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Parramatta
New South Wales
Parramatta viewed from the south in 2022
Parramatta is located in Sydney
Parramatta
Parramatta
Map
Coordinates 33°49′S 151°00′E / 33.817°S 151.000°E / -33.817; 151.000
Population 30,211 (2021 census)[1]
 • Density 5,700/km2 (14,760/sq mi)
Established 1788
Postcode(s) 2150
Elevation 18 m (59 ft)
Area 5.3 km2 (2.0 sq mi)
Location 24 km (15 mi) west of Sydney CBD (Central Sydney)
LGA(s) City of Parramatta
Region Greater Western Sydney Metropolitan area
County Cumberland[2]
Parish St John[2]
State electorate(s)
Federal division(s) Parramatta[6]
Localities around Parramatta:
Northmead North Parramatta Oatlands
Westmead Parramatta Dundas Rydalmere
Merrylands Holroyd Harris Park Camellia Rosehill
 

Parramatta (/ËŒpærəˈmætÉ™/; Dharuk: Burramatta) is a suburb and major commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney.[7][8] Parramatta is located approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi) west of the Sydney CBD, on the banks of the Parramatta River.[2] It is commonly regarded as the secondary central business district of metropolitan Sydney.

Parramatta is the municipal seat of the local government area of the City of Parramatta and is often regarded as one of the primary centres of the Greater Sydney metropolitan region, along with the Sydney CBD, Penrith, Campbelltown, and Liverpool.[9] Parramatta also has a long history as a second administrative centre in the Sydney metropolitan region, playing host to a number of government departments,[10] as well as state and federal courts. It is often colloquially referred to as "Parra".

Parramatta, which was founded as a British settlement in 1788, the same year as Sydney, is the oldest inland European settlement in Australia and serves as the economic centre of Greater Western Sydney.[11] Since 2000, state government agencies such as the New South Wales Police Force and Sydney Water[12] have relocated to Parramatta from Central Sydney. The 151st meridian east runs directly through the suburb.

History

[edit]

Aboriginal

[edit]

Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity occurred in Parramatta from around 30,000 years ago.[13] The Darug people who lived in the area before European settlement regarded the area as rich in food from the river and forests. They named the area Baramada or Burramatta ('Parramatta') which means Eel ("Burra") Place ("matta"), with the resident Indigenous people being called the Burramattagal. Similar Darug words include Cabramatta (Grub place) and Wianamatta (Mother place).[14] Other references[which?] are derived from the words of Captain Watkin Tench, a white British man with a poor understanding of the Darug language, and are incorrect.[citation needed] To this day many eels and other sea creatures are attracted to nutrients that are concentrated where the saltwater of Port Jackson meets the freshwater of the Parramatta River. The Parramatta Eels rugby league club chose their symbol as a result of this phenomenon.

View of Parramatta in 1812
Parramatta from May's Hill by Joseph Lycett (c. 1824)
Parramatta in 1886

British colonisation

[edit]

Parramatta was colonised by the British in 1788, the same year as Sydney. As such, Parramatta is the second oldest city in Australia, being only 10 months younger than Sydney. The British colonists, who had arrived in January 1788 on the First Fleet at Sydney Cove, had only enough food to support themselves for a short time and the soil around Sydney Cove proved too poor to grow the amount of food that 1,000 convicts, soldiers and administrators needed to survive. During 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip had reconnoitred several places before choosing Parramatta as the most likely place for a successful large farm.[15] Parramatta was the furthest navigable point inland on the Parramatta River (i.e. furthest from the thin, sandy coastal soil) and also the point at which the river became freshwater and therefore useful for farming.

On Sunday 2 November 1788, Governor Phillip took a detachment of marines along with a surveyor and, in boats, made his way upriver to a location that he called The Crescent, a defensible hill curved round a river bend, now in Parramatta Park. The Burramattagal were rapidly displaced with notable residents Maugoran, Boorong and Baludarri being forced from their lands.[16]

As a settlement developed, Governor Phillip gave it the name "Rose Hill" after British politician George Rose.[17] On 4 June 1791 Phillip changed the name of the township to Parramatta, approximating the term used by the local Aboriginal people.[18] A neighbouring suburb acquired the name "Rose Hill", which today is spelt "Rosehill".

The former Female Orphan School was one of the first schools in the area

In an attempt to deal with the food crisis, Phillip in 1789 granted a convict named James Ruse the land of Experiment Farm at Parramatta on the condition that he develop a viable agriculture. There, Ruse became the first European to successfully grow grain in Australia. The Parramatta area was also the site of the pioneering of the Australian wool industry by John Macarthur's Elizabeth Farm in the 1790s. Philip Gidley King's account of his visit to Parramatta on 9 April 1790 is one of the earliest descriptions of the area. Walking four miles with Governor Phillip to Prospect, he saw undulating grassland interspersed with magnificent trees and a great number of kangaroos and emus.[19]

The Battle of Parramatta, a major battle of the Australian frontier wars, occurred in March 1797 where Eora leader Pemulwuy led a group of Bidjigal warriors, estimated to be at least 100, in an attack on the town of Parramatta. The local garrison withdrew to their barracks and Pemulwuy held the town until he was eventually shot and wounded. A year later, a government farm at Toongabbie was attacked by Pemulwuy, who challenged the New South Wales Corps to a fight.[20][21]

Governor Arthur Phillip built a small house for himself on the hill of The Crescent. In 1799 this was replaced by a larger residence which, substantially improved by Governor Lachlan Macquarie from 1815 to 1818, has survived to the present day, making it the oldest surviving Government House anywhere in Australia. It was used as a retreat by Governors until the 1850s, with one Governor (Governor Brisbane) making it his principal home for a short period in the 1820s.

In 1803, another famous incident occurred in Parramatta, involving a convicted criminal named Joseph Samuel, originally from England. Samuel was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging, but the rope broke. In the second attempt, the noose slipped off his neck. In the third attempt, the new rope broke. Governor King was summoned and pardoned Samuel, as the incident appeared to him to be divine intervention.[22]

In 1814, Macquarie opened a school for Aboriginal children at Parramatta as part of a policy of improving relations between Aboriginal and European communities. This school was later relocated to "Black Town".[23]

Parramatta was gazetted as a city on 19 November 1976, and later, a suburb on 10 June 1994.

The first significant skyscrapers began to emerge in Parramatta in the late 1990s and the suburb transformed into a major business and residential hub in the early 2000s. Since then, the suburb's growth has accelerated in the past decade.

On 20 December 2024, the first stage of the Parramatta Light Rail was completed.

Climate

[edit]

Parramatta has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfa) with mild to cool, somewhat short winters and warm to usually hot summers, alongside moderate rainfall spread throughout the year.

Summer maximum temperatures are quite variable, often reaching above 35 °C (95 °F), on average 13.1 days in the summer season, and sometimes remaining in the low 20s, especially after a cold front or a sea breeze, such as the southerly buster. Northwesterlies can occasionally bring hot winds from the desert that can raise temperatures higher than 40 °C (104 °F) mostly from November to February, and sometimes above 44 °C (111 °F) in January severe heatwaves. The record highest temperature (since 1967) was 47.0 °C (116.6 °F) on 4 January 2020. Parramatta is warmer than Sydney CBD in the summer due to the urban heat island effect and its inland location. In extreme cases though, it can be 5–10 °C (9–18 °F) warmer than Sydney, especially when sea breezes do not penetrate inland on hot summer and spring days. For example, on 28 November 2009, the city reached 29.3 °C (84.7 °F),[24] while Parramatta reached 39.0 °C (102.2 °F),[25] almost 10 °C (18 °F) higher. In the summer, Parramatta, among other places in western Sydney, can often be the hottest place in the world because of the Blue Mountains trapping hot air in the region, in addition to the UHI effect.[26]

Rainfall is slightly higher during the first three months of the year because the anticlockwise-rotating subtropical high is to the south of the country, thereby allowing moist easterlies from the Tasman Sea to penetrate the city.[27][28] The second half of the year tends to be drier (late winter/spring) since the subtropical high is to the north of the city, thus permitting dry westerlies from the interior to dominate.[29] Drier winters are also owed to its position on the leeward side of the Great Dividing Range, which block westerly cold fronts (that are more common in late winter) and thus would become foehn winds, whereby allowing decent amount of sunny days and relatively low precipitation in that period.[30] Thunderstorms are common in the months from early spring to early autumn, occasionally quite severe thunderstorms can occur. Snow is virtually unknown, having been recorded only in 1836 and 1896[31] Parrammatta gets 106.6 days of clear skies annually.

Depending on the wind direction, summer weather may be humid or dry, though the humidity is mostly in the comfortable range, with the late summer/autumn period having a higher average humidity than late winter/early spring.

