Code Matters - SEO Code Considerations for a Responsible SEO Strategy

SEO 101 - Clean Code is The Foundation of an SEO Strategy

Search engines index the internet by unleashing Internet BOTs which are programmed to crawl and index web pages by following links across the entire web. For example, Google's indexing agent is called Googlebot. When Googlebot gets to a particular web site, it attempts to gather as much information as possible from that web site to store in it's database of worldwide web content. Googlebot, and all the other search engine bots, are extremely rudimentary. Poor coding, unusual programming and/or database-driven, dynamic elements within a web page can throw off Googlebot and cause the little harvester to leave your site before indexing all the great information you have worked so hard to create.

Creating web sites in XHTML markup for document structure, coupled with CSS for design and layout, is the best foundation for ensuring maximum crawlability. This is the foundation of responsible SEO. You are welcome to use either of the flavors of XHTML - strict or transitional - but strict coding style will make your pages leaner as well as you a better coder. You can also safely code in good ol' HTML but we caution this approach as HTML coding typically requires more markup to obtain the same coding goals and allows for more mistakes in code structure. Whatever you decide, it's a fact that if a site is not crawlable, it won't matter how much great content you have - the search engines will never see it, never index it and your end result will be negligible, if any, traffic coming to your site from the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live.

Code Validity is Your Benchmark to Success

Ok, so you get it. Now you want to ensure that the search engines don't have any issues with your site. You have decided that proper coding is your new web design and development mantra; but how do you know how good your code is? Answer - code validation. The best code validation services are provided by the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]. This consortium is responsible for distributing standards in web coding and therefore, is the most relevant entity to validate your code. When your code is valid, it means that the web page has identified itself as, for example, "XHTML 1.0 Strict" and that your code structure and markup contain no errors. Naturally, no code errors is a virtual guarantee that the search engine bots can crawl and index all of your web site content on that particular page.

Check code validity of this web page: Are we valid?

Code Validation Impossibilities

It will happen. It's almost inevitable. You work hard to code every page with valid markup and structure documents to the highest of standards, yet you simply won't validate. There are some situations in which you have limited control. Web scripts are notorious for preventing your pages from validating correctly. Some web sites utilize advertisements, javascript and server-side includes that simply cannot be edited before winding up nested in your field of clean, valid code. What's the solution? Most of the time, nothing. In certain circumstances you will have web pages in your site that will not validate 100%. This does not mean the search engines won't or can't index your content, it just means the code is not pristine by the standards dictated in the markup style you chose.

Remember: Code as cleanly as possible and you create the ideal foundation for a focused, responsible SEO strategy.

Next SEO 101 Lesson: Flat Directory Structure