Article of Interest - Web Site Design
Making Dynamic and E-Commerce Sites Search Engine Friendly
By Catherine Seda, Guest Writer
A special report from the Search Engine Strategies 2002 Conference, August 12-14, San Jose, CA.
Many dynamic and e-commerce web sites are unwittingly part of the Invisible web, but there are several strategies for making them more search engine friendly.
Sure, it's easy to talk about meta tags and copy writing techniques when you have a static Web site. But what can companies with database and e-commerce sites do? "Search engines can crawl dynamic sites, said Detlev Johnson, filling in for Mikkel deMib Svendson, CTO of RedZoneGlobal Denmark. "They just don't want to."
Before you tell your CEO that his expensive Web site should "thrown out" however, there are some efforts that can yield your dynamic site some visibility in the search engines.
First, think "static" pages. Manipulate the URL strings and links because database characters (#&*!%) are "spider traps" as Johnson pointed out. These characters indicate database-generated pages and will keep search engines spiders from going any further into the site. Search engines get "stuck" in these sites, so they have been programmed to detect and then ignore dynamic pages.
Laura Thieme, president of Bizresearch, noted a few design difficulties with template sites such as a Yahoo! Store. Yahoo! does enable merchants to allow search engines to index the merchant's Yahoo! store home page, category and product pages with each of the major search engines, by simply checking off a couple of options in the site promotion area. However, Thieme called attention to two challenges regarding customization capabilities.
It is not easy to customize the layout for sites where merchandising is important. Nor is it easy to integrate the back end portion of the site with other customized business applications. Thieme recommended in the site design having a home page, category pages that are part of the main navigational elements, and product pages that can be linked to a shopping cart, such as a Yahoo! Store (for e-commerce sites).
Another option is to create information pages that sit on top of static URLs. These content-rich pages can contain deep links into the dynamic site. Be careful in building these external pages however; theme-based pages (i.e. product or category specific) may garner search engine rankings, but building excessive static pages to "trick" search engines may result in a banning of these domains (see The Spam Police review for more information on what may be considered spam).
Second, use inclusion programs offered by search engines. Several search engines, including AltaVista, Ask Jeeves/Teoma, Inktomi, LookSmart and Lycos/FAST provide large companies the option to provide an XML feed of their database links for inclusion. The fee is based on a cost-per-click rate.
Yaron Galai, COO of Quigo, mentioned that Quigo offers the automated extraction of database-driven URLs, extraction of relevant meta data and creation of XML feeds, acting as a gateway for any search engine feed program. If your company has a dynamic site but does not have enough links to meet the search engine's minimum or would like assistance with this process, consider going through an inclusion partner such as Quigo, Position Tech or Inceptor.
Finally, consider putting your products and content into a shopping engine. Rob Goldman, senior vice president of DealTime, discussed some benefits of being part of a shopping network. The shopping search engine is designed to crawl the data which may be "uncrawlable" by general search engines - so this data is easily found by customers on the site.
Plus, shopping networks (such as DealTime) are syndicated broadly through portal relationships and strategic partnerships with large traffic sites. DealTime, for example, powers the shopping channels for AltaVista, Lycos, and Excite, so once your site has been crawled by DealTime, it can be seen all across the Web.
A shopping engine doesn't need to be a replacement of your current Web site and search engine marketing efforts. But it can be. Or, it can be a complement to your overall online marketing strategy.
Dynamic sites need a different search engine marketing strategy than do static sites. If outsourcing is an option for your organization, ask search engine marketing firms what strategy they recommend for your company. Also ask how they proceed with the execution and tracking.
Any company considering a site redesign needs to take into consideration their search engine marketing strategy before they build their next generation Web site. Pre-planning can boost successful search engine visibility from site launch which will save substantial time and money long-term.
