3c-se-frames

Internet Marketing

VOLUME 3c. MAY 16th 1999 - Advertising on the Internet:

Search Engines: Rating - Javascript, Dynamic Pages, Databases and Frames

By Ian Clayton, AXSES SCL

Browsers like Netscape and MS Explorer read pages that use the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). This is a very primitive sort of program that tells the browser how to display text and images. It defines page headings, images and will link words and images to other pages.

Example:

· Headings: <h1>.This is my Main Heading</h1>

· images: <img scr="image1.gif>

· Link: <ahref="the address of page linked to goes here">Its Name goes here</a>

Javascript, a cut down version of the Java Language, came along some years after HTML. It is an extension to HTML and is used to create special effects like moving text and images around the page. The older browsers cannot read Javascript and will often just not display a Java page.

Dynamic pages are other forms of scripts that tell the page where to get content. The page is dynamic because it is created when the users clicks to it. Typically it gets its content from a central store (or database) which is frequently updated.

These script-based systems are becoming very popular in web design as they are much easier to maintain and they also provide a more responsive experience for the user. The scripts are in fact program instructions that respond to users clicks. They can fetch specific content based on users choices (e.g: find all hotels on the beach and under $100pd). They may compute an answer (like totaling costs of a 2 week stay for a party of three).

Javascripts, dynamic pages and databases are important to the Internet and to the user. To the SE, however, scripts are nonsense. They are not keywords and the only content is often in a database which the SE cannot read. Some SE's will actually read the script and index it as nonsense. Excite and some other SE's will often use part of the script as the page description (e.g: var start = 0; var end =4;var Num = start-1;function animate() Num++; //go to next ). You probably have seen this on the net and wondered what it meant. It would hardly have sold you on a holiday in Barbados.!

SE's are catching on to dynamic pages and some now ignore the program script (Excite, Webcrawler, Infoseek, Altavista, no longer try to index dynamic page scripts, but Excite still indexes Javascript). Ignoring the script is better than indexing it, but if the content is in the database, the page will simply not rate.

TIPS

You cannot ignore databases, dynamic pages and Javascript because of the SE. A good website must make appropriate use of technology. The trick is to make sure that you have sufficient content in well placed conventional (static) pages. There are now utilities that you can use to create static SE pages from scripts (e.g: XBuilder).

Example:

Our on-line shopping website (http://caribbeanexpressions.com) is a dynamic site. Most of the content is in a database and pages are created only when a user clicks on a menu option. In order to get the site ranked our webmaster KathyLyn created several gateway pages for specific products, such as Rag Dolls. Kathy's Rag Dolls page was carefully designed and submitted to the SEs for the sole purpose of getting listed. It worked; if you are looking for Rag Dolls on the Net, chances are that you will find Kathy's gateway page, but you will have to click on a link there to see and buy the real Rag Doll.

Frames - Technology that does not get ranked.

Frames are a way of stitching separate pages of information together to create one Internet screen (page). It is useful, for example, to freeze some information so that it appears in a consistent position on all pages. You may have seen this with a menu that stays on the top of the screen while the bottom changes when you select options from it. This makes programming and maintaining a site much easier. It also makes it consistent for the user.

To a SE, however, a page made up of frames really does not exist. With the exception of AltaVista and NorthernLights, SE's cannot read frames. All they see is a set of instructions that piece together the parts. The effect is that frames get low ranking on a SE.

In some cases a SE will index one of the pieces (a component frame) which will be out of context and may have no meaning to the user. Frames also have some other antisocial behavior, for example they sometime will not let a user go back to the referring page, causing them to be hung on the Net. Also secondary frame pages can not be bookmarked, this is annoying if you doing research and need to know the real address (URL) of the content. All browsers display the primary frame's location (URL) only. This can be OK if you are using some else's content, but it may not be OK when someone else is framing your content. In fact framing another site's content can be considered an infringement of copyright as it trades off another's work without giving any credit for it.

TIPS

Avoid using frames if you want to get a high rating on the SE. If you already have a frames based site, consider setting up a standard page as a gateway to the site and submitting this to the SE. If you do this you will still have the problem of the frames' antisocial behavior and page fragmentation.

To Be Continued - Next week we will discuss Page Design and Layout relating to listings

INTERNET MARKETING NEWSLETTER AND TUTORIAL

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Internet Marketing -Intro mch 8

vol 1. Travel on net mch 12

vol 2a. Promo on the net mch 21

vol 2b. Features of the net mch 29

vol 2c. The new marketing mix Apr 8

vol 3. iNet Advertising-SE Apr20

vol 3a. Keywords May 2

vol 3b. Popularity May16