Climate data for Parramatta North (1991–2020 averages, 1967–present extremes)
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °C (°F) 47.0
(116.6)
44.5
(112.1)
40.5
(104.9)
37.0
(98.6)
29.2
(84.6)
25.5
(77.9)
26.8
(80.2)
30.6
(87.1)
36.5
(97.7)
40.1
(104.2)
42.7
(108.9)
44.0
(111.2)
47.0
(116.6)
Mean maximum °C (°F) 40.1
(104.2)
37.5
(99.5)
33.9
(93.0)
30.3
(86.5)
26.2
(79.2)
22.3
(72.1)
22.7
(72.9)
25.7
(78.3)
30.8
(87.4)
34.3
(93.7)
36.6
(97.9)
37.6
(99.7)
41.6
(106.9)
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) 29.1
(84.4)
28.3
(82.9)
26.5
(79.7)
23.9
(75.0)
20.9
(69.6)
18.2
(64.8)
17.8
(64.0)
19.5
(67.1)
22.3
(72.1)
24.5
(76.1)
25.8
(78.4)
27.7
(81.9)
23.7
(74.7)
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) 17.9
(64.2)
17.7
(63.9)
15.9
(60.6)
12.6
(54.7)
9.6
(49.3)
7.5
(45.5)
6.3
(43.3)
6.9
(44.4)
9.4
(48.9)
12.0
(53.6)
14.3
(57.7)
16.4
(61.5)
12.2
(54.0)
Mean minimum °C (°F) 12.9
(55.2)
12.7
(54.9)
10.9
(51.6)
7.8
(46.0)
4.5
(40.1)
2.9
(37.2)
1.7
(35.1)
2.4
(36.3)
4.5
(40.1)
6.5
(43.7)
8.6
(47.5)
10.9
(51.6)
1.2
(34.2)
Record low °C (°F) 10.1
(50.2)
9.2
(48.6)
6.8
(44.2)
4.0
(39.2)
1.4
(34.5)
0.8
(33.4)
−1.0
(30.2)
0.7
(33.3)
0.7
(33.3)
3.6
(38.5)
4.0
(39.2)
7.7
(45.9)
−1.0
(30.2)
Average precipitation mm (inches) 89.9
(3.54)
130.3
(5.13)
99.1
(3.90)
78.3
(3.08)
61.3
(2.41)
99.0
(3.90)
48.0
(1.89)
47.4
(1.87)
48.5
(1.91)
61.3
(2.41)
82.0
(3.23)
78.5
(3.09)
923.6
(36.36)
Average precipitation days (≥ 1 mm) 8.6 9.0 9.9 7.0 6.3 7.9 6.0 4.8 5.7 7.0 8.7 8.3 89.2
Average afternoon relative humidity (%) 56 59 58 56 59 58 55 45 46 50 54 55 54
Average dew point °C (°F) 16.2
(61.2)
16.8
(62.2)
15.5
(59.9)
12.7
(54.9)
9.9
(49.8)
7.6
(45.7)
5.6
(42.1)
5.5
(41.9)
7.7
(45.9)
9.9
(49.8)
12.3
(54.1)
14.3
(57.7)
11.2
(52.2)
Source: Bureau of Meteorology[32]

Commercial area

[edit]
Church Street

Church Street is home to many shops and restaurants. The northern end of Church Street, close to Lennox Bridge, features al fresco dining with a diverse range of cuisines. Immediately south of the CBD Church Street is known across Sydney as 'Auto Alley' for the many car dealerships lining both sides of the street as far as the M4 Motorway.[33]

6 & 8 Parramatta Square, Parramatta's tallest building

Since 2000, Parramatta has seen the consolidation of its role as a government centre, with the relocation of agencies such as the New South Wales Police Force Headquarters and the Sydney Water Corporation[12] from Sydney CBD. At the same time, major construction work occurred around the railway station with the expansion of Westfield Shoppingtown and the creation of a new transport interchange. The western part of the Parramatta CBD is known as the Parramatta Justice Precinct and houses the corporate headquarters of the Department of Communities and Justice. Other legal offices include the Children's Court of New South Wales and the Sydney West Trial Courts, Legal Aid Commission of NSW, Office of Trustee and Guardian (formerly the Office of the Protective Commissioner), NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Nearby on Marsden Street is the Parramatta Courthouse and the Drug Court of New South Wales. The Garfield Barwick Commonwealth Law Courts Building (named in honour of Sir Garfield Barwick), houses courts of the Federal Magistrates Court and the Family Court of Australia. The NSW Government has also announced plans to secure up to 45,000 m2 of new A-grade leased office space in Parramatta to relocate a further 4,000 workers from the Sydney CBD.[34]

Eclipse Tower

Parramatta Square (previously known as Civic Place) is a civic precinct located in the heart of the city, adjacent to Parramatta Town Hall. The Parramatta Square construction works included a redevelopment of the Parramatta Civic Centre, construction of a new culture and arts centre, and the construction of a new plaza. The designs of the first two projects, a 65-storey residential skyscraper and an office building were announced on 20 July 2012.[35] Concerns from CASA about infringements into controlled airspace from the height of the residential tower resulted in 8 Parramatta Square being turned into a 55-story commercial building, rather than the originally proposed 65-storey residential tower.[36] Parramatta Square became home to 3,000 National Australia Bank employees, relocated from the Sydney CBD.[37] Other notable commercial tenants who have established a presence at Parramatta Square include Westpac, Endeavour Energy, KPMG and Deloitte.[38]

Centenary Square, formerly known as Centenary Plaza, was created in 1975 when the then Parramatta City Council closed a section of the main street to traffic to create a pedestrian plaza. It features an 1888 Centennial Memorial Fountain and adjoins the 1883 Parramatta Town Hall and St John's Cathedral.[39]

A hospital known as The Colonial Hospital was established in Parramatta in 1818.[40] This then became Parramatta District Hospital. Jeffery House was built in the 1940s. With the construction of the nearby Westmead Hospital complex public hospital services in Parramatta were reduced but after refurbishment Jeffery House again provides clinical health services. Nearby, Brislington House has had a long history with health services. It is the oldest colonial building in Parramatta, dating to 1821.[41] It became a doctors residence before being incorporated into the Parramatta Hospital in 1949.

Parramatta is a major business and commercial centre, and home to Westfield Parramatta, the tenth largest shopping centre in Australia.[42] Parramatta is also the major transport hub for Western Sydney, servicing trains and buses, as well as having a ferry wharf and future light rail and metro services. Major upgrades have occurred around Parramatta railway station with the creation of a new transport interchange, and the ongoing development of the Parramatta Square local government precinct.[43]

Places of worship

[edit]
St John's Cathedral was completed in 1802

Church Street takes its name from St John's Cathedral (Anglican), which was built in 1802 and is the oldest church in Parramatta. While the present building is not the first on the site, the towers were built during the time of Governor Macquarie, and were based on those of the church at Reculver, England, at the suggestion of his wife, Elizabeth.[44] The historic St John's Cemetery is located nearby on O'Connell Street.[45]

St Patrick's Cathedral
Congregational Church (1871)

St Patrick's Cathedral (Roman Catholic) is one of the oldest Catholic churches in Australia. Construction commenced in 1836, but it wasn't officially complete until 1837. In 1854 a new church was commissioned, although the tower was not completed until 1880, with the spire following in 1883.[46] It was built on the site to meet the needs of a growing congregation. It was destroyed by fire in 1996, with only the stone walls remaining.

On 29 November 2003, the new St Patrick's Cathedral was dedicated.[47] The historic St Patrick's Cemetery is located in North Parramatta. The Uniting Church is represented by Leigh Memorial Church.[48] Parramatta Salvation Army is one of the oldest active Salvation Army Corps in Australia. Parramatta is also home to the Parramatta and Districts Synagogue, which services the Jewish community of western Sydney.[49]

The Greek Orthodox Parish and Community of St Ioannis (St John The Frontrunner) Greek Orthodox Church was established in Parramatta in May 1960 under the ecumenical jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia to serve the predominantly emigrating Greek population of Greater Western Sydney. Originally, the liturgies were held in the hall of St John's Ambulance Brigade in Harris Park until the completion of the church in December 1966 located in Hassall Street Parramatta. The parish sold this property in 2014 and is now located at the corner of George and Purchase Streets.[50] The Parish Community of St Ioannis continues to serve over 5,000 Greek parishioners.[51]

A Buddhist temple is located in Cowper Street, Parramatta.[52] Parramatta's Mosque is in an apartment building on Marsden Street, Parramatta.[53] The district is served by BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu temple located on Eleanor St, Rosehill,[54] and a Murugan Hindu temple in Mays Hill, off Great Western Highway.[55]

Parks

[edit]
Victorian Gazebo at the Prince Alfred Square
The Old Government House is a major site of significance in Parramatta Park

Parramatta Park is a large park adjacent to Western Sydney Stadium that is a popular venue for walking, jogging and bike riding. It was formerly the Governor's Domain, being land set aside for the Governor to supply his farming needs, until it was gazetted as a public park in 1858.[56] As the Governor's Domain, the grounds were considerably larger than the current 85 hectare Parramatta Park, extending from Parramatta Road in the south as evident by a small gatehouse adjacent to Parramatta High School. For a time Parramatta Park housed a zoo[57] until 1951 when the animals were transferred to Taronga Zoo.

