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pageoneresults -> RE: CSS and Search Engines (9/21/2002 12:17:51)
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Hello d_pipkin, welcome to Outfront!
They said...
> Do you have a regular html version of your site? If not I' ll have to figure out a way to convert your CSS (cascading style sheets) pages to ensure the engines will rank you properly.
It sounds like they may not be familiar with css and have only worked with html. If they were keen on css, I would have expected a response like...
> Do you have a css version of your site? If not I' ll have to figure out a way to convert your html (hypertext markup language) pages to ensure the engines will rank you properly.
They also said...
> And as a solution to our css site quandary, we can build an optimized site for the search engines, that will look like your css site, but with the more, " ranking friendly" html code.
Again, I think they may not know how to work with css. This is a common issue as css is just becoming mainstream and few understand the benefits it brings to the table besides optimization.
The only real difference between css and html is the amount of code used to present your content to the surfing public and to the spider based search engines.
> That will give you an opportunity to double your exposure!
Eek! You don' t want to double anything unless there are some technical aspects in place to prevent the spider based SE' s from grabbing duplicate content. If duplicate content is detected, both domains are at risk of being penalized or removed from the search engines index.
There are very few instances where secondary domains are required for promotion. Sites that are heavy with graphics, built with Flash, or the dreaded 3, 4 or 5 frame site structures. 2 frame site structures are okay if they are built correctly.
They then said...
> Alta Vista and Inktomi are two engines that are a bit behind the curve. These engines just seem to love older html code. However there are ways to work around them with CSS.
Hehehe! Ink actually likes css sites better than html, I can prove that! Ink likes sites that validate to the W3C standard. If anyone has used their PFI (Pay For Inclusion) service, you' ll know that they include a link next to each URL you' ve paid for inclusion that checks your code to see if it validates. If it doesn' t, there really isn' t a big issue. It just goes to show you that they are looking for sites that come close to validation. I' ve seen very few pure html sites that validate. The ones that do, don' t look real pretty due to the limitation of pure html.
Alta Vista? Who is that? I don' t pay much attention to them these days as they account for less than 3% of my clients traffic and I have over 15 active SEO clients at the moment. Google is by far the dominating force and in some instances accounts for almost 90% of some clients traffic. That is not a good thing, but, we have no choice. The visitors to those sites like using Google!
CSS is a way to reduce html code bloat. Even working with basic css and stripping out all the font tags is of great benefit when optimizing html code. The one single major benefit of css is content positioning. As stated above, spiders index in a particular manner, they start at the top, work their way from left to right until they reach the bottom.
Some spiders are programmed to index only a certain amount of code. Once it reaches its limit of code indexing, it moves on to the next page. With html designs, you typically have a large amount of code that precedes the core content of that page.
Let' s say that the spider only indexes 100k of html. If your site has heavy graphics, rollovers, nested tables, etc. that is quite a bit of code for the spider to traverse. If that code represents 80k of the allowed 100k, then you better hope that the remaining 20k is the content you want indexed. If not, you' ve just missed an opportunity.
With css, that problem is non-existent. Now we can position the core content right up there after the <body> tag and give the spider 80k of content we want indexed instead of 80k of layout code. Which would you prefer?
I' m not saying that html sites cannot rank highly, they do all the time. Its the previous generation of design. CSS is the next generation of design and has many advantages over html. Not only is it search engine friendly, but it reduces the maintenance factor of the site dramatically. So, you don' t like that background color on all 500 pages? No problem, we' ll change the color in the style sheet and viola, all 500 pages are updated. Much easier than doing a find and replace routine to change individual page elements.
> Is the issue of duplicate content a definite black ball thing to do, or is there some debate out on that?
Definitely a black ball thing to do. Its done all the time, but, the risk factor is not worth it in most instances. If you have a one time promotion (holiday) and you need to get visibility quickly, then some may resort to secondary domains hosted on their server, not yours. Some may also host them on your server, either way, the risk factor is too great if you are looking for long term solutions. There is always debate on this subject and as it stands now, the general consensus is that it is high risk. If you have a strong brand to protect, do not travel down this path unless you are working with one of the top professionals in this industry. Even then, a savvy competitor may be able to figure out what you are doing and cause some problems for you.
> My big concern here is that if he is suggesting something that is not kosher, then what else will he recommend that is risky but I may accept as I don' t know about SEO.
It sounds as though you' ve already made a commitment to this person. If so, then there isn' t much we can tell you that will change your mind. If you' ve not made the commitment, please, investigate this further and locate another firm who will optimize your site and be able to work with the css.
Based on your response and theirs, it sure sounds like these people are cloaking. If that is the case, get out of there quickly. Cloaking is used everyday. Cloaked sites that are not done properly find themselves penalized and/or banned from a variety of search engines. Don' t get me wrong, there are cloakers who are very good at what they do and they are usually working in highly competitive industries.
Stick with a traditional optimization and set aside a budget for PPC (Pay Per Click) and CPC (Cost Per Click). The current trend is pay to play. If you are serious about your online brand, you' ll want to play by the rules and stay away from anything that presents a high risk factor. Or, any risk factor for that matter.
Good luck!
P.S. I sure hope you are not working with one of the members from our directory! ;)
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