22 replies to this topic

[jehochman]

In order to improve coverage of the ways that coding can impact SEO, I wrote an article How to Get More Pages into Google's Index for Search Engine Watch.

What do you think?

Edited by jehochman, 01 August 2007 - 05:12 PM.
caprice

[AlDugan]

I think that is an excellent article Jonathan. Clean code is something that is often overlooked and while having clean code does not directly influence your search rankings, if it is something that is preventing you from getting into the search engines in the first place then it should certainly get more attention. But search engine indexing is certainly not the only reason to have clean code, this benefits the user and in some cases your own pocket as well... if you have really bloated code you may be paying for extra bandwidth that can be easily avoided.

Your article really got me thinking about the future of Search Marketing professionals. I think the most successful search marketers are going to be the ones that branch out (if they haven't already) into marketing optimization and web site optimization in general. Web pages need to be optimized not only for search engines but for speed/download time, usabillity, and of course conversion.

[jehochman]

I agree Al, although there's an awful lot to learn for one professional. My personal feeling is that consultants will need to form networks so they can offer a full range of services to each client using other professionals as team members.

[rolf]

good article Jonathan, especially interesting in view of the discussion that was on the boards recently about code bloat and it's potential negative side effects.

[Ignoramus]

Good read Jonathan - and it got top billing in the SearchEngineWatch newsletter.

As an aside - how did you get two degrees in Computer Science from Yale ?

It wasn't a 'two-for-one offer' was it ? Like toilet duck in ASDA ?

Sorry - I know you'll hate me for that and never help me again. It's late here and I'm two glasses down.

Forgiveness is a virtue.

[jehochman]

How to get two degrees from Yale:

1. Get into Yale. Nearly 1 in 10 applicants is accepted so you have an excellent chance.
2. Take two or three extra courses each semester Freshman and Sophomore years and then skip to grad courses after that.
3. Learn the academic rules and regulations so you know them better than the people responsible for deciding if you met the criteria.

Upon graduation you get a BS and MS. (or BA and MA). Out of 1300 in our class, four figured it out. One became the youngest dean of Columbia Law School. Another is CFO of a major energy company. The third is an MD/PhD at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. And the fourth is a mild mannered SEO.

[nethy]

so... two for one eh'

[qwerty]

So two degrees in four years? That's handy. And since there's just nothing to do in New Haven, there's no reason to leave campus in a futile effort to have fun, so you've got time to keep up with the course load

Actually, I know a guy who went through some special program set up by Harvard and MIT. He'd dropped out of college and I don't know if any of his credits from back then counted for this, but he went through a concentrated course of undergrad sciences and straight into medical school and got his MD two or three years faster than normal.

Anyway, back to the article. I think it's very informative, and I'm happy to see anyone recommending clean code, but I wonder a little about this:

I've always suspected that streamlining HTML code is a good way to facilitate indexing. Reducing code bloat helps pages load faster and use less bandwidth. I asked if it would help to move JavaScript and CSS definitions to external files, and clean up tag soup. Dan's answer was refreshingly clear. "Those would be very good ideas," he said.

Now, by "those would be very good ideas," do you think he meant those would be very good ideas that will help to facilitate indexing of your pages, or those would be very good ideas regardless of how the search engine will respond to them?

Those Googlers can be very sneaky, I've found.

[jehochman]

Just between you and me, and anybody who's lurking, he meant it would be a good idea for indexing, and also for those other reasons.

I did have quite a bit of fun off campus, but that usually involved road trips to more interesting places, like Boston and Vermont. I once flipped a boat in the Charles River during an April gale. That was cold, and it wasn't even my fault. Another team crashed into our dinghy and we all went ass over teakettles. Good advice: don't swim in the Charles River. It's not that clean.

Edited by jehochman, 02 August 2007 - 01:09 AM.

[qwerty]

Offtopic

Yeah, I love that dirty water, although they're supposedly working on it.

[MaKa]

Web pages need to be optimized not only for search engines but for speed/download time, usabillity, and of course conversion.

Are those not factors any SEO should be concerned with? I mean its nice to SEO a site and get loads of visitors, but if by optimising you kill the usability and conversions you may as well have not optimised the website.

In reply to Jehochmans article, when I SEO a site I look at the following three factors:
1 Technical Implementation
2 Keyphrases & Content
3 Popularity

One of the better examples that the technical implementation of SEO is not all about ranking is information behind forms. I've seen big success regarding visitor numbers from search engines by simply enabling search engines to spider information previously behind forms. Interesting to see the article of Jehochman taking it a step further and looking at making processing of the page easier.

Edited by jehochman, 02 August 2007 - 12:50 PM.
typo fix for clarity

[piskie]

Thanks Jonathan, Very interesting.
Apart from clean and lean coding being good common sense, I always have thought it helped Spidering and possibly ranking even though it was an unfashionable view in the opinion of Some.

Also, as far as JS goes, I once removed JS completely from a website and Rankings duly improved significantly. The JS was not removed as part of any SEO, but as a copyright issue when the copyright holder made it clear to the Client that they only allowed reproduction of their images below a certain resolution. This meant that "Click to Enlarge" scripts were redundant and therefore removed. The rankings improved on ALL pages in the site that had previously contained the script. Not conclusive I know, because no finite before/after measurements were taken only client recollection was available as a yardstick, but still enough to make me take note.

[jehochman]

I don't have any confimed facts that code cleanup could move you from 9th to 1st position, for example. Cleanup could move you from nowhere (unindexed) to somewhere. This would normally happen with a large site that has some low PageRank pages.

[ScottSalwolke]

Jonathan, another excellent article. I usually pay attention to too much code if a site is loading slow. I guess it makes sense that search engines would have problems with it, as well. One of the sites I'm working on now has bloated code. And its rankings have slipped. I'll have to bring this up with them.

[jehochman]

On thing to consider is that every page that Google indexes is guaranteed to have a real PageRank of at least 0.15. Thus, if a large site has unindexed pages, it's indexed pages will probably get a bit more PageRank if those unindexed pages get into the index. Each indexed page on a site contributes PageRank to all the pages it links to.

Anyone still following me? My point is that getting more pages indexed can increase the PageRank of all pages on the site, and that could potentially help rankings indirectly.