|
Author: Daria Goetsch Article source: http://www.isedb.com/. Used with author's permission.
If your site isn't found in the search engines, it is probably because the robots couldn't deal with it. It could be something as simple as not being able to find the site, or it may be more complicated issues involving the robot's not being able to crawl the site or figure out what your pages are all about.
Submitting your site to the major search engines: that will help with the "can't find it" problem. Even having links pointing back to your site can be enough to attract the search engine robots. Google, for example, suggests that you may not have to submit your pages; they will find your site if you have a link pointing back to it from at least one other site on the web.
If the robots can find your site but can't make sense of it, then you may need to look at the content and technology used on your pages. Frames, Flash, dynamically generated pages, and invalid HTML source code can cause problems when the search engine robot tries to access your web pages. While some search engines are beginning to be able to index dynamically generated pages and Flash (e.g. Google and AllTheWeb), use of some of these technologies can hinder your ability to be indexed by the search engine robots.
Text in images cannot be read by the search engine robots. Using ALT image text is an important way to help the robots "read" your images. Websites with extensive images rely heavily on ALT text to present their content.
How Do I Get The Most Out Of Indexing?
If you know what to "feed" the spidering robots you will help yourself with search engine ranking.
Having a website full of good content is the major factor. Search engines exist to serve their visitors, not to rank your website. You need to be sure to present yourself in your site in the way that will be most useful to the search engine visitor. Each search engine has its own idea of what is important in a page, but they all value text highly. Making sure that the text on your pages includes your most important keyword phrases will help the search engine evaluate the content of those pages.
Making sure that you have good title and meta tags will further assist the search engines in understanding what your page is about. If the text on the page is about widgets, the title is about widgets, and the meta tags are about widgets, the search engine will have a pretty good idea that you are all about widgets. When their visitors search for widgets, the search engines know to list your site in the results.
A sitemap page is a very good way of giving the search engine robot every opportunity to reach your website pages. Since robots click through the links of your web pages, make sure that at least your most important pages are included in the sitemap; you may even want to include all your pages there, depending on the size of your site. Be sure to add a link to the sitemap page from each page on your site.
Another important consideration is that of keeping all of your pages within a small number of "clicks" from your top page. Many robots will not follow links more than two or three levels deep, so if your "widgets" page can only be reached from your home page by following multiple links (e.g. home page >> about us page >> products page >> widgets page), the robot may not crawl deep enough to get to the widgets page.
Testing Your Website For Search Engine Robot Accessibility
To get an idea just what the search engine robot "sees" on your page, you can look at the Sim Spider tool. You may be surprised at how different your site looks to the robot. You can find this tool at http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi
You will see text and ALT image text show up in the results. If your entire website is built in Flash, you will see nothing at all because robots don't understand Flash movies.
The Bottom Line
When it comes to search engine robots, think simply. Lots of good content and text, hyperlinks the robots can follow, optimization of your pages, topical links pointing back to your site and a sitemap will help insure the best results when the robots come visiting.
Resources
*SpiderSpotting - Search Engine Watch
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/spiders.html
*Robotstxt.org
List of robots and protocols for setting up a robots.txt file.
http://www.robotstxt.org/
*Spider-Food
Tutorials, forums and articles about Search Engine spiders and Search Engine Marketing.
http://spider-food.net/
*Spiderhunter.com
Articles and resources about tracking Search Engine spiders.
http://www.spiderhunter.com/
*Sim Spider Search Engine Robot Simulator
Search Engine World has a spider that simulates what the Search Engine robots read from your website.
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation Marketing, a Search Engine Optimization company serving small businesses. She has specialized in Search Engine Promotion since 1998, including three years as the Search Engine Specialist for O'Reilly Media, Inc., a technical book publishing company.
Copyright © 2002-2005 Search Innovation Marketing.
http://www.searchinnovation.com All Rights Reserved.
