Opinions on "visibility" of this site

[Foamcow]

I'm looking for opinions on the search engine visibility of this site:

http://www.avoncrusade.co.uk/

Much appreciated.

 

[ChrisHunt]

I don't see anything on the page that search engines are particularly going to choke on. You can get an idea of how it looks to a spider here:

http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.cgi?url=http://www.avoncrusade.co.uk/

From a design point of view, I'd question whether you want all that animation going on at the top of the page (it's quite distracting) and whether you really need to repeat the menu across the top, down the side and across the bottom (you could also use text + css to do the tab strip - see

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors2/

). However, these aren't really SEO points.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[ChrisHirst]

I do agree with Chris about all the animation, very distracting and the landing page took around 25s to load on 512k DSL. On the tab navigation CSS could easily be used and it would get rid of the javascript overhead in each page, less for the spiders to wade through before they find the content.

A few points,

Always link back to the home page with the domain name or just use "/" rather than "index.asp" etc, as most SEs treat domainname and domainname/index.asp as seperate pages so it will end up splitting the link popularity.

Use the logo as a backlink to the domain as well.

Put alt attributes on all the images that are links and use a keyphrase that relates to the destination page. a small amount of weight is given to alt text.

The page titles are a very important part of SEO. the main keyphrase(s) for the page(s) should be in there. use Digital Points free tools to find a few

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/?keywords=breast+cancer

you are also missing a chance at keyword anchor text in the breadcrumb script. I've written an asp script that will put keyphrases in rather than the page name. I'll post the code if you are interested.


oh, and there is a spelling mistake in the title of kissgoodbye.asp


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[Foamcow]

Thanks!

I agree about the animation. It started with just one little bit and the client wanted more, more, more!

It was my plan to use CSS to do the rollovers. I have not done it that way before, and the dev time on this job didn't allow me to "fiddle", though since it's quieter here at the moment I'll perhaps get chance to take a look at it.

Same goes for the breadcrumbs. At the moment they are done manually. I'd be interested in your script.

Interesting what you say about loading times... I tested it on slower connections and it never took that long to load. There IS a possible issue with the server that it is hosted on (not my choice). I'll look into it.

Thanks for the tip about linking back to the homepage. No idea why I didn't use the logo as a backlink! I normally do!

OOpos spooling mistook!
thanks!

 

[ChrisHirst]

ok SEO friendly ASP breadcrumb script. actually a couple of functions and a global variable include.

/include/functions.asp

<!--#include virtual="/include/var.asp"-->
<%
function domain()
'retrieve domain name from server
domain = lcase("[URL unfurl="true"]http://"[/URL] & request.servervariables("HTTP_HOST"))
end function

' convert a pagename to predefined anchor text defined in PageNames()
Function AnchorText(PageName)
PageName = Lcase(PageName)
dim i
AnchorText = PageName
For i = 0 to Ubound(PageNames)
	if PageName = PageNames(i,0) then
		AnchorText = PageNames(i,1)
	end if
next
end function

' capitalise first letter of string passed to function
function Capitalise(strText)
Capitalise = ucase(left(strText,1)) & lcase(mid(strText,2))
end function

' breadcrumb trail navigation 
Function BreadCrumbs()
	Dim strPathArray
	Dim intMaxIndex
	Dim strPath
	Dim strHTML
	'split current path into an array
	strPathArray = Split(Request.ServerVariables("PATH_INFO"), "/")
	intMaxIndex = UBound(strPathArray)
	' start of breadcrumb 
	strHTML = "You are here: " & vbNewline

	strHTML = strHTML & "<a class='" & strNavStyle & "' href='" & domain() & "'>" & strHomeAnchorText & "</a> " & vbNewline
	strPath = "/"
	' parse the path array 
	For intIndex = 1 To intMaxIndex
	' change default.asp for whatever the default doc is 
		if lcase(strPathArray(intIndex)) <> "default.asp" then
		strPath = lcase(strPath & Server.URLPathEncode(strPathArray(intIndex)))
		if intIndex = intMaxIndex then
			
		else
			  strPath = strPath & "/"
		end if
		strHTML = strHTML & " -> <a class='" & strNavStyle & "' href='" & strPath & "'>" & AnchorText(strPathArray(intIndex)) & "</a>" & vbNewline
		end if
	Next
	
	BreadCrumbs = strHTML
	
End Function
%>

/include/var.asp

<%
'CSS style for navigation
const strNavStyle = "breadcrumb"

const strHomeAnchorText = "Anchor text for site landing page"

' page name array for use with breadcrumb script
' set array to suit number of pages 
dim PageNames(40,1)
'array(n,0) is the pagename including extension or the foldername
'array(n,1) is the anchor text for page 
PageNames(0,0) = "pagename.asp"
PageNames(0,1) = "Keyword Anchor text"
PageNames(1,0) = "foldername"
PageNames(1,1) = "Anchor for folder"
PageNames(2,0) = ""
PageNames(2,1) = ""
PageNames(3,0) = ""
PageNames(3,1) = ""
PageNames(4,0) = ""
PageNames(4,1) = ""
PageNames(5,0) = ""
PageNames(5,1) = ""
PageNames(6,0) = ""
PageNames(6,1) = ""
PageNames(7,0) = ""
PageNames(7,1) = ""
PageNames(8,0) = ""
PageNames(8,1) = ""
PageNames(9,0) = ""
PageNames(9,1) = ""
PageNames(10,0) = ""
PageNames(10,1) = ""

%>

this can probably be improved in many ways. I tend to use a modular approach and put variables declarations in a seperate file so I know where they are if I need to change something


Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[Foamcow]

Thanks muchly.
I'm an ASP noob so your script will come in useful!