Skybox Creative Blog

Tip 1. If your robots.txt file is damaged or it contains a typo.

If search engine robots misinterpret your robots file the may just completely ignore your pages.¬† Be sure to check it multiple times and be sure that you only use the disallow on the pages that you really don’t want to be indexed.

Tip 2. Add too many variables to your URL

URLs with too many variables can cause problems with search engine robots.  If your URL has too many variables then there is a chance that the spiders will ignore your pages.  Google has made an official statement about variables:

“Google indexes dynamically generated webpages, including .asp pages, .php pages, and pages with question marks in their URLs. However, these pages can cause problems for our crawler and may be ignored.”

Tip 3.  Use Session IDs in your URL

Many URLs with session IDs don’t get indexed by search engines because they can lead to duplicate content problems.¬† If possible, don’t use the session ID in the URL, use a cookie instead, in order to track the session.

Tip 4. Use far too much code in your site.

Of course your site can use JS and CSS that isn’t directly related to your content.¬† If possible, externalize these scripts and refference them in your site instead.¬† The goal is to have as little code on the page as possible to get as much done as you can.

View the source code of your site – if it is hard for you to see the content then it is hard for the spiders to as well.

Tip 5. Use fancy hard to follow navigation.

Fancy JavaScript or DHTML menues cannot be parsed by most search engine robots.¬† Flash and¬† Ajax menues are even worse, because they don’t have any readable content to follow.¬† OK, so, maybe you are thinking – Google is smart, they ca nread flash now – Well, yes and no.¬† If your font has been rasterized or the letters have been taken apart for the sake of “flashyness” then you will get no Google love.

Be smart, use – go with the good old fashion HTML and standard navigation.¬† Stick with the basics.¬† If search engines love your site then they will show it to the people.¬† If they don’t show it to the people, then why spend the time and money on cool effects!

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Search Engine Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.