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Search Engine World's (Search Engine Spider Simulator)

Spider meta keywords

         

tomw1944

11:56 pm on Jan 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



For some reason, my "meta keywords" are not showing up on the "Search Engine Spider Simulator".

I have compared source scripting from some other sites that show their meta keyword tags and can't see what is wrong with mine.

Can you help?

Marcia

12:21 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Welcome to the board, tomw1944.

It sounds like there's an HTML error, which could be as simple as a missing closing tag or end quote. Try running the page through the HTML validator; that should turn up something.

tomw1944

1:20 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi Marcia,

I tried HTML validator as you suggested and got these 5 messages.

10 30 required attribute "TYPE" not specified <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--//

17 33 required attribute "TYPE" not specified <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.2"><!--//

81 73 required attribute "TYPE" not specified ... aScript" src="http://m1.nedstatbasic.net/basic.js">

83 31 required attribute "TYPE" not specified <script language="JavaScript">

93 83 "ALT" missing ... tcounter.bcentral.com/fastcounter?3099645+6199297"></a

There didn't find anything wrong at these locations.

Any other thoughts?

Tom

pageoneresults

1:21 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Is that first script language tag at line 10 before your meta description or keywords?

Add an empty alt tag to the image that is associated with this counter script...

93 83 "ALT" missing ... tcounter.bcentral.com/fastcounter?3099645+6199297">

alt="" (two quotation marks)

Change all of these...

<script language="JavaScript">

to...

<script type="text/javascript">

and drop the language="JavaScript". It is now deprecated in favor of the script type.

tomw1944

3:15 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I did everything that you suggested. The HTML validator now says . . no errors!

However, I still have the problem (the spider meta keywords still don't show up with the SE Spider Simulator!

Now what . . help?

pageoneresults

3:31 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Hmmm, back to my first question...

Is that first script language tag at line 10 before your meta description or keywords?

If so, then it is something within the script. But, if the page is validating I'm kind of at a loss for solutions. I'm feeling charitable this evening, if you want to send me the URL via sticky mail, feel free to do so and I'll take a peek.

Just click on the link at left that reads sticky mail and drop me a message.

Just in case, here is a properly formatted keywords tag for comparison...

<meta name="keywords" content="keyword phrase, keyword phrase, keyword phrase">

Commas or no commas, it doesn't matter.

BTW, congratulations on validation. You've now become a true geek!

VictorE

3:45 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I believe this topic has been covered before. I think it is simply a small "feature" of the SimSpider. Try changing the order of your Meta description and your Meta keywords. One of the permutations should work. I believe for them to show on SimSpider your keywords must be after your description. Either way should be valid, but only one of the ways will allow the keywords to be seen by SimSpider.

Vic

pageoneresults

3:50 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



VictorE, excellent catch. The page I've been checking is in order like this...

title
description
keywords

As soon as I dropped the keywords tag above the description tag, the keywords tag was not seen by the spider.

Note for Brett: Is there a logic behind the sequence of the tags with Sim Spider? I've always put them in order of importance with title, description and keywords being the first three. Is there a possible bug in Sim Spider?

tomw1944

4:31 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



pageoneresults
Victor
Marcia

Bingo! You guys are great!

After moving my tags from Title/Keywords/Description to Title/Description/Keywords, it worked perfectly.

I will still make all the small changes that Marcia suggested as well. For the record the moving the tags around made it work without the other changes.

Now, the question is . . . is there a problem with Sim Spider? Does the order really important to spiders?

hakre

5:48 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



there is no specific order of meta-tags at all. you can even add your own or do whatever with them. they only have to be in the <head> but i wonder if this is a big story at all ;).

pageoneresults

8:20 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



There is no specific order of meta-tags at all.

hakre, in theory, I believe you are correct. From a structure viewpoint, I feel there needs to be a logical order.

We all strive to bring our core content as close to the <body> tag as possible. Why? Because we know how the spiders read html content from top to bottom.

I would think that same concept applies to your metadata. We know that the <title> is the most important element in our <head> section. We also know that the description is the second most important, and then the keywords when applicable.

We also know that external file references need to be in a particular order to function as intended. From a logical viewpoint dealing with structure, assembling your metadata in proper order is probably a wise thing to do.

I was just going to post in this reply that I would look at the authoritative resources on the subject. Unfortunately when viewing the metadata order of the W3C, I can't support any of my above statements! ;)

P.S. At least they've got that <h1> sitting right up there after the <body> tag.

hakre

8:32 am on Jan 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



hi pageoneresults,

your theory is nice, too ;) as a webdesigner i first think about what the w3c recommendations are, and then i think about the spider. and if the spider takes out title and desc + keyw. and then body, the data is already normalized and it shouldn't care for a se. but i don't know on google or others if it would. i would think it is bad practise for a spider, because it's also a website client.

nevertheless, should i move my stylesheets before the title tag then, too? this might be good practise in your thoughts.


P.S. At least they've got that <h1> sitting right up there after the <body> tag.

that's the good old structure of a html doc, indeed. i think thats why a spider is a true client following the w3c proposals.