Ever since I started reading more technical SEO blogs such as SEO by the Sea, SEO Theory and more I’ve been on a quest to find great SEO content.

And what better place to find huge amounts of quality SEO content than academia?

Some of these are from the last few years, some are as old as ’99. Some are very technical, some are more philosophical. So without further adieu here is the list (most are in PDF format)

The list

An analysis of the application of selected search engine optimization (SEO) techniques and their effectiveness on Google’s search ranking algorithm

Probably the most generalized thesis out of all the papers listed here, but still very well done.

Year: 2012

School: California State University

In Google We Trust: Consumers’ Perception of Search Engine Optimization and Its Potential Impact on Online Information Search

A study on SEO with a consumer angle.

Year: 2013

School: University of Minnesota

WebCrawler: Finding What People Want

The cool thing about this one is that it was written by a guy named Brian Pinkerton who later went on to start his own agency and do great things.

Year: 2000

School: University of Washington

Detecting colluders in PageRank: Finding slow mixing states in a Markov chain (Removed, anyone have a new link?)

Very technical, have not read but perhaps Bill Slawski might be interested.

Year: 2005

School: Stanford University

Manipulation of PageRank and collective hidden Markov models

Kind of an examination of black hat techniques but again very technical and from an engineering and mathematical standpoint.

Year: 2010

School: Cornell University

The PageRank citation ranking: bringing order to the web

Year: 1999

School:Oregon State

Deception in Authorship Attribution

Very relevant and forward thinking thesis. Talks all about authorship attribution as a whole on the web.

Year: 2013

School: Drexel University

Contextualized web search: query-dependent ranking and social media search

More of a social media paper but very in-depth and technical.

Year: 2010

School: Georgia Institute of Technology

Modeling User Behavior and Attention in Search

Year: 2013

School: University of Washington

Google AdWords as a Network of Grey Surveillance

Year: 2010

School: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Search Visibility and Online Social Presence for Bed and Breakfasts

I thought this one was really cool because it focuses on a specific niche. A savvy business owner could probably extract a comprehensive online business plan from this dissertation.

Year: 2012

School: University of Deleware

Identifying search engine spam using DNS

Year: 2011

School: Texas A&M University

Relevant factors for the impact of social media marketing strategies. Empirical study of the internet travel agency sector

Another niche focused dissertation. Focuses on smaller travel agencies in the European market and gives an overall strategy and approach for someone in this sector.

Year: 2011

School: Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya