Cloaking, flash, shockwave, javascripts and get crawledby the spiders
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Get crawled - Other indexing pitfalls
Flash and Shockwave
Search engines do not read Flash and Shockwave files. Content
and links in any of these formats will not be accessible by search
engines, although Google can now follow links in Flash.
Search engines basically only read regular text on a web page.
They don't read text and follow links within special formats such
as Java Applets or any other formats that require the user to
have a certain program installed.
Read more about Flash, Macromedia and Java Applets in the Links
and Navigation section.
Image maps or navigation buttons
Not all search engines read image maps. Most search engines read
navigation buttons. If you use image maps you should add the same
links as you have in the image maps as regular text-based links.
Read more about image maps and navigation buttons in the Links
and Navigation section.
JavaScript and DHTML navigation
Search engines do not read JavaScript. You should not put important
content or navigation inside JavaScript unless you also have the
same links and content duplicated as regular text and text-based
links.
Cookies
Spiders do not read cookies. Therefore, if your web site uses
cookies, make sure that all the web pages you want indexed are
accessible without accepting the cookie. Par example, if you force
a user to set a cookie before loading a page, the search spiders
cannot read your pages; they cannot set cookies. So make the cookie
set
optional.
A cookie is a small text file that a web server can save in a
user’s browser for future retrieval when that same user
returns. It can be used to store login information or other
preferences to make it easier or quicker for returning visitors
to use a particular
web site.
Cookies are very safe to use in the sense that they cannot be
read or shared by different users or across different web sites.
Information, like passwords in cookies, can also be 128 bits encrypted,
and very secure. If a cookie is set on your browser, the web site
that set it is the only web site that can read it. In addition,
no other user of the web site has access to the information in
your cookie. Cookies can't be transferred or shared.
Tip: test your site with cookies off
You can turn off cookies in your own browser to test if your web site can be
accessed without them. Refer to your manual or help files of the browser
you are using for instructions on how to turn off cookies. Usually these
instructions will appear under "advanced options". For Microsoft
Internet Explorer go to tools> Internet options > privacy > block
all cookies.
IP delivery, agent delivery, cloaking, and personalization
It has become more and more common for web sites to implement
some degree of personalization, regional targeting, or other form
of individualization in the way web pages are served to individual
users.
In its most simple form it can be a program on the Server that
checks what browser people are using, and serves up a specially
tailored version for that browser. The same kind of program can
also be used to check if people have specific plug-ins installed
so that they get a version of the web site they can read.
A more advanced use would be to check what country the user comes
from to serve a local version of the page. Some portals and Search
engines, as well as many other cross-national web sites do this.
Legitimate reasons for using this technique include business strategies,
marketing, and legal issues with products that are only allowed
in certain countries or localities. However, the
same techniques can also be used to serve different content to
Search Engine spiders and normal human visitors. These techniques
are usually referred to as "Cloaking". In most cases,
search engines do not like the use of cloaking. Your pages can
be banned by using cloaking! Thus, do not use cloaking unless
you have a legitimate reason to do so.
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