Search engine algorithms are constantly improved in order to provide the highest quality and most relevant results for the user. Google algorithm updates called Panda and Penguin have recently been one of the most significant and many websites that use black hat SEO techniques were hit by them. Nowadays, using this search optimization's techniques raises the risk of Google penalty, which in most of the cases cause decrease in traffic from organic search. The aim of this thesis is to describe techniques of search engine optimization (SEO) and their possible impact on website's ranking. The thesis also aims to verify whether Penguin and Panda updates have the impact on websites for which the methods of black hat SEO have been used and specify the result of this impact. In the theoretical part of this thesis it is described function of search engines Seznam.cz and Google, their algorithm change in history and possible factors on which the ranking score is based. Briefly are also described tools, which can be used to identify and analyze possible causes of penalization. After reading this thesis, the reader will have a basic orientation in search engine optimization methods and their appropriate use. Also, he will be able to recognize possible causes of Google penalty and propose an appropriate strategy for its removal.

Elasticsearch has evolved from an experimental, open-source, NoSQL database for full-text documents to an easily scalable search engine that canhandle a large amount of documents. This evolution has enabled companies todeploy Elasticsearch as an internal search engine for information retrieval (logs,documents, etc.). Later on, it was transformed as a cloud service and the latestdevelopment allows a containerized, serverless deployment of the application,using Docker and Kubernetes.This research examines the behaviour of the system by comparing the length and appearance of single-term and multiple-terms queries, the scaling behaviour and the security of the service. The application is deployed on Google Cloud Platform as a Kubernetes cluster hosting containerized Elasticsearch images that work as databasenodes of a bigger database cluster. As input data, a collection of JSON formatted documents containing the title and abstract of published papersin the field of computer science was used inside a single index. All the plots were extracted using Kibana visualization software. The results showed that multiple-term queries put a bigger stress on thesystem than single-term queries. Also the number of simultaneous users querying in the system is a big factor affecting the behaviour of the system. By scaling up the number of Elasticsearch nodes inside the cluster, indicated that more simultaneous requests could be served by the system.

Research questions: 1. In what ways do SMEs embrace sökmotormarknadsföring that digital development has made possible? 2. What are the obstacles for SMEs to adopt sökmotormarknadsföring? Purpose: The purpose of the study is to find out how small to medium-sized companies adopt sökmotormarknadsföring to their marketing strategy. This also creates a better understanding of the obstacles that are experienced in connection with sökmotormarknadsföring. This is to identify the obstacles and help companies with knowledge to get past them. The study also aims to create an understanding of why companies choose not to work with this, despite the fact that it has been proven that it helps companies to be seen and increases brand awareness. Method: The essay is based on a qualitative study with interviews. A deductive approach is also applied. The target group is based on the selected respondents who through interviews lead to the purpose of the study. Conclusion: There are several similarities between how companies work with SEM and what obstacles there are to absorbing it. The prominent answer is that the companies would hire an external service that would handle the work for them, or have a combination of internal and external work, but get help with the expertise on the subject. Companies must be open to SEM in order to benefit from it and see the benefits of the strategy compared to a normal traditional marketing. The two most common factors why SMFs do not currently work with SEM are a lack of competence and financial resources. / Forskningsfrågor: 1. På vilka sätt tar SMF:s till sig sökmotormarknadsföringsom den digitala utvecklingenmöjliggjort? 2. Vad finns det för hinder för SMF:s att ta tillsig sökmotormarknadsföring? Syfte:Syftet med studien är att ta reda på vilkasätt som små- och medelstora företag tar tillsig sökmotormarknadsföring som den digitala utvecklingenmöjliggör. På så sätt skapas ävenbättre förståelse för vilka hinder som upplevs i sambandmed sökmotormarknadsföring. Dettaför att identifiera hinder samt hjälpa företag medkunskap för att ta sig förbi dem. Studienämnar även att skapa en förståelse för varför företagväljer att inte arbeta med detta, trots attdet är bevisat att det hjälper företag att synas samtökar varumärkeskännedomen. Metod:Uppsatsen grundas på en kvalitativ studie medintervjuer. Det tillämpas även endeduktiv ansats. Målgruppen baseras på de valda respondenternasom genom intervjuer lederfram till studiens syfte. Slutsats:Det finns flera likheter mellan hur företagenarbetar med SEM och vilka hinder somfinns för att ta till sig det. Det framträdande svaretär att företaget vill anlita en extern tjänstsom sköter arbetet åt dem eller ha en kombinationav internt och externt arbete. Slutligen gårdet att konstatera att företag måste vara öppna förta till sig SEM för att få nytta av det och sefördelarna med strategin jämfört med en vanlig traditionellmarknadsföring. Det tvåvanligaste faktorerna till att SMF:s inte arbetarmed SEM i dagsläget beror på bristen avkompetens och finansiella resurser.

