SEO & Baseball: Extra Innings

A little while ago, I wrote about 3 ways in which SEO and baseball are similar. Now, here’s the blog equivalent of the 10^th inning.

4) There are More Statistics than You Can Shake a Louisville Slugger At: In baseball, there are so many statistics that their study has become its own type of science, sabermetrics. Baseball statistical experts, or sabermetricians, seem to keep track of every possible statistic, no matter how irrelevant it may actually be: “McGrew is batting .398 this season against left-handed relief pitchers in the top half of innings of games played west of the Mississippi on even numbered dates.”

SEO uses many statistics, as well—so many that there are a vast number of different software programs to keep track of them. Google Analytics is perhaps the most popular (since it’s free) and well-known (since it’s Google). It works quite well, but only covers a fraction of the possible statistics involved in SEO. SEO statistics go plenty deep, just like baseball’s do, but unlike baseball stats, even the deepest ones have some relevance.

SEO vs. Baseball: The World Series of Acronyms

For fun and fabulous prizes* try to guess which of the following are acronyms for SEO terms, and which are acronyms for baseball stats. Some are fairly easy, others not so much. Some are alternate names for more well-known terms. For an added challenge, what do the letters stand for? No cheating! Answers after the baseball. GO TWINS!

1. PFI
2. WHIP
3. BABIP
4. PPCSE
5. FIP
6. SERP

Answers:

1. SEO. Pay For Inclusion: a program offered by search engines to ensure frequent indexing of a site or page.
2. Baseball. Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched: a measure of how many baserunners a pitcher allows, on average, per inning.
3. Baseball. Batting Average on Balls In Play: measures the rate at which batted balls land in the field of play as hits. Usually measured by individual batters, sometimes by whole teams.
4. SEO. Pay Per Click Search Engine: Google Adwords and Yahoo Publisher Network are examples. PPCSE listings are displayed at the top or along the side (or both) of organic search engine results.
5. Baseball. Fielding Independent Pitching: sort of a variation of a pitcher’s ERA (Earned Run Average), but counting only plays where the outcome cannot be affected by the defense being played behind the pitcher (i.e. home runs, walks, and strikeouts).
6. SEO. Search Engine Results Page: the results generated after searching for a particular keyword in a search engine.

How’d you do? Score one point for each correct answer.

1-2 correct—bunt single
3-4 correct—RBI double
5 correct—standup triple
All 6 correct—walk-off home run

* No prizes are actually at stake. I totally tricked you!

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