Static versus Dynamic URLs:

VII.Static versus Dynamic URLs:

Based on the previous section, you might have gotten the impression that the algorithms of search engines try to humiliate every designer effort to make a site gorgeous. Well, it has been explained why search engines do not like image, movies, applets and other extras. Now, you might think that search engines are far too cheeky to dislike dynamic URLs either. Honestly, users are also not in love with URLs like http://domain.com/product.php?cid=1&pid=5 because such URLs do not tell much about the content of the Page.

There are a couple of good reasons why static URLs score better than dynamic URLs. First, dynamic URLs are not always there – i.e. the page is generated on request after the user performs some kind of action (fills a form and submits it or performs a search using the site's search engine). In a sense, such pages are nonexistent for search engines, because they index the web by crawling it, not by filling in forms. Second, even if a dynamic page has already been generated by a previous user request and is stored on the server, search engines might just skip it if it has too many question marks and other special symbols in it. Once upon a time search engines did not index dynamic pages at all, while today they do index them but generally slower than they index static pages.

The idea is not to revert to static HTML only. Database-driven sites are great but it will be much better if you serve your pages to the search engines and users in a format they can easily handle. One of the solutions of the dynamic URLs problem is called URL rewriting. There are special tools (different for different platforms and servers) that rewrite URLs in a friendlier format, so they appear in the browser like normal HTML pages. Try the URL rewriting tool below, it will convert the cryptic text from the previous example into something more readable, like

http://mydomain.com/product-categoryid-1-productid-5

URL Rewriting Tool

Open the below link and enter the dynamic URL:

http://www.webconfs.com/url-rewriting-tool.php

JavaScript:

4. JavaScript:

This is another hot potato. It is known by everybody that pure HTML is powerless to make complex sites with a lot of functionality (anyway, HTML was not intended to be a programming languages for building web applications, so nobody expects that you can use HTML to handle writing to a database or even for storing session information) as required by today's web users and that is why other programming languages (like javascript, or PHP) come to enhance HTML. For now search engines just ignore javascript they encounter on a page.

As a result of this, first if you have links that are inside the java script code, chances are that they will not be spidered. Second, if javascript is in the HTML file itself (rather than in an external .js file that is invoked when necessary) this clutters the HTML file itself and spiders might just skip it and move to the next site. Just for your information, there is a <noscript> tag that allows providing alternative to running the script in the browser but because most of its applications are pretty complicated, it is hardly suitable to explain it here.

Frames

3. Frames:

It is good news that frames are slowly but surely disappearing from the web. 5 or 10 years ago they were an absolute hit with designers but never with search engines. Search engines have difficulties indexing framed pages because the URL of the page is the same, no matter which of the separate frames are open. For search engines this was a shock because actually there were 3 or 4 Pages and only one URL, while for search engines 1 URL is 1 page. Of course, search engines can follow the links to the pages in the frameset and index them but this is a hurdle for them.

If you still insist on using frames, make sure that you provide a meaningful description of the site in the <noframes> tag. The following example is not for beginners but even if you do not understand everything in it, just remember that the <noframes> tag is the place to provide an alternative version (or at least a short description) of your site for search engines and users whose browsers do not support frames. If you decide to use the <noframes> tag, maybe you'd like to read more about it before you start using it.

Ex: <noframes> <p> This site is best viewed in a browser that supports frames. </p><p> Welcome to our site for prospective Dog Adopters! Adopting a homeless Dog is a most noble deed that will help save the life of the poor creature. </p></noframes>

Animation and Movies

2. Animation and Movies:

The situation with animation and movies is similar to that with images – they are valuable from a designer's point of view but are not loved by search engines. For instance, it is still pretty common to have an impressive flash introduction on the home page. You just cannot imagine what a disadvantage with search engines.

One work around is to provide search engines with a HTML version of the flash movie but in this case make sure that you have excluded the original flash movie from indexing (this is done in the robots.txt file but the explanation of this file is not a beginners topic and that is why it is excluded from this tutorial), otherwise you can be penalized for duplicate content.

There are rumors that google is building a new search technology that will allow to search inside animation and movies and that the .swf format will contain new meta data that can be used by search engines, but until then, you'd better either refrain from using (too much) flash, or at least provide a textual description of the movie (you can use an <alt> tag to describe the movie).

Images

1. Images:

Images are an essential part of any web page and from a designer point of view they are not an extra but a most mandatory item for every site. However, here designers and search engines are on two poles because for search engines every piece of information that is buried in an image is lost. When working with designers, sometimes it takes a while to explain to them that having textual links (with proper anchor text) instead of shining images are not a whim and that clear text navigation is really mandatory. Yes, it can be hard to find the right balance between artistic performance and SEO-friendliness but since even the finest site is lost in cyberspace if it cannot be found by search engines, a compromise to its visual appearance cannot be avoided.

And the most important is, the <alt> attribute of the <img> tag, always provide a meaningful textual description of the image. The HTML specification does not require this but search engines do. Also, it does not hurt to give meaningful names to the image files themselves rather than name them image1.jpg, image2.jpg, imageN.jpg. For instance, in the next example the image file has an informative name and the alt provides enough additional information:

EX: <img src=“one_month_Jim.jpg” alt=“A picture of Jim when he was a one-month puppy”>.

Well, don't go to extremes like writing 20-word <alt> tags for 1 pixel images because this also looks suspicious and starts to smell like keyword-stuffing.

Visual Extras and SEO

VI. Visual Extras and SEO:

As already mentioned, search engines are not humans to index the pages directly from visual extras like images, sounds, flash movies and javascript. Instead, they rely on you to provide meaningful textual description and based on it they can index these files. In a sense, the situation is similar to that with text 10 or so years ago – you provide a description in the Meta tag then search engines uses this description to index and process your page. If technology advances further, one day it might be possible for search engines to index images, movies, etc. but for the time being this is just a dream.

Duplicate Content

3.Duplicate Content:

When you get new content, there is one important issue – is this content original? Because if it is not, i.e. it is stolen from another site, this will get you into trouble. But even if it is not illegal, i.e. you obtained it for free from an article feed; have in mind that you might not be only one on the web, who has this particular stuff. If you have the rights to do it, you can change the text a little, so it is not an exact copy of another page and cannot be labeled “duplicate content” by search engines. If you don't manage to escape the duplicate content filter that search engines have imposed recently in their attempts to filter stolen, scrapped, or simply copied contents, your pages could be removed from search results!

Duplicate content became an issue when tricky webmasters started making multiple copies of the same page (under a different name) in order to fool search engines that they have more content than they actually do. As a result of this malpractice, search engines responded with a duplicate content filter that removes suspicious pages. Unfortunately, this filter sometimes removes quite legitimate pages, like product descriptions given from a manufacturer to all its resellers, which must be kept exactly the same.

 You see, duplicate content can be a serious problem. But it is not an obstacle that cannot be overcome. First, you need to periodically check the web for pages that are similar to yours. You can use http://www.copyscape.com. If you identify pages that are similar to yours (and it is not you who have illegitimately copied them), you could notify the Webmaster of the respective site(s) to remove them. Also, you could change a little text on your site, hoping that this way you will avoid the duplicate content penalty. Even with product descriptions, you can add commentary or opinion on the same page and this could be a way out.

Try the Similar Page Checker to check the similarity between two URLs.

Similar Page Checker

Open the below link and enter the two URL’s:

http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php