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Quinnipiac Assignment #08 – NESN SEO

Quinnipiac Assignment #08 – NESN SEO

Once again, I reviewed NESN. But this time, it was in order to understand a few of their management’s basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) choices. NESN SEO is fairly sophisticated.

Programmatic Decisions

I strongly suspect that NESN has some form of fancy programming behind their online page creation. NESN SEO just seems to be way too good.

But if I were to guess, I would say that their program (possibly developed in house) scrapes the title of a submitted article, wraps it in H1 tags and copies it to the meta descriptions. So, that same article title is the basis for that particular page’s custom URL.

AJ Pierzynski Article

Hence the article, A.J. Pierzynski Designated For Assignment; Christian Vazquez Joins Red Sox connects to the following custom URL: https://nesn.com/2014/07/a-j-pierzynski-designated-for-assignment-christian-vazquez-to-start-wednesday/

The page title is: A.J. Pierzynski Designated For Assignment; Christian Vazquez Joins Red Sox | Boston Red Sox | NESN.com.

So, the meta description for that same page is: The Boston Red Sox shook up their situation behind the plate in a big way Wednesday. Manager John Farrell confirmed to WEEI’s “Dale and Holley” that the team has designated veteran catcher A.J. Pierzynski for assignment and promoted 23-year-old Christian Vazquez from Triple-A Pawtucket.

Finally, the keywords were: a.j. pierzynski, christian vazquez, christian vasquez, boston red sox, red sox catcher, a.j. pierzynski released, a.j. pierzynski dfa, red sox prospects, christian vazquez promotion, christian vazquez red sox.

An Observation on NESN SEO

But there’s just one problem. Double quotation marks truncate meta descriptions. This meta description was no exception – in Google search, it simply reads: “A.J. Pierzynski Designated For AssignmentChristian Vazquez Joins … Sox shook up their situation behind the plate in a big way Wednesday.”

Note: the bolding comes from Google itself.

The Power of Programming

NESN SEO programmatic work (if that’s what  it is) was just great. Pages are named properly. The URL structure is organic and easy to follow.

The meta descriptions are generally excellent and are enticing to human searchers because they are written by professional writers.

Also, the double quotation marks in my sample were probably the doing of the article writer. So, perhaps they should refine the program to replace all instances of double quotation marks with single marks?

The Benefits

With a programmatic solution, NESN can get this work done quickly and turn around better online product for shorter deadlines. Having the computer system do this does not require writers to master SEO beyond the basics of naming their articles properly and making sure that the keywords in the titles show up with those articles.

Even better, any time the theory of SEO changes, they only have to make one change at NESN. Simply (probably not so simple!) tweak the program to accommodate any changes, test it, and roll it out. All without missing  a deadline.

NESN SEO: Conclusion

So, NESN continues to impress. NESN SEO is great. NESN.com is a well-crafted website. No wonder it’s an advertising cash cow.

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