> I have been reading a lot about how search engines index sites and have
> found that several engines will not recognize image links, which could
lead
> to site subpages not getting indexed on deep, spidering engines.  And in
> some cases where the designer relies exclusively on image maps with very
> little text, they find the way their site is indexed has little to do with
> who they are and what their site is about.  There are some tricks you can
> use, but the engines appear to be cracking down on this.  ALT text doesn't
> work.  Neither does hidden text, comment text or text defined as the same
> color as the background in most cases.

This one has me really hot under the collar.  Excite and now Lycos do not
utilize meta-tag descriptions or keywords in their indexing.  The result is
that if a designer wants to have their site indexed in any rational with
these engines they must design sites in pretty much one way only.  Gif text
is out.  Creativity is out.  The only straight forward way to design for
these engines is to present text something to this effect:

Zoom makes the best donuts in Pennsylvania

We use fresh ingredients

Pennsylvania's freshest donuts

Donuts made by Zoom

And so it goes.  All your important keywords MUST be at the top of the page
or must be repeated a number of times throughout the page.  You must not put
a menu bar at the top of the page or else Lycos will use that as your site
description. (take a look at Lycos's descriptions: most are meaningless)
You must not think in visual terms.

I know there are those out there who might respond,"Yeah! That's the way it
should be."  But, they generally don't know beans about advertising.

I have only one solution to this problem.  That is to create a page similar
to the fictional one I described - text only- with a javascript redirect to
the "designed" home page.  The search engine gloms onto the "./"
page which has the info presented the way it demands, yet the viewer is
whisked to the real home page.

On a secondary note: I don't think sub pages should generally be indexed.
As a search engine user, I am galled by sites that come up number 8 through
27 as search results.

-Conrad Shull
http://www.ncsight.org
http://www.cobblers.com
http://www.jingleman.com

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