by Prakash Rangarajan on December 11, 2009
XML Sitemaps for better indexing
XML Sitemaps are URL lists that gives a leg up to search engine spiders to easily find available URL’s to crawl and update their index with the latest website information. XML sitemaps serve as fodder for the search engines unlike the usual HTML sitemap which is meant as a navigation tool for human users.
In simple terms, XML sitemaps give Search Engine spiders an authoritive list of URL for indexing with additional meta data like the last modified date, frequency of change (updates) and page priority (hierarchy of importance vis a vis other pages).
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by Prakash Rangarajan on December 7, 2009
Confused User - Pix Credits Gerard
Usability rules the roost in web development. As Edward Tufte, Information Design Guru would say “the most common user action on a website is to flee“. It is all the more important that your online presence has what it takes to be simple, usable and communicate persuasively your core message.
A bad website is akin to a grumpy salesman (Jakob Nielson), yet lots of websites fail miserably on the usability stakes. Simplicity is the key to a good customer experience, the moment you take away ease of use, users /customers are not going to come back again.
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by Prakash Rangarajan on September 9, 2009
Before we get into the www or no www choice for your website domain url’s, it makes sense to have some clarity on Canonical URL’s. In simple terms, canonical means “standard” or “authoritative”, so the canonical URL is the one you would want the search engines and users to see. Technically www.website.com and website.com would mean different things to the search engines. This might create the possibility of self created duplicate content in the SE index as also the added factor of split in link popularity.
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by Prakash Rangarajan on May 25, 2007
Any database driven website generates dynamic urls which can prove to be the bane of search engine spiders. Lots of e-commerce sites, forums and content management systems all have difficulty in getting indexed properly. Organic listings take a beating in these cases especially if dynamic urls have many variable strings.
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by Prakash Rangarajan on May 11, 2007
You work in a web development firm. You are the webmaster and team lead. You have the all resources – a crack design team, hardcore programmers, the software support, hardware backup. Yet when it comes to decision making on critical aspects of a website or a project, more times than one, poor decisions can be taken.
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