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Introduction
Ever designed a site, then submitted it, waited
a month or two to find that most of your pages haven't been
indexed, or that only the page submitted was indexed? Do you
have a text-based
site map linked from every page? Did you design your entire
site in Flash? Have you written your pages to increase your
listing relevance? Does your site link to other sites containing
information on your site topic? Do other sites link to you
that provide information on your site topic? These are just
some of the questions you need to answer to discover why your
site ranks where it does in search results, and why your site
is not indexed fully.
Text-Based
Site Maps
Text-based
site maps are one of your best ways to make sure that
your site is totally indexed. By making a page with text links
to every page on your site and linking that page from every
page on your site, you insure the indexing robots and spiders
have a food trail to lead them through every page of your
site. This serves an additional function especially if your
sites are designed with flash. The only language search engine
bots and spiders are able to interpret, from our research,
is good old HTML. Since it can not read flash, any text within
flash sites is not indexable, so the bots and spiders are
not able to place your site in the appropriate category. On
this site, we have sitemap buttons, but the buttons are also
in Flash. What you don't see is the little transparent gif
at the bottom of the page that is linked directly to our site
map.
Using Flash
Popular suggestions for flash use on sites
are to create smaller flash files and place them throughout
your site just like images. That will allow you to create
an engaging multimedia site while still providing the text
search engines need to rank your site relevance. Also, be
careful of the flash file sizes. If the files are too big,
it takes your pages longer to load. Keep in mind that the
average visitor will wait around 30 seconds for a page to
load. If it takes longer than that then the chances are your
visitor is going to go somewhere else. That does not mean
that the WHOLE page has to load in that time. As long as there
is some text to read through to occupy them while the page
loads, they are engaged and not so quick to move off somewhere
else.
Page Relevance
To increase your page relevance you need to
make sure to pay particular attention to the page overall
topic. When writing your pages, you should make sure that
you maintain the same topic throughout each page. For example,
if you are writing a page on editing jpeg images, then make
sure that you maintain that topic throughout that page. If
you ramble of on a tangent, then you are diluting the keywords
the search engines are pulling from your page, this reduces
the page relevance of your intended topic. Take for example
the same page on editing jpeg images. If you suddenly jump
into paragraphs on search engine positioning, then it is going
to reduce the relevance of that page for people searching
for information on jpeg editing.
Link Popularity
Search engines are also using link popularity
and link relevance to list sites. Link popularity has to do
with the sites that link to you. In the older days of the
net, it was possible to submit your pages to hundreds and
thousands of link pages therefore increasing your link popularity.
That would boost your listing with search engines. The old
thought was "If there were so many pages linking to yours,
then it must be a good resource of information". The
search engines would then rank those pages higher in search
results because they thought the pages were better quality
and had a better chance of pertaining to the searches done
by their visitors. Google
has recently implemented a strategy to stop webmasters who
try to fool their bots and spiders and gain better placement.
This was done by linking with hundreds and thousands of free
link pages that have nothing to do with their page or site
topic. With the influence Google
has on the net, I would look for more of the big name search
engines to incorporate some of the same kind of technology
blocks Google
now has in place. It brings to mind the old saying, "Honesty
is the best policy". Avoid trying to fool the search
engines with tricks, just produce a good site with fresh original
content. Your site could be denied listing if you use practices
to fool the search engines.
Link Relevance
Link relevance has to do with the sites you
link your page with. For example, using the same example we
used earlier with the editing jpeg images page; you want to
link to other pages pertaining to jpeg image editing. This
increases the credibility of your page. If you linked that
page to pages on search engine positioning then you cause
the search engine to question the credibility of your page.
After all, your page was about jpeg image editing, but it
links to search engine positioning pages. Don't give the search
engines any reason to doubt your page.
When talking about links, we are not talking
about banner ads. We are also not talking about your affiliate
programs. A page can contain hundreds or thousands of links
on it. There are those to your internal files on your web
server. There are those to external sites that you provide
for informational purposes. Then there are those you use with
banners and text that link to advertisements and affiliate
programs. Although these links may be considered by the search
engines, you can avoid these links interfering with your relevance
by providing more links to relevant information than you provide
to adds and affiliate programs. You can also chose ads
and affiliate programs relevant to your page, but that
is another matter, and is addressed in other areas of our
site.
Summary
In summary, include a link to your text-based
site map on each page. Increase your link popularity by
networking with other webmasters that own sites relevant to
yours, and then get them to link with you. You could also
work hard to become a credible source of information on your
topic and then other webmasters will want to link to you.
Limit your flash design to smaller image areas of your site
and write text that maintains your topic for each page. Pick
a topic for your page and try to stick with it. Don't ramble
on to other topics within your page. Honesty is the best policy.
Be honest with your visitors, with the search engines, and
with yourself, and you will reap the rewards of your hard
work and dedication.
About the Author
James R. Sanders is the owner of Sanders
Consultation Group Plus. He has been a webmaster and website
designer since 1997. He has also been involved in self employment
ventures since 1992. He is presently a contributing author
of NewbieHangout. His writing is targeted to webmasters, would
be webmasters, website designers, would be website designers,
self employed, or those researching information looking for
solutions to questions associated with design, business operations,
and promotion today. His goal is to provide practical information
based upon his years of experience to help webmasters, website
designers, and self employed people achieve their goals in
today's competitive global market. You can subscribe to his
free newsletters at SCGP
- Newsletter.
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