Parramatta is known as the 'River City' as the Parramatta River flows through the Parramatta CBD.[58] Its foreshore features a playground, seating, picnic tables and pathways that are increasingly popular with residents, visitors and CBD workers.[59]

Prince Alfred Square is a Victorian era park located within the CBD on the northern side of the Parramatta River. It is one of the oldest public parks in New South Wales with trees dating from c. 1869. Prior to being a public park, it was the site of Parramatta's second gaol from 1804 until 1841 and the first female factory in Australia between 1804 and 1821.

Transport

[edit]

In contrast to the high level of car dependency throughout Sydney, a greater proportion of Parramatta's workers travelled to work on public transport (45.2%) than by car (36.2%) in 2016.[60]

Parramatta railway station

Rail

[edit]

Heavy rail

[edit]

Parramatta railway station is served by Sydney Trains' Cumberland Line, Leppington & Inner West Line and North Shore & Western Line services.[61] NSW TrainLink operates intercity services on the Blue Mountains Line as well as services to rural New South Wales. The station was originally opened in 1855, located in what is now Granville, and known as Parramatta Junction. The station was moved to its current location and opened on 4 July 1860, five years after the first railway line in Sydney was opened, running from Sydney to Parramatta Junction.[62] It was upgraded in the 2000s, with work beginning in late 2003 and the new interchange opening on 19 February 2006.[63]

Light rail

[edit]

The light rail Westmead & Carlingford Line runs from Westmead to Carlingford via the Parramatta city centre. A future branch will run to Sydney Olympic Park.[64]

Metro

[edit]

The under construction Sydney Metro West will be a metro line run between the Sydney central business district and Westmead. Announced in 2016,[65] the line is set to open in 2032 with a station in Parramatta.[66]

Bus

[edit]

Parramatta is also serviced by a major bus interchange located on the south eastern side of the railway station. The interchange is served by buses utilising the North-West T-way to Rouse Hill and the Liverpool–Parramatta T-way to Liverpool. Parramatta is also serviced by one high frequency Metrobus service:

  • M91 – Parramatta to Hurstville via Granville, Bankstown and Peakhurst

A free bus Route 900 is operated by Transit Systems in conjunction with the state government. Route 900 circles Parramatta CBD.[67] A free bus also links Western Sydney Stadium to Parramatta railway station during major sporting events.

Parramatta ferry wharf

Ferry

[edit]

The Parramatta ferry wharf is at the Charles Street Weir, which divides the tidal saltwater from the freshwater of the upper river, on the eastern boundary of the Central Business District. The wharf is the westernmost destination of Sydney Ferries' Parramatta River ferry services.[68]

Road

[edit]

Parramatta Road has always been an important thoroughfare for Sydney from its earliest days. From Parramatta the major western road for the state is the Great Western Highway. The M4 Western Motorway, running parallel to the Great Western Highway has taken much of the traffic away from these roads, with entrance and exit ramps close to Parramatta.

James Ruse Drive serves as a partial ring-road circling around the eastern part of Parramatta to join with the Cumberland Highway to the north west of the city.

The main north-south route through Parramatta is Church Street. To the north it becomes Windsor Road, and to the south it becomes Woodville Road.

Demographics

[edit]
Historical population
Year Pop. ±%
2001 17,982 —    
2006 18,448 +2.6%
2011 19,745 +7.0%
2016 25,798 +30.7%
2021 30,211 +17.1%
Parramatta Town Hall in 2023

According to the 2016 census conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the suburb of Parramatta had a population of 30,211. Of these:[69]

Ethnic diversity
The most common country of birth in Parramatta is India representing 30.9% of the population, outnumbering Australian born residents at 24.8%. The next most common are China 8.9%, Nepal 5.5%, Philippines 2.5% and Iran 1.3%. However, only 6.8% identify their ancestry as Australian; the other common self-identified ancestries were Indian 27.3%, Chinese 15.3%, English 8.5% and Nepali 5.5%. About one quarter (24.4%) of people spoke English at home; other languages spoken at home included Hindi 10.4%, Mandarin 8.8%, Nepali 5.3%, Tamil 5.0% and Telugu 4.3%.
Religion
This question is optional in the Census. Of the people who answered it, the most common response was Hinduism 33.6%; the next most common responses were "No Religion" 21.6%, Catholic 12.1%, Not stated 7.7% and Islam 7.5%.
Age distribution
Parramatta has an over-representation of young adults when compared to the country as a whole. Parramatta residents' median age was 32 years, compared to the national median of 38. Children aged under 15 years made up 16.3% of the population (national average is 18.2%) and people aged 65 years and over made up 6.6% of the population (national average is 17.2%).
Income
The average weekly household income was $2,092, compared to the national average of $1,746.
Housing
The majority of dwellings in Parramatta (85.6%) were flats, units or apartments; 7.7% were separate houses, and 5.7% were semi-detached (mostly townhouses). The average household size was 2.4 people. In 2021, 2.2% of households were public housing, compared to 6.3% in 2016.[70]

Notable residents

[edit]

Education

[edit]
Macarthur Girls High School

Parramatta is home to several primary and secondary schools. Arthur Phillip High School was established in 1960 in its own right, in buildings which had been used continuously as a school since 1875 is the oldest continuously operating public school in Parramatta. Parramatta High School was the first coeducational school in the Sydney metropolitan area established in 1913. Our Lady of Mercy College is one of the oldest Catholic schools in Australia. Macarthur Girls High School is successor to an earlier school 'Parramatta Commercial and Household Arts School'. Others schools include Parramatta Public School, Parramatta East Public School, Parramatta West Public School, and St Patrick's Primary Parramatta.

Old King's School

Several tertiary education facilities are also located within Parramatta. A University of New England study centre and two Western Sydney University campuses are situated in Parramatta. The Western Sydney University Parramatta Campus consists of two sites: Parramatta South (the primary site) which occupies the site of the historic Female Orphan School[72] and Parramatta North (the secondary site) which includes the adjacent Western Sydney University Village Parramatta (formerly UWS Village Parramatta) an on campus student village accommodation. Whereby, the flagship Parramatta City Campus Precinct consists of two buildings: the Engineering Innovation Hub located at 6 Hassall Street and the Peter Shergold Building located at 1 Parramatta Square (169 Macquarie Street).[73] Alphacrucis University College is a Christian liberal arts college with a campus in Parramatta located at 30 Cowper Street.[74] The University of Sydney has also announced that it intends to establish a new campus in Parramatta.[75]

Media

[edit]

The Parramatta Advertiser is the local newspaper serving Parramatta and surrounding suburbs.

On 16 March 2020, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation opened a new Western Sydney newsroom in Horwood Place at Parramatta incorporating space for 12 staff and news production equipment with the capacity to broadcast live radio programs.[76] According to the ABC, the opening formed part of its strategic goal to improve its presence in outer metropolitan areas.[76] Additionally, the ABC announced on 16 June 2021 its intention to relocate approximately 300 employees to Parramatta, which is part of a five-year plan which aims to have 75% of its content makers based away from the network's Ultimo headquarters by 2025.[77][78]

Culture and sport

[edit]
CommBank Stadium
Various events are held on the Parramatta River

As the centre of the City of Parramatta, as well as the centre and second largest business district of Sydney, Parramatta hosts many festivals and events.[79] Riverside Theatres is a performing arts centre located on the northern bank of Parramatta River. The city hosts the following events:

  • January – Sydney Festival and Australia Day[80]
  • February – Lunar New Year and Tropfest[81]
  • April – Anzac Day
  • July – Winterlight and Burramatta Day (Naidoc)
  • October – Parramasala and Parramatta Lanes[82]
  • November – Loy Krathong, Christmas in Parramatta and Foundation Day
  • December – New Year's Eve

Parramatta Park contains Old Government House and thus Parramatta was once the capital of the colony of New South Wales until Governors returned to residing in Sydney in 1846.[83] Another feature is the natural amphitheatre located on one of the bends of the river, named by Governor Philip as "the Crescent", which is used to stage concerts. It is home to the Dairy Cottage, built from 1798 to 1805, originally a single-room cottage and is one of the earliest surviving cottages in Australia.

The remains of Governor Brisbane's private astronomical observatory, constructed in 1822, are visible. Astronomers who worked at the observatory, discovering thousands of new stars and deep sky objects, include James Dunlop and Carl Rümker. In 1822, the architect S. L. Harris designed the Bath House for Governor Brisbane and built it in 1823. Water was pumped to the building through lead pipes from the river. In 1886, it was converted into a pavilion.[84]

Cultural events

[edit]
  • The Rosehill Race Course holds various race meets throughout the year, including: Derby Day, Golden Rose Day, and Rosehill Gardens Race Day.
  • The Parramatta Farmers Markets[85] occurs every Friday, and has local produce.

