A special report from the Search Engine Strategies 2001 Conference, August 16-17, San Francisco CA.
In a roundtable entitled "Leveraging Your Content" Shari Thurow discussed advanced design techniques such as frames, Flash sites, JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, and dynamically generated Web sites.
Although some sites lend well to a framed design, Thurow explained, most end users prefer an unframed site. She suggested that Webmasters always give their target audience a choice between a framed and unframed site. "If your audience prefers the framed site, then use that design. If they prefer the unframed version, then use that design. Always let your target audience decide."
For the Webmasters who insist on using framed sites, Thurow provided a JavaScript to always keep the framed site intact. She warned that end users will not be able to bookmark a specific page on a framed site. So from a site usability standpoint, the framed site with JavaScript might not be an ideal solution.
She also pointed out that items such as JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets are not important information to the search engines. She recommended placing all scripts and style sheets, whenever possible, in external files and placing the Robots Exclusion Protocol on those files.
"If you try and spam the search engines with any technology and think you can hide it with a Robots Exclusion Protocol, you are mistaken," said Thurow. "Any spam can get your site penalized or permanently removed from the search engine indices. Search engine spiders might not be able to detect the spam, but any human 'spambuster' can. These 'spambusters' will report your sites to the search engines." (Shari is well-known as a spambuster, herself.)
Thurow also gave two solutions for working with Flash sites. Give your target audience the choice of viewing the Flash version vs. the non-Flash version of your site, she stated. Let them select their preference. If a Webmaster only wants end users to view a Flash site, Thurow recommended placing the Flash site inside of a frame set and using a JavaScript command to keep the frames intact.
Grant Crowell is the CEO of Grantastic Designs, Inc, (http://www.grantasticdesigns.com/) founded in 1993 in Honolulu. He has 15 combined years of experience in the fields print and online design, newspaper journalism, public relations, and publications. He is a featured speaker in conferences nationwide on banner design and marketing issues, and is a featured columnist for WorkZ.com.
Cloaking: An Ethical Perspective
Alan Perkins, Chief Technology Officer of e-Brand Management Limited, was a featured speaker at the Search Engine Strategies conference on the cloaking panel. Alan has written a white paper that looks at the various issues surrounding cloaking, beginning with some basic definitions of terms like spam and relevancy -- words often carrying different meanings to different people. If you're confused about cloaking, this white paper is an excellent introduction to both the technology and the ethical issues surrounding the practice.
Relevancy, Spam, Technology, Cloaking and Ranking : The Ethical Guide http://www.ebrandmanagement.com/whitepapers/spam1.htm
Search Headlines
NOTE: Article links often change. In case of a bad link, use the publication's search facility, which most have, and search for the headline.
| Script kiddie launches war vote virus... VNU Sep 25 2001 12:38PM GMT |
| Net firms face black hole in ad revenue... Guardian Unlimited Sep 25 2001 7:39AM GMT |
| Track Web-Search Trends... Business 2.0 Sep 25 2001 7:12AM GMT |
| Cisco Unveils XML Community Site... Internet News Sep 24 2001 11:48PM GMT |
| A False Challenge to News Photos Takes Root on the Web... New York Times Sep 24 2001 4:25PM GMT |
| Autonomy gets into TV... Silicon.com Sep 24 2001 2:57PM GMT |
| Place Name Search Engine... Research Buzz Sep 24 2001 1:34PM GMT |
| Teddy Bear Search Engines On Parade... Research Buzz Sep 24 2001 1:34PM GMT |
| Need software? Ask Jeeves... ZDNet Sep 24 2001 1:16PM GMT |
| Popular Portals Criticized for Being Too Open to Pornography... Los Angeles Times Sep 23 2001 7:50PM GMT |
| Searchers Guide to Afghanistan - Web Search Tip of the Day... About Web Search Sep 23 2001 6:45AM GMT |
| more on jump-starting RDF with XML... IBM Sep 22 2001 3:52PM GMT |
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