Internet search has changed significantly since its beginning and it has also changed the way of information retrieval. Firstly, network search tools were created. However, greater development of internet search tools came after the creation of the Web. One of the first internet search tools were the web directories, such as Yahoo! or content directory Open Directory Project. Nowadays, web search engines are the most commonly used. Apart from general web search engines, there are also specialized or web search engines for particular aim or function, such as DuckDuckGo aimed at privacy, Yandex or Seznam.cz aimed at specific region or computational search engine WolframAlpha. Multimedia search and search adapted for mobile devices is technology trend in the field of internet search. Personalization, localization and social search belong among the contemporary trends. Semantic search is another long-lasting trend.

The relationship between the government and the governed is transforming into a digital collaboration of operations. The level of intensity for this collaboration between government and citizens have fallen behind that of the private sector. Web 2.0 tools, otherwise known as social media, internet search engines, and e-Government are now a stimulant for citizens to become informed about their government actions and to also interact with government in order to provide input to elected officials and appointed officials from citizens to the government concerning public policy making and other public concerns. This research seeks to examine the question of whether forms of local government and their hiring practices have any effect on the way local municipalities conduct their background checks using social media and search engines as supplemental information to traditional background checks. The author examines a representative sample of 871 municipalities within the U.S. having a population of 2,500 or greater. The local form of government hiring procedures characteristics of these 871 municipalities are measured using two separate independent variables. The effects of the forms of local government hiring procedures are measured using independent T-tests and Z-tests for regions selected by the U.S. Census Bureau and population size of these municipalities, municipalities that offer e-Government, and the total forms of e-Government offered. The first four hypotheses, which are especially central to this dissertation, were all rejected. Local government form, population, and region are not correlated with use of social media and search engines to obtain supplemental information about applicants. There were 448 out of 871 hiring managers in municipalities responding to this survey, 51 percent, that confirm searching social media to find supplemental information about applicants. Characteristics of the hiring managers for this study show a correlation between social media and search engines being used to obtain supplemental information about applicants, however, statistical significance was not obtained for these core hypotheses. Minor hypotheses in this study did prove to show significance between hiring managers and the use of social media and search engines to obtain supplemental information about applicants.

This thesis explores the use of multimodality to communicate retrieved results of Internet search engines. The investigation aimed to investigate suitable multimodal metaphors which would increase the level of usability of Internet search engine interfaces and enhance users` experience in the search activity. The study consisted of three experiments based on questionnaires and Internet search activities with a set of text-based and multimodal interfaces. These interfaces were implemented in two browsing platforms, named AVBRO and AVBRO II. In the first experiment, the efficiency of specific multimodal metaphors to communicate additional information of retrieved results was investigated. The experiment also sought to obtain users` views of these metaphors with a questionnaire. An experimental multimodal interface of the AVBRO platform, which communicated additional information with a combination of three 2D graphs and musical stimuli, was used as a basis for the experiment, together with the Google search engine. The results obtained led to the planning of a second experiment. The aim of this experiment was to obtain and compare the level of usability of four different experimental multimodal interfaces and one traditional text-based interface, all implemented in the AVBRO II platform. Effectiveness, efficiency and users` satisfaction were used as criteria to evaluate the usability of these interfaces. In the third and final experiment the usability analysis of a traditional text-based interface and the two most suitable experimental multimodal interfaces of the AVBRO II platform was further investigated. Learnability, errors rate, efficiency, memorability and users` satisfaction were used as criteria to evaluate the usability of these interfaces. The analysis of the results obtained from these experiments provided the basis for a set of design guidelines for the development of usable interfaces based on a multimodal approach.