Sporting teams

[edit]

Parramatta is the home of several professional sports teams. These teams include the Parramatta Eels of the National Rugby League and Western Sydney Wanderers of the A-League. Both teams formerly played matches at Parramatta Stadium that has since been demolished, and replaced with the 30,000-seat Western Sydney Stadium.[86] Parramatta Stadium was also home to the now dissolved Sydney Wave of the former Australian Baseball League and Parramatta Power of the former National Soccer League. The newly built Bankwest Stadium opened its gates for the community on 14 April 2019 with free entry for all fans. Located on O’Connell Street, the stadium is in proximity of the Parramatta CBD. The opening sporting event was the 2019 Round 6 NRL clash between Western Sydney rivals the Parramatta Eels and Wests Tigers on Easter Monday 22 April. The Eels won the match by a score of 51–6. It is being predicted that the new stadium will boost Western Sydney economy by contributing millions of dollars to it.[87]

Entertainment

[edit]

Duran Duran's “Union of the Snake” music video with Russell Mulcahy was filmed in 1983 at Parramatta using 35mm film.[88]

The 2013 superhero film The Wolverine used the intersection of George Street and Smith Street as a filming location to depict Tokyo, Japan.[89]

Heritage listings

[edit]

Parramatta has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (28 June 2022). "Parramatta (Suburbs and Localities)". 2021 Census QuickStats. Retrieved 26 July 2022. Edit this at Wikidata
  2. ^ a b c "Parramatta (suburb)". Geographical Names Register (GNR) of NSW. Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. Retrieved 2 October 2008. Edit this at Wikidata
  3. ^ "Parramatta". New South Wales Electoral Commission. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  4. ^ "Baulkham Hills". New South Wales Electoral Commission. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  5. ^ "Granville". New South Wales Electoral Commission. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  6. ^ "Parramatta". Australian Electoral Commission. 19 October 2007. Archived from the original on 26 February 2009. Retrieved 2 October 2008.
  7. ^ "Parramatta: Suburb Guide. Highlighting new developments in Sydney's second CBD". Urban. 5 August 2019. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  8. ^ "Introducing Sydney's second CBD: Skyscrapers of steel and glass set to transform city". 7NEWS.com.au. 19 November 2019. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  9. ^ "Greater Cities Commission Act 2022 No 8". legislation.nsw.gov.au. 4 November 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  10. ^ "Government". atparramatta.com.
  11. ^ "Visitor Strategy for Parramatta 2011–2016" (PDF). City of Parramatta. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
  12. ^ a b "Hitting the ground running – Sydney Water's Parramatta office reaches ground level". sydneywater.com.au. Archived from the original on 22 July 2008.
  13. ^ Macey, Richard (2007). "Settlers' history rewritten: go back 30,000 years". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
  14. ^ "Daraug Language". darug.org.au. Archived from the original on 2 May 2013.
  15. ^ "Man of Honour – John Macarthur", Michael Duffy, Macmillan 2003, p. 81 ff
  16. ^ Smith, Keith Vincent (2005). Wallumedegal: an Aboriginal History of Ryde (PDF). Ryde: City of Ryde.
  17. ^ "The romance of Australian place names". The Australian Women's Weekly. National Library of Australia. 27 May 1964. p. 59. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
  18. ^ E. R. Pretyman (7 July 1970). "SOME NOTES ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CAPTAIN JAMES KELLY" (PDF). Retrieved 15 March 2018.
  19. ^ Flynn 1997, p 28
  20. ^ Dale, David (16 February 2008). "WHO WE ARE: The man who nearly changed everything". The Sun Herald. Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  21. ^ J Henniker Heaton, Australian Dictionary of Dates and Men of the Time, Sydney, 1873
  22. ^ ""HERALD" SATURDAY MAGAZINE". The Sydney Morning Herald. National Library of Australia. 26 September 1953. p. 7. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
  23. ^ Norman, Heidi (2015). "Parramatta and Black Town Native Institutions". Dictionary of Sydney. Dictionary of Sydney Trust. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  24. ^ "Daily Maximum Temperature – 066062". bom.gov.au. Bureau of Meteorology. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  25. ^ "Daily Maximum Temperature – 066124". bom.gov.au. Bureau of Meteorology. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  26. ^ "Which Australian city has the weather that suits you best? Find out with our interactive". The Guardian. 23 May 2023. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  27. ^ Context statement for the Sydney Basin bioregion – Climate by Bioregional Assessments from the Australian Government. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  28. ^ "Australia's new seasonal rainfall zones". ABC News. 25 February 2016. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  29. ^ "The climate of Sydney, Australia". www-das.uwyo.edu.
  30. ^ Sharples, J.J., McRae, R.H.D., Weber, R.O., Mills, G.A. (2009) Foehn-like winds and fire danger anomalies in southeastern Australia. Proceedings of the 18th IMACS World Congress and MODSIM09. 13–17 July, Cairns
  31. ^ "NSW NON ALPINE SNOW FALL EVENTS 1808 TO 2017". blackheathweather.com.
  32. ^ "Climate statistics: PARRAMATTA NORTH (MASONS DRIVE)". Bureau of Meteorology. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
  33. ^ "Auto Alley". Discover Parramatta.
  34. ^ "Government to expand Parramatta office footprint". Department of Finance, Services and Innovation. NSW Government. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  35. ^ "Parramatta's urban renewal relaunched". Parramatta Sun. 20 July 2012. Archived from the original on 30 December 2012. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  36. ^ "Construction & Architecture News". Architecture & Design. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  37. ^ "NAB moves 3000 bankers into Parramatta Square". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  38. ^ "Commercial Directory for Each Tower – Parramatta Square". www.psq.com.au. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  39. ^ "About Centenary Square". Parramatta Heritage Centre. City of Parramatta Council. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  40. ^ "Jeffery House". Archived from the original on 26 September 2011.
  41. ^ "Brislington House".
  42. ^ "Westfield Parramatta". Westfield Group. 2017. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  43. ^ "Welcome to Parramatta NSW Australia". cityofparramatta.com. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
  44. ^ "St John's Anglican Cathedral". Heritage Branch. Archived from the original on 9 June 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2010. See also Reculver.
  45. ^ "St Johns Cemetery". Discover Parramatta.
  46. ^ "St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral: Parramatta". ohta.org.au. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
  47. ^ "History". St Patrick's Cathedral Parish Parramatta. Archived from the original on 31 January 2008. Retrieved 11 January 2008.
  48. ^ "Leigh Memorial Church". Parramatta Mission. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  49. ^ "Parramatta Synagogue". Parramatta Synagogue. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  50. ^ "Contact Us". Greek Orthodox Parish & Community of "St Ioannis" Parramatta.
  51. ^ "Home". Greek Orthodox Parish & Community of "St Ioannis" Parramatta.
  52. ^ "Nan Tien Temple, Australia". Nan Tien Temple. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  53. ^ "Parramatta Mosque". Archived from the original on 10 August 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
  54. ^ "-- B A P S Swaminarayan Sanstha --". swaminarayan.org.
  55. ^ "Home – Sydney Murugan Temple". sydneymurugan.org.au.
  56. ^ "Celebrating 160 Years". Parramatta Park. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  57. ^ "Wild things: The history of Parramatta Zoo". 23 October 2017.
  58. ^ "Central River City vision". Greater Sydney Commission. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  59. ^ "City River Foreshore". City of Parramatta Council. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
  60. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (27 June 2017). "Parramatta (State Suburb)". 2016 Census QuickStats. Retrieved 25 October 2018. Edit this at Wikidata
  61. ^ "Station Details – Parramatta". Transport for NSW. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  62. ^ Bozier, Rolfe. "New South Wales Railways:Parramatta Railway Station". Retrieved 30 January 2008.
  63. ^ "Parramatta Transport Interchange – opening 19 February". CityRail. 14 February 2006. Archived from the original on 20 December 2007. Retrieved 30 January 2008.
  64. ^ "'Moment in history': Commuters board first Parramatta light rail service". ABC News. 19 December 2024. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
  65. ^ "Sydney Metro West: a new railway, more trains for Western Sydney". Transport for NSW. 14 November 2016.
  66. ^ Rose, Tamsin; Visontay, Elias; McLeod, Catie (6 December 2023). "This article is more than 2 months old Rosehill racecourse could be turned into 25,000 homes in Metro West revamp". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
  67. ^ "Transdev NSW route 900" (PDF). Transdev NSW. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  68. ^ "F3 Parramatta River ferry timetable". Transport for NSW.
  69. ^ Australian Bureau of Statistics (28 June 2022). "Parramatta (State Suburb)". 2021 Census QuickStats. Retrieved 4 October 2024. Edit this at Wikidata
  70. ^ "Crime and Disadvantage in Parramatta". Microburbs. Retrieved 14 May 2024.
  71. ^ The jubilee history of Parramatta in commemoration of the first half-century of municipal government, 1861–1911, Parramatta T.D. Little and R.S. Richardson, 1911, retrieved 10 June 2016 Available as .pdf-based CD-ROM
  72. ^ "Welcome to the Female Orphan School". Western Sydney University. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  73. ^ "Parramatta City Campus Precinct". Western Sydney University. 23 July 2024. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  74. ^ "Welcome to AC Sydney". Alphacrucis University College. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  75. ^ "Parramatta-Westmead campus proposal takes shape". University of Sydney. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  76. ^ a b "New ABC Western Sydney newsroom opens for business". About the ABC. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 13 March 2020. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  77. ^ Samios, Zoe (16 June 2021). "ABC to relocate 300 Ultimo staff to Parramatta". The Sydney Morning Herald. Nine Entertainment. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  78. ^ "ABC announces 300 staff will move from Ultimo headquarters to Parramatta in Western Sydney". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 16 June 2021. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  79. ^ "Parramatta Events – About". Discover Parramatta.
  80. ^ "Home". Sydney Festival.
  81. ^ "Home". Tropfest.
  82. ^ "About Parramasala Festival". Parramasala. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  83. ^ "Old Government House". oldgovernmenthouse.com.au. Archived from the original on 10 September 2012.
  84. ^ "Plone". ppt.nsw.gov.au. Archived from the original on 12 February 2014. Retrieved 16 September 2007.
  85. ^ "Parramatta Farmers' Markets". TimeOut Sydney.
  86. ^ NSW, Infrastructure. "Infrastructure NSW : Western Sydney Stadium". Infrastructure NSW. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
  87. ^ "Sydney Business Chamber: Bankwest Stadium kicks goals for Western Sydney economy". Bankwest Stadium.
  88. ^ Duran Duran interview Countdown 1, 7 February 2011, retrieved 5 March 2024
  89. ^ "Filming Locations for The Wolverine (2013), in New South Wales and Japan". The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
  90. ^ "Warders Cottages". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00709. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  91. ^ "Lennox House". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00751. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  92. ^ "St. John's Anglican Cathedral". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H01805. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  93. ^ "Lennox Bridge". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00750. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  94. ^ "Prince Alfred Square and potential archaeological site". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H01997. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  95. ^ "Oddfellows Arms Inn". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00276. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  96. ^ "Norma Parker Correctional Centre". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00811. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  97. ^ "Cumberland District Hospital Group". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00820. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  98. ^ "Parramatta District Hospital – Brislington and Landscape". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00059. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  99. ^ "Roxy Theatre". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00711. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  100. ^ "Perth House and Stables". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00155. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  101. ^ "Shop and office". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00278. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  102. ^ "Harrisford". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00248. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  103. ^ "Parramatta Railway Station". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00696. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  104. ^ "Redcoats Mess House". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00218. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  105. ^ "1st/15th Royal NSW Lancers Memorial Museum Collection". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H01824. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  106. ^ "Murphys House". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00238. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  107. ^ "Archaeological Site and Associated Artefacts". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H02027. Retrieved 18 February 2020. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  108. ^ "Parramatta District Hospital – Archaeology". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00828. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  109. ^ "Macarthur House". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00050. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  110. ^ "Marsden Rehabilitation Centre Group". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00826. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  111. ^ Marsden Rehabilitation Centre [former King's School] : conservation plan City of Parramatta Library
  112. ^ "Parramatta Park and Old Government House". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00596. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  113. ^ "St. John's Anglican Cemetery". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00049. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  114. ^ "Travellers Rest Inn Group". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00748. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  115. ^ "Avondale". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00239. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  116. ^ "Roseneath Cottage". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00042. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  117. ^ "Parramatta Correctional Centre". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00812. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  118. ^ "Endrim". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H00379. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
  119. ^ "Broughton House". New South Wales State Heritage Register. Department of Planning & Environment. H01302. Retrieved 18 May 2018. Text is licensed by State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) under CC BY 4.0 licence.
[edit]

