Book review: successful web referencing by Olivier Andrieu
In the French-speaking SEO landscape, Olivier Andrieu (founder of Abondance) is widely regarded as the founding father of natural search optimization. His book, 'Réussir son référencement web' (Eyrolles), is to SEO what the Larousse is to the French language: an indispensable, exhaustive masterwork.
Covering everything from technical on-page architecture and crawlability to semantic optimization, netlinking strategies, and algorithmic penalty mitigation, this book remains a must-read for any digital professional.
Author: Thierry P. Gaillard - Successful web referencing by Olivier Andrieu
Éditions Eyrolles - 2013 - 543 pages - €32
If you think organic search optimization (SEO) is dead, move along! Even though this discipline demands constant adaptability due to frequent, sudden, and wide-ranging search engine updates, improving website visibility remains as essential as ever.
This book is a true bible of organic SEO aimed at both beginners and seasoned SEO practitioners. Olivier Andrieu, widely considered one of France's leading SEO experts, provides clear, detailed answers for anyone looking to build their first website according to industry best practices.
Its first major strength is its reliability—advocating proven methods (and explicitly flagging experimental ones). Its second strength is its exhaustiveness across more than 500 pages of advice, tips, and practical guidance. I bought my very first edition when I knew nothing about SEO and kept encountering vague, contradictory advice on questionable blogs. Since then, I have purchased every updated edition.
Today, with a much stronger foundation, I use it as an SEO encyclopedia where I look up specific topics on demand to refresh my memory. It covers every facet of organic search optimization: technical on-page SEO, how search engines work, off-page ranking factors, social media, Google Panda and Penguin filters, and more.
I strongly recommend buying this book to anyone who wants to build a solid foundation for growing their website's visibility. I also recommend reading the Abondance blog, updated daily by the "Pope of SEO" with reliable, well-documented insights.
About the author:
Thierry P. Gaillard - End-to-end digital project management
After working at American Express for 15 years—including six years as an IT Project Manager and eight years as Director of a 100-person profit center—Thierry P. Gaillard became a web entrepreneur, Digital Marketing Manager, and e-commerce specialist.
He specializes in web performance, branding, business negotiation, and management.
