Search Engines

Potential Design/Set Up Problems
If your site does not use Frames, Flash, Javascript, Image Maps, or Dynamic URLs you can skip to the next tip.

Unfortunately for some of you there are some site design/set up issues that can make it very difficult for the search engines to list your web pages no matter how well you optimize and submit them. We list them here, before you get into all the optimization tips, to hopefully save you from trying to list a site that that will be very difficult to get listed. Almost everything can be fixed or worked with one way or another before you submit. The most common problems are:

1. Sites that use Frames.
2. Sites that use Dynamic URLs.
3. Sites that use Flash.
4. Sites that use Image Maps for navigation.
5. Sites that use Javascript for navigation.

Frames
Framed sites can be invisible to search engines spiders. The spiders that cannot follow frame links never see the content pages that human visitors see. They only see the frameset page itself. The best answer to this problem is to redesign your site without using frames. If that is not possible you can have your Webmaster add information to the frameset page to make it more search engine friendly. Since the frameset is treated just like an HTML page your Webmaster should add meta tags and a title to the frameset page. Additionally, descriptive text can be included in a "No Frames" tag. This tag is intended for older browsers that do not support frames, but it is also visible to spiders when they are confronted with a frameset.

Dynamically Generated Pages
A problem with many e-commerce sites is that their product pages are dynamically generated. Most search engines do not recognize the "?" and "&" characters that separate CGI variables. This means that some individual product pages will not be crawled by search engine spiders. One way to prevent this problem is to create static versions of your site's dynamic pages for search engines to crawl. Another option is to use the "dynamic page optimization solutions" available for ASP, ColdFusion, CGI/Perl, or the Apache Web Server.

Flash Animation and Graphic Text
Search engines use the text on your page for their ranking determinations. If your site is filled with Flash animation or if your text appears as a graphic the search engine spider will not see it. Rich media enhancements like flash look good to human visitors but they are invisible to search engine spiders. To improve your chances for good ranking stick with simpler pages without the flashy animation. If your site has fancy graphics in place of text be sure to have your Webmaster put another version on the wording in the "Alt Image" tag.

Image Maps for navigation
If you use image maps for your main site navigation you should consider switching to standard HTML hyperlinks or your site will most likely not get spidered. If you want to keep the image maps you can, but you should add another navigation scheme to your site that uses only standard HTML hyperlinks so that your site will get spidered. An easy way to do this is to create a site map page uses standard HTML links to link to every page on your site. Then add a standard HTML link on each page of your site that links to the site map.

JavaScript for navigation
Search engines can't follow links that are within Javascript, so your site will not get spidered unless you also have some form standard HTML hyperlinks that they can follow. You should add some form standard HTML hyperlinks to all of your pages on each of your pages so that your site will be spidered properly. An easy way to do this is to create a site map page uses standard HTML links to link to every page on your site. Then add a standard HTML link on each page of your site that links to the site map.

Search Engines
To help your placement in search engines, place your keywords, keyword phrases and 25 word or less description of your site in the code (META tags) on your front page. And make sure the title of the pages in your site are accurate.

Beyond the Valencia Web Site, you must either spend the time at each search engine web site you would like to be a part of and follow their placement processes. OR you can hire a service. There are quite a few services out there that offer search engine placement. The prices vary from $20/yr to $7000/mth.

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