Presenting the history and strategies behind Pandia Search Central, a Web site with a blog about web searching, the search engine industry and search engine optimization

1. Pandia
Search
Central
Susanne and Per Koch
Oslo, Norway
NOLUG Feb 25 2008
www.pandia.com

2. The history of Pandia

3. Edderkoppen
• The Norwegian Minister of
Education, Research and Church
Affairs, Gudmund Hernes,
establishes the magazine Schola in
1993
• Per Koch becomes part of the
editorial board and starts the
column Edderkoppen (The Spider)
• Per also initiates a Web version of
Schola

5. Schola closed down
• Schola was closed down by
Parliament in 1997
• Per and Susanne decided to
build a new web site on
Internet Searching in 1998,
partly based on the
experience gained from
Edderkoppen

6. Pandia established
December 1998
• Pandia is established as a all-in-one link
collection for Internet search resources
• The name Pandia, after the Greek goddess
of light and illumanation, was chosen as it
was short and snappy and because the .com
domain was available

7. • Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine

8. Pandia expands
• 1998: All-in-one collection for search
engines and directories
• 1999: Goalgetter Web Search tutorial
• 1999: Web Directory (ODP)
• 2000: Pandia Metasearch Engine
• 2000: Pandia People Search
• 2000: Pandia Radio Search

9. 2001 - 2003
• 2001: Syntax Q-cards
• 2001: Pandia Search Engine Optimization
• 2001: Email newsletter
• 2001: Newsfinder
• 2002: Pandia Kids & Teens
• 2003: Search engine marketing tutorial

10. 2004 - 2008
• 2005: Search Engine Detective, collection of
search engine oriented sites and blogs
• 2005: Using Wordpress for search engine
news blog
• 2006: Top 5 series
• 2006: Web Search Trends
• 2007: Search in Search - vertical search

11. Panda today

12. Pandia anno 2008
• 10,000 daily visitors
• 800,000 page views per month
• 3200 subscribers to web feed
• 9000 subscribers to the Pandia Post
newsletter
• Approx 140,000 inbound links

13. Who are we?
• Susanne and Per have full daytime
jobs.
• Susanne is a learning technology
adviser at the University of
Oslo
• Per is Director of Analysis and
Strategic Development at the
Research Council of Norway

14. Pandia’s corporate headquarters,
Oslo, Norway

15. How do we cope?
• It didn’t happen overnight
• Weekend sessions
• Continuous news surveillance
• Go to search engine marketing conferences
• Holiday sessions

16. Essential Pandia Pages
• Search Engine News
• All-in-one collection of search tools
• Collection of search oriented sites and
resources
• Web search tutorial
• Search engine marketing tutorial
• Newsfinder