| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
 Posted - 19 September 2007 : 11:38:22
|
Man, I hate that term! 
Had a quick afternoon course in improving Google rankings recently and, going back over my notes, I'm left with a few questions that I either didn't get to ask at the time or didn't really receive satisfactory answers to:
- I'm trying to balance the order a visitor expects to see a page laid out in with the importance Google lays on the order items appear in. For example, as a visitor, I expect sites to be laid out something like: Title, navigation, news, content, links/offers/etc. but, for Google, it might be better to lay the page out along the lines of: Title, content, news, links/offers/etc., navigation. Now, obviously, sending Google to a different page with the same content laid out differently is a no-no but what if I used conditionals in my ASP to output the page differently for Googlebot? Would the be similarly frowned upon as a form of cloaking and, if so, how do I get around this issue?
- One thing I never realised is that Google strips out all HTML tags in a page which makes sense. The problem is, though, you end up with the last word of one paragraph running straight into the first word of the next paragraph so Google just sees gibberish there. How do I solve this problem other placing trailing spaces at the end of all my paragraphs?
- Does anyone have any tips for writing copy that remains informative and coherent to the visitor while containing sufficient key words & phrases to be of benefit to us with Google?
- Placing key words & phrases in a page's title can be of great benefit with Google but, as a visitor (and prgrammer), I prefer the page title to serve a more practical purpose so I can see at a glance exactly what I have open in my browser's tabs and windows so how do I balance those 2 out?
- How do you guys go about explaining to those clients who are insistent on their sites being chock full of Flash & Javascript wizardry and other such stuff that completely flies in the face of all accessibility & SEO guidelines why nobody will be able to (or can, if the site's already been built) find their site? After all "the customer is always right"! 
I think this is all a bit over my head; this should marketing's responsibility, leaving me to the programming but, unfortunately, marketing are idiots and the slightest mention of anything internet related will always be referred to me. And my bossman isn't of much help on that issue 'cause "I'm the web guy, this is all your area", just like the server administration and maintenance of clients AdWords accounts, etc. I'm really beginning to think it's time for a change of job, if not a change of career. 
|
 Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
bobby131313
Senior Member
USA
1163 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:09:01
|
quote:
I'm trying to balance the order a visitor expects to see a page laid out in with the importance Google lays on the order items appear in.
I use CSS absolute positioning. All my recurring items (header, navigation) are dead last in the code with main content first. Take a look at my homepage, then look at the source and you'll see what I mean.
This accomplishes what your saying since Google reads code top to bottom left to right and doesn't care where its going to display to the end-user.
I have not implemented this on my forum pages yet though. |
Switch the order of your title tags |
Edited by - bobby131313 on 19 September 2007 12:10:38 |
 |
|
|
HuwR
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
20595 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:13:19
|
will kind of support bobby131313 layout is the job of CSS it should make no difference where it appears to the search engines since they read the raw html not where it is positioned.
quote:
- How do you guys go about explaining to those clients who are insistent on their sites being chock full of Flash & Javascript wizardry and other such stuff that completely flies in the face of all accessibility & SEO guidelines why nobody will be able to (or can, if the site's already been built) find their site? After all "the customer is always right"!
I'm afraid there is no hard and fast fix, it just takes lots of meetings and endless explanations followed by lengthy sessions of banking your head against a brick wall, but eventually they see the light  |
|
|
|
JJenson
Advanced Member
USA
2121 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:20:58
|
quote:
Originally posted by Shaggy
Now, obviously, sending Google to a different page with the same content laid out differently is a no-no but what if I used conditionals in my ASP to output the page differently for Googlebot? Would the be similarly frowned upon as a form of cloaking and, if so, how do I get around this issue?
I just redid one of the sites for my company and we actaully have a designated SEO guy for this. He said that if you try to hide certain content at all from google when indexing your site that they could reduce your score or even remove you from google all together.
Just from what he said and some of the things we were trying for our site I would not recommend trying to work around the bots but that is just from my understanding from our seo guy.
We also tell customers that if they want a full flash site they are out of luck on SEO cause none of the bots can read the flash. THat really is how we get around it. If they don't care then we do it for them but if they want they we discuss other options for programming their site.
IF you want shaggy and can send an email to our head SEO guy and see if he can explain it all better for you?
Let me know
Jeff |
|
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:26:14
|
quote:
Originally posted by bobby131313
I use CSS absolute positioning. All my recurring items (header, navigation) are dead last in the code with main content first.
Yup, All my layouts are completely CSS based as well but, if you take CSS out of the equation (e.g., text browsers & screen readers), that's what I meant when I was talking about the order a visitor expects to see a page laid out - I'm thinking more of accessibility than aesthetics. Of course, that's really just my opinion of how I expect to see a page laid out, maybe that's not what the average, non-programmer expects?quote:
Originally posted by HuwR
it just takes ... lengthy sessions of banking your head against a brick wall
Yeah, that's the part I'm trying to do away with as I think those sessions are starting to take their toll on my sanity! 