Dictionary of Sydney entries

[edit]

 

 

Local search engine optimization (local SEO) is similar to (national) SEO in that it is also a process affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results (known as its SERP, search engine results page) often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results.[1] In general, the higher ranked on the search results page and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users; these visitors can then be converted into customers.[2] Local SEO, however, differs in that it is focused on optimizing a business's online presence so that its web pages will be displayed by search engines when users enter local searches for its products or services.[3] Ranking for local search involves a similar process to general SEO but includes some specific elements to rank a business for local search.

For example, local SEO is all about 'optimizing' your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches. The majority of these searches take place on Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, Baidu and other search engines but for better optimization in your local area you should also use sites like Yelp, Angie's List, LinkedIn, Local business directories, social media channels and others.[4]

The birth of local SEO

[edit]

The origin of local SEO can be traced back[5] to 2003-2005 when search engines tried to provide people with results in their vicinity as well as additional information such as opening times of a store, listings in maps, etc.

Local SEO has evolved over the years to provide a targeted online marketing approach that allows local businesses to appear based on a range of local search signals, providing a distinct difference from broader organic SEO which prioritises relevance of search over a distance of searcher.

Local search results

[edit]

Local searches trigger search engines to display two types of results on the Search engine results page: local organic results and the 'Local Pack'.[3] The local organic results include web pages related to the search query with local relevance. These often include directories such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, Facebook, etc.[3] The Local Pack displays businesses that have signed up with Google and taken ownership of their 'Google My Business' (GMB) listing.

The information displayed in the GMB listing and hence in the Local Pack can come from different sources:[6]

  • The owner of the business. This information can include opening/closing times, description of products or services, etc.
  • Information is taken from the business's website
  • User-provided information such as reviews or uploaded photos
  • Information from other sources such as social profiles etc.
  • Structured Data taken from Wikidata and Wikipedia. Data from these sources is part of the information that appears in Google's Knowledge Panel in the search results.

Depending on the searches, Google can show relevant local results in Google Maps or Search. This is true on both mobile and desktop devices.[7]

Google Maps

[edit]

Google has added a new Q&A features to Google Maps allowing users to submit questions to owners and allowing these to respond.[8] This Q&A feature is tied to the associated Google My Business account.

Google Business Profile

[edit]

Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that allows businesses to create and manage their Google Business listing. These listings must represent a physical location that a customer can visit. A Google Business listing appears when customers search for businesses either on Google Maps or in Google SERPs. The accuracy of these listings is a local ranking factor.

Ranking factors

[edit]
Local Online Marketing

Major search engines have algorithms that determine which local businesses rank in local search. Primary factors that impact a local business's chance of appearing in local search include proper categorization in business directories, a business's name, address, and phone number (NAP) being crawlable on the website, and citations (mentions of the local business on other relevant websites like a chamber of commerce website).[9]

In 2016, a study using statistical analysis assessed how and why businesses ranked in the Local Packs and identified positive correlations between local rankings and 100+ ranking factors.[10] Although the study cannot replicate Google's algorithm, it did deliver several interesting findings:

  • Backlinks showed the most important correlation (and also Google's Toolbar PageRank, suggesting that older links are an advantage because the Toolbar has not been updated in a long time).
  • Sites with more content (hence more keywords) tended to fare better (as expected).
  • Reviews on GMB also were found to strongly correlate with high rankings.
  • Other GMB factors, like the presence of photos and having a verified GMB page with opening hours, showed a positive correlation (with ranking) albeit not as important as reviews.
  • The quality of citations such as a low number of duplicates, consistency and also a fair number of citations, mattered for a business to show in Local Packs. However, within the pack, citations did not influence their ranking: "citations appear to be foundational but not a competitive advantage."
  • The authors were instead surprised that geotargeting elements (city & state) in the title of the GMB landing page did not have any impact on GMB rankings. Hence the authors suggest using such elements only if it makes sense for usability reasons.
  • The presence of a keyword in the business name was found to be one of the most important factors (explaining the high incidence of spam in the Local Pack).
  • Schema structured data is a ranking factor. The addition of the 'LocalBusiness' markup will enable you to display relevant information about your business to Google. This includes opening hours, address, founder, parent company information and much more.[11]
  • The number of reviews and overall star rating correlates with higher rankings in the Google map pack results.

Local ranking according to Google

[edit]

Prominence, relevance, and distance are the three main criteria Google claims to use in its algorithms to show results that best match a user's query.[12]

  • Prominence reflects how well-known is a place in the offline world. An important museum or store, for example, will be given more prominence. Google also uses information obtained on the web to assess prominence such as review counts, links, articles.
  • Relevance refers to Google's algorithms attempt to surface the listings that best match the user's query.
  • Distance refers to Google's attempt to return those listings that are the closest the location terms used in a user's query. If no location term is used then "Google will calculate distance based on what's known about their location".

Local ranking: 2017 survey from 40 local experts

[edit]

According to a group of local SEO experts who took part in a survey, links and reviews are more important than ever to rank locally.[13]

Near Me Queries

[edit]

As a result of both Google as well as Apple offering "near me" as an option to users, some authors[14] report on how Google Trends shows very significant increases in "near me" queries. The same authors also report that the factors correlating the most with Local Pack ranking for "near me" queries include the presence of the "searched city and state in backlinks' anchor text" as well as the use of the " 'near me' in internal link anchor text"

Possum Update

[edit]

An important update to Google's local algorithm, rolled out on the 1st of September 2016.[15] Summary of the update on local search results:

  • Businesses based outside city physical limits showed a significant increase in ranking in the Google Local Pack
  • A more restrictive filter is in place. Before the update, Google filtered listings linking to the same website and using the same phone number. After the update, listings get filtered if they have the same address and same categories though they belong to different businesses. So, if several dentists share the same address, Google will only show one of them.

