Design Versus Search Engine Listing

The navigation bar is ruining my listing

[Russ Dollinger]

I created a website with a uniform look from page to page. Many people have praised me for how clean and easy it is to use.
However, argh, at least one engine (Hotbot via Lycos) lists only the beginning text which include contact info and navigation buttons. None of the carefully worded Meta tags are listed. My click through is likely to be zero. Is there a way to hide that stuff from the spider?

[brotherhood of LAN]

I have the same problem.

Im thinking about changing the navigation at the top of the page to a gif

either that or putting some alt text on a gif at the start of each page

[Russ Dollinger]

I'm seriously considering turning all of the info above my navbar into a gif with an alt tag about what's in the site. But is there a way to tell the spider not to read the test in the navbar?

[bufferzone]

The solution to your problem could be to use Brett's Themed pyramid. This is how I would do it:

You create a number of flat HTML pages. Each page optimized for one keyword, and the keywords chosen so that they group your other keywords under them.
You then link from your index page to the 3 to 5 optimized flat HTML pages, and form each og these pages to the rest of the pages in your site.
The flat HTML pages (lets call them the second
levle in your pyramide) should be interlinked
All the links in this pyramide should be optimized text links.

In effect, you create a pyramide linkstrukture "behind" the actual site. The pages in the pyramide are not made specificly for human eyes, but must be human readable. You compromize between SE friendly and human friendly.

Hope this makes sence

[click watcher]

>>But is there a way to tell the spider not to read the text in the navbar?

yes use javascript to write the text as spiders can't read it... of course if you wrote the code for the links this way then spiders wouldn't be able to follow the links either, so hard code the links at the foot of the page.

or use style sheet positioning to write the nav bar lower in the code but make the browser display it at the top of the page, or even write a description that you'd like at the top of the page and use css positioning to make the description appear lower down the page as viewed in a browser.

[Russ Dollinger]

How do you do style sheet or css positioning? It's not in any of my books.

[click watcher]

here is a link [richinstyle.com] that you might find useful

you may also find searching on google or indeed within this forum for more tips

css (stlye sheets) are a whole subject in themselves and i'm no expert.
what seems impossibly complicated became much clearer for me with a bit of practice

ps welcome to WebmasterWorld !!!

[JayC]

>>How do you do style sheet or css positioning? It's not in any of my books.

It'd be kind of an involved explanation, but you might start by reading this: [brainjar.com...]

[edit]didn't notice a tutorial link was already posted... well, here's another one.[/edit]

Basically, the text at the top of your page that you don't want to appear first to a search engine could be included in a <div> and, using absolute positioning, placed at the top in that position as the page is displayed. But the html code for it can be anywhere; it could be the last section of your source code.

You have to remember, though, that not all browsers will handle this correctly. And your page when viewed through something like Google's cache probably won't look the way you expect!

Here's a related thread, by the way: [webmasterworld.com...]

[papabaer]

CSS, CSS, CSS - the answer is CSS (give positioning a real long thought....)

[Marcia]

>not all browsers will handle this correctly

They won't. I've seen, with Opera, text at the top of someone's page that for sure wasn't meant to be seen there, probably wasn't meant to be seen at all. Very experienced webmaster, too - they'd be very surprised.

I've seen a DHTML drop-down top menu bar that shows the alt text on mouseover, but it's also got some more bells and whistles.

imho, safest and easiest to do is alternate text navigation at the bottom of pages.

[papabaer]

Marcia, that is why it is important to know what you can and cannot do with CSS.

I test using IE6(Quirk Mode/Standards Mode) Netscape 6.2 and Opera 6.01 (my primary Web Standards browsers) - I do not code for NN4.x though I do take in consideration "unstyled" appearance of a page.

The solution to the above dilemma is very do-able. Works well too!

Russ, I checked out your site. If you replaced your inline CSS with embedded or external styles, your CONTENT to CODE Ratio would be vastly improved.

The crux of the problem is once again, table layouts and the limitations for keyword/key phrase placement.

Most of us already know the table-layout trick to make a spider bypass your left side navigation cell(s) and grab that good ole keyword laden content you have placed center page - but this is a "kludgy" hack, and one that still does not offer the benefits of "code-light" CSS constructs.

I have been working with CSS layouts for a while now - typically, all of my navigation coding is placed at or near the end of my document - regardless of where it may appear onscreen.

My most important text is what spiders get to first.

CSS, CSS, CSS... yep! Gotta luv it!

[papabaer]

Smell that? It's the smell of fear. The fear of those left behind and not ready to take advantage of a new approach...

Time to stir things up!

View the post below ----

(edited by: papabaer at 10:25 pm (utc) on Mar. 17, 2002)

[papabaer]

I am going out on a limb here... well, nah! not really.

I predict that there will soon be a strong migration to CSS layouts not because of any altruistic need or concerns for Web Standards and Accessibility, but rather for the cold hard fact that CSS provides a means for the ultimate control of keyword placement and gives a decided edge for SEO. And without the need for cloaking.

Get ready for the stampede - it is going to happen.

[Marcia]

>Time to stir things up!

papabaer, you're more than welcome to do some serious stirring up [webmasterworld.com]. ;)

[Russ Dollinger]

Papabear, since you went to my page you know that I used a lot of CSS. I have been doing Desktop publishing with Quark, Pagemaker, etc. for years. CSS is the only way to get any control over style. I confess that I was lazy and I didn't set up many styles to use in the external style sheet. I used the Style attribute a lot. This is also my first site. Is a higher content to code ratio desirable?
As I understand you, use of CSS is not stopping the spiders from reading the code, you are just putting it last and then using the absolute positioning gimmick. Then you can put good stuff first. What % of the browsers get messed up with this?