A detailed walkthrough of the engineering process for the development of an accessible search engine tool. Contributions include a comprehensive literature review, assumptions, requirements, high-level design, implementation, and usability evaluations. / The internet has become useful in just about anything we do. Unfortunately, as vision degrades so does our ability to perceive the web. The design of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) has become overwhelmingly common and is meant to be coupled with a screen and mouse. The interface introduced in this thesis was developed to avoid graphically driven design and create a novel Search Engine interface intended for blind and low vision users. This is achieved by minimizing the total concern of the user (the userspace) to a handful of options and a predetermined structure to the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This thesis describes the entire development process starting from the literature review and including implementation, evaluation, and future work. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

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Thesis (M. Tech. (Design and Studio Art)) - Central University of Technology, Free State, 2014 / The Information Age has presented those in the discipline of photography with very many advantages. Digital photographers enjoy all the perquisites of convenience while still producing high-quality images. Lecturers find themselves the authorities of increasingly archaic knowledge in a perpetual race to keep up with technology. When inspiration becomes imitation and visual plagiarism occurs, lecturers may find themselves at a loss for taking action as content-based image retrieval systems, like Google™ Search by Image (SBI), have not yet been systematically tested for the detection of visual plagiarism. Currently there exists no efficacious method available to photography lecturers in higher education for detecting visual plagiarism. As such, the aim of this study is to ascertain the most effective uploading methods and precision of the Google™ SBI system which lecturers can use to establish a systematic workflow that will combat visual plagiarism in photography programmes. Images were selected from the Google™ Images database by means of random sampling and uploaded to Google™ SBI to determine if the system can match the images to their Internet source. Each of the images received a black and white conversion, a contrast adjustment and a hue shift to ascertain whether the system can also match altered images. Composite images were compiled to establish whether the system can detect images from the salient feature. Results were recorded and the precision values calculated to determine the system’s success rate and accuracy. The results were favourable and 93.25% of the adjusted images retrieved results with a precision value of 0.96. The composite images had a success rate of 80% when uploaded intact with no dissections and a perfect precision value of 1.00. Google™ SBI can successfully be used by the photography lecturer as a functional visual plagiarism detection system to match images unethically appropriated by students from the Internet.

A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Technology: Information Technology, Durban University of Technology, 2011. / This study examines the perceived effect of the following factors on web searching ability of academic staff in the computing discipline: demographic attributes such as gender, age group, position held by the academic staff, highest qualification, etc; lecturing experience, research experience, English language proficiency, and web searching experience. The research objectives are achieved using a Likert-scale based questionnaire for 61 academic staff from Information Technology and Computer Science departments from four Universities from the Kwazulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. Descriptive and inferential statistics were computed for data analysis from the questionnaire after performing data reliability and validity tests using factor analysis and Cronbach‟s coefficients methods on the PASW Statistics 18.0 (SPSS). Descriptive statistics revealed a majority of staff from IT as compared to staff in CS and, a majority of under qualified middle age male staff in junior positions with considerable years of lecturing experience but with little research experience. Inferential statistics show an association between web searching ability and demographic attributes such as academic qualifications, positions, and years of research experience, and also reveal a relationship between web searching ability and lecturing experience, and between web searching ability and English language ability. However, the association between position, English language ability, and searching ability was found to be the strongest of all. The novelty finding by this study is the effect of lecturing experience on web searching ability which has not been claimed by existing research reviewed. Ideas for future research include mentoring of academic staff by more experienced staff, training of novice web searchers, designing and using semantic search systems both in English and in local languages, publishing more web content in local languages, and triangulating various research strategies for the analysis of the usability of web search engines.