[Gloucs] ALT Tags - Meta Tags - How search engines really work

[Guy Edwards]

On Mon, 2003-01-06 at 12:52, bjh wrote:
> Hi Guys,
> 
> Some of you may have been watching the interesting (to me) exchange of
> messages concerning web page design, search engines and page ranking that
> was started by Guy (thanks Guy)...
> 
> I thought it may be useful to bring in a specialist site that supplies
> greater definition to the subject matter
> http://www.searchenginewatch.com of particular interest is the analysis of
> which search engines use which methods to crawl.

[snip]

Yeah this is all correct. If I was doing a site that was in a heavy
competition area (a SF site competing with a commercial product, or a SF
project in an already overcrowded area such as a text editor) then I'd
pay a lot of attention to these ideas in order to beat them to the top
of the search engine.

With the Lx-Viewer SF project I know we're the only free Linux app that
opens DWG files that are generated by AutoCAD, (unless someone knows
otherwise) so anyone who does a Google for Linux and DWG will get us
100%. That means I get a bit of leeway with what I can afford to play
with.

In my mind I know specifically some of the sort of people I'm aiming at
(which can be difficult with some sites, no?). I haven't done all these
things yet but it's what I'll aim towards. These are the sort of people
I'm thinking of:

* Small business with a Samba file server and AutoCAD workstations. They
store their AutoCAD files on the Samba server and want a utility to be
able to use when administering the samba server (eg to convert between
different versions of the same file format, or take a quick look at a
drawing before moving it to another folder.) They might have a techie
person who'll know to do a Google for what they're after, but they'll
have a boss figure, who typically likes polished looking UI's and isn't
too sure about this "Linux" thing the techie is always going on about.
That Samba thing the techie installed doesn't crash though, so that's
cool.

For the techie I put in content that'll answer as many of the questions
he\she has, and links to all the forums and mailing lists in case the
techie has problems with the program.

For the boss I can afford to put in graphics to try and make the site
look more polished "Yeah that looks alright, lets download that." 

* Developers on the project. (this isn't really done yet) I'd like to
stick in all the details here about where the projects at, where it's
going, who's programing what? What formats and standards are we working
towards? I can't think of many (any?) sites I've been to which activly
help the developers (other than by used feedback) so this might be
difficult.

* The Richard Stallman-esque troublemaker. Yep he's into Open Source.
He's looking at your site in Lynx, not because he hasn't got a GUI but
because he wants to see if you've made an error. Underneath the gruff
remarks there's actually good intentions. He wants his Internet to be
open to everyone, all browsers, and if the user is disabled or not he
believes they should have the same experience.

For this person I validate all my xhtml and css, I try to follow the
accessibility guidelines. I test in multiple browsers.

* The website beginner. He's wondering how you achieved xxx effect. For
him I make the code readable.

* Myself. I want to push what I know about html, so I'll try more
complicated effects and to achieve the same effect with less code, or
less file size. that way I learn new ways of doing things.

Guy