Comments on: Standards, Accessibility, and Search Engine Optimization

By: Frank Meyer

Frank Meyer — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:31:12 +0000

I think, that only content makes a website good or bad. In your website has a good theme and much backlinks, it will be indexed from the spiders and found by users….

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:08:33 +0000

Writing for search engines is a bit of a different beast — - there’s a line to be walked between headlines which are interesting to people and also strong for search engines and headlines which are interesting to people but very weak for search engines. The thing to avoid is headlines which are weak for people but strong for search engines…

Your rule of thumb is pretty sound!

By: Mike Cherim

Mike Cherim — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:59:52 +0000

I agree, to a point. I never code for search engines, but when I create headings I try to write them with indexing in mind. I love being creative with my headings, but on the web that may not produce good results so I save that for print works.

A safe rule of thumb I think: If you think you’re playing games to trick the ‘bots then you probably are and it may prove disastrous. Want good SEO? Write good content and add new content regularly. Make sure your site is accessible to the blind, choose headings/wording carefully so it is properly descriptive (which is important on the web), promote the site so it is linked to, and then rest should just fall into place. Naturally.

By: Joe Dolson

Joe Dolson — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:24:07 +0000

I’ll have to admit that MSN would be my last choice of those three…but I’m sure it depends somewhat on what you’re searching for! You’re right that knowing exactly what could be a problem is very challenging — - which is exactly why I’d recommend always having a solid justification for any action which doesn’t revolve around search engine behaviors.

By: Stevie D

Stevie D — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:40:29 +0000

It’s very difficult to know exactly what search engines will downscore a website for, given that they refuse to tell us! They claim that more and more weight is given to incoming links over the page itself.

Given how fickle the search engines can be, Google and Yahoo in particular, with pages jumping up and down the rankings every day for no apparent reason, and no knowing when the next big launch that turns everything on its head will be, we have to be careful about how much time we invest in deliberate SEO techniques. As you say, the best strategy is to include relevant and unique content, and hope!

FWIW, my current search engine of choice is MSN, for consistently picking the most relevant sites.