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pjnunn777 Joined: Jul 17, 2003
# Posts: 381
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Posted: 05/13/2003 11:43 pm
Ok I'm a bit confused by what is the best way for on site navigation and links in general 
I thought that SE's and Google had trouble in following graphic links. By this I mean an image on a page that when clicked on would load another page. A good example of this would be a .gif button I suppose. I have been corrected in another forum for giving this incorrect advice out, therefore I would like to know exactly what SE's and especially Google will follow/spider and what it won't. Does it make a difference if the image has a mouseover? Following on from this, can I assume that links from an animated or static gif will or will not be followed and therefore count as backlinks to my site? Does it make any difference if the images are part of an image map? I am getting confused and would like clarification once and for all. |
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excell Moderator
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14495
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Posted: 05/14/2003 09:54 pm
most search engines will follow a graphic that is linked with a simple *a href* where they may have difficulty is if the link is done with javascript, flash, java applets etc. a plain a href link will be followed even if there is a mouseover. most search engines will also have no problem following plain links in imagemaps. |
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pjnunn777 Joined: Jul 17, 2003
# Posts: 381
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Posted: 05/14/2003 11:41 pm
Thankyou excell, suddenly everything becomes clear... |
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excell Moderator
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14495
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Posted: 05/15/2003 12:24 am
your welcome.. {now everyone - don't re-confuse em  } |
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huebdoo Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 68
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Posted: 07/24/2003 04:08 pm
As far as search engines go, and general speed of the site. I would suggest using text for navigation with CSS to add flair. Graphic images load slower and text is spidered by search engines giving you an advantage over the image happy types. Keeping a site lean and mean is the way to go. Quick and spiders love text ... Good Luck |
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crash Insider
Joined: Dec 02, 2003
# Posts: 10626
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Posted: 07/24/2003 10:03 pm
This assumption would be incorrect. Image maps are followed as well. The catch is the format of the link itself. If you use <a href="link.com">insert image or anchor text here</a> you are totally 100% fine. Again image maps are fine but scripting, as mentioned, is not as search engines don't parse/read it. |
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crash Insider
Joined: Dec 02, 2003
# Posts: 10626
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Posted: 07/24/2003 10:53 pm
Good advice huebdoo. Where possible it is better to use text navigation with CSS for styling. |
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armsent Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 36
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Posted: 07/25/2003 12:42 pm
what "flair" can you add to css? isn't it just basic font and font size settings? |
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huebdoo Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 68
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Posted: 07/25/2003 04:15 pm
Font Style, Background colour, size, Hover tag etc... The idea that you have to be tied to graphics is a lie told to you by the those who want to sell something. Think linear, Bauhaus style design does not need graphics, just colour and good layout. Lean and Mean, is a Search Engines Dream. Is your website or are you as a web designer going to land a sale because of your fancy flash buttons? or the fact that you got spidered by Google and get hits because your CSS file text menu is chalked full of key wordy goodness? I think being found by a search engine is more important than a funky button that is 19k and takes seconds to load |
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armsent Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 36
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Posted: 07/25/2003 04:34 pm
ahh, I see. I'm only a couple month old rookie in the web design world, so I didn't know you could more than set size and type. I guess I'm going to have to read some more on the css stuff. thanks. |
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excell Moderator
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14495
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Posted: 07/25/2003 05:21 pm
I don't know about text nav with CSS being the best in every case. I'm not talking about wizbang stuff for nav, but sometime optimised image nav with appropriate alt attributes can be good for SEO (as long as the search engines keep reading the alt on linked graphics). Whereas it does not appear that the title attribute on text links is indexed. So, before making design choices it would be important to assess the worth of different ways through your own research
A graphical nav system is always best backed up with text nav & a sitemap as well. {I'm not trying to sell anyone anything and there is no advantage to me as a designer as to what choice is made for the nav, it is a matter of what is going to work best for that site & that target market as well as the SEs.} |
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huebdoo Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 68
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Posted: 07/28/2003 07:52 am
OH yes a site map, done in text is an excellent way to create a one page chalked full of SEO goodness with lots of deep crawl opportunity waiting to happen. And I believe that images have a time and place, and lets face it a full text web site is pretty dry. If you are going to have image buttons, I agree with Excell, create a site map ( text based ) and Search Engines will love you for it. |
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excell Moderator
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14495
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Posted: 07/28/2003 08:15 am
And so will users if it is done for them. Especially for the larger sites |
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excell Moderator
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14495
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Posted: 07/28/2003 08:20 am
huebdoo, can I ask you please ... from a strictly SEO point of view.. Do you believe that a site with say 8-10 main links is *always* better off with text links (because they are hard to keep tidy if they have good key phrase rich text in them) or small sharp images with tight nav clues enhanced by appropriate key phrase rich text? I am asking your opinion on this purely from your SEO research. And then also considering the usability as a strong pin for SEO as well. |
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huebdoo Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 68
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Posted: 07/28/2003 08:41 am
Small sites normally have a huge dissadvantage of being ranked in Search Engines, mainly because of thier limited link popularity... Example if a 50 page web site gets everyone of its pages into Googles database, it now has a link popularity of 50. If you have a 10 page web site and all the pages get indexed then you only have a link popularity of 10. (These do not include external links to the site by the way) The smaller the site, the more important that you make text (HTML text) predominate over everything else. A happy medium is creating some kind of layout to include both formats ( header has the buttons & footer of the document has text based links ) Also one good thing to remember is that Alternate text <ALT> tags are read by most of the Search Engines (GOOGLE) and are important to have on your images. Here is an example, click on this link below: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=picture+viewer Now look at the link about 4-5th down >>>> ACD Systems: Home of ACDSee picture viewer and digital camera ... ACD Systems Home, Site Language. View Cart. ... www.acdsystems.com/ - 20k - 26 Jul 2003 - Cached - Similar pages Now where its says, "ACD Systems Home, Site Language. View Cart." those are ALT tags being read by Google... (This site is a work in progress for me so please be kind) Google is so desperate to find live HTML text that it will index the ALT tags if it cant find any. So, smaller sites ... use text as much as possible... If you use images ... use ALT tags as much as possible... Also, for good "deep crawling" try to have text based links within your documents as much as possible. Does that help? EXCELL OH by the way great forum, and I learned alot reading the stuff that Jim did... He and guys like Danny Sullivan are like GURU's to me... |
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excell Moderator
Joined: Mar 19, 2001
# Posts: 14495
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Posted: 07/28/2003 09:11 am
Yes, they are great leaders.. Jim & Danny and all the rest. huebdoo - I am sure that the more savvy webmasters here all appreciate the ACDSee product it's pretty cool.
Apart from that you have an interesting way of looking at SEO... You see things differently. so I hope you continue to speak up. I also hope you are open to fresh perspectives, there are some great talents around here and learning never has a "full stop". :D |
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