"SEO" and how you can help optimise our position on Google

What is SEO?

There is a whole sub-field of internet and web-site related consulting called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. In short it's about how best to get your web pages to appear at or near the top of the search results from Google etc.

How are we positioned?

For various reasons, our sites are extremely well positioned in Google search results. An important factor has been the behind-the-scenes SEO related thought and planning since the early days. If you search for phrases like Kaupthing IOM, Kaupthing Isle of Man KSFIOM and so on, you will find our sites being listed at or near the top of the results in (almost?) all cases.

Due to the way that Google ranks sites when determining which order to display search results, it is unlikely that any newer site will ever replace us there, indeed you may notice that the various complementary sites such as http://www.kaupthingiom-dag.co.uk do not appear anywhere near the top of results. They probably never will, unless somebody searches for something which is found specifically on those sites and not on ksfiomdepositors.org sites.

So, from an SEO perspective we seem to have everything covered. Nonetheless, ongoing SEO planning is important.

Why is this important?

In years to come, when people are searching on Google for information relating to KSFIOM and related issues, we want them to find our story and not the IOM or HMG versions, don't we? Also, there may be a few depositors out there who still don't know that we exist, so we want them to be able to find us easily via search engines.

How can you help?

A key factor is the title that you give to a post. Due to the way that the title is processed by our systems and later treated by Google, the words which you choose to put in the title have special significance. For this reason:

• Try to include all key-words in a title. The key-words would be those words that somebody might search for when looking for information which your post would provide.

• Try not to use abbreviations in titles unless you are sure that the same abbreviation would most likely be used when searching. If in doubt, it may be best to use both (e.g. "SOA (Scheme of Arrangement)").

• Always post a new topic rather than commenting on an existing thread when you are effectively introducing a new topic. The titles of topic posts (forum, group, blog) but not comments have special processing applied which is relevant to SEO.

• Try to use the tags feature effectively. With some types of post, you have the option to include tags. Choice of tags will often also have an impact in Google positioning, and tags should in general be key-words that people might search Google for.