Search engines are the most commonly used means to find information on the web. It is therefore important that European Commission websites perform well on search engines if they wish to reach citizens.
In this section, you will find information on how to achieve a good optimisation.
The European Commission uses an open-source software called Matomo (previously known as Piwik) to measure the performance of its web presence; this software is customized within the Europa Analytics platform. This also provides insight on visitors coming from search engines, though it is not able to track the keywords the users searched for. For that purpose, Google Search Console is used.
Access to Web Analytics is granted to any ECAS user.
Other users can request access by writing to europamanagement@ec.europa.eu
Access to Google Search Console can be requested from europamanagement@ec.europa.eu. You will need to provide a working Google Mail address (e. g. ending with gmail.com), a short explanation of why the access is being requested and the authorization by the responsible head of unit or site owner.
This part of SEO is under the jurisdiction of content editors and content planners:
When planning a new website, webmasters should ensure that the following features are active and properly implemented:
Off-site SEO, i. e. every optimisation that we can't directly influence with content or code, deals mostly with quality backlinks. Search engines use them as a way to determine the relevancy of a given page, with the assumption that if many websites link to a specific page for a specific keyword, that page must be relevant for it. In the same way social signals, such as retweets and shares, should be taken into consideration (e. g. by ensuring that our pages comply with Open Graph and Twitter Cards).
If you require further assistance, please contact:
European Commission
DG Communication
Unit B.3
Europa Web Communication
The Europa Web Guide is the official rulebook for the European Commission's web presence, covering editorial, legal, technical, visual and contractual aspects.
All European Commission web sites must observe the rules and guidelines it contains.
Web practitioners are invited to observe its contents and keep abreast of updates.
Read more.