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It's not enough that you have an attractive website
In their desire to show web site visitors the sophisticated programming techniques that they've mastered, many developers create web sites that prospects can't navigate, or even see. And just as it's a mistake to create a web site that requires technology or plug-ins that your potential customers' web browsers can't handle, it's also a mistake to create a web site that search engine spiders can't navigate.
Different web browsers have different degrees of forgiveness when it comes to interpreting non-standard or buggy HTML. We've all seen examples of HTML tables with unbalanced TRs and TDs that look great in Internet Explorer, but look horrible in Netscape Navigator.
What about the search engines' spiders? Are they forgiving like Internet Explorer, or do they hiccup whenever you've created an HTML error, or introduced a leading-edge technological innovation?
Truth be told, we have no idea. Only the engineers at the search engines know how sensitive and intelligent their spiders are. Given the importance of allowing these spiders to thoroughly crawl your entire web site, it's best to be safe. Here are some web site design issues to consider:
(1) Is your HTML buggy? A lot of developers like to use simple text editors to create their web pages. If you introduce some strange HTML code into your pages, Internet Explorer might be able to display your site, but some of the search engine spiders might not be so lucky. There are both online HTML checkers and stand-alone products that will ensure that your HTML conforms to specifications.
(2) Your glowing nav-bar buttons are beautiful. But can the search engine spiders understand your javascript? Are you using plain-vanilla javascript that most spiders can interpret, or have you done something really fancy? To be safe, and to ensure that the spiders can crawl your entire site, create a simple, text-only navigation bar at the bottom of each page.
(3) Are you using Flash movies and PDF files on your web site? Can the search engine spiders parse these files, identify the links, and crawl the linked pages, or are some of your web pages going to go unnoticed by the search engines? In addition to high-tech links, be sure to have plain text links that let the spiders find all of your important pages.
As you move from simple text links to web pages that can only be found through plug-ins or database lookups, the spiders are going to have more and more trouble indexing your web site. And that means lost sales. You don't have to avoid these newer technologies. But you'll sell more software if your web site also contains a link structure that the least sophisticated spider can follow.
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