Search Engine Optimisation FAQs
Does search engine optimisation change the appearance of a website?
One of the main aims of a search engine optimisation project is to improve
a website’s structure and coding, so that search engine spiders can index
its content fully and frequently. Wholesale changes can be made to the underlying
structure and coding of a website to enhance its search engine performance
without changing the appearance of the site. However, recoding a website
as part a search engine optimisation campaign affords an ideal opportunity
to improve elements of the site’s design or layout which may be adversely
affecting its usability.
One of the most common search engine optimisation procedures is to ‘de-frame’ a website which uses framesets to present content to the visitor. Using framesets makes it virtually impossible to perform search engine optimisation on a website, since what is seen as a single page by a visitor in fact comprises the containing frameset and one or more content pages. By replacing the frameset with a more conventional page structure and using templates, Server Side Includes (SSIs) or dynamic scripting to enable easy updating of repeated elements, it is possible both to retain the original appearance and functionality of the site and to produce individual pages on which search engine optimisation can be performed effectively.
Search engine spiders do not ‘see’ websites, but rather parse HTML code in order to extract information from those page elements which contain website content, ignoring the attributes of HTML tags which are used solely for the purposes of presentation. This is well illustrated in the case of websites which use externally referenced Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to separate the page’s HTML mark-up from its styling; a search engine spider will fully index the website’s pages without referencing the CSS files which contain only information about how the pages are laid out and how individual HTML tags are to be rendered. Replacing table layouts with CSS positioning is an important search engine optimisation technique, which both makes it easier for spiders to index the resulting cleaner code and allows content to be presented in the page’s source code in a different order from that in which it is rendered in a browser.
There are occasions during a search engine optimisation project when Optillion will recommend coding or structural changes which will alter the website’s appearance. This will usually be because elements of the original site, for example Flash animation or fly out JavaScript menus, cannot be replicated using an alternative technique which is search engine optimisation compatible. In such cases the implications for the search engine optimisation project of retaining or replacing the element will be discussed in detail with the client before any action is taken.
