  
|
||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
||||
|
|
| |||||||||||
|
|
Potential Design/Set Up Problems Frames Design
If you are not sure what frames design is, let me refer you to a web site that uses frames. Go to http://www.EastEndRealtor.com . This is a frames web site. It's home page is made up of three pages. The top of the page is a frame containing a page. The left navigation buttons are in a frame on the left side that contains another page. The bottom right 2/3 rds of the page are the main frame of the web site. In most cases, the top and left side never change, only the main frame window changes when you click on the navigation buttons. Most search engines do not read or recognize frames design. The actual home page merely contains the frame data. That is what the search engines read. the frames data page has no readable content and no links! Google is the worst search engine when it comes to a frames design.
The web site we referenced above is one of the few successful web that are comprised of frames. The reason that it is successful is that the designer included content and links in the frames page itself. You can not see it! All you see is the three frames. But notice each of the pages in the main frame contains links to the rest of the site as well. So if the search engine follows the links in the page containing the three frames (home page), it will find the rest of the web site. To see the actual frames page go to web site. Then go to the menu at the top of your browser and click on "view", submenu item "source". This shows the actual programming you never see because you see the three frames instead. But the typical frames page does not have this information. MSN Search and Yahoo rank this web site well. Google ranks it well also, but what Google ranks is the individual main frame pages, not the whole web site. To see a typical frames page click on this link to http://www.lirealty.com. Now do a view/source on this page. It usually only contains the frames data. If that is the case, you will never show up in Google or any other search engine. Click here to see how to optimize a frames site. Sites That Use Dynamic URLs
Most search engines cannot or will not list any dynamic URLs. Dynamic URLs are most commonly used on database driven sites, or sites that are running scripts. They commonly look something like this one from MSN Search: http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=dynamic+url If your URL contains any of the following elements it is considered a Dynamic URL as far as the search engines are concerned: ?, &, %, +, =, $, cgi-bin, .cgi If your URL contains any of the above elements it is very unlikely that it will get listed at any of the major search engines. We recommend that you submitting a different URL that is not dynamic if possible. If all of your URLs are dynamic you should probably consider making static pages (i.e. not dynamic) with URLs that do not contain any of the elements noted above so that you can get listed in the search engines. Flash by Macromedia
Do you have an opening page that is totally flash (Macromedia Flash) animation? If you do, you better be a branded name like Sears, Ford, or General Electric. Because a search engine will never list you!
Flash is exactly that, flash, not substance or content. For many years search engines could not read flash content. Today a few search engines can read flash if the designer uses certain techniques (which are difficult to render) in Macromedia Flash version 7. Since this revelation is only a very recent accomplishment, it is unlikely your web designer is up on the techniques and at version 7 in his design studio.
Flash is often used on home pages as a "splash" page. The problem with these splash pages is that many times they are made entirely from Flash, which the search engines can't index. That means your splash page will not get listed. Your best bet search engine wise is to avoid submitting any page that is made mostly of Flash. If you must submit a page that is mostly Flash you can improve your chances of getting listed by to adding as much page copy to the page that you can. You should also make sure you have good meta tags and title tag.
Because of this, search engines can not read your page, therefore they will never list you! Now you have a really flashy page that is cool, modern, active, but has no traffic! So what good is it. Web Sites with flash "splash" pages as an opening generally shows the talent of your web designer, not the products and services of your company. Sites That Use Image Maps for Navigation
Due to the code that makes up an image map search engines often get trapped in them and can't spider your site. If you use image maps for your main site navigation you should consider switching to standard HTML hyperlinks or your site will most likely not get spidered. If you want to keep the image maps you can, but you should add another navigation scheme to your site that uses only standard HTML hyperlinks so that your site will get spidered. An easy way to do this is to create a site map page uses standard HTML links to link to every page on your site. Then add a standard HTML link on each page of your site that links to the site map. Flash Content and Flash Buttons
Let me first clarify that Flash content in itself is not bad if it is only used to spruce up or make a home page more animated and exciting. But if you use it to convey your marketing message at the expense of putting the message in readable text on your page, you just shot yourself in the foot. Remember, search engines can not read flash, so they don't relate your marketing text to their index and therefore that marketing is wasted unless you get someone to your page to read it. And your flash message surely will not do that. Many designers sacrifice the text space to put in flash messages and drop the text so as not to be redundant. Big Mistake!
Buttons, generally used for navigation should never ever be flash. The Macromedia Flash program as far back as version 3 had the ability to create Flash Buttons for web sites. Buttons, more specifically, those used for navigational links throughout your web site, should never be Flash. Remember the statement, search engines can't read flash! Therefore they can read your home page, but no navigation buttons to follow to index the rest of your site. That leads the search engine to mistakenly think this is a minimal one page web site with only the content it sees on the first page. That should get you ranked around page 400,000!
Hyperlinks made with Flash can't be spidered by the search engines. Normally, when you submit a page to a search engine you can expect the search engine to follow the links on the page you submitted and spider the rest of your site, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, unless you have (or add) standard HTML hyperlinks to the other pages of your site none of your other pages will be able to get spidered by the search engines, which is a bad thing. An easy way to fix this problem is to create a site map page uses standard HTML links to link to every page on your site. Then add a standard HTML link on each page of your site that links to the site map. Java Script Menus/Navigation BarsSearch engines skip over content that says it is Java Script.. Have you ever seen a really cool web site that uses those really neat java script drop down menus? You know, the kind where you put your mouse over something in the navigation bar and a slew of submenu items drops down or slides out from the side. Really neat and modern looking. Some web designers use them exclusively! Well guess what, since search engines don't read them, therefore do not follow the link to the page they point to, therefore they don't index the data on the page you linked to. An example of a web site whose menu is in a Java Script is http://www.PODCR.com. The actual menu was made by menu maker and is contained in the following programming statement:
<script src="xaramenu.js"> (.js indicates a Java Script Program that displays the menu)
Search engines don't read script! So this menu is dead to the search engines, as are all the page it points to. The saving grace for this site is the limited navigation pointers on the bottom of the page that allows search engines to access the site via that menu.
Search engines can't follow links that are within JavaScript, so your site will not get spidered unless you also have some form standard HTML hyperlinks that they can follow. You should add some form standard HTML hyperlinks to all of your pages on each of your pages so that your site will be spidered properly. An easy way to do this is to create a site map page uses standard HTML links to link to every page on your site. Then add a standard HTML link on each page of your site that links to the site map. Meta TagsMeta Tags are descriptor phrases in the unseen header portion of your web site. They tell the users browser, and more importantly, the search engines about your site. One of the most common mistakes seen in "web designers" web sites are a lack of meta tags. An example of this can be seen at the town of Brookhaven's web site. Click it open and do the view/source again any you will see:
<HTML> </HEAD>
This lacks even the barest essentials! It does have a "keywords" meta tag (with no content), but no description meta tag. A web site should have at least 14 meta tags. We will not go into what they are in this limited space, but if you web designer doesn't know, you need a new one or an SEO company to review and fix your site. Robots.txt FileThe robots.txt tells the search engine what to do with your site and what pages and portions you don't want scanned and indexed and put on the Internet for the world to see. An example would be a shopping cart. in directory /cart. It also tells it what to do with the portion you want to be on the search engine. Go to the main URL of any web site (http://www.myweb.com) an type in after it robots.txt (http://www.myweb.com/robots.txt) and see if you have a robots.txt file. If it is missing or can't be found, you will probably not do well in search engines.
|
|
