Some HTML Tips 4 U !

virajw · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 27 Location: Colombo - Sri Lanka

Some HTML Tips 4 U !

1. Try to have your keywords (in a meaningful sentence) within the first 100 characters following the </head><body> tags.

2. Always use different <title> and <meta name="description" content="EDIT:WORD NOT ALLOWED"> tags for every page on your site. For instance Amazon uses <title>amzon.com - harry potter</title> or <title>amzon.com - Sony DVDs</title> followed by product descriptions.

3. Do not stuff the - <meta name="keywords" content=" EDIT:WORD NOT ALLOWED"> with every imaginable keyword under the sun as that may be considered spam by SE bots. 5 -7 keywords should be fine separated by commas and a space before the next keyword. Example : <meta name="keywords" content="dvds, movies, VHS movies, movie rentals">

4. Having a Copyright tag is not absolutely essential but adding one is considered good for SE Engines <meta name="copyright" content="©EDIT:WORD NOT ALLOWED 2005">

5. Always use Alt tags when inserting images. SE don't read images and don't like them much either.

6. Avoid using truckloads of Javascripting following the </head><body> tags as done by many amateurs. This is valuable real estate space as far as your home page is concerned. Don't tire the SE robots by making them crawl the next 500 characters before actual text begins. Use an external .js file if possible to load all your scripting so that you clean up 75% of your characters.

TIP: If you must use scripting, then use a table with 3 horizontal cells. The first would be for the header, the second to insert important keyword-rich sentences and the third for everything else. The third can be sub-divided and the javascripts can go there, thus forcing the Search Engines to read your valuable keywords before getting to the clutter of scripting.

6.1 Affiliate links are best hidden from SE as they don't like them. The best way to do it is to use a DHTML menu that can be loaded externally. That way the SE will read only your content and skip all the affiliate links.

The best option is to use CSS together with DHTML but that's a different kettle of fish altogether.

I hope you guys find this helpful. Feel free to post any questions.
Cheers
Viraj

Rosalind Gardner · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 6:45 pm Post subject:

Hello Viraj,

Thanks VERY kindly for those helpful tips, indeed!

Would it be possible for you to give us an example of the CSS/DHTML code that you are discussing?

I think it would help people to understand what that is.

(Although I've used CSS to code my font appearances for ages, I'm only just starting to re-code my larger sites with CSS for page formatting... but really have no clue about DHTML).

See folks, you CAN succeed online without being a geek... Smile

Thanks Viraj!

Cheers,
Ros

edwardspek · Joined: 22 Nov 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Toronto

Hey Viraj,

Yes, I agree with Ros, your tips are VERY GOOD, but you lost me at #6!

I'd love to see an example of how to do the things you mention in tips #6 and #6.1.

Can you elaborate or at least recommend good online tutorials?

How do I code external DHTML menus?

Always something to learn...
Edward

virajw · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 27 Location: Colombo - Sri Lanka

While explaining CSS with DHTML is beyond the scope of this post I'll try to explain the .js file system here.

******** IMPORTANT: The chances are that you will not get it right the first time. Practice using a Test HTML file without messing around with your actual website.***********

As I said if you have a complicated top navigation bar with loads of scripting after the <body> tags, you can easily get code character counts peaking at 5,000 to 6,000 characters. That’s a lot of characters! add some more toys and you’re probably up to 7,000 characters, which can easily end up being a significant portion of the overall code for the page. You can easily remove all this clutter by using JavaScript to write the text into the page. Here’s how:

1.Open Notepad, and type this text: 

2. Grab the entire code you want to remove from the HTML page and then paste it between the following quotation marks: 
This is the text between <script language="JavaScript"> and </script> in your HTML page.

Please note that the <script language="JavaScript"> and </script> tags are not written into the .js file.

3. Save this file with a .js extension like navbar.js and place it on your Web server in a folder named "scripts"

4. Call the .js file from the HTML page by adding a source attribute to your <SCRIPT> tag to refer to the external file between <head> and </head> tags like this:
<script language="JavaScript" src="/scripts/navbar.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Remember, "scripts" is the name of the folder where the "navbar.js" file resides.

