Professional Search Engine Optimization (Seo). Developer’s Guide to SEO

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Meta Keywords

This criterion is widely regarded as totally unimportant because it is completely invisible and subject

to manipulation. It is wise to place a few major keywords as well as their misspellings in the meta key-

words tag, but the effectiveness of targeting misspellings this way has been disputed:

<head>

cookies, choclate, cokies” />

...

</head>

Alt and Title Attributes

Because these tags are mostly invisible, they are likely not an important ranking factor. Many assert

that their value is higher on hyperlinked images. They are important, however, for screen readers and

text-based browsers — that is, for accessibility and usability in general, so they should not be ignored

for that reason alone. Neither of these attributes will make or break you, but blind visitors using screen

readers will thank you in any case. This is a case where accessibility, usability, and search engine opti-

mization coincide. The descriptions should be short. Keyword stuffing in an

alt

tag will irk blind

users using screen readers, and possibly “irk” the search engines as well. Alt tags can only be used in

image tags, whereas title attributes can be used in most tags. Here is an example of the

alt

attribute

in an image:

<img src=”/images/chocolate_chip_cookie.jpg” alt=”a picture of a really big

chocolate chip cookie”>

And the

title

attribute on a link:

Page Structure Considerations

Search engines use block-level elements, for example

<div>

<p>

, or

<table>

elements to group related

text. Using block-level elements indiscriminately for layout, as illustrated in the following example, may

be harmful:

<div>food</div> is likely to be less relevant than:

<div>dog food</div>.

Time-Based Factors

Try as you might, but the only criterion that cannot be manipulated in any way is time. Old men and

women are often sought for their knowledge and experience. And the price of wine is directly propor-

tional to its age for a reason.

This is a useful analogy. Because time cannot be cheated, an old site that slowly accumulates links over

time and regularly adds new knowledge is what we term “fine wine.” Search engines tend to agree, and

give the deserved credit to such fine wines.

Chapter 2: A Primer in Basic SEO

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