| I recently had a question from someone who was | | | | is not generally a problem if it's a few sentences here |
| looking for some possible SEO consulting with me. He | | | | and there. (See my recent article at Danny's Search |
| was in the process of a redesign and wanted to be | | | | Engine Land site on the Myth of Duplicate Content.) |
| sure not to make any mistakes along the way, which | | | | * All picture links should have text links under the |
| is super-smart! The time to be looking at SEO is | | | | pictures. |
| definitely in the beginning stage of any design or | | | | No reason for that at all. Image links that make use |
| redesign project. | | | | of the image alt attribute (aka "alt tags") have |
| The interesting part of the email was this person's | | | | always been followed easily by the search engines |
| misconceptions about what he thought were | | | | and will always continue to be followed. They're |
| important factors for the search engines. I'd like to | | | | followed even without the alt attribute, but the |
| share those points with you, with my comments | | | | words you place in there tell the search engines and |
| following each one: | | | | the site users exactly what they'll be getting when |
| * Little or no Flash. | | | | they follow the link. It's essentially the same thing as |
| This is a huge misconception to many who are trying | | | | the anchor text of a text link. |
| to design search-engine-friendly websites. There's | | | | * DO NOT use drop-down or fly-out menus using |
| nothing inherently wrong with using Flash and no | | | | JavaScript. |
| reason to avoid it altogether. What you do need to | | | | This is fairly good advice; however, there are very |
| avoid is an all-Flash site, as well as Flash navigation. | | | | easy workarounds if you have to use JavaScript |
| But that's it. And even if you have those things, | | | | menus for some reason. The "noscript" tag is a |
| there are workarounds. | | | | perfectly legitimate place to recreate your menu for |
| * All scripts should be called from external files. | | | | those who (like the search engines) can't do |
| This is a great idea to keep file size down and make | | | | JavaScript. I've been using this technique since 2000 |
| it easy to update your pages, but it's got nothing to | | | | or so when my website was designed with |
| do with search engines or how your pages are | | | | JavaScript menus, and it's definitely not a problem. I |
| ranked within them. Search engines have long known | | | | just haven't gotten around to redesigning my site |
| how to ignore code that is of no use to them. | | | | with a more crawler-friendly navigation. Certainly |
| Whether your scripts are right there in the source | | | | these days, a CSS menu would be a better option. |
| code of the page or called up externally will have no | | | | * Must use basic HTML link navigation (textual |
| bearing on your rankings or search engine relevance. | | | | navigation, no JavaScript mouse-over, and no image |
| * The site should be designed using CSS as | | | | map graphical navigation). |
| extensively as possible. | | | | Yes and no. JavaScript links are definitely a no-no. But |
| Another myth. CSS doesn't have any special | | | | there are plenty of crawler-friendly image maps, and |
| properties that search engines like better than tables | | | | like I mentioned previously, graphical links are A-OK |
| or any other HTML code. Again, it may make it easier | | | | with search engines. |
| for you to update your pages, or to use your | | | | * All pages must be VALIDATED by an HTML |
| content for other things, but it's not an SEO | | | | validator and all style sheets need to be VALIDATED |
| technique that will increase rankings or relevance. | | | | through a CSS validator. |
| * The CSS should be called from external files. | | | | Why? This has nothing to do with search engines. It's |
| Same as calling up scripts in external files -- nice to | | | | nice to do, though. |
| do, but not a search engine issue in the least. | | | | * The majority of the site will be static, as static |
| * There should be no comments in the code. It | | | | pages are easier for search engines to crawl and |
| should be added to an FAQ or Doc-type file. | | | | rank properly. |
| Why not? I'm not sure where this myth came from, | | | | Dynamic pages are just as easy to crawl and rank as |
| but I suppose if you're thinking that file size is going | | | | static pages. Most websites today are dynamic |
| to affect your search engine rankings, you might also | | | | because they're simply easier to maintain. The search |
| believe this one. It may have also come about | | | | engines have figured out how to crawl and rank |
| because some people used to think that adding | | | | them just fine for many, many years now. It's true |
| keyword phrases to comment tags would help | | | | that there are specific things you need to watch out |
| search engine rankings, even though it didn't. | | | | for when creating a dynamic site, but most |
| Comment tags have long been ignored by the | | | | developers are aware of the worst of the issues. |
| engines, and because of this, you can use them as | | | | You certainly should consult with an SEO if you're |
| much or as little in your source code as you would | | | | changing content management systems, or if you're |
| like. I always comment out bits of text and code | | | | having problems getting your dynamic URLs spidered |
| that I no longer wish to use but that I may want to | | | | and indexed. But there's no reason to have only |
| add back in later. It's absolutely, positively not a | | | | static pages on your site because you're worried |
| problem! | | | | about the search engines being able to index dynamic |
| * A large percentage of the code on each page | | | | pages. |
| needs to change from page to page so that the | | | | * The site needs to be browser-compatible and |
| search engines don't see the pages as duplicate | | | | screen-resolution-compatible. |
| content. | | | | This is another thing that's nice to do for your site |
| Nope. You certainly do NOT have to change the | | | | visitors, but it has no bearing on search engine |
| code in your pages to avoid duplicate-content issues! | | | | rankings or relevance. |
| Website templates have code that is exactly the | | | | Phew! I hope this helped clear up a lot of |
| same from page to page. This is good and normal | | | | misconceptions that anyone else may have had. |
| and certainly fine with the search engines. One would | | | | Please don't get me wrong -- I do agree that most |
| have to think that the search engineers were really | | | | of the things listed here are great design tips that |
| dumb if they were going to penalize pages because | | | | can help you to create an awesome, user-friendly |
| they used the same design template from page to | | | | website. I just want to make it very clear that they |
| page! Sure, you don't want the same exact | | | | have nothing to do with SEO, rankings, spidering, |
| *content* on every page of your site, but even that | | | | indexing, etc. |