Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Evaluation Form

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Supplemental Results

By entering the query site:www.domain.com into Google you can see all the pages currently indexed for that domain. If any of the displayed results are appended with ‘supplemental’ (hint – look towards the later pages) then these pages have been deemed as either duplicates or unimportant and will not show in regular search results.

URL Redirects

Google cannot tie the link between domain.com and www.domain.com and will class both as separate sites. To avoid duplicate penalties a URL preference should be chosen (either www or non-www) to which all other variants should redirect. This redirect should automatically change the URL in your address bar.

Dynamic URLs

There are two kinds of URL, static and dynamic. Dynamic pages include variables at the end of each URL after a ‘?’ e.g. www.domain.com/dynamic.php?variable=12. Search engines find it difficult reading these pages and as such they are often omitted from the index.

Session ID

Session IDs track user behaviour by assigning each visitor with a unique ID. This ID is often appended to the end of each URL - www.domain.com/page.html?sid=123456789qwerty. As each ID is unique, each time page.html is revisited by a search engine it assumes it is a new page. The result can be 1000s of duplicated pages.

Robots.txt

A robots.txt file is the first port of call for search engine spiders when visiting a site. It is used to inform the spider of what content it is allowed to index and what it is not. The file will always be located at www.domain.com/robots.txt and will and will only contain text. Regardless of whether or not all content is allowed to be indexed it should still be included.

Duplicate Titles

Documents that have identical titles and descriptions often find their way into the supplemental index meaning that they are likely never to be shown for regular searches. Using the site:www.domain.com query again, look through the site’s indexed pages paying attention to the titles and descriptions displayed.

Content Headings

Content Headings and subheadings help search engines determine a page’s topic. Headings should be wrapped in <H1> tags and subheadings from <H2> to <H6>. ‘Right click’ on any web page and ‘view source’ to access the source code. Use ‘Ctrl+F’ to bring up the ‘find and replace’ search box and search for both ‘H1’ and ‘H2’.

Sitemap

A sitemap helps both visitors and spiders to find their way around larger sites. Where lots of valuable content may be deep inside the belly of the site, a sitemap will make sure it is not unreachable. A sitemap should only be one click away from the homepage and provide links to either every page or key content areas on larger sites.

Multiple Domains

Many sites have multiple extensions i.e .com, .co.uk, .net etc. The same site existing on all the extensions without significant unique content can trip a duplicate content filter. A URL preference should be chosen and the others should redirect to it. You should not be able to access multiple extensions without the URL changing automatically in your address bar,

Link Popularity

In general terms the more quality links a site acquires the better it will perform. Head over to Yahoo! Site Explorer, enter your domain name and click on "Explore URL". In the next screen click on "Inlinks" and choose the option "Show Links: Except from this domain" to view the incoming links for a domain. As links are difficult to acquire, link popularity carries a lot of weight when it comes to rankings.