Website Development and Promotion: Website Code

Search engine saturation: A few of the engines and such want to charge you a lot of money to spider and index each page of your web site. At a Jackson or so per page that can amount to severe financial stress. It's far less expensive to simply tell their robots, set to "no follow" as default, what to do. There is some controversy as to which tag is the best. Some say "all" is the global equivalent to "index,follow". Some say that this isn't so for all engines. Others use "all,index,follow" just to make certain. I use the second successfully. Anyway, place one of these two beneath your title tags to save some money:

Cloaking affiliate code: This is one of most debated topics on the internet, and the search engines - notably to include Google here - aren't proffering any exactly plain answers on the matter. As an affiliate you are at a great disadvantage with search engines because links to affiliate web sites are either ignored for key phrase searches or time out when potential visitors click on them. More, you lose hard-earned potential income by visitors who delete the affiliate code portion of your links. More, your links are subject to theft by hijacking scumware. (See this article by Declan Dunn which doesn't begin to address the reality.) The search engines know this, but when it comes to distinguishing between what is cloaking with intention to spam the engines and what is cloaking with intention to protect your hard work there is considerably more confusion than clarity. Google information for web masters indicates that cloaking to avoid theft is permissible because one would do that whether search engines existed or not. The risk is adding HTML or content which would improve performance in the engines, the more you add, the greater the risk. For instance, a title tag is reasonable because title tags are naturally useful with or without search engines. Description tags are also naturally useful, with or without search engines, though less so. Keyword tags, however, are strictly for search engines. As for body content, however true such may be to a redirected affiliate link it is not true to the redirect page in itself. So there's the schiz of it: true at once as not. Search engines have good causes to note such the discrepancy, which to note is both bad and good for any number of reasons not to be pursued here. Whatever you and spiders do, if it comes around it will come around to a human editors at Google and YAHOO!. Be as may, cloaking via encryption, redirection, etc. is a common practice, accepted as well by major online distribution centers such as ClickBank which, for sake of profit, don't want the web sites of their affiliates penalized by search engines which swim between Charybdis and Scylla where affiliation is concerned. In any case, I hope you found Viola Fair (as regards just about anything) before you wasted labor, time and money elsewhere, because the affiliate code cloaking business is a racket. So let's make it simple, if all you wish to do is mask affiliate code, and you think you need protection, there are no search engine penalties for that, and you can do so below. It's simple, actually works and works well, isn't advertising bait and is entirely free (versus web sites charging as much as sixty dollars).

Download Profit Protector from SEO.

The advantage of this JavaScript encryption method is that it combines with zero-frame redirection, thereat avoiding the problems associated with using frames. You can redirect to a subdomain or simply another file. The second advantage is that this method increases exposure since engines will spider and link to it (no timing out - it's on your web site, not just an affiliate link). You can place relevant title, description and keyword tags, as well as links and text between body tags. Again, however, is the risk of penalty for spamming, most notably for "hidden" links or text which could classify your redirect as deceptive or a doorway. (The js unescape code by Profit Protector is easy for search engine spiders to detect and flag.) The risk rises in the event that someone might wish to report you for spamming, notably a competitor. The meta tags below, one for Netscape, one for Internet Explorer (versions below 6 will cache anyway) may help cover you for at least a testing period:

Cover yourself more thoroughly by also adding the date with 0 in the content portion of this example tag for time-sensitive material:

Another disadvantage of this method is that it is JavaScript, meaning it could malfunction in some browsers. Further, when it comes to theft about all one can do is discourage. Anyone who wants to read someone's web site code bad enough can. There are any number of descramblers available on the internet and framed pages are also accessible.

In any event Search Engine Optimization Tools offers a free redirect analyzer to check if your redirect is search engine friendly.

There is a third protection alternative called URL forwarding offered by some web site hosts. But this means the purchase of a domain name for each of your affiliate links - a lot of hassle and expense, nor of any search engine advantage.

Finally, here's a free application to secure affiliate code, courtesy of Mike Chen, if you'd like to use the search-engine safe frame method.

GENERATOR and ProgId in FrontPage source code: You wonder if you need those meta tags? The answer is no. Removing them won't harm anything. Right click to Page Properties/Custom. In any event, if you don't have time to clean up this superfluous code at least be sure they're above your title tags.

Remove underline from all links on a page: Between head tags:

Anchor links: Rumor is strong that SEO for target pages can be increased by placing titles in anchor texts, especially inbound links:

Instead of this: <a href="http://www.readmnweep.com">

This: <a href="http://www.readmnweep.com" title="Four Large Cry Babies Drown in Own Tears. More at 11:00.">

Color Hexadecimals.

Good JavaScript Resources.

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