for "alexa". The search results provided by Google did not contain any link to a news article. I did another search and the search results were as follows:
The fifth link in the search results was not what I was searching for as that news article was published in November 2016. There were links to other news articles at the bottom of the search results. However, those links would not take me to what I was looking for as they were pointing to old news articles.
People in Mauritius are accustomed to tropical storms. A tropical storm occurs in summer and is known as a cyclone. I searched for "cyclone" to find out whether there was any news about a cyclone. The first search was done from an unknown location and the second search was done from Mauritius.
The first search results included a report from a company in the United States which provides weather forecasts and a news article from a media network in Qatar. The second search results included a news article from a radio station in France and two news articles from a local news web site.
The search results for "getting a divorce in mauritius" were:
The first link is an advertisement for a web site in the United States. The second link is to a web site in Mauritius which provides video news. Although the article on that web site was published in 2014 it is still receiving comments about the legal aspects of a divorce in Mauritius.
The next two searches were for pharmacies located in a town in Mauritius; the word "pharmacy" is written in French in the first search.
The names and telephone numbers of three pharmacies in Curepipe together with a map showing their locations were displayed in the search results. Two of the three pharmacies were listed for both the French and English version of search term.
A search for the price of a mobile phone displayed the following results:
The first link is to an advertisement for a shopping web site in China. The price in Mauritius was not displayed in the search results.
Is the information available on a local web site constructed to reach potential customers in Mauritius? The above examples can only provide a partial view of the search results. However, it is doubtful that the information available on local web sites is reaching potential customers.