Search Engine “Triage” List for P2Rx sites
Search Engine 00riage00List for P2Rx sites Autumn 2005 Update Factors Evaluated in Search Engine Triage A 00riage00evaluation of the search-engine readiness of P2Rx sites was conducted at various times during the autumn of 2005 (approximately Labor Day through Halloween). This evaluation considered several factors affecting how effectively each of the Centers was equipped to deal with search engines including both the EPA search engine, and Google. The evaluation was conducted with the objective of (1) increasing the accessibility of each center00 site via the EPA search engine; and (2) increasing the likelihood that users searching on relevant P2 content would find the Center on Google or other commercial search engines. Although a similar scoring exercise was conducted previously on these sites, I have not included the grades from previous rankings because I didn00 want to invite comparison of grades from one evaluation period to the next. Typically, I reviewed a number of pages (typically about a dozen) per site, including the following: Home Page, Program Directory; Topic Hubs intro; and several pages of site-specific content. Scores for each site were determined based on a review of these pages, and depending on the criteria selected, may be either 00/N00(for yes, the feature is correctly implemented or no, the feature was not implemented) or a letter grade (A through D) scored according to the following general guidelines: A: feature implemented on all pages checked B: feature implemented on most top level pages, some deeper content C: feature implemented on P2Rx syndicated content only D: feature not implemented Exceptions to these scoring conventions are noted in the discussion of each scoring criteria, below. It should be noted that the 00igh/Medium/Low00priority assignments are an artifact of previous triage exercises, and reflect historical P2Rx priorities. Each site may place greater or lesser value on these criteria based on their own specific needs, and/or site requirements. High Priority EPA Search Engine meta tags on high-level pages. This is a requirement if your site is going to be listed in the EPA search engine. This item refers both to the existence of the tags, as well as the appropriateness of the text included in the tags. Tags should include the <META name="Area"> and <META name="User"> tags. Title, Keyword meta tags on high level pages. The keyword and title tags are particularly important, for both EPA search engine and for Google. Titles, in particular, should be descriptive at the page level, since this title will be reflected in the search listing. 00o Index/No Follow00tags on imported topic hubs. The purpose of this strategy is to prevent 00ilution00of your search results and those of other sites by preventing the multiple listing of topic hubs in the EPA index, under multiple centers. 00o Index/No Follow00tags on calendars, etc. The purpose of this strategy is to prevent 00ilution00of your search results and those of other sites by preventing the indexing of certain dynamic content, especially pages with transient value, or which are redundant. Many calendar pages (and some other dynamically generated pages) fall into this category. Medium Priority Meaningful 00lt text00on images, links. In addition to being important for ADA (Sec 508) compliance of your site, many search engines use the alt text on images and links to help calculate the relevance of a page. Thus it can be useful in improving the ranking of your page. Scoring was performed according to the following rules: A: alt text on all visible images B: alt text on most images, especially those used as link anchors C: alt text missing on many images or critical links D: no alt text Meaningful anchor text on text links. Meaningful and keyword-rich text links can make a large difference on how highly a site is ranked by Google and by the EPA search engine. Where possible, anchor text should be as descriptive as possible, rather than simply saying 00lick here00 or other generic text. Eliminate/reduce use of graphic text for high valued text. Search engines cannot index graphic text so it is important that high valued text 00keywords, contact info, etc 00be in regular HTML text if at all possible. A: all links have text version present B: most links have text version present C: key links are graphic-only, but contain alt text D: key navigational links are graphic-only w/ no alt text Dynamic title info on dynamically generated pages. Many of the pages (e.g., topic hubs) on the Clearinghouse are dynamically generated 00that is, they are generated at least in part as a result of Cold Fusion code executed on the server. These pages often have 00eneric00 titles and keywords that do not accurately reflect the changes in content which occur as a result of changing URL parameters. Creating code which updates the title to reflect the content of the page will make your pages easier to find in both EPA and Google search results. Page length of high level pages. For Google and some other search engines, page length should be at least 250 words for the page to be indexed effectively. Pages substantially shorter than this are often deprecated in their ranking. A: each page contains reasonable narrative text B: most pages contain reasonable narrative text C: one or more key pages lack narrative text (usually home pages) D: most pages contain little text other than links Lower Priority Eliminate URL parameters from high-priority pages. Google and some other search engines are designed to ignore or skip pages with multiple URL parameters. This is done for a variety of reasons, and can affect the accessibility of pages that are created using 00use box00architectures. The typical guideline is to use no more than two parameters. This can significantly improve indexing on Google, but is a high-effort change for most sites. I should note that all sites seem to be in good compliance with this recommendation, other than topic hubs, which nonetheless appear to be indexed pretty effectively by Google. Listing in Yahoo and DMOZ/ODP. Because of the way Google00 Page Rank system works, and due to cross-fertilization between these directories, being included in Yahoo and/or the DMOZ Open Directory Project will improve your ranking in Google, which generates much more traffic than these other indexes. Because Yahoo Directory no longer provides a means to add sites to their directory without fee, Centers were not penalized for not having their site listed on the directory (though the few sites that were, were given mention). In each case, if I found a site was not listed in DMOZ, I recommended the site to the directory, in the Science:Environment:Pollution Prevention and Recycling: topic
refer page:-------http://www.officesoon.com/doc/55072-search-engine-triage-list-for-p2rx-sites
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