search engines question
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- kingjulien
I apologize if this has been covered before, but I was wondering if anybody would explain to me the connection between css layouts and search engines. I always assumed the way to get recognized was through meta tags (and by paying google for key words), but a client is insisting it's done through css. Can someone please break it down for a novice?
I appreciate it.
- jevad0
if it's a question of doing a site in html/css over flash - then your client is right
- jevad0
search engines son;t just look at meta tags to crawl data - and doing a whole site in flash obfuscates most of the contextual text
- kingjulien0
Thanks, bro...
- jevad0
contextual text?
twat
- BZZZP0
in fact SEs that matter (read: google) ignore meta tags as such COMPLETELY now - it's all page content and inbound links.
- industry730
The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines
Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document
There is a greater density of content compared to table-layout.
Using CSS for layout is also highly advantageous for usability, as it leads to significantly faster download times.
- industry730
I have been making it a practice to put a "Search engine" DIV at the very top of the page.
in there i put the site description and a bunch of keywords.
then in my stylesheet i HIDE that DIV. that way no matter what, the proper description should be the fist thing used, and it is hidden to the normal user.
- BZZZP0
just wait to get nailed for spamming it like that industry
- industry730
spamming like what
- BZZZP0
like what you're doing. the ability of spiders to interpret css is pretty limited at the moment, but by the book, hiding content specifically -for- search engines is spamming
- mg330
No one has mentioned title tags.
Very important, and the first thing Google looks at.
I turned our law firm's website around in barely 1 week. All the old pages had title tags of just the firm name.
I redid them with the appropriate info like city, state, the words "law firm" and the firm name at the end.For several specific search terms we went from no placement at all to within the first three pages of Google, with at least 6 terms taking us to #1 and #2 placements on the first page.
Cool thing is, no one there knew I knew how to do this stuff! :D
I do alot of research on law firms to see what others are doing, how they're representing themselves, etc.
It's astounding how many firms only put the firm name in the title tag. And then they wonder why they can't find their site on the web when they type in "City, State + law firm." Kind of makes me laugh.
Now, if I am able to get us business this way from the web, I'm having a party in my pantaloons.