What is a robots.txt file?
A robots.txt file basically tells the search engine spiders what not to look at. Which directories to ignore or skip.
The robots.txt file is locate in the root directory of your web site. Example: http://www.yourwebsite.com/robots.txt
How do you create a robots.txt file?
The robots.txt file is a plain text file. This is the basic format:
As of recently many of the major search engines adopted a new function, you can add the sitemap.xml file to the robots.txt file:
Sitemap: http://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml
The search engine spiders do look for the robots.txt file.
For more information about robots.txt file creation:
http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html
The size of your web page images can have a profound effect on your web pages and your rankings. Slow loading web pages can effect your visitors by waiting too long and just closing your page – never seeing your message. Slow loading page will effect the web spiders as well. The search engine spiders have built in timeout algorithms that will stop processing a slow loading web page and move on. If that time out happens, the search engine spider will not process the whole web page – only what it sees.
Timeouts can ruin rankings! One of the biggest factors that causes slow loading web pages is the size and number of the images on that web page. You must find the balance of images to content. Optimize the images to the smallest size without losing image quality. Be aware of using too many images and preloaders (preloaders do help a good deal for mouseovers and other effects). Loading images can take time, so keep them small.
Another factor is the web hosting server your website is on. Watch out for timeouts, you may have other web sites hammering the web server ruining your performance. If that is the case – contact your web hosting company and let them know. Having a slow server or poorly loading web site will impact your rankings. If the search engine spider cannot index the web site, the site will not be found.
JMHO
-=Smitty=-
W3C is the organization that develops and provides the guidelines for the web code that we all use. "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools)". They are the governing body and main resource for HMTL, CSS, etc. The resources are available on line at http://www.w3.org/
Checking for W3C compliance is an easy task, however, it can be more of a problem fixing the issues found. http://validator.w3.org/
Clean code is essential for many reasons.
- This allows your web browser to properly interpret your web page correctly
- It sure makes it easier to follow your own code
- It may help in web page loading
- Although I want to say it helps your ranking, I feel that it does not have that much of an affect. I have seen very poorly coded web pages rank well, but I feel it is a professional aspect of web design that should be addressed. At some point with all search engines, poorly written code will not proceed clean code, if all other things are equal.
Clean web design code should be the foundation of all web pages.
JMHO
-=Smitty=-
Good Readable Content!
Content is the most important factor in your ranking. Writing unique readable information is more important that any other factor, although the other factors help in the ranking process.
Poorly written content on a web page will do little in helping you get found on the web or impressing your visitors. It's kind like watching that new evening show "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader". Basically, prove you know something and communicate clearly! If you can provide the quality entertainment (in the form of writing), then your visitors will stay and want more. Writing solid quality content can be challenging , but if you can capture your audience, then they will look for and want more.
- Check your web page content for spelling and grammar errors
- Use at least 250-350 words per page
- Solid readable content is by far one of the most important aspects of your web site. People like to read information that is easy to read and that makes sense.Give your visitors a reason to use your service or buy your product.
- Although I do not feel that the Search Engines are checking spelling like they should be – I would avoid misspelled words that could effect your web page message and maybe your rankings for that keyword phrase.
- Rule of thumb – write about 3-4 paragraphs and use bullet points to emphasis your key points.
-=Smitty=-
Depending on the nature and the size of the website. A sitemap is important to get all your web pages indexed, or at least found.
What is a Sitemap?
A Sitemap is nothing more than the list of all your active web pages.
Why use a Sitemap?
Easy, it allows the search engine spiders to index every web page that you want found. Also it allows your visitors to locate a web page quickly.
Be sure to have a link to your sitemap page from the main page. Then be sure to have a link to the sitemap on every web page.
Do you have a Graphics menu? With Javascript code?
As a follow up from my previous post. Graphic image menus are attractive and can do well, but I feel a text based menu system using CSS does a little better. Why? Because a graphic image even with and Alt Tag, does not carry the same weight as a text based hyperlink in the eyes of the search engine algorithms.
Again, Javascript menus do not always get spidered, you must test them before releasing them on to the web. If you do have a graphic based menu, as useful strategy, I would add a text menu at the bottom of the web page. They are simple to setup and provide the hyperlinks in case the graphic based menu is not getting spidered.
-=Smitty=-
CSS and Javascript are terrific web building tools when used correctly. However, they can cause problems with search engines spider bots.
The first and foremost issue is that CSS and Javascript information should be placed is a separate file. I have two reasons for this. The first is to clean up the web page and the second is to make it easier for the search engine spider to index a web page.
When CSS is found imbedded in a web page – it makes the header much longer and more involved. The quicker the spider can get through your web page without interference or complexity, the better. Also You do not want to focus on CSS, but the actual text on the web page. The search engine spider is looking for content, not code (although the CSS code and comments will be indexed if found in the web page).
The same is true with Javacsript. The spider has to dig it's way through the code. Now here is the kicker, if the code is written is a way that appears confusing to the search engine spider bot, the bot will stop reading the file and move on. I have seen this so many times with Javascript menu systems. This is a disaster, because the menu links are not indexed – they never find the rest of the website. So the only page that gets indexed or should I say that only a portion of the main web page will be indexed. All the rest of the website is lost and not submitted to the search engine.
If you have a Javascript menu – test it with a search engine simulation to see if the hyperlinks are being followed.
http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php
If you find that there are problems consider changing it or if you can't (or won't) I suggest adding a text menu in the footer or a text hyperlink to a sitemap
Good luck!
-=Smitty=-
Interlinking web pages
One of the more interesting aspects of the web page ranking is based off the idea of linking your web pages based off your keywords. The use of hyperlinking (Using HREF text links to direct to another web page of your site) allowing your visitors to quickly click on a link to get to another web page offering them information about that keyword phrase.
The interlinking of web pages tells the search engine spiders that the phrase you are using describes the web page or offers more information about the keyword that is hyperlinked. Thus increasing its usefulness as an indexing element.
Example:
I write about search engine optimization on my web site. So the keywords I want to be found for would be search engine optimization. By text hyperlinking to another web page, this linked keyword allows the search engine to index it with a higher value.
You can hyper link with images, but they are not as effective as a text link for optimization. This is an example of a hyperlinked image that links to the same web page for search engine optimization.
Good luck!
-=Smitty=-
If there is an image on the web page, there should be an alt tag to describe the image.
Alt Tags are used to provide a text based descriptions for images on a web page. To add text to the alt tags – enter the text between the parenthesis
example:
< img src="images.jpg" width="50" height="50" alt="This is part of optimization" >
There is a secondary aspect of the alt tag – it is used to provide information for the image for the sight impaired as a verbal description that gets translated into sound.
Although this too has been a point of abuse by many web site owners, the importance has diminished over time with this feature, but it is still a good practice and will also help with W3C compliance.
-=Smitty=-
The H1 tag is another of the key components that the search engines use to evaluate your content for indexing information. This is a location that warrants a keyword phrase as part of the content. You can also use h2, h3,… tags that also carry some weight.
Example: <h1>South Florida Web Site Marketing </h1>
You can control the size of the font of the h1 tag using CSS thus allowing the tag not to be oversized.
H1 Tags are usually found near the top of the content area, but can be anywhere on the web page.
-=Smitty=-
