Technical SEO Introduction

The <head> Section

The <head> section and important <meta> tags

<title>Use the Main Keywords You are Trying to Rank with a Specific Page and Your Brand Name</title>

Super Important. Title tags define the title of a document. They are required for all HTML/XHTML documents. No more than 70 characters.

<meta name="description" content=“This is Your Chance to Convince the Users why They Should Click On Your Result. Let Them Know What

They Will Find On Your Site / Page. Add a Call to Action When You Can" />

HTML attributes that provide explanations of the contents of web pages. Used to display preview snippets for a given page on SERP. No more than 155 characters.

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com"/>

Normalizing (redirecting to a single dominant version) multiple URLs.

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://es.example.com" />

The hreflang attribute specifies the language of the linked document.

Meta Robost

• To prevent all robots from indexing a page on your site, place the following meta tag into the <head> section of your page:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

• When Google see the noindex meta tag on a page, Google will completely drop the page from our search results, even if other pages link to

it. Other search engines, however, may interpret this directive differently. As a result, a link to the page can still appear in their search

results.

• It is also possible to ask Google not to index & no to follow any of the links on the page in the following way –

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

Pagination

• Pagination may take many shapes—it can be an article divided into several component pages, or a product category with items spread

across several pages, or a forum thread divided into a sequence of URLs.

• Use the HTML link elements rel=”next” and rel=”prev” to indicate the relationship between component URLs in a paginated series.

• rel=”next” and rel=”prev” markup on the component pages within a series, gives Google a strong hint that you’d like Google to:

• Consolidate indexing properties, such as links, from the component pages/URLs to the series as a whole (i.e., links should not remain dispersed between page-1.html,

page-2.html, etc., but be grouped with the sequence).

• Send users to the most relevant page/URL—typically the first page of the series.

• A few points to mention:

• The first page only contains rel=”next” and no rel=”prev” markup.

• Pages two to the second-to-last page should be doubly-linked with both rel=”next” and rel=”prev” markup.

• The last page only contains markup for rel=”prev”, not rel=”next”.

• Must be implemented in the <head> section of a page.

rel="alternate" hreflang="x" (languages)

• Many websites serve users from around the world, with content that's translated, or targeted to users in a certain region.

• The rel="alternate" hreflang="x" annotations, help Google serve the correct language or regional URL to searchers.

• In case of multiple language versions of a URL, each language page in the set must use rel="alternate" hreflang="x" to identify the other

language versions.

• For example, if your site provides content in French, English, and Spanish, the Spanish version must include a rel="alternate" hreflang="x"

link to both the English and the French versions, and the English and French versions must each include a similar link pointing to each other

and to the Spanish site.

rel= "nofollow"

• "Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines "Don't follow links on this page" or "Don't follow this specific link.".

• Here are some cases in which you might want to consider using NOFOLLOW –

• Untrusted content: If you can't or don't want to vouch for the content of pages you link to from your site — for example, untrusted

user comments or guestbook entries — you should nofollow those links. This can discourage spammers from targeting your site, and

will help keep your site from inadvertently passing PageRank to bad neighborhoods on the web. In particular, comment

spammers may decide not to target a specific content management system or blog service if they can see that untrusted links in that

service are nofollowed.

• Paid links: A site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. In order to prevent paid

links from influencing search results and negatively impacting users, we urge webmasters use NOFOLLOW on such links. Search

engine guidelines require machine-readable disclosure of paid links in the same way that consumers online and offline appreciate

disclosure of paid relationships.

• Crawl prioritization: Search engine robots can't sign in or register as a member on your forum, so there's no reason to invite

Googlebot to follow "register here" or "sign in" links. Using NOFOLLOW on these links enables Googlebot to crawl other pages you'd

prefer to see in Google's index.

On Page Optimization

On page factors & proper HTML representation

• Content (Text)

• Text Elements on the page should be marked as <body>, <div>, <p>, <span>

• Using Bold <b></b> or Strong <strong></strong> on a text emphasize the important of the

text to search engines

• Context titles (not the Page Title) should be marked with <h1> <h2>…. <h6> according the

context hierarchy. There can be only one <h1> per page.

