Search Engine Optimization - Part 9
Article ID: KB101560
You are interested in building cost effective, great looking and
compellingly functional Web sites. As a Web Developer you spend
countless hours refining the look and feel of your pages to build
your "brand", sell your product and convey information to your
target audience in the most pleasing and intuitive way possible.
Dynamic content like Macromedia's Flash and Swish deliver
beautifully complex and interactive animation and navigation while
conserving bandwidth. Dynamic Web pages served "as requested" with
design and content being stored in a database and server side
systems like .PHP, .ASP and .CFM are the cornerstone of e-commerce
and "new media". As helpful as these technologies are to the users
of your sites, they cause no end of problems when it comes to search
engine placement and optimization.
Search engines don't like to index your Flash movie or index your
.ASP catalog or read your JavaScript. Even something as simple as
sites built using frames can cause your page ranking to be much
lower than it should. So, as a Web Developer what are you to do?
Give up on all of these legitimate site enhancements and go back to
static HTML. No, you are, as usual, going to do the research and
development work necessary to accomplish a complex balance between
looks, functionality and search engine readiness.
To Frame or Not to Frame?
For a start, if you are using frame sets you need to research the
<no frames> tag. When a search engine crawls your site it will
read the content in the no frames page and your site visitors will
see your site as they normally do. Your no frames page can be
specifically developed for good search engine ranking, with high
keyword density and indexable links. Please remember that your no
frames content must be relevant to the content on your site, lest
you be removed from the search engine on a manual review.
Remote Java Script
Search engines don't read JavaScript. Extensive use of JavaScript
on a page will dilute your keyword density and negatively effect
your search engine ranking. The best workaround is to place your
JavaScript in a remote .js file.
Click here for some ideas.
Generated Pages
In general, if a URL is using the ?, % or other similar
"extended" characters, search engines will not automatically crawl
your Web site with out you paying for submitting specific pages for
indexing. The submission requirement is to protect the crawler from
becoming trapped in an endless series of loops inside of a site and
the paid part is because the search engine people are trying to
figure out how to make money and remain in business. Good news,
Google is the exception and freely crawls dynamic pages. Bad news,
Google will only go one level deep into a dynamic web site. If the
content you need to have indexed is below that you a have a problem.
One simple solution is to build "pointer" pages in static HTML
using all of the keyword density techniques just like your home
page. These pages would have links that point to the pages you want
to have show up in a search. Do not use the <meta> refresh tag
because this will cause the crawler to try and index the page that
you are sending the user to and if that is a dynamic page it will
not be indexed.
FLASH Content Revealed
As I am sure you know, the content in your Flash or Swish movies
is not read by search engine crawlers. There is a way around this
using
Z Order and
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The Z Order allows you to place
content partially, or even fully, on top of other content. Since
only the content on top is viewable, it's entirely possible to place
an un-indexable FLASH movie on top of an easy to index layer
containing all of your relevant text content. By using Z Order in
your CSS your Web site visitor will see only the FLASH movie while
the search engines will see only your relevant keyword text. (Z
Order may not work on some browsers, so be sure to test
extensively.)
There are a number of more sophisticated techniques that are
beyond the scope of this article, including some complex but very
relevant ways to create dynamic pages with out using extended
characters in the URL as well as creating ASP "shortcut" pages. You
can find extensive information and tutorials at Planet Ocean
Communications
If you are serious about marketing your site on the Internet you
need to get a subscription to
Planet Ocean Communications Search Engine Newsletter. When you
subscribe, not only do you get the latest monthly changes and
recommendations for achieving "top ten" search engine placement but
you also receive access to download
The Unfair Advantage Book on Winning the Search Engine Wars.
This guide, updated monthly, is an excellent e-book that takes you
step by step through the process of achieving high search engine
ranking at all of the major search engine sites.
I'll be back next month with an article on some third party tools
that can make your quest for excellent search engine ranking easier
and more successful.
Next: Having all the Right Tools Makes All the Difference
Contributors
Greg Snow:
Greg is the CEO of Advantrics LLC, which is the parent company
for PixelMill and
Vivid Office. Greg has an
incredible background in FrontPage Development and Research, and
keeps up to date with the latest Search Engine News. He is the
author of the Search Engine article series from the PixelMill
newsletter.
Greg Snow, PixelMill Newsletter, Volume 2 - Issue 10 : 10/01/2002
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