The Invisible
Site Blues
APRIL 2003
One of the
things rarely mentioned to a potential site owner (especially
not mentioned by the site developer) is that many shop online
sites have difficulty being indexed by search engines. And they're
not the only ones. Some sites, in an attempt to utilize the latest
and greatest of Internet technology also end up with invisible
sites.
What do
I mean by "invisible sites?" These are sites that
seem to contain no content to search engine spiders.
How does
this happen? Well, typically this can be a problem for sites
that are pulling the site content from a database. Many of these
types of sites have only a few actual pages, which are really
just templates with place holders for the information to appear.
The page is actually created "on-the-fly" based on the
actions of the site visitor. For instance, when a site visitor
comes to the main page and clicks on "products" a list
of products is pulled from a database and the information populates
the template page. At one time the "?" in the URL caused a problem for spiders. Today, that is no longer a problem, but there does have to be some special care taken in creating these types of pages to help the search engines. Specifically, each page should have a unique title tag that is brought in from the database. This title tag tells the search engine about the content of the page. A title tag of "products" is of no use to the search engine trying to index your site - "shirts" or "shoes" would be far more descriptive.
Now, compound
that problem by placing pages inside of frames. Every
search engine has stated that they have difficulty indexing a
site in frames - so why do we still use them? Well, for some sites
frames are really the only way to bring in content from another
site and have that content appear to be a part of their own site.
For instance, you might have a Yahoo shopping site that you want
to integrate with your current site. The use of frames allows
you to bring in that storefront and still have your main site
navigation available.
If the frame
is used only when someone clicks on "Shop Online" at
your site there shouldn't be much of a problem because all of
the other pages at your site will get indexed. The problem occurs
when the frames are the main page of the site so none of the pages
get indexed. (Do not confuse frames with iFrames - iFrames pose no indexing problems for search engines, but do require some special workarounds to ensure that they are not caught outside of the iFrame.)
Dynamic navigation can also make a site invisible. Using JavaScript, Java or Flash for the main navigation makes it impossible for search engines to index the site unless you provide an alternative linking structure for the search engines. Often these alternative links are static links in the footer or a site map page.
Is your
situation hopeless if you have one of these invisible sites? The good
news is, no. There are a couple of solutions. If your site is
not extremely large, it can be optimized to ensure that all of
the important pages (if not all of the pages) will get indexed.
If your site is extremely large or dynamic, we can offer a different solution.
We propose
that you have a smaller, more focused static HTML site within your site (products.mydomain.com, for instance). This sub-site should
be optimized to rank well with the search engines and contain
a good overview of the real "meat and potatoes" of what
your company is selling. This sub-site would send site visitors to
your main site for more detailed information or to buy online.
For huge, database driven sites that are not ranking well with
the search engines, this may be their only option short of redesigning
the entire site.
Understand,
however, that this sub-site is not a "doorway" page.
It should have 8 or more pages of real content. We recommend focusing
on your products or services.
Do all
database driven sites have problems getting indexed by the search
engines? Nope. If done correctly there's no reason why a database
driven site cannot be indexed if it is designed properly.
Will search
engines get upset if you have this sub-site? I don't see
why they would. It's not like your main site is taking up much
room in their database. I think they realize that they have a
problem with certain sites and will tolerate reasonable workarounds.
They will get upset, however, if you create multiple sites of
identical content - all of which do not have indexing problems.
This clutters up their database forcing them to purge some of
those sites - or ban all of them.
What's
the best way to ensure that my site doesn't get banned? Let
an expert do it. Web-Kare, LLP has been optimizing websites for
5 years now. We have never had a site get banned and we don't
ever plan on getting a site banned. We don't believe in "tricking"
the search engines. We want to help the search engines produce
the most relevant sites to a query and help our client's sites
get the proper exposure for targeted traffic. The "do-it-yourselfer"
who picks up on tips and techniques shared via family and friends
will find himself either not getting the results he had hoped
for, or getting his site banned. If you're a business owner, you
have to ask yourself, "What business am I in? Am I in the
Internet marketing business or am I in (whatever business you
may have)?" How much time can you afford to spend on Internet
marketing; researching keywords, keeping up with search engine
changes, monitoring site results, etc.? Contact Web-Kare to find out how affordable a professional solution can be.
