Frames & graphics/pictures
Frames
is when you have more than one screen on your page, usually a screen on
the left side with a menu. We've seen pages with 4 different screens that
have to fit in your monitor. Having them, shows that you know a lot about
html, but the problem is that the search engines will get confused when
finding them, and frames will NOT help you have your page ahead in the
search engines.
Graphics really improve the quality of your page, but there are 2
inconveniences. First, robots sent by the search engines, do not recognize
them as good as they would recognize text. Second, if you have many
graphics, the pages will load slower;
therefore
visitors that have to wait too long, will go to the next site. Maybe when
everyone has cable, this won't be a problem.
So, text is best, but if you have to use graphics, use the "ALT" command,
and have a description of the picture, using again more keywords in this
description.
The text in your page, and additional advice
The
heading
of your page usually has the H1 or H2 size tags. Search engines look for
these tags to pick more keywords. There is another way to size your
heading, that is made with the FONT tag, DO NOT USE IT FOR YOUR HEADING,
otherwise the search engine's robot
will
skip
your heading.
So, the
search engines have to determine what kind of page you have. The best way
to do it is by READING THE TEXT ON YOUR PAGE. Some of them will read only
the first few lines. Others, will read the whole page (Lycos). In
order to satisfy them all, keep using the same keywords you have in your
meta tags, title, and heading throughout the whole page, from top to
bottom.
This could
make your page very monotonous and tedious. So, be creative. Make a table,
and have a link to your other pages in a different color text, there you
can write more keywords and your readers won't notice the repetition.
Also, if you have a little slogan, write it in a different color font, and
italics; the duplication of words won't be that visible. However, we
wouldn't go as far as doing what we call "keyword Christmas decorations":
*** used cars *** used cars *** used cars *** used cars *** used cars ***
Your
web page has to have a mixture of real good information, simplicity and
clarity. It needs to be polished, attractive, offer lots of value, and
have lots of keywords in between.
The size of
your web page is also relevant. Let's say:
WEB PAGE #1, has the same keyword repeated 20 times, and is 200 words
long.
This web page will have a much better position in the search engines than:
WEB PAGE #2, has the same keyword repeated 40 times, and is 1000 words
long.
The proportion of the repeated keyword in PAGE #1 is higher than the ratio
in PAGE #2.
That's why many times you will find an introductory page, that will link
to the contents in another page. This introductory page, can be very
short, and loaded with keywords. Pay attention: Some search engines or
directories, will not allow you to register introductory pages.
A very well
designed web page, made to have a preferential place in the dominant
search engines, could make a lot of money for it's owner.
Is it fair
to be at
war with your competition
in
search engines and directories?
Since there is good money involved in having a lot of
traffic in a web page, many will try dishonest ways to be first in line.
There are very
smart
people studying in detail how search engines & directories work. On the
contrary, search engines also have very smart kids changing the way that
search engines rate web pages, in order to avoid programmers
sneaking around the rules.
The most common fraud is to write 100's of keywords in white text on white
background. You won't see it, but the robots that the search engines use,
will read them. Also, it's the use of 100's of keywords in the meta tags,
and loading the TITLE with dozens of keywords. Not happy with one, they
make dozens of other pages, with the same content, but different URL's.
Some web page designers
overseas, dirty sites, and
web pages made over 2 years ago, still use these operations to show up
ahead in the search. You see, a couple of years ago, the only way to
appear in the search engines was
by
cheating; you can find them by
looking at the date in the search engine lists (Altavista
shows the date of submission).
So, the question is WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THEM?
BUMP THEM.
If you find your competition not playing by the rules, and showing
ahead of you in the search, you can contact the search engine,
point out their address, and
how they are defrauding the search engine. They will knock them down to
the end of the list, and on top of that, the search engine will usually
send you an email thanking you.
Now, you are one step AHEAD.
Altavista takes 2 to 4 days to post your site; Yahoo 6 weeks
plus; the others will take 2 to 3 weeks. Register your page in all of
them, and then go back and look for them. Probably 50% of what you sent
gets posted. Submit your page(s) again and again. We've had pages bringing
lots of customers very well placed in Hotbot, AOL Netfind
and Excite. Eventually they were not there any more, and lost
business. We don't know why, but pages get moved, and you have to track
your page(s) often.
And, if that happens to you, submit your page(s) again and again. |
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Google:
Without
any doubt the most famous of all search engines and directories analysed.
Three Rs: Really
giant!!
Really important!! Really intelligent!!
-
Yahoo: Thanks to it's
international directories, Yahoo is the busiest of all search
engines or directories. To register go to the category where you want
your page to be placed, and then go to "Suggest a Site". It takes them
6 looong weeks
to post your page.
-
AltaVista: Same
owners as Yahoo, register only the first page of your site, they
will go through each of your links (so far the best search engine to do
this, and index each of your pages).
-
Excite: Submit
your main page only, their robot or spider will read the text of your
whole page, and pick keywords.
-
Infoseek:
They will read your META TAGS. If you don't have them, your TITLE will
become the description for your page.
-
Hotbot:
They have 2 things in common with AltaVista: you only submit your
main page, and they will index the whole site; also, check if they
already have your site, since they
go through
the web picking any page they find. The one thing that they do NOT have
in common with AltaVista, is a bunch of
arrogant
geeks
answering their emails when you need more information.
-
Lycos: They
mostly rely on the TEXT of your page to decide where you belong.
-
Webcrawler:
They NEVER put our pages in their directory, but now is the same
registration page as Excite. Let's see what happens.
-
AOL/Netfind:
We got good results from one of our pages here.
-
Magellan: Not
very busy, they register URL's through Excite, but we wonder why
Excite has most of our pages and Magellan doesn't even has one.
-
LookSmart:
Not a giant but important, they have real people checking their URL
registrations.
-
Northern Light:
Not as busy as the ones above, but it is a good place to search.
-
Jayde:
These people have been marketing their page very well, and are getting
much better traffic.
-
NBCi: We've heard good things about
them, to register, search the subject of your page, then you MUST choose
a category.
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