Zikula Community

• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Helper
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 763

  Posted: Sep 26, 2003 - 02:06 PM

  In a separate discussion about indexing a site in Google, I was asked for more specific information about search engine (SE) placement and optimization. There is a lot of bad information out there on the subject, partly owing to erroneous assumptions made and passed on as fact. Another reason is people who try to rig the system to favor their sites. When they get caught by the search bots, they may be penalized (usually that means banning) and again jump to the wrong conclusions. I've seen people who were banned who didn't learn anything. They were still trying to cheat and rig the deck in their favor. Cheaters never win, at least not for long. Santa Claus (Father Christmas to some of you) isn't the only one who knows who's been naughty and who's been nice. The searchbots know.
  
  What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows. So do the searchbots.
  
  What follows I know to work. I did very well for my clients with SE placement before I learned a few things more from someone who passed on the benefit of his learning to me. With what I learned from him, I've managed to get my clients as high as number 1 in Google using common search words for their business. They stay in the top 5 in several categories. I've learned how to tweak the all important title line for maximum placement in several different areas (different search words). No cheating is involved. I play it straight.
  
  One of the things I learned from him is that no matter what any other site says, the order of the meta tags is important, especially the title line. Therefore, assume things must appear exactly as shown below, except for substitution of name, URL and appropriate keywords. Also, changes in parameters are okay (like 1 day instead of 30, etc.)
  
  My HTML index page (now retired from service)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  There is some duplication between meta name and meta http-equiv This is a carry over from a few years back made to accommodate a broader range of SEs. I don't know if they are still necessary although some HTML editors still create some http-equiv tags. At best they help with some SEs. At worst they do no harm and are superfluous.
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  My PN index page (for the same site)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  note the lack of a closing head tag This can be problematic, Look a PN site in Opera 6 (7 is OK). With some themes, the top ends up at the bottom. Is this a fault of the theme? Quien sabe, Kimo Sabe (Who knows, Kimo Sabe)
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  PROBABLE OPTIMIZED PN INDEX PAGE combining elements of both
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  OPTIONAL
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  OPTIONAL
  OPTIONAL
  
  
  
  
  
  currently missing
  
  
  In addition to the above, it would be helpful if PN could pick up the page title (and adjoining description) from HTML pages wrapped in it using utilities like wrap.php, PostWrap and others. This helps a large site with a diverse amount of articles by allowing specific pages to place well in the SE based on their own title line content.
  
  More admin control is needed over the meta tags for each language installed. For instance, realistically, for the distribution tag, many sites will be regional or local. The language designation should be able to be changed for that language only. Better yet, it will be picked up from the language pack and automatically inserted.

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• eckerl
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Apr 26, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 164

  Posted: Sep 26, 2003 - 08:53 PM

  hmm ;)
  
  with the new Smarty engine all this is no problem.
  
  Until then there is for sure the chacne of coding a general meta module which provides a hook. This hook should take:
  
  module, type, function, args its interface and just echoes the meta data.
  
  Should be working and you can decide in a seperate place what you like to generate extra meta data for or not.
  
  greets
  Sebastian

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• markwest
  
  

  • Rank: Team Member
  • Registered: Mar 18, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 6606

  Posted: Sep 26, 2003 - 10:30 PM

  Duster,
  
  What we have at the moment for .8 as a header can be seen here. The tags inside are Smarty tags represnting either a variable () or some simple Smarty logic.
  
  This represents a basic port of the .7x header.php to a template of the header_footer module. Any comments on this are welcome. For instance I notice for the description we use both meta http-equiv and meta name="description". How do these differ and what are thier correct usages or this is just incorrect usages in .7x
  
  -Mark
  
  --
  Visit My homepage and Zikula themes.

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• markwest
  
  

  • Rank: Team Member
  • Registered: Mar 18, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 6606

  Posted: Sep 26, 2003 - 10:36 PM

  Sebastian,
  
  In .8 we have the header_footer module that is templated so adding stuff generically to the header is easy. I might at some point add an admin panel option so site admins can add extra info from here rather than editing the template directly.
  
  In addition a method of inserting stuff in the header on a per module basis would be extremely useful and is something i've been thinking on the best way of acheiving. For example a standard way in which the page title could reflect the title of the content item would be useful (@duster - is this good for SE placement).
  
