According to TimesOnline editor-in-chief Anne Spackman, search engine optimization "is woven through the fabric of journalism and culture" at The Times.
 
Speaking the PPA conference, Spackman said that the paper placed more emphasis on search as part of its redesign in February last year, after research showed that 60% of the site's traffic is generated from search and external links. 

"It's inconceivable that we would start a new project now without the search team being involved at every single stage," Spackman said.

Blogger Pat Thornton too is stressing the importance of SEO, seeing it as the key to longevity on the web. Thornton noted that only 20% of his traffic comes from direct sources (RSS, users who have bookmarked pages), while half of the past month's traffic came from referring websites.

"I actively encourage deep linking to my content (links that go to individual content, not just my main page) and the use of my content on other blogs and social networks," Thornton writes.

Undoubtedly SEO is crucial, but Spackman said that Times staff are not being encouraged to write solely for search optimization. In her view, maintaining the quality of the brand is just as important, a sentiment shared by ClickZ's P.J. Fusco in a recent article on content optimization (see a summarized version).

In other news out of the PPA conference:
-The Telegraph is to integrate UGC from MyTelegraph across its website
-WSJ and TimesOnline to more closely integrate content

Sources: Journalism.co.uk, the Journalism Iconoclast