Now, if you have 1000 pages on your website, and assuming all were built using a template which points to src="/scripts/navbar.js” by updating this tiny .js file all 1000 pages will be updated in a flash. Imagine the time and bandwidth saved as a result of this tiny file being used by 1000 HTML pages. Otherwise all 1000 pages will have to be updated and loaded onto the webserver.

If the navigation is part of your code please remember that SE won't read this script. Therefore you will have to use traditional links at the bottom of the page to help SE navigate. But the point is that you have already removed huge text blocks from the top of the page so that SE can get to the important body text at once.

Cheers
Viraj

virajw · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 27 Location: Colombo - Sri Lanka

Ooops one more thing. If you want to get an idea of what CSS / DHTML coding looks like, just peek at the source code of my website. Its not done as yet, but NONE of the header images, ads and links you see on either side of my website are present in the HTML tags. Right-click the blue image of the face and try to save it as an image. Well you can't since an image does not even exist in the HTML.

This is the wonder of CSS. My original site was pure CSS ( without Tables) but I had to reduce it since most browsers still don't honor 100% CSS.

As far as the search engines are concerned I have given them pure text though in reality mine is a javascript jungle. Even if i have use 10,000 pages on this site, by uploading the.js files I update all 10,000 pages in a flash. My plan is to give SE pure text articles and shield all the affiliate links as much as possible since they hate them anyway.

Learning to design with CSS and DHTML is frustrating. Its no quick fix as coding is NOT WYSIWYG. That is, you can't see what your final results are until its done.

Well, who says life is easy? Wink

Viraj

Rosalind Gardner · Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 7:28 am Post subject:

Hi Viraj,

Wow! Thank you! I get how it all works, but only as far as appreciating the possibilities.

Beyond that, it's just a mess of hieroglyphics to my mind.

Is there a way to use more common HTML tags (ie href) within a style sheet to create navigation?

OK... I'm crossing my fingers here... Smile

Cheers,
Ros

virajw · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 27 Location: Colombo - Sri Lanka

Hi Ros,
Actually you can use CSS for html links. But the problem is that you still end up using plenty of html when the objective here is to reduce it.

CSS will basically tell the links how to render on a web browser. CSS is something like a platoon leader giving orders to his foot soldiers. But the .js file is like the Commander in Chief issuing orders from the comfort of his chair, like George W !!! ("Go bomb Iraq") ("Yes Sir!")

There's a neat little web-based application that you may wanna try to create CSS Menus. I haven't tried it but it looks rather cool.

Try this: http://www.listulike.com/generator
Viraj Very Happy

Ellen C Braun · Joined: 15 Nov 2005 Posts: 15 Location: Baltimore, MD

Thanks, Viraj, for the awesome tips.

Now, let's say, by some change, I'm too html challenged to hide my affiliate links from the SE's, and I leave them as is. Are there actual penalties with regard to my SE rankings? What did you mean by, "SE don't like affiliate links"?

Thanks in advance... Very Happy

virajw · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 27 Location: Colombo - Sri Lanka

Hi Ellen,
No, there aren't any penalties whatsoever for having SE readable Affilate links. But the problem is that the more Search Engine (SE) readable HTML external links you have, the less ranking your page receives.

Basically as of Jan 2005, the SE, especially Google, has declared war on 90% of Affilates. So how do you think the SE know that your's is an affilate? By the links of course !!!

SE read characters like - ?, id, hop in your URL and flag it immediately.

Hope that answers your question Razz

Viraj

Sharon and Roy · Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 6:47 pm Post subject:

::: Adding Affiliate Links Does Not Lessen Your Page's Ranking :::

jpatriar · Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 32 Location: Watertown, MA

Hi,

When you use a Javascript nav menu you should always have the page links in html at the bottom so the SE's can crawl them or you can use the html noscript tags and put the page links between them. (the noscript tags are for text-only browsers)

To get an idea what a search engine sees when it crawls your site, you need to run your page through a text-mode browser like Lynx.

Cheers,
James