Great SEO article for begginers.

[Toon]

What are search engines and how do they work?

A search engine is quite simply a website that helps you search the web. From the surfer’s view, they have a search box and a click to make. But, behind the scenes, is an extremely complex piece of software that pattern matches your key phrase with its database and then sorts the results in order of rank. And, who decides all this? Well they are known as the "search engine corporations" – organisations such as Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves to name but a few.

http://blog.tn38.net/archives/2004/1..._engine_o.html

[Toon]

This has been updated and may be of interest to some of you...

Common website mistakes

It can be very difficult to present a professionally optimised and designed site that will appeal to everyone and very easy to create a site and get it horribly wrong. There are elements of web page design that should be avoided. This could be from a usability point of view, and not always from the requirements of a search engine. First, we need to look at the page structure.

Frames - Frames are to be avoided, if possible. A framed page breaks the model of a web page. If you think about what a web page is, it’s literally a text document that’s had styles or templates applied to it. When using frames you are looking at two or more pages, in one containing page. It’s this containing page that gets viewed by the search engines and if your website has 30 pages, that’s a potential 30 pages of marketing that have been inhibited. Some of the top search engines can read frames and index their content however some do not. A framed page is also a problem for older browsers as they may receive an error when tying to view the website. Along with this, some browsers cannot handle frames well, in terms of printing. Bookmarking is also eliminated as your website only has one address which is the containing frame page. So if it can be done, avoid them.

Images are one of the main reasons for long delays in loading and accessibility problems. Take a look below at some of the issues to be aware of when using images. Remember, images should be used sparingly on any web page.

Download times – Although not known, it is quite plausible that search engines will time how long it takes to download a webpage and mark for or against to determine its rank. If a website is fast to load then people will have a better browsing experience. Typically, a person surfing the internet wouldn't wait more than 10 seconds for a web page to load. Make sure a search engine isn’t waiting too. Keep images small, colours few and file sizes light.

Conveying information – Images should be used to enhance the visual appearance of a website or perhaps assist in the description of a product or service. Embedding text inside an image should not be done, under any circumstances. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, a search engine cannot read information contained inside an image. Secondly, people with poor eyesight, maybe someone with dyslexia or even a person with poor literacy levels cannot screen read the text within the image easily or expand it to make it clearer. This is a major accessibility issue so use proper text and set the image as a background. From a design point of view, this may be more difficult but, the extra effort makes for a better, more usable website as well as one the search engines can read.

Image maps – These allow large images to be split into a series of links, but are best avoided because search engines tend not to index them and they can be confusing to use if not done correctly.

Objects – Not all browsers support the use of objects, so limit their use. Objects are things like Flash, Java applets, ActiveX controls and so on. Until recently, such objects were completely ignored by search engines and most browsers struggled to implement them, because most objects were designed to work with Internet Explorer. Normally, an object can offer a high level of sophisticated power and interactive capability. Flash files are now able to be indexed, specifically with Google. If you can avoid them, do so. Most objects are not indexed by search engines and are not very user-friendly.

Dynamic content – Dynamically generated websites (such as database powered websites) can offer huge flexibility and power but have to be handled carefully to avoid a poor indexing with search engines. The main concern is the way dynamic sites pass information in the address bar. Search engines need fixed addresses so they can navigate effectively and read the content. A dynamic page with many dynamic addresses can, potentially, be infinite. So search engines tend not to like them because of the lack of fixed addresses. However, many sites now require dynamic addressing and search engines can read a limited amount of content of this type. But, limit the amount of possible variations and don’t expect your entire database of products to be indexed.

Scripting – "Client-side" scripting (code within the web page) is another area that will not do anything positive for your site. Although from a users point of view scripting can certainly assist the experience, some older browsers do not support this and some antivirus software products will stop scripting in order to protect the machine from a possible virus infection. There is much good and bad this can do for your website. Things such as alerting the user that a text field has not been completed, rotating banners and real-time clocks are all achieved with scripting. The downside is scripting also creates things like popup windows, resizing and moving windows, flashes and changes to content and so on. Use scripting sparingly and make sure your website works in browsers not supporting scripts.

Trying to "out-smart" search engines will end in disaster. The corporations know about and have seen all the tricks in the book! So, don’t even begin to try. The worst thing you want is a search engine to turn its nose up at your website and not index you.

Do not hide text from users and use hundreds of keywords. White text on white background is the oldest trick out there.

Do not create gateway and doorway pages that redirect people to content other than what they are searching for.

Do not "client-sniff". This is where you run script that detects the visitor. Your readers get one set of pages and search engines get a load of spam filled pages. Certain search engine can fake browsers and catch you out.

Do not add hundreds of keywords in comment tags in the sites code. It adds weight to a page and doesn’t assist in the rankings whatsoever.

Do not continuously register with the search engines. If you flood them they may blacklist your domain and not index you. As soon as you submit, they will find you.

[lolly]

Image maps – These allow large images to be split into a series of links, but are best avoided because search engines tend not to index them and they can be confusing to use if not done correctly.

These seem to be on the increase, do you think it's due to increase in bandwidth or an increase in poor designers?

[DanMedia]

Hi Toon,
Thanks, its really useful,

Thanks again
Dan

[SatanicPenguins]

These seem to be on the increase, do you think it's due to increase in bandwidth or an increase in poor designers?

They were huge around 98-02, But i blame the recent influx on myspace.

[LeadMagnet]

That's a good read. I've got a question though. Is there an easy way to give something a

tag without affecting the size etc. of the text?

[SatanicPenguins]

edit the h1 tag with css, i believe is the only way. :(

[Mack]

yes, you would change the size of the h1 with css.

[LeadMagnet]

*sigh* Fair enough then.

[Toon]

Your H1 can look like what ever you want it to