[Gloucs] Re: Web site building and ranking

[Mick Brooks]

On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at 07:03:46PM -0000, bjh wrote:
> +++ Response
> ************************

While on the subject of usability, what is this (above) all about? What's
wrong with having your responses just not quoted to differentiate them
from quoted material? Does it actually look good in OutLook? :-)


> At about Monday, January 06, 2003 5:01 PM, Guy wrote:

> > Here's a snippet of something I hadn't thought of...
> >
> > "White-on-white is a technique that provides extra help for users who may
> > require additional information. While sighted people are easily distracted
> > by a lot of extra words on a page, blind people often need some extra
> > information to help in navigation or to understand what is happening. We
> > put that extra information in a font that is the same color as the
> > background.  Since most of our web pages have a white background, we call
> > this technique white-on-white. It would work just as well in other colors."
> 
> +++ Oh dear, problem here is you have now entered the problem of "spamming"
> the search engine as far as the bots are concerned, same colour text as the
> background colour would be seen by the bot in that form as attempting to fool
> the search engine and your ranking (and even listing - you could get the site
> banned altogether doing that!!!) would definitely be affected!

Maybe what you say is correct, so I would definitely use a div hidden in CSS if
I wanted to achieve this - you can probably use the media handling abilities
of CSS2 to present different content to users with different needs.

I think that adding a huge number of barely relevant and mis-spelled meta 
keywords is probably going to get you labelled a "bot spammer" quicker than
white on white text would.

<snip>

> > > Putting it into context - a site can be technically perfect in terms of
> > > minimal html coding etc., but if it is never found, is a total waste of
> > > precious time and resources (time is money) taken to put it together.
> > 
> > Again, we have different audiences. With an Open Source project I would
> > rather have a technically perfect site full of content, as it will be the
> > program users seeking information, help, or discussion. I would quite
> > happily sacrifice search engine rankings for that.
> 
> +++ I think you are completely missing the point - it is not about "ranking",
> it is all about people putting different combinations of words together in
> search engine boxes in an attempt to get hold of the information you are
> providing!!!

I don't see how polluting your keywords with a, I, but, with and other rubbish
is going to help though (not that it'll hurt much - most search engines
completely ignore them anyway). If they are to be useful, then a few
well-chosen relevant keywords are best.

> If you have not got the pages structured and worded correctly,
> they will never find you...

This is right on the money though (and anybody who's taken the time to look at
Guy's site will know it's not an issue there). If you have good content that
people want to read and present it clearly and accessibly then real people will
find it - whether the search engines do or not is not really important.

Guy's working with a project aimed at a particular audience - if they do it
well the site will be linked to from other well respected sites that are also
relevant to any search terms likely to be used - that's worth more Google
"points" than any number of keyword hacks.

<snip excellent research advice>

> > > Only at this point can you even think about how a site is going to be
> > > built to make it as visually attractive as possible to appeal to the
> > > viewer when he/she has found it... (Perhaps with very careful use of
> > > colour alone and the MINIMAL amount of text on each page to create the
> > > interest from the reader without boring and also to achieve the search
> > > engine ranking required - remember, each additional NON keyword will
> > > normally dilute the effect of the keywords for ranking purposes - it is
> > > about achieving balanced copy without trying to put a book on the page
> > > (like this email is starting to look like - smile)...

This is seriously backwards. Make your NON keywords relevant and don't dilute
your keywords with rubbish. Keywords are at best a top-up to what you have in
your content - this is all from the site you listed below.

Surely you take the research you've done and write the most relevant content
you can - then let the search engines just do their job.

<snip that "Gloucs Linux" in Google gives us as top link>

> > > *** Sorry, but that is because you are being very specific - that is
> > > Gloucester Linux will only be found by someone who puts "Gloucester
> > > Linux" in the search engine at that time...
> > 
> > My argument would be, if you're looking for Linux in Gloucester, it's the
> > two words you type in. It's a very specific site. How do you Google for
> > Linux in Gloucester without using those two words? If they're after "Linux
> > Support" there's better sites out there to help them, why bring them to
> > this site? They aren't going to give me money and I'm not providing a
> > better resource that the bigger sites.

Yes. Why slow somebody down with info they don't want?
 
> +++ To judge from most of the messages between members, most relate to help
> with problems - are we now saying we don't want to help anyone now??? Is this
> group now a closed shop??? Do we want to attract more experts to the
> group???? - You can provide support by putting in links to the larger sites
> who can handle the questions!!!

The LUG does have the stated aim of helping people in the county of
Gloucestershire. It's not that we don't want to help anybody else, just that
they might get more help from their local LUG. The special bit about a LUG
rather than a general help site is that it is local - you can get face-to-face
help if you like.

> > "on, and, I, up, for, with, need" ..etc are junk. I
> > would refuse to put them in any site.
> 
> +++ Sorry again - You have just made the classic mistake, these simple words
> are part of the text strings that must appear on a page to get maximum effect
> from input into a search box... That is, they are link words for terse
> wording put into the boxes *** if someone puts "Linux in Gloucester" into a
> search engine request box, you need all the words as text on that page in
> order for the search engine to maximise on the search request and cough your
> page to the top of the list of suggested sites - Please don't underestimate
> the importance of these link words...

Hmmm. That's rubbish. The number of sites that use the word "in" are so large
that you haven't done any useful trimming to the result set.

Your site is only as "unique" as its most unique word - adding common words
does no good at all.

I wonder if it's only idiot companies who've heard about this 'net thingy and
think they need a "presence" that need to use naff search engine tricks? If
they had any interesting content they wouldn't need them.

> Barrie ( A useful exchange - smile)...

I hope you take my comments in the spirit in which they were intended (triple
double smile and all that). I thought you two were getting lonely in this
thread on your own ...

-- 
Mick Brooks
michael.brooks@physics.ox.ac.uk