Another question I omitted, how do you guys go about educating those clients who want to be able to edit various or all aspects of their site themselves, either through a custom built CMS or a secretary who dabbled in HTML while she was in college, on keeping their site optimised for Google? I flying by the seat of my pants SEO-wise as it is, without trying to teach someone else about the intricacies of Google's search algorithms.
|
Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
|
HuwR
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
20595 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:28:50
|
quote:
Another question I omitted, how do you guys go about educating those clients who want to be able to edit various or all aspects of their site themselves, either through a custom built CMS or a secretary who dabbled in HTML while she was in college, on keeping their site optimised for Google?
I let them, but I charge to fix stuff when they break it  |
|
|
|
HuwR
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
20595 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:31:19
|
quote:
Yup, All my layouts are completely CSS based as well but, if you take CSS out of the equation (e.g., text browsers & screen readers), that's what I meant when I was talking about the order a visitor expects to see a page laid out - I'm thinking more of accessibility than aesthetics. Of course, that's really just my opinion of how I expect to see a page laid out, maybe that's not what the average, non-programmer expects?
well, for a text reader you can use accesskeys which will allow it to skip to the navigation so it won't matter to a screen/text reader what order it is if you use accesskeys |
|
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:32:58
|
quote:
Originally posted by JJenson
I just redid one of the sites for my company and we actaully have a designated SEO guy for this.
Yes, that's what I want: someone else to take care of this aspect of the web development process for me, but bossman won't give me anyone and marketing, as stated, are fools. It's kind of a Catch-22, really, bossman will take someone else on once there's enough work for us to justify it but "enough work" just means more work for Shaggy until then and he's already stretched thin as it is.quote:
He said that if you try to hide certain content at all from google when indexing your site that they could reduce your score or even remove you from google all together.
Yup, I know that one. Basically, I know all the no-nos, just not how to work around some of the more "restrictive" ones while still playing by Google's rules.quote:
We also tell customers that if they want a full flash site they are out of luck on SEO cause none of the bots can read the flash.
Sadly, none of our clients are web-smart enough to know what we're talking about when we try to explain these things to them before building a site - they'll smile and nod and pretend to weigh the pros & cons up before telling us they definitely need a Flash site & they don't care about rankings only to come back to us 6 months later demanding that their site show up first on Google for all their key phrases!
|
Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
|
JJenson
Advanced Member
USA
2121 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:40:29
|
quote:
Sadly, none of our clients are web-smart enough to know what we're talking about when we try to explain these things to them before building a site - they'll smile and nod and pretend to weigh the pros & cons up before telling us they definitely need a Flash site & they don't care about rankings only to come back to us 6 months later demanding that their site show up first on Google for all their key phrases!
For us we tell them up front when they come back they will be charged for a complete redo of their site. We have had this actually happen several times and end up making twice the money on some clients cause they don't listen and in the end they just pay more.
By the way I sent your questions to our Head SEO guy and asked him if he could answer them. Hopefully he can help out with your answers. |
Edited by - JJenson on 19 September 2007 12:41:48 |
|
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:42:02
|
quote:
Originally posted by HuwR
I let them, but I charge to fix stuff when they break it
As do I, but it's the queries as to why they're dropping down in Google after filling their pages with irrelevant nonsense that I'm trying to do way with  quote:
well, for a text reader you can use accesskeys which will allow it to skip to the navigation so it won't matter to a screen/text reader what order it is if you use accesskeys
Heh! I'm thinking maybe I didn't phrase my question properly What I'm trying to figure out is, is presenting the same content to Googlebot in a different order without redirecting it to another page still considered "cloaking" or otherwise frowned upon by Google?
Oh, just had a quick meeting with bossman about a new site and, apparently, I'm now also responsible for billing all those clients hosted on our server and, indeed, have been for the past 18 months?! Maybe I'm just having a bad (i.e., worse than usual) day, but I really need some sort of break 
|
Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:54:52
|
quote:
Originally posted by JJenson
By the way I sent your questions to our Head SEO guy and asked him if he could answer them. Hopefully he can help out with your answers.
Cheers, dude, appreciate that
|
Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
|
JJenson
Advanced Member
USA
2121 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 12:57:53
|
| No problem I will let you know when he gets back to me it might be tomorrow cause we are having a company golf trny today. |
|
|
|
HuwR
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
20595 Posts |
Posted - 19 September 2007 : 13:01:25
|
quote:
What I'm trying to figure out is, is presenting the same content to Googlebot in a different order without redirecting it to another page still considered "cloaking" or otherwise frowned upon by Google?
no, google doesn't know it is in a different order
quote:
Maybe I'm just having a bad (i.e., worse than usual) day
yep, sounds like it, I'm sure you'll feel better when Ireland beat France |
|
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 20 September 2007 : 04:49:16
|
quote:
Originally posted by HuwR
no, google doesn't know it is in a different order
Aweseomness quote:
yep, sounds like it, I'm sure you'll feel better when Ireland beat France
Not a very likely result but the day & a half's session afterwards should have me back to normal by Monday!
|
Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
|
JJenson
Advanced Member
USA
2121 Posts |
Posted - 20 September 2007 : 14:43:03
|
| Shaggy just wanted to let you know that our SEO guy got the questions he just let me know he will get them to me byt the first part of next week. I hope this isn't to far away for you but he had some things he has to take care of and is going to a wedding so leaving for the weekend. Just thought I would give you a heads up. |
|
|
|
Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 21 September 2007 : 04:46:06
|
Ah, jaysis, no rush man. If he has the time, great, if not, no worries
|
Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
