CMS and Content Formatting

[NigeW]

Hi there

We (the company I work for) sells a CMS system.

Clients therefore have full and unfettered access to format their content at will.

I therefore wondered if the additional formatting applied would affectr search engine rankings - do spiders read the actual output that a human would see ( and therefore "ignore" the formatting) or does the formatting break up thecontent and therefore reduce the effectiveness of the information detailed.

A simple example is :

<P align=left>If your Manufacturing operations need improvement then Improvement Tools will have a solution for you -<FONT color=#fa9d18> </FONT><A href="index.cfm/asset_maintenance_and_management/improvement_tools.html" target=_blank><FONT color=#fa9d18><STRONG>Learn More</STRONG></FONT></A></P>

This example is not the worst I have found on a site, merely an example.

Thanks for your help.


Nigel Wilson
Christchurch Web Design

 

[Foamcow]

Well those tags contribute to the chaff that the spider will need to sort through to get to actual content.

Search engines are pretty clever, they have had to take this sort of thing into account so I doubt this will make a difference to your pages.

However I would be much more concerned with the fact the users of the CMS *can* do this. They are using a CMS because they don't want the hassle of learning/writing HTML. The CMS should produce good, clean, valid markup.

You can't really blame the user for what a CMS outputs.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Buy Languedoc wines in the UK

 

[NigeW]

Thanks for your feedback foamcow.

I agree with your last comment however some users are like kids in a candy store - have to try everything they see and so in some cases end up making a real mess - lots of colours, bolding, underlining, font sizes, etc.

Again the concern here that they can do this stuff I guess . . .

Cheers

Nigel Wilson
Christchurch Web Design

 

[Foamcow]

It's not so much that they CAN do it, more that the CMS lets the junk in. For example, if it is using (deprecated) font tags then it should be intelligent enough to know to get rid of any empty ones when the "page" is submitted.

Anyway, that's not your question really so I will rant no more

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Buy Languedoc wines in the UK