Hawk update

[edit]

As previously explained (see above), the Possum update led similar listings, within the same building, or even located on the same street, to get filtered. As a result, only one listing "with greater organic ranking and stronger relevance to the keyword" would be shown.[16] After the Hawk update on 22 August 2017, this filtering seems to apply only to listings located within the same building or close by (e.g. 50 feet), but not to listings located further away (e.g.325 feet away).[16]

Fake reviews

[edit]

As previously explained (see above), reviews are deemed to be an important ranking factor. Joy Hawkins, a Google Top Contributor and local SEO expert, highlights the problems due to fake reviews:[17]

  • Lack of an appropriate process for business owners to report fake reviews on competitors' sites. GMB support will not consider requests about businesses other than if they come from the business owners themselves. So if a competitor nearby has been collecting fake reviews, the only way to bring this to the attention of GMB is via the Google My Business Forum.
  • Unlike Yelp, Google does not show a label warning users of abnormal review behavior for those businesses that buy reviews or that receive unnatural numbers of negative reviews because of media attention.
  • Current Google algorithms do not identify unnatural review patterns. Abnormal review patterns often do not need human gauging and should be easily identified by algorithms. As a result, both fake listings and rogue reviewer profiles should be suspended.

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Brian, Harnish (December 26, 2018). "The Definitive Guide to Local SEO". Search Engine Journal. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
  2. ^ Ortiz-Cordova, A. and Jansen, B. J. (2012) Classifying Web Search Queries in Order to Identify High Revenue Generating Customers. Journal of the American Society for Information Sciences and Technology. 63(7), 1426 – 1441.
  3. ^ a b c "SEO 101: Getting Started in Local SEO (From Scratch) | SEJ". Search Engine Journal. 2015-03-30. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  4. ^ Imel, Seda (June 21, 2019). "The Importance Of Local SEO Statistics You Should Know "Infographic"". SEO MediaX.
  5. ^ "The Evolution Of SEO Trends Over 25 Years". Search Engine Land. 2015-06-24. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  6. ^ "Improve your local ranking on Google - Google My Business Help". support.google.com. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  7. ^ "How Google uses business information". support.google.com. Retrieved March 16, 2017.
  8. ^ "6 things you need to know about Google's Q&A feature on Google Maps". Search Engine Land. 2017-09-07. Retrieved 2017-10-02.
  9. ^ "Citation Inconsistency Is No.1 Issue Affecting Local Ranking". Search Engine Land. 2014-12-22. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  10. ^ "Results from the Local SEO Ranking Factors Study presented at SMX East". Search Engine Land. 2016-10-07. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  11. ^ "LocalBusiness - schema.org". schema.org. Retrieved 2018-11-20.
  12. ^ "Improve your local ranking on Google - Google My Business Help". support.google.com. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  13. ^ "Just released: 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors survey results". Search Engine Land. 2017-04-11. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  14. ^ "'Things to do near me' SEO". Search Engine Land. 2017-02-13. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
  15. ^ "Everything you need to know about Google's 'Possum' algorithm update". Search Engine Land. 2016-09-21. Retrieved 2017-05-18.
  16. ^ a b "August 22, 2017: The day the 'Hawk' Google local algorithm update swooped in". Search Engine Land. 2017-09-08. Retrieved 2017-10-02.
  17. ^ "Dear Google: 4 suggestions for fixing your massive problem with fake reviews". Search Engine Land. 2017-06-15. Retrieved 2017-07-16.
[edit]

 

 

A tag cloud (a typical Web 3.0 phenomenon in itself) presenting Web 3.0 themes

The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0 (not to be confused with Web3), is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards[1] set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable.

To enable the encoding of semantics with the data, technologies such as Resource Description Framework (RDF)[2] and Web Ontology Language (OWL)[3] are used. These technologies are used to formally represent metadata. For example, ontology can describe concepts, relationships between entities, and categories of things. These embedded semantics offer significant advantages such as reasoning over data and operating with heterogeneous data sources.[4] These standards promote common data formats and exchange protocols on the Web, fundamentally the RDF. According to the W3C, "The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries."[5] The Semantic Web is therefore regarded as an integrator across different content and information applications and systems.

History

[edit]

The term was coined by Tim Berners-Lee for a web of data (or data web)[6] that can be processed by machines[7]—that is, one in which much of the meaning is machine-readable. While its critics have questioned its feasibility, proponents argue that applications in library and information science, industry, biology and human sciences research have already proven the validity of the original concept.[8]

Berners-Lee originally expressed his vision of the Semantic Web in 1999 as follows:

I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A "Semantic Web", which makes this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The "intelligent agents" people have touted for ages will finally materialize.[9]

The 2001 Scientific American article by Berners-Lee, Hendler, and Lassila described an expected evolution of the existing Web to a Semantic Web.[10] In 2006, Berners-Lee and colleagues stated that: "This simple idea…remains largely unrealized".[11] In 2013, more than four million Web domains (out of roughly 250 million total) contained Semantic Web markup.[12]

Example

[edit]

In the following example, the text "Paul Schuster was born in Dresden" on a website will be annotated, connecting a person with their place of birth. The following HTML fragment shows how a small graph is being described, in RDFa-syntax using a schema.org vocabulary and a Wikidata ID:

<div vocab="https://schema.org/" typeof="Person">
  <span property="name">Paul Schuster</span> was born in
  <span property="birthPlace" typeof="Place" href="https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1731">
    <span property="name">Dresden</span>.
  </span>
</div>
Graph resulting from the RDFa example
 

The example defines the following five triples (shown in Turtle syntax). Each triple represents one edge in the resulting graph: the first element of the triple (the subject) is the name of the node where the edge starts, the second element (the predicate) the type of the edge, and the last and third element (the object) either the name of the node where the edge ends or a literal value (e.g. a text, a number, etc.).

 _:a <https://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <https://schema.org/Person> .
 _:a <https://schema.org/name> "Paul Schuster" .
 _:a <https://schema.org/birthPlace> <https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1731> .
 <https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1731> <https://schema.org/itemtype> <https://schema.org/Place> .
 <https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1731> <https://schema.org/name> "Dresden" .

The triples result in the graph shown in the given figure.

Graph resulting from the RDFa example, enriched with further data from the Web

One of the advantages of using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) is that they can be dereferenced using the HTTP protocol. According to the so-called Linked Open Data principles, such a dereferenced URI should result in a document that offers further data about the given URI. In this example, all URIs, both for edges and nodes (e.g. http://schema.org/Person, http://schema.org/birthPlace, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1731) can be dereferenced and will result in further RDF graphs, describing the URI, e.g. that Dresden is a city in Germany, or that a person, in the sense of that URI, can be fictional.

The second graph shows the previous example, but now enriched with a few of the triples from the documents that result from dereferencing https://schema.org/Person (green edge) and https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1731 (blue edges).

Additionally to the edges given in the involved documents explicitly, edges can be automatically inferred: the triple

 _:a <https://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <http://schema.org/Person> .

from the original RDFa fragment and the triple

 <https://schema.org/Person> <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#equivalentClass> <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person> .

from the document at https://schema.org/Person (green edge in the figure) allow to infer the following triple, given OWL semantics (red dashed line in the second Figure):

 _:a <https://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person> .

Background

[edit]

The concept of the semantic network model was formed in the early 1960s by researchers such as the cognitive scientist Allan M. Collins, linguist Ross Quillian and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus as a form to represent semantically structured knowledge. When applied in the context of the modern internet, it extends the network of hyperlinked human-readable web pages by inserting machine-readable metadata about pages and how they are related to each other. This enables automated agents to access the Web more intelligently and perform more tasks on behalf of users. The term "Semantic Web" was coined by Tim Berners-Lee,[7] the inventor of the World Wide Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium ("W3C"), which oversees the development of proposed Semantic Web standards. He defines the Semantic Web as "a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines".

Many of the technologies proposed by the W3C already existed before they were positioned under the W3C umbrella. These are used in various contexts, particularly those dealing with information that encompasses a limited and defined domain, and where sharing data is a common necessity, such as scientific research or data exchange among businesses. In addition, other technologies with similar goals have emerged, such as microformats.

Limitations of HTML

[edit]

Many files on a typical computer can be loosely divided into either human-readable documents, or machine-readable data. Examples of human-readable document files are mail messages, reports, and brochures. Examples of machine-readable data files are calendars, address books, playlists, and spreadsheets, which are presented to a user using an application program that lets the files be viewed, searched, and combined.

Currently, the World Wide Web is based mainly on documents written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), a markup convention that is used for coding a body of text interspersed with multimedia objects such as images and interactive forms. Metadata tags provide a method by which computers can categorize the content of web pages. In the examples below, the field names "keywords", "description" and "author" are assigned values such as "computing", and "cheap widgets for sale" and "John Doe".

<meta name="keywords" content="computing, computer studies, computer" />
<meta name="description" content="Cheap widgets for sale" />
<meta name="author" content="John Doe" />

Because of this metadata tagging and categorization, other computer systems that want to access and share this data can easily identify the relevant values.