  Jorg Napp has a little hack for .7x that implements this kind of feature using a little plugin for each module but it would be nice to come up with a cleaner way of achieving this, some kind of hook, API call or similar.
  
  -Mark
  
  --
  Visit My homepage and Zikula themes.

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• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Helper
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 763

  Posted: Sep 28, 2003 - 02:22 PM

  markwest

  
  In addition a method of inserting stuff in the header on a per module basis would be extremely useful and is something i've been thinking on the best way of acheiving. For example a standard way in which the page title could reflect the title of the content item would be useful (@duster - is this good for SE placement).

  
  YES!
  
  I checked my notes and found one tag I had missed, the reply tag, as in:
  
  
  I don't use it myself as I don't like exposing any e-mail addresses to spammers. I despise spammers with a loathing reserved only for them. However, upon further reflection, the SEs probably don't check the address for validity so it may be enough to have one, valid or not
  
  From a coding point of view, PN should:
  
  - Include the language tag specific to each language pack. There are provisions for distinguishing between eng-us and eng-uk (I think that's the proper UK English abbreviation - it might be eng-gb At any rate, it's easy enough to check if it should become necessary) Have the tag inserted automatically according to the language pack used.
  
  - Offer flexibility in the distribution tag. the web is world wide but not all web sites are meant to be. Many are local or regional in nature.
  
  - Include the site URL on the copyright line
  
  - Separate the slogan from the description adjoining the title
  
  - Offer flexibility on the reply line (to be added) Do not automatically use the site admin address. Instead, offer the option of having a reply ine and the e-mail address displayed in it.
  
  - If possible, pick up the title line information from wrapped HTML pages and display that.
  
  - If possible, pick up information about modules and display it. Since the name of the module may not describe its function, a description is needed. The one found in the menu block may be a good choice as it should be descriptive enough for general usage.
  
  - Include the closing head tag This is important as many SEs look for meta tags between head> (Some tell you as much on their sites) If the closing tag is missing, they may have a problem indexing the site.
  
  - Make the inclusion and addition of some tags optional. The rating tag is one of these (also the reply to tag) . Those sites that have rated themselves with the RSAC sould be able to include an appropriate tag.
  
  - For right now, I'd say duplicate most meta tags with http-equiv. I'll do some current research and see if there is still any benefit in using them and which ones should be used. I do know that some contemporary editors add certain http-equiv tags so I suspect some may be meaningful
  
  I did check Google and Alta Vista last night for their requirements. AV is the only SE that used keyword tags (in the past, from what I remember of the major ones). They don't mention if they still do. Most of the information they have is for use of the site admins. I've already listed that which is pertinent to coding by PN.
  
  Both do index dynamic pages. Google has a limit in how much they will spider because it wouldn't know when to stop without a preset limit. AV requires that dynamic pages be submitted individually and does not spider them at all.
  
  That should do it from a coding standpoint. I'll be checking and updating SE information aas soon as I can. However, what is listed above I know to work quite effectively with HTML pages. As I mentioned already and others have discovered, there is a lot of misinformation and conflicting information about there. Even the guy who was so helpful with title line information had contradictory information about keywords. I know some of his recommendations to be erroneous and harmful to SE placement.
  
  I expect anything new I learn (other than updates on http-equiv tags) to be most useful to site admins and helpful to them in their portion of meta tag coding (primarily key words and description).
  
  I think I need one of those 25 hour clocks I've seen as gag gifts.

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• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Helper
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 763

  Posted: Sep 28, 2003 - 02:57 PM

  There's another tag that can be helpful for those who use Netscape 4. It is and is used in conjuction with
  
  Without it, some things look terrible in N4 when one goes back to see the cached version. My old perl forum program was such a program. These two tags were included by default years ago to remedy the problem. Of cours,e N4 has other problems so omitting this line may urge people just a bit more to adopt a modern browser.
  
  Some quick research (see http://www.webdeveloper.com/html/html_metatags.html ) indicates a lot of confusion and disagreement still over http-equiv tags. I'll do more research yet, though it is beginning to look like adding them is an excellent idea.

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