10 Coding Guidelines for Perfect Findability and Web Standards
Perfect findability and Web standards can be achieved with the same means when it comes to coding.
Thus I compiled a very simple list for you to improve your overall website and content findability.
These are 10 coding guidelines for perfect findability and Web standards everybody can easily memorize and implement:
- Less is more, do not use more code than necessary
- No inline CSS or scripts, try to separate content from appearance and behavior
- No huge styles and scripts in the head, externalize (use external files) everything as much as possible
- Use semantic code, make headlines headlines (h1, h2, h3 etc.), make important terms bold (strong), cite using blockquote etc.
- Don’t use any redundant meta tags (only meta description is a must)
- Use Schema markup to make your site machine readable by e.g. telling robots your name and address
- Use tables only for tabular data (like for basketball scores)
- Use bulleted or numbered lists, or use lists without displaying them as such.
- Use only degradable JavaScript (no JavaScript links) so that your site works without JS as well
- Do not load important content via JavaScript, always use plain HTML
In case you liked this article you will probably also like my list of CSS tricks.
To find out more about findability make also sure to look at the list of the worst mistakes in that context.
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“Don’t use any redundant meta tags (only meta description is a must)”
…I read this and thought “What about microformat meta tags?”, but then immediately afterwards you address that issue specifically. Could you elaborate a bit on how excess metas are penalised?
Good clean summary, after stumbling upon this and “Top 7 CSS Tricks for Better SEO”, you’ve made top 5 on my RSS box!
Keep up the good writing.
1. Microformats
Why should I tell a search engine my name or my adresse? To make their business easier? To spread it all over the world for people I never would give my adress in real life? No microformats, never.
2. Scripting
You tell me not to use too much scripts. But you also tell me to use JavaScript for opening a link in a new window instead of target=”_blank”. We should use plain HTML as often as possible. But for a new window we use JS… it’s is a joke.
“Use rel=”external” for external links (instead of target=”_blank”) and make them open in new windows by JavaScript (no popups!)”
target=”_blank” was made redundant for a reason, so a JS workaround is just as bad, surely?
Barney: Meta tags do not really get penalized, they in most cases are just useless. If you keyword stuff in the meta keywords tag you can get some problems though. Many sites have 20 – 30 lines of meta tags in the head though. The longer the bot has to crawl the less the real content counts (code to text-ratio). Also what comes on top in the code is the most important part for Google.
.carsten:
#1 – Why having a website at all then? People could read it! If you do not want to improve your findability don’t stick to these guidelines.
#2 – It’s just two lines of code and the link works anyways without JS (is degradable) so stop nagging pal.
Harry: Opening external links in the same window is a usability nightmare, can in Germany be a crime (if you link to the wrong page) and confuses most people on the Web. A person who clicks on a link does not want to flee your website immediately and never come back. In most cases s/he wants to see what the link is about and come back.
In my case the link opens in a new tab anyways I close the tab if I want to or keep it open if I don’t but can read on anyways.
I believe that you will find opening new windows is generally frowned upon. It isn’t deemed to be strictly accessible as it causes users with screen readers a hard time. They activate a link and decide to turn around but there is no back button, and since they probably can’t see that well it could take them some time to realise what has happened. For accessibility reasons, you should therefore state when links “(open in a new window)” to atleast warn the user that you are about to break the normal flow of things. I find it best to open external links in the same window whilst including a visual notification (using css and/or title attribute) that this link is an “(external link)”. At the end of the day, people that use tabbed browsers know how to open things in new tabs when they want to. I probably middle click links more often than single clicking.
deizel – ‘rel=”external”‘ is increasingly considered as having sufficient semantic value so as to define a link that opens in a new tab/window. Having said that, I agree wholeheartedly on tagging links to external sites/sources with an appropriate title attribute.
[…] to know if you website code is up to par? Take a look at this great article “10 Coding Guidelines for Perfect Findability” over at SEO 2.0 for a quick checklist of things to look for when analyzing your website […]
[…] 10 Coding Guidelines for Perfect Findability and Web Standards […]
“Use only degradable JavaScript (no JavaScript links)”
Nobody calls it “degradable”, the term is “graceful degradation”, but really that’s still not really the way you look at it nowadays – instead, you should ensure that as much of the main functionality of the site as possible is available via pure HTML (i.e. no JS at all) then embellish it with JS to add/enhance the site’s functionality/presentation/etc… this technique is known as “progressive enhancement”.
MarcusT: While the concept of “progressive enhancement” might be the better one, the term “degradable JavaScript” is still in use. Just search at Google BlogSearch for it.
Useful stuff, thanks Tad. I haven’t used #8 before so I’ll check it out.
Gregor
I use that for two years now as otherwise any external link you add is like kicking out your visitor but target=”_blank” does not validate”.
I do not agree to guidline 10. AJAX, if done well, is no problem. Flash is a no-no.
<p>I work with all points on your list. Sometimes point 7 is difficult.</p>
excellent list of pointers for good findability
its amazing how many pages/blogs/sites have unbelievable triple hooped spagetti under the hood :-)
cheers
Tony
Hi
Happened to find this post through a link in your recent page. Great advice you are offering on website optimisation, although thought you might be interested in one result from a recent survey we carried out. 150 members of the community and small business owners took part and one question related to target=”_blank”. The purpose of this was explained in straightforward terms, out of the 150, 126 preferred that the system was used.
I know you are not disagreeing and suggesting a viable alternative. Just thought I would add the point. In so many tech and website forums, you see the argument that opening a new window is poor practice. In reality, most users seem to prefer websites to open a new window, as opposed to losing the website, which annoys the hell out of them.
I found your blog when researching” findability”. This set of posts are now 2 years old. I am taking a SEO class and was wondering if the school of thought has changed since 2008. Thanks!
patty: Everything still applies with the exception of #8
As XHTML has been discontinued in favor of HTML5 you don’t have to use JS for opening a link in a new window.
Make sure to read the other findability resources I refer to on my blog:
http://seo2.0.onreact.com/findability-new-and-better-seo-experts-disagree-12-findability-resources
For handling duplicate url structure 301 is mandatory, also cononical url tag.