With HTML and a tool to render it (perhaps web browser software, perhaps another user agent), one can create and present a page that lists items for sale. The HTML of this catalog page can make simple, document-level assertions such as "this document's title is 'Widget Superstore'", but there is no capability within the HTML itself to assert unambiguously that, for example, item number X586172 is an Acme Gizmo with a retail price of €199, or that it is a consumer product. Rather, HTML can only say that the span of text "X586172" is something that should be positioned near "Acme Gizmo" and "€199", etc. There is no way to say "this is a catalog" or even to establish that "Acme Gizmo" is a kind of title or that "€199" is a price. There is also no way to express that these pieces of information are bound together in describing a discrete item, distinct from other items perhaps listed on the page.

Semantic HTML refers to the traditional HTML practice of markup following intention, rather than specifying layout details directly. For example, the use of <em> denoting "emphasis" rather than <i>, which specifies italics. Layout details are left up to the browser, in combination with Cascading Style Sheets. But this practice falls short of specifying the semantics of objects such as items for sale or prices.

Microformats extend HTML syntax to create machine-readable semantic markup about objects including people, organizations, events and products.[13] Similar initiatives include RDFa, Microdata and Schema.org.

Semantic Web solutions

[edit]

The Semantic Web takes the solution further. It involves publishing in languages specifically designed for data: Resource Description Framework (RDF), Web Ontology Language (OWL), and Extensible Markup Language (XML). HTML describes documents and the links between them. RDF, OWL, and XML, by contrast, can describe arbitrary things such as people, meetings, or airplane parts.

These technologies are combined in order to provide descriptions that supplement or replace the content of Web documents. Thus, content may manifest itself as descriptive data stored in Web-accessible databases,[14] or as markup within documents (particularly, in Extensible HTML (XHTML) interspersed with XML, or, more often, purely in XML, with layout or rendering cues stored separately). The machine-readable descriptions enable content managers to add meaning to the content, i.e., to describe the structure of the knowledge we have about that content. In this way, a machine can process knowledge itself, instead of text, using processes similar to human deductive reasoning and inference, thereby obtaining more meaningful results and helping computers to perform automated information gathering and research.

An example of a tag that would be used in a non-semantic web page:

<item>blog</item>

Encoding similar information in a semantic web page might look like this:

<item rdf:about="https://example.org/semantic-web/">Semantic Web</item>

Tim Berners-Lee calls the resulting network of Linked Data the Giant Global Graph, in contrast to the HTML-based World Wide Web. Berners-Lee posits that if the past was document sharing, the future is data sharing. His answer to the question of "how" provides three points of instruction. One, a URL should point to the data. Two, anyone accessing the URL should get data back. Three, relationships in the data should point to additional URLs with data.

Tags and identifiers

[edit]

Tags, including hierarchical categories and tags that are collaboratively added and maintained (e.g. with folksonomies) can be considered part of, of potential use to or a step towards the semantic Web vision.[15][16][17]

Unique identifiers, including hierarchical categories and collaboratively added ones, analysis tools and metadata, including tags, can be used to create forms of semantic webs – webs that are to a certain degree semantic.[18] In particular, such has been used for structuring scientific research i.a. by research topics and scientific fields by the projects OpenAlex,[19][20][21] Wikidata and Scholia which are under development and provide APIs, Web-pages, feeds and graphs for various semantic queries.

Web 3.0

[edit]

Tim Berners-Lee has described the Semantic Web as a component of Web 3.0.[22]

People keep asking what Web 3.0 is. I think maybe when you've got an overlay of scalable vector graphics – everything rippling and folding and looking misty – on Web 2.0 and access to a semantic Web integrated across a huge space of data, you'll have access to an unbelievable data resource …

— Tim Berners-Lee, 2006

"Semantic Web" is sometimes used as a synonym for "Web 3.0",[23] though the definition of each term varies.

Beyond Web 3.0

[edit]

The next generation of the Web is often termed Web 4.0, but its definition is not clear. According to some sources, it is a Web that involves artificial intelligence,[24] the internet of things, pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing and the Web of Things among other concepts.[25] According to the European Union, Web 4.0 is "the expected fourth generation of the World Wide Web. Using advanced artificial and ambient intelligence, the internet of things, trusted blockchain transactions, virtual worlds and XR capabilities, digital and real objects and environments are fully integrated and communicate with each other, enabling truly intuitive, immersive experiences, seamlessly blending the physical and digital worlds".[26]

Challenges

[edit]

Some of the challenges for the Semantic Web include vastness, vagueness, uncertainty, inconsistency, and deceit. Automated reasoning systems will have to deal with all of these issues in order to deliver on the promise of the Semantic Web.

  • Vastness: The World Wide Web contains many billions of pages. The SNOMED CT medical terminology ontology alone contains 370,000 class names, and existing technology has not yet been able to eliminate all semantically duplicated terms. Any automated reasoning system will have to deal with truly huge inputs.
  • Vagueness: These are imprecise concepts like "young" or "tall". This arises from the vagueness of user queries, of concepts represented by content providers, of matching query terms to provider terms and of trying to combine different knowledge bases with overlapping but subtly different concepts. Fuzzy logic is the most common technique for dealing with vagueness.
  • Uncertainty: These are precise concepts with uncertain values. For example, a patient might present a set of symptoms that correspond to a number of different distinct diagnoses each with a different probability. Probabilistic reasoning techniques are generally employed to address uncertainty.
  • Inconsistency: These are logical contradictions that will inevitably arise during the development of large ontologies, and when ontologies from separate sources are combined. Deductive reasoning fails catastrophically when faced with inconsistency, because "anything follows from a contradiction". Defeasible reasoning and paraconsistent reasoning are two techniques that can be employed to deal with inconsistency.
  • Deceit: This is when the producer of the information is intentionally misleading the consumer of the information. Cryptography techniques are currently utilized to alleviate this threat. By providing a means to determine the information's integrity, including that which relates to the identity of the entity that produced or published the information, however credibility issues still have to be addressed in cases of potential deceit.

This list of challenges is illustrative rather than exhaustive, and it focuses on the challenges to the "unifying logic" and "proof" layers of the Semantic Web. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Incubator Group for Uncertainty Reasoning for the World Wide Web[27] (URW3-XG) final report lumps these problems together under the single heading of "uncertainty".[28] Many of the techniques mentioned here will require extensions to the Web Ontology Language (OWL) for example to annotate conditional probabilities. This is an area of active research.[29]

Standards

[edit]

Standardization for Semantic Web in the context of Web 3.0 is under the care of W3C.[30]

Components

[edit]

The term "Semantic Web" is often used more specifically to refer to the formats and technologies that enable it.[5] The collection, structuring and recovery of linked data are enabled by technologies that provide a formal description of concepts, terms, and relationships within a given knowledge domain. These technologies are specified as W3C standards and include:

The Semantic Web Stack illustrates the architecture of the Semantic Web. The functions and relationships of the components can be summarized as follows:[31]

  • XML provides an elemental syntax for content structure within documents, yet associates no semantics with the meaning of the content contained within. XML is not at present a necessary component of Semantic Web technologies in most cases, as alternative syntaxes exist, such as Turtle. Turtle is a de facto standard, but has not been through a formal standardization process.
  • XML Schema is a language for providing and restricting the structure and content of elements contained within XML documents.
  • RDF is a simple language for expressing data models, which refer to objects ("web resources") and their relationships. An RDF-based model can be represented in a variety of syntaxes, e.g., RDF/XML, N3, Turtle, and RDFa. RDF is a fundamental standard of the Semantic Web.[32][33]
  • RDF Schema extends RDF and is a vocabulary for describing properties and classes of RDF-based resources, with semantics for generalized-hierarchies of such properties and classes.
  • OWL adds more vocabulary for describing properties and classes: among others, relations between classes (e.g. disjointness), cardinality (e.g. "exactly one"), equality, richer typing of properties, characteristics of properties (e.g. symmetry), and enumerated classes.
  • SPARQL is a protocol and query language for semantic web data sources.
  • RIF is the W3C Rule Interchange Format. It is an XML language for expressing Web rules that computers can execute. RIF provides multiple versions, called dialects. It includes a RIF Basic Logic Dialect (RIF-BLD) and RIF Production Rules Dialect (RIF PRD).