• Images

• Each Image should get an ALT Text value.

• As search engines bots can’t understand images, the Alt Text suplly them with the

information of what the image shows to the users.

• It is also used in browsers that can’t upload the image.

On page factors & proper HTML representation

• URL

• The URL indicates the page hierarchy and importance (no more the 4 levels).

• Use hyphens to separate words, not underscores.

• The names within the URL are a signal to search engines (and users) what the page is about.

• Proper use of HTML and choosing the right Tags

• Each element in the page should get the most proper HTML representation.

• The better code representation an element gets, the better Google will understand

what is this element. Example – use <nav> to indicate a navigation menu, use

<footer> to indicate this is the footer part of the page etc.

• It is important to check that the <tag> you want to use is supported in the different

browsers.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate Content• Duplicate content is content that appears on the Internet in more than one place (URL).

• Pages that holds very similar content (even in not 100% similar) are consider duplicate content as well.

• The Three Biggest Issues with Duplicate Content –

• Search engines don't know which version(s) to include/exclude from their index

• Search engines don't know whether to direct the link metrics (trust, authority, anchor text, link juice, etc.) to one page, or keep it separated between

multiple versions.

• Search engines don't know which version(s) to rank for query results

• When duplicate content is present, site owners suffer rankings and traffic losses, and search engines provide less relevant results

http://moz.com/learn/seo/moztrust

http://moz.com/learn/seo/mozrank

http://moz.com/learn/seo/anchor-text

Duplicate Content Examples• URL Parameters

Duplicate Content Examples• Printer Friendly

Duplicate Content Examples• Session IDs

Canonicalization

• One option for dealing with duplicate content is to utilize the rel

=canonical tag.

• The rel=canonical tag passes the amount of link juice (ranking power) to

the “canonical to” page.

• This tag tells Bing and Google that the given page should be

treated as though it were a copy of the URL, and that all of the

links and content metrics the engines apply should actually be

credited toward the provided URL.

<link href="http://www.example.com/canonical-version-of-page/" rel="canonical" />

http://moz.com/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps

http://moz.com/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps

Redirections

Redirection

• Redirection is the process of forwarding one URL to a different URL.

• There are three main kinds of redirects:

• 301, "Moved Permanently"—recommended for SEO

• 302, "Found" or "Moved Temporarily"

• Meta Refresh

• 301 Moved Permanently

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to

the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a

website.

• 302 Found (HTTP 1.1) / Moved Temporarily (HTTP 1.0)

A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect. It passes 0% of link juice (ranking power) and, in most cases, should not be used. The Internet runs

on a protocol called HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which dictates how URLs work. It has two major versions, 1.0 and 1.1. In the first

version, 302 referred to the status code "Moved Temporarily." This was changed in version 1.1 to mean "Found."

Redirection

• 307 Moved Temporarily (HTTP 1.1 Only)

A 307 redirect is the HTTP 1.1 successor of the 302 redirect. While the major crawlers will treat it like a 302 in some cases, it is best to use a

301 for almost all cases. The exception to this is when content is really moved only temporarily (such as during maintenance) AND the

server has already been identified by the search engines as 1.1 compatible. Since it's essentially impossible to determine whether or not the

search engines have identified a page as compatible, it is generally best to use a 302 redirect for content that has been temporarily

moved.

• Meta Refresh

Meta refreshes are a type of redirect executed on the page level rather than the server level. They are usually slower, and not a

recommended SEO technique. They are most commonly associated with a five-second countdown with the text "If you are not redirected in

five seconds, click here." Meta refreshes do pass some link juice, but are not recommended as an SEO tactic due to poor usability and the

loss of link juice passed.

HTTP Status Codes

Eitan Helman

[email protected]

+ 972 - 54 - 7188817

Eitan Helman

Eitan Helman ([email protected])

Technical SEO Introduction

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