SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible

(Barré) #1
That link back to your home page will probably look something like this:

<a href=”index.html” TARGET = “_top”>Return to Home Page</a>

Frames are difficult to get around when you’re putting SEO strategies into place, but doing so is
not entirely impossible. It’s a good idea to avoid frames, but they won’t keep you completely out of
search engine rankings. You just have to use a different approach to reaching the rankings that you
desire.

Cranky cookies
Cookiesare one of those irritating facts of life on the Internet. Users want web sites tailored to them,
and cookies are one way companies have found to do that. When users enter the site and customize
some feature of it, a small piece of code — the cookie — is placed on the user’s hard drive. Then,
when the user returns to the site in the future, that cookie can be accessed, and the user’s preferences
executed.

When cookies work properly, they’re an excellent tool for web designers. When they don’t work
as they should, the problems begin. So what constitutes a problem? The main issue with cookies
is that some browsers allow users to set how cookies will be delivered to them. And some source
codeprompts the user to be asked before a cookie is accepted. When this happens, the search
engine crawler is effectively stopped in its tracks, and it doesn’t pick back up where it stopped
once the cookies are delivered. Also, any navigation that requires cookies will cause the crawler
to be unable to index the pages.

How do you overcome this issue? The only answer is to code cookies to ensure that the source code
is not designed to query the user before the cookie is delivered.

Programming Languages and SEO


One aspect of web-site design you might not think of when planning your SEO strategy is the pro-
gramming language used in developing the site. Programming languages all behave a little differ-
ently. For example, HTML uses one set of protocols to accomplish the visuals you see when you
open a web page, whereas PHPuses a completely different set of protocols. And when most people
think of web-site programming, they think in terms of HTML.

But the truth is that many other languages also are used for coding web pages. And those languages
may require differing SEO strategies.

JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language that allows web designers to create dynamic content. However,
it’s also not necessarily SEO-friendly. In fact, JavaScript often completely halts a crawler from indexing
a web site, and when that happens the result is lower search engine rankings or complete exclusion
from ranking.

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Part II SEO Strategies


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