spidered by a poodle

If you create a new web site and want to get listed in Google, it would be wise to fix any potential problems. How can you tell what problems there might be? By using the poodle predictor of course. (via evolt)

One of the reasons I prefer not to use frames, javascript, images, or flash for essential portions of a web site (like the navigation) is because of the problems spiders have when indexing them. If you have one big image for your front page, it may look great to human visitors, but the arachnids will see nothing at all, unless you make the alt text very descriptive, but it’s still not likely to capture the entire message of the site.

Simply put, text is good. It may seem simplistic, old, and boring but text can be resized, spidered, searched, read out loud, seen in text mode, viewed with older browsers and the list goes on and on. The drawback is that your site may not be as flashy, but how many of you use Google because you like the pretty colors of the logo? If you go back to the basics with quality content in text form, search engines will show their approval with a steady stream of traffic. In a nutshell, spiders love text.

Comments

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  1. My comment has only one thing in common with your post – spiders.

    I saw an ad yesterday for a video sequel to Charlotte’s Web. It’s sacrilege, I tell you!

    Comment by Renee on April 3, 2003 @ 12:18 pm
  2. You can also use Blip 2.0! Its in beta but is similar to Poodle.
    http://www.proaliusweb.com/blip

    Comment by Ralph on November 12, 2005 @ 9:30 am

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