Transcript Web Developer & Design Foundations with XHTML

Web Developer & Design
Foundations with XHTML
Chapter 13
Key Concepts
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Learning
Outcomes
• In this chapter, you will learn how to:
– describe the difference between search
engines and search indexes
– describe the components of a search engine
– design web pages that are friendly to search
engines
– request that a web site is added to a search
engine
– monitor a search engine listing
– describe other web site promotion activities
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According to
Nielsen/NetRatin
gs (reported at
http://searchengi
newatch.com/rep
orts/netratings.ht
ml):
Google & Yahoo!
are the two most
popular sites
used for
searching the
Web during a
recent month
Popular Search Engines
& Search Indexes
Search Index
(also called Search Directory)
• Popular Search Indexes:
– Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com
– Open Directory http://www.dmoz.org
• Each site is reviewed by an editor before
bein added to a search index
• The search index maintains a
hierarchical category of topics and
places web site listings into these
categories.
• When visitors use a search index they
have the option of immediately typing in
a search term or "drilling" down into the
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hierarchy
for relevant sites.
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Search Engine
Components
• Popular Search Engines:
– Google http://www.google.com
– MSN http://msn.com
• Search engines use the following
components:
– Robot
– Database (also used by search indexes)
– Search form (also used by search indexes)
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Search Engine Robot
• A robot (sometimes called a spider or bot):
– A program that automatically traverses the hypertext
structure of the Web by retrieving a web page document
and following any hyperlinks on the page.
– Moves “like a robot spider” on the Web, accessing and
documenting web pages.
– The robot categorizes the pages and stores information
about the web site and the web pages in a database.
• Typically access and may store the following
sections of web pages: title, meta tag keywords,
meta tag description, and some of the text on the
page (usually either the first few sentences or the
text contained in heading tags).
• Visit the “Web Robots Pages” at
http://www.robotstxt.org for more info about web
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robots.
Search Engine
Database
• A database is a collection of information
organized so that its contents can easily be
accessed, managed, and updated.
• Database Management Systems (DBMSs)
such as Oracle, SQL Server, or DB2 are
used to configure and manage the
database.
• The web page that displays the results of
your search has obtained the information
from the database used by the search
engine site.
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Search Engine Search Form
• The part you are most familiar with!
• The search form is the graphical user interface
that allows a user to request a word or phrase to
search for. It is usually just a text box and a
submit button.
• The visitor to the search engine types words
(called keywords) related to their search into the
text box.
• When the form is submitted, the data typed into
the text box is sent to a server-side script that
searches the database using the keywords you
have entered.
• The search results (also called a result set) is a
list that contains information such as the URLs for
web pages that meet your criteria.
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Search Engine
Results Page (SERP)
• This result set is formatted in a web page that
contains a link to each page along with additional
information that might include the page title, a
brief description, the first few lines of text, or the
size of the page.
• Next, the web server at the search engine site
sends the search results page to your browser
for display.
• The order the pages are displayed in the results
page may depend on paid advertisements,
alphabetical order, and link popularity (more on
this later).
• Each search engine has their own policy for
ordering the search results.
• Be aware that these policies can change over 9
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time.
Designing Web Pages
for Promotion
• Keywords
– Brainstorm about terms and phrases that people may use when
searching for your site.
– They should be words or phrases that describe your web site or
business.
– These terms and phrases are your keywords.
– Create a list of them and don't forget to add common
misspellings of your keywords to the list
•
Description
– What is special about your web site that would make someone
want to visit?
– With this in mind, write a few sentences about your web site
and/or business.
– This description should be inviting and interesting so that a
person searching the Web will choose your site from the listing
provided by a search engine or search directory.
– Some search engines will display your description in their search
engine results.
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XHTML
<meta> tag
•
•
•
•
The meta tag
A stand alone tag
Placed in the header section
Attributes:
– name
– content
<meta name="value" content="value" />
• Meta tags used by search engines:
– name=“keywords”
– name=“description”
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Keywords &
Description
Meta Tags
• The keywords and description meta tags for a web site about
a web development consulting firm called “Acme Design”
could be configured as follows:
<meta name="keywords" content="Acme Design web
development e-commerce ecommerce consulting consultation
maintenance redesign Akme” />
<meta name="description" content="Acme Design, a premier
web consulting group that specializes in E-commerce, web site
design, web site development, and web site re-design." />
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Listing in a Search Engine
• Wait until your site is finished – don’t
submit “under construction” web sites!
• Visit Search Engine and look for “Add
URL” or “Submit your Site”, or “Add your
Site”, etc. link.
• Follow the directions and fill out the form.
There is a trend towards fees for listing
(called paid inclusion), or for express
submission.
• A spider from the search engine will visit
your web site and index it.
• Allow several weeks and test the search
engine to see if your site is listed.
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Preferential
Placement
• Promotions vary
– Google’s AdWords
– Yahoo’s Sponsor Results
• Check search engines for
current preferential placement
options
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Checkpoint 13.1
1. Describe the difference between a
search engine and a search
directory. Provide an example of
each.
2. Describe the three components of
a search engine.
3. Is it beneficial for a business to pay
for site submission? Is it beneficial
for a business to pay for
preferential listing? Explain.
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Monitor
Search Engine Listings
• Manual Check
• Analyze web site logs
• Run
an Education
automated
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keywords
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tool to track and analyze
Link
Popularity
• Link popularity is a rating determined by a
search engine based on the number of sites
that link to a particular web site and the quality
of the sites that the links are from
• For example, a link from a well known site
such as Oprah’s site, http://oprah.com, would
be considered a higher quality link than one
from your friend’s home page on a free web
server somewhere.
• The link popularity of your web site can
determine its order in the search engine
results page.
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Checking Link
Popularity
• Analyze your log file.
• Visit a link popularity checking service web site
– http://linkpopularity.com or
http://linkpopularitycheck.com
– Report which checks link popularity on a number of
search engines.
• Visit particular search engines and check for
yourself.
– At Google and AltaVista type
“link:yourdomainname.com” into the search box and the
sites that link to yourdomainname.com will be listed.
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Other Site Promotion
Activities
• Affiliate Programs
• Banner Ads
• Banner Exchange
• Reciprocal Link Agreements
• Newsletters
• “Sticky” Site Features
• Blogs
• RSS Feeds
• Personal Recommendations
• Web Rings
• Newsgroup and Listserv Postings
• Traditional Media Ads
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Leverage
Pearson Existing
Education Marketing Materials
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Checkpoint 13.2
1. Are the results returned by
various search engines really
different?
– Choose a place, music group, or
movie to search for.Enter the
same search terms, such as “Door
County” into the following three
search engines: Google, Yahoo!,
Ask.com.
– List the URLs of the top three
sites returned by each.
– Comment on your findings.
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Checkpoint 13.2
2. How can you determine if your
web site has been indexed by a
search engine? How can you
determine which search engines
are being used to find your site?
3. List four web site promotion
methods that do not use search
engines. Which would be your
first choice? Why?
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Summary
• This chapter introduced concepts related to
promoting your web site.
• The activities involved in submitting web sites to
search engines and search directories were
discussed along with techniques for making your
web site more useful to search engines.
• Other web site promotion activities such as
banner ads and newsletters were also examined.
• At this point, you should have an idea of what is
involved in the other side of web site
development – marketing and promotion.
• You can help the marketing staff by creating web
sites that work with search engines and
directories by following the suggestions in this
chapter.
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