Search Engine Optimization, Website Development and Search Engine Spiders - General Search Engine Rules
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Here are a few points to keep in mind as you put your web pages together.
Keep page size at under 200KB before images, CSS and JavaScript.
Keep the title tag under 70 characters. It will not fit in search results if it is longer than this.
It's OKAY to ignore the meta keywords tag.
Use the meta description tag. Content from that tag shows in search results under your main link, hence it can be very helpful in increasing your click-through rate. Keep your meta description under 150 characters and put enticing calls to action that separate you from other competitors on the page. This tag has been proven to increase click through rate from search engines.
Don't put your content too deep, within many folders. Though Google doesn't have any trouble discovering it, other, smaller search engines may stumble: www.site.com/folder/folder/page.htm is better than www.site.com/folder/folder/folder/folder/folder/page.htm. Folder use is great for organizing content, but if you can cram 50 pages into one folder without having maintenance trouble, do it.
Now that we've looked at some general rules, let's examine something that can raise canonical issues.
Different Home Pages
http://www.site.com/
http://site.com/
http://www.site.com/index.html/
http://site.com/index.html/
The above examples lead to the same page, but may be treated as different addresses by search engines. Google resolved this issue, but other search engines may still have trouble. When you do internal linking, pick the format you prefer and stick to it. For example, if you're linking to the home page, make sure all pages link to http://www.site.com/ instead of random variations like http://site.com/ and http://www.site.com/index.html/.
Use a 301 redirect to point all addresses to the same variation. For example, if you selected http://www.site.com/, then 301 redirect http://site.com/, http://www.site.com/index.html/ and http://site.com/index.html/ to it. This way link power passes without losses and you fix some older URLs that might have been overlooked.
Next: Implementing a 301 Redirect >>
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