Programming Languages and SEO
One aspect of web site design you might not think of when planning your SEO strategy is the programming language used to develop the site. Programming languages all behave a little differently. For example, HTML and PHP use completely different protocols to accomplish the visuals you see when you open a web page. (When most people think of web site programming, they think in terms of HTML.) In reality, many other languages are also used for coding web pages — and those languages may require differing SEO strategies.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language that enables web designers to create dynamic content. However, it’s not necessarily SEO-friendly. In fact, JavaScript often completely halts a crawler from indexing a web site, and when that happens the result is lower search engine rankings or complete exclusion from ranking.
To overcome this, many web designers externalize any JavaScript that’s included on the web site. Externalizing the JavaScript means that it is actually run from an external location, such as a file on your web server. To externalize your JavaScript:
1. Copy the code, beginning at the starting tags, and paste it into a Notepad file.2. Save the Notepad file as filename.js.3. Upload the file to your web server.4. Create a reference on your web page to the external JavaScript code.
The reference should be placed where the JavaScript will appear, and might look like this:
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="filename.js"></script>
This is just one of the solutions you can use to prevent JavaScript from becoming a problem
for your SEO efforts. There are many others, and depending on your needs you should explore some of them.
Flash
Flash is another of those technologies that some users absolutely hate. That’s because Flash, though very cool, is resource intensive. It causes pages to load slower, and users are often stuck on an opening Flash page and can’t move forward until the Flash has finished executing. When you’re in a hurry, which is almost always, it’s a frustrating situation to deal with. Flash is also a nightmare when it comes to SEO. A Flash page can stop a web crawler in its tracks, and once it is stopped, the crawler won’t resume indexing the site. Instead, it will simply move on to the next web site on its list.
The easiest way to avoid Flash problems is to simply not use it. If, despite Flash’s difficulties with search rankings, your organization needs to use it, then you can code the Flash in HTML and an option can be added to test for the ability to see Flash before it is executed. Note, however, that there’s some debate about whether or not this is an acceptable SEO practice, so before you implement this type of strategy in an effort to improve your SEO effectiveness, take the time to research the method.
Dynamic ASP
Most of the sites you’ll encounter on the Web are static web pages. These sites don’t change beyond any regular updates by a webmaster. Conversely, dynamic web pages are web pages that are created on the fly according to preferences that users specify in a form or menu. These sites can be created using a variety of different programming technologies, including dynamic ASP. The problem with these sites is that they don’t technically exist until the user creates them. Because a web crawler can’t make the selections that build these pages, most dynamic web pages aren’t indexed in search engines.
There are ways around this, however. Dynamic URLs can be converted to static URLs with the right coding. It’s also possible to use paid inclusion services to index dynamic pages down to a predefined number of levels (or number of selections, if you’re considering the site from the user’s perspective).
Dynamic ASP, like many of the other languages used to create web sites, carries with it a unique set of characteristics. But that doesn’t mean SEO is impossible for those pages. It does mean that the approach used for the SEO of static pages needs to be modified. It’s an easy enough task, and a quick search of the Internet will almost always provide the programming code you need to achieve SEO.
PHP
Search engine crawlers being what they are — preprogrammed applications — there’s a limit to what they can index. PHP is another programming language that falls outside the boundaries of normal web site coding. Search engine crawlers see PHP as another obstacle if it is not properly executed.
Properly executed means that PHP needs to be used with search engines in mind. For example, PHP naturally stops or slows search engine crawlers, but with some attention and a solid understanding of PHP and SEO, it’s possible to code pages that work. One thing that works well with PHP is designing the code to look like HTML. It requires an experienced code jockey, but it can be done. And once the code has been disguised, the PHP site can be crawled and indexed so that it is returned in search results.
Image Source: Google
Thanks for Reading.
To be continued.........
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