Permission to reprint this article is granted if the article is reproduced in its entirety, without editing, including the bio information. Please include a hyperlink to http://www.searchinnovation.com when using this article in newsletters or online.
Lease A Tanning Bed - A great option ! You go to the beach and you envy those beautiful bodies strutting the divine bronzed look for everyone to see. You want the look, but you can't afford an indoor...
Top Ten Ways to Raise Emotionally Intelligent Kids Do you want happy, healthy, kids? Here are ten specific ways to help parents make this happen.
Local Search on Cell Phones will Derail Yellow Page Directory Usage Google Local Mobile Search lets callers find everything from restaurants to retail outlets using their mobile phone. People on the go (and who isn't, anymore?) ...
Change Your Life With a Commitment to Weight Loss Anyone who has ever had to lose weight can attest to the enormous commitment the endeavor demands. Dropping pounds requires you to substantially alter your life...
The Perfect Body The Perfect Body. Everyone wants it. If we have the perfect body, it becomes a race to keep it. "I can't gain that weight back."
Make Sure To Rest For Muscle Growth It's what you do after your workout that's the real key to muscle growth.
The Hidden Cost of Cold Calling Explains why cold calling costs companies dearly in the long run by repelling
talented, top-producing salespeople. Cold calling is the number one cause of hig...
Achieving Your Highest Potential: The Journey Begins With Self Awareness How different would your life be, if you could live your life fully and fulfill all of your dreams? What if you discovered that it was possible to make your dre...
How to Zone Out in the Dental Chair Today I again dragged myself off to the dentist for some continuation work on my teeth. This time I was prepared.
Excuses, Excuses, Excuses I'm tired of hearing excuses as to why you are not living the life you SHOULD be living. Aren't you? Ready to stop making excuses? Ready to start living that li...
Who Are Your Kids Talking To Online? Do you know what strangers are saying to your kids online?
Market Timing Every broker and financial planner will tell you that you cannot time the stock market. I saw John Bogle, the great seer of Vanguard, on CNBC saying it can't be...
The Benefits of Wood Blinds In interior design, the blinds found on windows and doors are major decorating elements. Blinds made of wood or those with a wooden look add a feeling of warmth...
Rebalancing Yourself: 5 Steps Used by Experts to Get Out of Overwhelm Even experts who are trained in life balance and stress management techniques sometimes miscalculate and find themselves too overwhelmed to follow their fitness...
Unsung Disaster Hero:Packaging During times of disaster it's important to recognize that there
are just as many heroes behind the scenes as there are in the
media spotlight. Consider how al...
How the Protein Diet Works Protein is an essential nutrient necessary for maintaining good health. In its basic form protein consists of amino acid chains. Of the 22 amino acids that are ...
Herbal Remedies to Clear Acne Almost every herb has some medicinal application, and there are many roots and herbs that are useful in treating acne. Herbs can be used to treat acne both int...
Listing Real Estate Online - Top Tactics for Boosting Sales Learn the Secrets to Selling More Real Estate Listings Online
How to Select Salon and Spa Towels Many Owners and Managers of Beauty Salons & Spas, Nail Salons, and
Tanning Salons do not select the right type of towels for the best
effective usage. T...
The Secret To Keeping Kids Interested on Family Vacations Vacations and trips are great family events, but how do you keep kids interested and busy during the down times? Have them keep journals of the trips and their ...
The Executives Guide To Marketing On The Internet The benefits of marketing on the internet are huge... and growing daily. Here's why...
An Affordable Shortcut To Designing Your Dream Home You don't know a thing about architecture, designing or drafting but that shouldn't stop you from taking the dream house that you have pictured in your head and...
A Guide to Buying a New Home If you've decided to make the leap from renting a home to owning a home, you might be a little overwhelmed at the prospect of shopping for homes and applying fo...
Going with the Flow This whole idea of change is founded on a single principle: CHANGE IS ALL IN YOUR MIND.
|