Chapter 6. SE-Friendly HTML and JavaScript
In a perfect world, a web site's presentation details would not affect its search engine rankings more so than it affects a human visitor's perception of value — his "rankings." Relevant content is what users are after, and the goal of a search engine is to provide it. In this perfect world, web pages that contain the same information would rank similarly regardless of the on-page technologies used in their composition.
Unfortunately, in many cases, quite the opposite is true. Using Flash or AJAX to present information, for example, may render much of your web site invisible to search engines. Likewise, using JavaScript-based links for navigation may bring about the same unfortunate result.
The good news, however, is that applying a deep understanding of these presentation concerns will yield an advantage for you over other web sites that exhibit more naiveté. This chapter explores these concerns. It provides solutions and outlines best practices for web site content presentation.
By the end of this chapter you will acquire knowledge that will enable you to use on-page technologies effectively without detriment to search engine rankings. Don't worry. A search engine friendly site does not mean the end of AJAX, Flash, or JavaScript. Don't run back to 1994 ... yet. This chapter will teach you how to:
Implement SE-friendly JavaScript site functionality.
Generate crawlable images and graphical text using two techniques.
Improve the search engine-friendliness ...
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