[thelist] Search Engines

Mike Hardaker mike at angloinfo.com
Thu Nov 22 09:52:04 CST 2001


> Hey Martin - just curious if this plan really works. You're the voice of
> experience, not theory, right? Most folks seem to insist that SE
> rankings are based on the infinite efforts of specialists. I've always
> thought it should be as simple as you describe, but don't have enough
> experience with commercial sites to know.

Martin speaks sooth.

The *very best* way to get a good SE ranking is to have the information on your
site that the users are searching for.

Of course, thet's pretty pointless if the spider can't read it. So:

* Don't just have "key words" in graphics or, worse, somthing like a Flash file
* Use HTML correctly.
* Frames *can* be bad news too... especially if you do "clever stuff" like
automatically redirecting a page that hasn't loaded into its frameset into the
frameset it "should" be. Not all spiders are frames-capable, so your page will
be indexed as "This page requires frames but your browser doesn't..." etc. *If*
the spider doesn't barf on the redirect in the first place.

...and all the other stuff you really *should* be doing anyway :-)

> Re: alt text on spacers - you're saying 'put in the alt text tag, but
> leave it empty' right?

That's right!

Usage: <img src="pretty_eye_candy.jpg" alt="" height="20" width="30">

Finally, I think it's worth pointing out that <META> tags seem less and less
relevant for search engine ranking (rightly, as they're so easy to spoof).
*However*, they can be handy for getting the user to click through from a search
engine results page. e.g. AltaVista uses the "description" tag for its own page
description, while some sites also list the "keywords" tag. So make sure these
things can communicate to *people* rather than spiders...

For the same reason, use a <title> that communicates something meaningful. You
may be really proud that your company is called "MangelWurzel", and want to use
that as the title for every page even though it doesn't tell anyone that what
you *do* is breed jackalopes. However, a search result that has a nice bold
hyperlink saying "Jackalope breeding by experts - MangelWurzel" is more likely
to inspire a click-through. And as a side issue, you'll probbaly enhance your
ranking on many engines because a "key search term" will be in the title!

So top your page with something like:

<head>
<title>Jackalope breeding by experts - MangelWurzel</title>
<meta name="description" content="Cross a jack-rabbit with an antelope and you
get a jackalope - we're the world leaders">
<meta name="keywords" content="jackalopes,jack
rabbits,antelopes,breeding,rearing... (etc)">
...
</head>


Mike

---------------------------
Mike Hardaker
Founder & Publisher - AngloINFO
http://www.angloinfo.com





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