Current state of standardization

[edit]

Well-established standards:

Not yet fully realized:

Applications

[edit]

The intent is to enhance the usability and usefulness of the Web and its interconnected resources by creating semantic web services, such as:

  • Servers that expose existing data systems using the RDF and SPARQL standards. Many converters to RDF exist from different applications.[34] Relational databases are an important source. The semantic web server attaches to the existing system without affecting its operation.
  • Documents "marked up" with semantic information (an extension of the HTML <meta> tags used in today's Web pages to supply information for Web search engines using web crawlers). This could be machine-understandable information about the human-understandable content of the document (such as the creator, title, description, etc.) or it could be purely metadata representing a set of facts (such as resources and services elsewhere on the site). Note that anything that can be identified with a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) can be described, so the semantic web can reason about animals, people, places, ideas, etc. There are four semantic annotation formats that can be used in HTML documents; Microformat, RDFa, Microdata and JSON-LD.[35] Semantic markup is often generated automatically, rather than manually.
Arguments as distinct semantic units with specified relations and version control on Kialo
  • Common metadata vocabularies (ontologies) and maps between vocabularies that allow document creators to know how to mark up their documents so that agents can use the information in the supplied metadata (so that Author in the sense of 'the Author of the page' will not be confused with Author in the sense of a book that is the subject of a book review).
  • Automated agents to perform tasks for users of the semantic web using this data.
  • Semantic translation. An alternative or complementary approach are improvements to contextual and semantic understanding of texts – these could be aided via Semantic Web methods so that only increasingly small numbers of mistranslations need to be corrected in manual or semi-automated post-editing.
  • Web-based services (often with agents of their own) to supply information specifically to agents, for example, a Trust service that an agent could ask if some online store has a history of poor service or spamming.
  • Semantic Web ideas are implemented in collaborative structured argument mapping sites where their relations are organized semantically, arguments can be mirrored (linked) to multiple places, reused (copied), rated, and changed as semantic distinct units. Ideas for such, or a more widely adopted "World Wide Argument Web", go back to at least 2007[36] and have been implemented to some degree in Argüman[37] and Kialo. Further steps towards semantic web services may include enabling "Querying", argument search engines,[38] and "summarizing the contentious and agreed-upon points of a discussion".[39]

Such services could be useful to public search engines, or could be used for knowledge management within an organization. Business applications include:

  • Facilitating the integration of information from mixed sources[40]
  • Dissolving ambiguities in corporate terminology
  • Improving information retrieval thereby reducing information overload and increasing the refinement and precision of the data retrieved[41][42][43][44]
  • Identifying relevant information with respect to a given domain[45]
  • Providing decision making support

In a corporation, there is a closed group of users and the management is able to enforce company guidelines like the adoption of specific ontologies and use of semantic annotation. Compared to the public Semantic Web there are lesser requirements on scalability and the information circulating within a company can be more trusted in general; privacy is less of an issue outside of handling of customer data.

Skeptical reactions

[edit]

Practical feasibility

[edit]

Critics question the basic feasibility of a complete or even partial fulfillment of the Semantic Web, pointing out both difficulties in setting it up and a lack of general-purpose usefulness that prevents the required effort from being invested. In a 2003 paper, Marshall and Shipman point out the cognitive overhead inherent in formalizing knowledge, compared to the authoring of traditional web hypertext:[46]

While learning the basics of HTML is relatively straightforward, learning a knowledge representation language or tool requires the author to learn about the representation's methods of abstraction and their effect on reasoning. For example, understanding the class-instance relationship, or the superclass-subclass relationship, is more than understanding that one concept is a "type of" another concept. [...] These abstractions are taught to computer scientists generally and knowledge engineers specifically but do not match the similar natural language meaning of being a "type of" something. Effective use of such a formal representation requires the author to become a skilled knowledge engineer in addition to any other skills required by the domain. [...] Once one has learned a formal representation language, it is still often much more effort to express ideas in that representation than in a less formal representation [...]. Indeed, this is a form of programming based on the declaration of semantic data and requires an understanding of how reasoning algorithms will interpret the authored structures.

According to Marshall and Shipman, the tacit and changing nature of much knowledge adds to the knowledge engineering problem, and limits the Semantic Web's applicability to specific domains. A further issue that they point out are domain- or organization-specific ways to express knowledge, which must be solved through community agreement rather than only technical means.[46] As it turns out, specialized communities and organizations for intra-company projects have tended to adopt semantic web technologies greater than peripheral and less-specialized communities.[47] The practical constraints toward adoption have appeared less challenging where domain and scope is more limited than that of the general public and the World-Wide Web.[47]

Finally, Marshall and Shipman see pragmatic problems in the idea of (Knowledge Navigator-style) intelligent agents working in the largely manually curated Semantic Web:[46]

In situations in which user needs are known and distributed information resources are well described, this approach can be highly effective; in situations that are not foreseen and that bring together an unanticipated array of information resources, the Google approach is more robust. Furthermore, the Semantic Web relies on inference chains that are more brittle; a missing element of the chain results in a failure to perform the desired action, while the human can supply missing pieces in a more Google-like approach. [...] cost-benefit tradeoffs can work in favor of specially-created Semantic Web metadata directed at weaving together sensible well-structured domain-specific information resources; close attention to user/customer needs will drive these federations if they are to be successful.

Cory Doctorow's critique ("metacrap")[48] is from the perspective of human behavior and personal preferences. For example, people may include spurious metadata into Web pages in an attempt to mislead Semantic Web engines that naively assume the metadata's veracity. This phenomenon was well known with metatags that fooled the Altavista ranking algorithm into elevating the ranking of certain Web pages: the Google indexing engine specifically looks for such attempts at manipulation. Peter Gärdenfors and Timo Honkela point out that logic-based semantic web technologies cover only a fraction of the relevant phenomena related to semantics.[49][50]

Censorship and privacy

[edit]

Enthusiasm about the semantic web could be tempered by concerns regarding censorship and privacy. For instance, text-analyzing techniques can now be easily bypassed by using other words, metaphors for instance, or by using images in place of words. An advanced implementation of the semantic web would make it much easier for governments to control the viewing and creation of online information, as this information would be much easier for an automated content-blocking machine to understand. In addition, the issue has also been raised that, with the use of FOAF files and geolocation meta-data, there would be very little anonymity associated with the authorship of articles on things such as a personal blog. Some of these concerns were addressed in the "Policy Aware Web" project[51] and is an active research and development topic.

Doubling output formats

[edit]

Another criticism of the semantic web is that it would be much more time-consuming to create and publish content because there would need to be two formats for one piece of data: one for human viewing and one for machines. However, many web applications in development are addressing this issue by creating a machine-readable format upon the publishing of data or the request of a machine for such data. The development of microformats has been one reaction to this kind of criticism. Another argument in defense of the feasibility of semantic web is the likely falling price of human intelligence tasks in digital labor markets, such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk.[citation needed]

Specifications such as eRDF and RDFa allow arbitrary RDF data to be embedded in HTML pages. The GRDDL (Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Language) mechanism allows existing material (including microformats) to be automatically interpreted as RDF, so publishers only need to use a single format, such as HTML.

Research activities on corporate applications

[edit]

The first research group explicitly focusing on the Corporate Semantic Web was the ACACIA team at INRIA-Sophia-Antipolis, founded in 2002. Results of their work include the RDF(S) based Corese[52] search engine, and the application of semantic web technology in the realm of distributed artificial intelligence for knowledge management (e.g. ontologies and multi-agent systems for corporate semantic Web) [53] and E-learning.[54]

Since 2008, the Corporate Semantic Web research group, located at the Free University of Berlin, focuses on building blocks: Corporate Semantic Search, Corporate Semantic Collaboration, and Corporate Ontology Engineering.[55]

Ontology engineering research includes the question of how to involve non-expert users in creating ontologies and semantically annotated content[56] and for extracting explicit knowledge from the interaction of users within enterprises.

Future of applications

[edit]

Tim O'Reilly, who coined the term Web 2.0, proposed a long-term vision of the Semantic Web as a web of data, where sophisticated applications are navigating and manipulating it.[57] The data web transforms the World Wide Web from a distributed file system into a distributed database.[58]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Semantic Web at W3C: https://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/
  2. ^ "World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), "RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)", 25 Feb. 2014".
  3. ^ "World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), "OWL Web Ontology Language Overview", W3C Recommendation, 10 Feb. 2004".
  4. ^ Chung, Seung-Hwa (2018). "The MOUSE approach: Mapping Ontologies using UML for System Engineers". Computer Reviews Journal: 8–29. ISSN 2581-6640.
  5. ^ a b "W3C Semantic Web Activity". World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). November 7, 2011. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  6. ^ "Q&A with Tim Berners-Lee, Special Report". Bloomberg. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  7. ^ a b Berners-Lee, Tim; James Hendler; Ora Lassila (May 17, 2001). "The Semantic Web". Scientific American. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  8. ^ Lee Feigenbaum (May 1, 2007). "The Semantic Web in Action". Scientific American. Retrieved February 24, 2010.
  9. ^ Berners-Lee, Tim; Fischetti, Mark (1999). Weaving the Web. HarperSanFrancisco. chapter 12. ISBN 978-0-06-251587-2.
  10. ^ Berners-Lee, Tim; Hendler, James; Lassila, Ora (May 17, 2001). "The Semantic Web" (PDF). Scientific American. Vol. 284, no. 5. pp. 34–43. JSTOR 26059207. S2CID 56818714. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 10, 2017. Retrieved March 13, 2008.
  11. ^ Nigel Shadbolt; Wendy Hall; Tim Berners-Lee (2006). "The Semantic Web Revisited" (PDF). IEEE Intelligent Systems. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 20, 2013. Retrieved April 13, 2007.
  12. ^ Ramanathan V. Guha (2013). "Light at the End of the Tunnel". International Semantic Web Conference 2013 Keynote. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  13. ^ Allsopp, John (March 2007). Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0. Friends of ED. p. 368. ISBN 978-1-59059-814-6.
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Further reading

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