SEO Web Design - Part 2

In the first part of our article, we discussed how site structure and web design layout can have a significant impact on a website's search engine rankings. This time we'll be looking at popular web technologies that can also affect search engine visibility.

Web Technologies

Flash Design

At an SEO conference some years ago, a Google engineer confirmed they were able to index content from Flash movies. However, he added that indexing the Flash contents didn't add anything useful to their index of the Web.

If you have a Flash-only site, consider these two options:

• Design a HTML version of your website. Have the home page of the HTML version rather then the Flash, and have visitors decide which version they want to use.
  
  
• Redesign your website so that it has elements of both HTML and Flash. This could mean implementing Flash content on an HTML page. Designed right, this will not only give your website an interactive, multimedia feel but it will be indexable as well.

JavaScript

Javascript code may be necessary for certain page features. To a spider, this is all clutter it pretty much ignores. Still, it must trudge through this code before reaching the real content. Many spiders have timeouts or maximum character counts associated with them. If they must go through too much irrelevant coding, they'll abandon their spidering and leave the site.

The solution: move the Javascript code either to the bottom of the page.

Dynamic URLs

Dynamic URLs often results from the search of a database-driven website or a site that runs a script. These URLs can be a problem for indexing search engines because they may be considered too complex to spider, which means they may consider the page too dynamic to read. The other issue with dynamic URLs is that they don't generally contain any keywords.

The solution for this will require some time and money. You'll need to hire a programmer to find the right URL fix for your site and test the new URLs.

The new URLs should be shorter in length and not appear to have too many subcategories (ideally, the limit should be four).

Example of a dynamic URL:
http://www.sitename.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date

Example of a fixed (static) URL:
http://www.sitename.com/forums/thread.php

Summary

Creating or redesigning a website to be search-engine friendly is not difficult, but it can be time-consuming. Although a basic understanding of how search engines work would be beneficial, the checklist of things to look for provide a good basis to help you evaluate your website and make changes where necessary.

Return to Montreal Web Design articles