Fortune Interactive's Research Reveals Findings on How Search Engines Determine Rankings

Fortune Interactive LLC (www.FortuneInteractive.com), an interactive marketing firm specializing in search engine marketing, revealed the first part of its findings on how leading search engines are determining the rankings of web pages.

Fortune Interactive utilized its proprietary SEMLogic(TM) technology to ascertain what metrics were crucial to the web pages organically ranked on the first page of search results for the competitive key phrase "laptop" on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

"Our research found the range of optimal values for a key metric varies across search engines and the importance of a metric varies even down to the key phrase level," stated Mike Marshall, Fortune Interactive vice president of technology and the creator of SEMLogic(TM) and its virtual reality visualization module, the SEMasphere(TM).

Similar to the methodology utilized by search engines, SEMLogic(TM) uses semantic analysis in examining a company's online competition and identifying patterns and trends as well as establishing what search engine crawlers are recognizing as the strongest supporting words. The technology studies and evaluates over 100,000 data points of on- and off-page factors of more than 100 competitors in any given industry.

Key SEMLogic(TM)findings on the top ten web pages ranked for the key phrase "laptop" on the Google, Yahoo and MSN include:

• Off-page optimization factors out-weighed any on-page optimization factors.
• In-bound link quality was the most important factor across all three engines. However, each engine's optimal range for link quality was different.
• In determining in-bound link quality, the reputation of the originating web page was more important than the page's relevance to the keyword "laptop."
• In-bound link quantity was the least important factor among off-page factors.
• The most important on-page factor for Google was title-tag keyword density.
• Web pages that successfully ranked across the engines all had strong values in at least the two most important influential factors for each search engine respectively.

"SEMLogic allows Fortune Interactive professionals to utilize quantifiable data in the creation of advanced search engine optimization strategies. The days of using educated guesses and hunches when optimizing a web page are over," stated Andy Beal, Fortune Interactive president and CEO.

Raleigh, North Carolina-based Fortune Interactive is a full-service interactive marketing agency, specializing in search engine marketing, online reputation monitoring and Web log (blog) marketing. Co-founded by Andy Beal and Michael Marshall, Fortune Interactive utilizes SEMLogic(TM), its proprietary search research technology, to better understand how to successfully optimize a website.