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Issue # 205 (09-29-2003)

Peer (to Peer) Pressure

Balancing between what's required of you, what's expected of you, what works, what doesn't, and more importantly... what YOU want to do, can make for some very long nights for we Web masters.

Coders Corner
One of the simplest standards in the world of SEO to grasp is one that many Web masters can't seem to understand: search engines index TEXT. In general, they do not index FLASH (or at least don't do it very well). So, if you use Flash to make your Web site (or a client's Web site) really cool, you've done a few things wrong. Dead wrong. The search engines do a bad job of indexing your content, unless you create a secondary HTML version of the entire thing and "doorway page" your way into it. Also, from a user's perspective, not only do you run the risk of eliminating a large set of potential visitors by simply having your site be Flash driven, but Flash is neither inherently easy to navigate, nor is it as eye-pleasing to the visitor as it is to the designer.

Let's explore a quick and dirty way to make your Web site LOOK and act like Flash, but still be search engine friendly and somewhat more easy to use by your visitor.

Start by creating a bunch of "
" tags that hold your articles/content. Each of them should be hidden via CSS so that they don't show up on the page, but are still there. I usually put these at the bottom of my page.
    <div id='home' style='height:1px; width:1px; visibility:hidden; overflow:hidden'>
      Home page text in here
    </div>

    <div id='about' style='height:1px; width:1px; visibility:hidden; overflow:hidden'>
      About page text in here
    </div>
Then, within your HTML code, create a "container" for this content, and some links that use JavaScript to show your content.
   <table width='95%' align='center'>
      <tr>
        <td valign='top'>
          Navigational Menu<br />
          <a href='#' onClick='show("home")'>Home</a><br />
          <a href='#' onClick='show("about")'>About</a><br />
        </td>
        <td valign='top' style='padding:10px'>
          <div id='content_container'></div>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>
Finally, we need to add the actual JavaScript that's going to make this work, so when the "Home" link is clicked, your "Home page" content is shown. Now, do the same for the "About pages" or any other content areas that you created.

    <script language='javascript'>

        function show( div_to_show ) {
            
            // Detect Browser
            var IE = (document.all) ? 1 : 0;
            var DOM = 0; 
            if (parseInt(navigator.appVersion) >=5) {DOM=1};

            // Grab the content from the requested "div" and show it in the "container"

            if (DOM) {
                var selected = document.getElementById(div_to_show)
                var viewer = document.getElementById("content_container")
                var text = selected.innerHTML;
                viewer.visibility = "hide";
                viewer.innerHTML=text
                viewer.visibility = "show";
            }
            else if(IE) {
                var text = document.all[div_to_show].innerHTML;
                document.all["content_container"].style.visibility = "hidden";
                document.all["content_container"].innerHTML=text
                document.all["content_container"].style.visibility = "visible";
            }
        }
    </script>
What you have now is a single Web page with all of your content in it. Just like Flash, the content areas are shown to the user without having to go back to the server to get the next page, and therefore, they load really fast. Unlike Flash, however, the search engines can actually index this page (although not perfectly ... they will not be able to index specific content areas, just the whole page). So, while it's not a perfect solution, it ranks pretty high on the cool factor meter for you Flash junkies, yet doesn't completely make the SEOs out there want to lose their lunch. 100% standards compliant? Not by a long shot, but at least it's a starting point to get everyone de-Flashed. Note that I have presented this article to Google for review, and they have assured me that currently, this technique for "coolness" is compliant with their detection system for Hidden Text (which is what these divs are) ... they're concerned with what human eyes can see.

Check out a live sample with some "whiz bang" features added:
http://beta.iwebsoftware.com

Talk about this idea, or others in the Programming Forum:
http://www.jimworld.com/apps/searchengine.forums/action::thread/forum::webmaster-101/thread::1064861215/


Read the Coders Corner section from the Last Issue or in the Following Issue


JimWorld Member comments and feedback ...

Posted On: 04/19/2006 04:35
Posted By: alfie1848
Thank you for your review, I will benefit from your suggestions. I have one
question though. You said "In the source, you really need a meta description
for each page just as you do with any web site." How do I do this with blogger?

Posted On: 04/19/2006 04:43
Posted By: alfie1848
Thank you for your review, I will benefit from your suggestions. I have one
question though. You said "In the source, you really need a meta description
for each page just as you do with any web site." How do I do this with blogger?

Posted On: 04/19/2006 04:57
Posted By: alfie1848
Thank you for your review, I will benefit from your suggestions. I have one
question though. You said "In the source, you really need a meta description
for each page just as you do with any web site." How do I do this with blogger?

Posted On: 04/19/2006 04:10
Posted By: alfie1848
Thank you for your review, I will benefit from your suggestions. I have one
question though. You said "In the source, you really need a meta description
for each page just as you do with any web site." How do I do this with blogger?

Posted On: 01/04/2008 08:04
Posted By: boltonuv
This "Scumbag of the Week" article is irresponsible. I had not trouble at all in receiving the following response from SpamArrest:

"Hi James,

Thank you for your email.

James, what you see there is absolutely wrong and is done to misguide our users and our new customers from Spam Arrest. We have over 1.5 million customers with us including you. You have been with us for a very long time, James. You can check with any of your contacts whether they have received any junk emails from us. We never do such a thing and its completely against our ethics! We hate spam as much as you do and so, along with stopping it, we make sure that none of our customer's emails are noted as spam. We warn our customers from sending bulk emails about the fact that their contacts might misunderstand their bulk emails as spam and will turn against them and Spam Arrest. A company following only such healthy practices can never do such a thing like spamming. What we value the most is our customer's trust and we will make all efforts to retain that in the best way possible. We never admit your personal information to any third party under whatsoever circumstances. You will find a whole lot of misleading things like this in Internet, James. We have friends and foes like anyone else in this planet.

I hope you will understand us the best way possible, James. Please do let me know if you need any further clarifications regarding this.

Best Regards,
Peter
Technical Support Specialist
Spam Arrest"

In the 3 years that I have used SpamArrest, I personally have never received one complaint from anyone that has been 'spammed' from any theoretical 'spam list' that SpamArrest may have created. I think that their statement above makes it clear that they would not do this.

I behooves you to publish a retraction.

Jim Bolton

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