SEO sorta...?
Moderator: General Moderators
-
alex.barylski
- DevNet Evangelist
- Posts: 6267
- Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: Winnipeg
SEO sorta...?
What "elements" of a web site do you consider most important for proper ranking in search engines...
Obviously the body of a web site and the title...
But what about META tags? are they really important still???
What do you think
Obviously the body of a web site and the title...
But what about META tags? are they really important still???
What do you think
- John Cartwright
- Site Admin
- Posts: 11470
- Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:10 am
- Location: Toronto
- Contact:
Meta tags have been seriously abused by various industries such as porn sites, where they would flood the meta tags with as much crap as possible. In turn, meta tags have not been weighted as much as they were in the past, but it doesn't hurt to have them there anyways. The most important thing by a long shot is having relevant content. CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT. If you have solid content, relevant to your website then you should automatically get a pretty decent rating.
- Buddha443556
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 873
- Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2004 1:51 pm
Re: SEO sorta...?
In order:Hockey wrote:What "elements" of a web site do you consider most important for proper ranking in search engines...
Valid HTML.
Content (HTML) styled using CSS.
Valid CSS.
A decent title.
Meta tags with very few exceptions (http-equiv, for content type and content language) are fairly worthless.
Most search engines give them extremely little weight.
-
alex.barylski
- DevNet Evangelist
- Posts: 6267
- Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: Winnipeg
-
alex.barylski
- DevNet Evangelist
- Posts: 6267
- Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: Winnipeg
Re: SEO sorta...?
I'd argue that...from a search engine standpoint anyways...Roja wrote:In order:Hockey wrote:What "elements" of a web site do you consider most important for proper ranking in search engines...
Valid HTML.
Content (HTML) styled using CSS.
Valid CSS.
A decent title.
Meta tags with very few exceptions (http-equiv, for content type and content language) are fairly worthless.
Most search engines give them extremely little weight.
I can't see google, MSN, Yahoo, etc...favouring any web site over another (even if equal) based on XHTML validity...???
If you know of an credible article or resource/whitepaper posted on say, Googles website...please...let me know!!! I'd be very interested in hearing this right from the horses mouth
I've often wondered this...by always sided with...probably not
Cheers
Re: SEO sorta...?
I didn't say XHTML validity. I said HTML validity.Hockey wrote:I can't see google, MSN, Yahoo, etc...favouring any web site over another (even if equal) based on XHTML validity...???
Here are some resources that agree with my position:Hockey wrote:If you know of an credible article or resource/whitepaper posted on say, Googles website...please...let me know!!! I'd be very interested in hearing this right from the horses mouth
http://evolt.org/w3c-compliance-and-seo
http://seodoneright.blogspot.com/2004_1 ... chive.html
From the horses mouth: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
I put Content above CSS, so I agree that it is more important, but most important? No.shiznatix wrote:the content, i would imagine, would be the most important thing always.
If a spider cannot read and parse the page - which with invalid code it might not be able to - then all the content in the world doesn't matter. It cannot rank what it cannot see!
Several reasons. First and foremost is size. Because a site styled using css is typically faster to load, its also faster to parse for the search engine - which means it gets more done. Bonus.shiznatix wrote:also, what would a search engine care about your website being styled in css? does css all of a sudden make your website better than one just using tables and everything? that does not make sence.
Second is "semantic meaning". Typically, the process of styling a page in CSS results in you changing the page to have more semantic meaning. Its easy to put a style on a h1 tag, so instead of a table heading, you use an h1, and suddenly, the page has more meaning. That matters because Google rates h1's and h2's higher in their algorithm. So, if you are trying to make a page about online games, you probably want a h1 with that in the tag. With tables, you don't get that.
Third is accessibility. Google specifically recommends using a text browser to test your site. Why? Because you see what the spider does. In html, you mix style, layout, and content, and its hard to see what the spider does. With css, you seperate style from content, and get a much better view of what the spider sees. As a wonderful side-benefit, you ALSO see what a screen-reader sees, which means better accessibility for visually impared users.
Fourth is more users. More people able to see your site, able to point to it as an example of good html design, able to get to the content means more people that link to you - which boosts your ratings.
The list is long, but don't trust me - trust google. They explained it in their page, and they MAKE the search engine.
- John Cartwright
- Site Admin
- Posts: 11470
- Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:10 am
- Location: Toronto
- Contact:
Interesting point, to be honest I had never really though about that. More incentive to write valid html (not that I don'tIf a spider cannot read and parse the page - which with invalid code it might not be able to - then all the content in the world doesn't matter. It cannot rank what it cannot see!
- shiznatix
- DevNet Master
- Posts: 2745
- Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:57 pm
- Location: Tallinn, Estonia
- Contact:
the google site lists content and content-esqu stuff much higher than valid html. i understand saying valid html is important because if you do somtin like
then ya ok. but if you forget a </table> or a </p> somewhere then im positive its not going to make google not list your site. also, the google site said nothing about using css, as a matter of fact the google homepage itself does not use css.
Code: Select all
<img src="all my content suddenly went here>google did not even mention "css" a single time on the page you listed.The list is long, but don't trust me - trust google. They explained it in their page, and they MAKE the search engine. Smile
- trukfixer
- Forum Contributor
- Posts: 174
- Joined: Fri May 21, 2004 3:14 pm
- Location: Miami, Florida, USA
Another point for css Vs. Tag soup - Google and others will look at the first 36K of your page - that's the "above the fold" part - if you fill all that up with table tag soup, you're devoting a great deal of that 36K to layouting.. if you can reduce the tag soup by even 10% using css instead, then you are going to get *MORE* content picked up and indexed in the search engine..
So.. Css is a GOOD thing to do.. the more actual content you can pack into that 36K "above the fold", the better your indexing results can be
So.. Css is a GOOD thing to do.. the more actual content you can pack into that 36K "above the fold", the better your indexing results can be
If your HTML is more than 36k then you have much bigger problems than SEO.trukfixer wrote:Another point for css Vs. Tag soup - Google and others will look at the first 36K of your page - that's the "above the fold" part - if you fill all that up with table tag soup, you're devoting a great deal of that 36K to layouting.. if you can reduce the tag soup by even 10% using css instead, then you are going to get *MORE* content picked up and indexed in the search engine..
- Chris Corbyn
- Breakbeat Nuttzer
- Posts: 13098
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:57 am
- Location: Melbourne, Australia