You are here:

  1. Manual
  2. Development
  3. Optimisation for search engines

Search engine optimisation

Many visitors will end up on web pages by way of a search engine. They are looking for specific information and expect to find this on one of more pages the search engine presents them with. To serve these visitors, it is important that search engines can index the website as effectively and correctly as possible.

Search spiders do not only belong to international search engines like Google and Altavista, they may also belong to a search engine that is part of the website.

The aim of search engines optimisationis to enhance access and effectiveness of the indexing of search spiders on these sites.

Guidelines

A number of guidelines are given below for increasing the accessibility to and effectiveness of search spiders on sites. These guidelines principally refer to methods covered elsewhere in the manual.

URLs and navigation

  • Do not use frames on websites. (Guideline R-pd.12.1).
    This applies to regular frames in framesets as well as iframes.
  • Create unique, unchanging URLs. (Guideline R-pd.4.1).
    If a page were to be relocated, ensure that there is a good redirection. See also Stable, unique URLs.
  • Avoid using sessions in URLs. (Guideline R-pd.4.3).
    Most search spiders will not index URLs containing sessions. See also Sessions.
  • Use friendly URLs that are readable and recognisable. (Guideline R-pd.4.6).
    Search spiders have less trouble indexing this type of URL and in fact will often rank them higher. See also Friendly URLs.
  • Do not use client-side script or forms as the only way of accessing information on the site. (Guideline R-pd.13.5)
    Not only do search spiders not support client-side scripts, but they will not even follow forms. See also Client-side script and DOM and Forms for navigation.

HTML markup

  • Write both grammatically correct and descriptive markup. (Guideline R-pd.3.1)
    A site with grammatically correct and descriptive markup can be indexed better and more accurately by search spiders.
  • Put the content of the page in the HTML source code in order of importance. (Guideline R-pd.6.2)
    In principle, search engines are 'blind' users; they use the structure of HTML documents when indexing them, in order to allocate priority and context.

Content of the page

A unique, descriptive title

Use a unique, descriptive title for each page.

Guideline R-pd.18.1

The title of a page must describe the content of the page and be placed in the title element in the markup.

Short, concise text

Write short, concise text, in which the main message is mentioned at the top of the page.

Guideline R-pd.18.2

Use an introduction in which the main message is conveyed. Alternatively, include a summary at the top of the text. Try to imagine how a visitor accessing the page by way of a search engine will experience this page: a brief glance at the title and introduction to a text must be enough to know what a text is about.

Links and references


Web Guidelines version 1.3, November 2007.