BleepingComputer.com: Search Engine Code

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Search Engine Code How to get results with Search Engines?

#1 User is offline   RandomUser 

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  Posted 31 August 2007 - 10:25 PM

I'm wondering how to approach search engines in that I want them to be able to find my page online, but I don't know how to do this. I've read some things about putting "Meta Tags" in the header info to make it easier to find your page, but this seems a bit archaic. Specifically, I want to know what techniques the professionals use to get noticed by search engines?

It would be nice if this was just as simple as adding some additional "html", "XHTML", or some script of some sort.
I've also heard about a google toolkit or something of the like that is all-inclusive, if true, how good is it?

Any addiitional comments or things I maybe haven't thought about would be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

#2 User is offline   tswsl1989 

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Posted 01 September 2007 - 11:11 AM

Google Sitemaps is a proprietary solution by Google to let their bots index your site better.
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps is a good starting point for google.

The META tag needs to be inserted between the <head>...</head> tags on each page.
Insert the tag:
<meta name="robots" content="[[content]]">


Where [[content]] contains:

INDEX or NOINDEX
Whether this page can appear in search results

FOLLOW or NOFOLLOW
Whether the searchbot should follow links on this page to other pages in your website.

So, to exclude a page and prevent a robot following links to other pages, use:
<meta name="robots" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">


To have a bot index your page and follow all of the links off it:
<meta name="robots" content="INDEX,FOLLOW">


For full details about the robots meta tag and the robots.txt file, see http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/exclusion.html

This post has been edited by tswsl1989: 02 September 2007 - 04:43 AM

Tom

Tswsl1989
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#3 User is offline   RandomUser 

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  Posted 01 September 2007 - 07:48 PM

Thank you for this insightful piece.
Are there any more powerful or productive approaches which larger sites might use?

#4 User is offline   tswsl1989 

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Posted 02 September 2007 - 04:42 AM

There are paid for schemes like Google AdWords (the hits that appear in coloured boxes), but otherwise not really.

Adding keywords meta tags might help a little, but are mostly disregarded by searchbots.
<meta name="keywords" content="search,engine,advice,bleepinccomputer.com">


Writing your site well, and making sure it can be accessed without CSS, javascript or flash is the most effective way of making your site get the ranking it deserves.

If your an IE user, try using the IE Developers toolbar (don't know the link, will post if I find it)
This let's you disable cookies, scripts, CSS etc, and lets you view the Code tree, which can be useful for layout problems.

Remember: Searchbots don't tend to parse scripts or css, and images mean very little to them.
If you can't understand your site like that, the searchbots won't either.
Tom

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#5 User is offline   RandomUser 

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Posted 03 September 2007 - 05:51 PM

How about paid ads within the search bots?

How does that work?

#6 User is offline   tswsl1989 

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Posted 08 September 2007 - 07:03 AM

Thats specific to each search engine. Try looking on their websites.
Tom

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#7 User is offline   Wampy 

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Posted 12 September 2007 - 04:39 AM

Use page titles and meta tags that are unique and descriptive for each page. Even if it sounds archaic, it is still a big factor.

Content in the form of text, and including your pages keywords and H1/h2 tags, is the best thing your pages can have. Bots don't read images or care about your code ( unless its unreadable ).

Validate your site through W3C and fix any errors.

Get backlinks from relevant websites.

SEO is not an overnight success by implementing some simple little bit of code. You have to work at it.
Michiana Webline - Affordable websites for small business

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