CSS Warning

[Win2Win]

I've stopped using this now in a lot of cases. Why?

Google does not read CSS, and they have no plans to do so.



Why is this important? It is VERY important. If you build websites, Google gives 'bonus' points for keywords in H1, H2& BOLD, using CSS it will not see these, and so you would lose the bonus points on the keyword relevance.

That's not to say CSS isn't useful. For simply setting colour styles, etc across the site it's fine, but you need to becareful with it when it comes to SEO.

[GlosRFC]

I don't understand the logic behind this.

In the first place, your styles are saved in an external .css file but your page will still contain references to those styles. So you can still have tags like H1, H2 & BOLD within the document and Google will identify these.

Secondly, you can define the styles of these (and other) tags within the .css file which gives you greater control over the page structure. This will make your page more HTML-compliant which should increase your Google ranking.

Thirdly, using styles gives you greater control over the look and feel of your page without compromising any HTML standards. This is also a plus when it comes to Google ranking.

Fourthly, by removing all of your style information from the HTML document and putting it into an external stylesheet, you make the original HTML page smaller. And Google prefers small pages.

Fifthly, you can use DIVS (along with the css style display:none), or negative css postioning to include content in your HTML page that isn't displayed but will still be picked up by Google robots. This too can improve your ranking.

Sixthly, your ranking is determined by a number of factors of which the content within H and BOLD tags is only a small part. For example, using a keyword in your TITLE tag is more important, and using a keyword as part of the URL or domain name is more important still. The density of the keywords in your body text also carries more ranking than the same keywords within a H tag.

Seventhly, more weight is given to outbound links on other pages that refer to your page than any content included on your site. This ranking also depends upon the rank of the linking page but is inversely proportional to the total number of links that the linking page has. So a lowly-ranked site B containing only one link, which is to your site, is worth the same in page ranking terms as a higher-ranked site C that has hundreds of links, of which one of them links to your site. And a top-ranked site D, that contains just one link going to your site, provides an even higher ranking. And if that link used your keywords as anchor text (i.e. if the link said "win2win racing" rather than www.win2win.co.uk) then this would get the highest ranking of all.

Other factors that improve your page ranking more significantly than the H and BOLD tags are how up-to-date any linking pages are, the geographical distance between any linking pages and your site, the relative importance of any linking pages, and the position of any links within a page.

Eighthly, using stylesheets makes it much easier to modify your pages in future particularly with a large, complex site. Why edit 10, 50, 100 pages when you can just change one simple .css file?

So, after considering all this, the benefits of using stylesheets far outweighs any (unlikely) loss of ranking with the H and BOLD tags. In fact, the major downside to using css isn't the loss of any ranking, but the way that different browsers still interpret css in different ways. So, when you're using css, making your site cross-browser compatible is much more important than the negligible risk of losing any ranking.

[Win2Win]

I know all the Google algorithm basic functions and SEO, but certain CSS can have an influence on specific targetted keywords.

Google only reads files the same way a text only browser works, CSS just adds bells & whistles, and in the case of Dreamweaver code, bungs it in everywhere, when plain odd HTML would be a lot shorter. General consenus in the SEO world now seems to point towards CSS damaging ranking, as you can use it to do things that break Google rules. They're just about managing to keep up with XHTML.

Google does like IFRAMES :)

Vanessa Fox from Google recently pointed out that all CSS, etc, is ignored, the only tags noted are basic H1 H2 & Bold, and they have no plans to change this.

As for modifying all pages, I prefer PHP now for most things, and do it all server side.

Linking is another subject, and so is PR.....The Google toolbar only gives an estimate, and Google do not give out how many decimal places it goes too in real life. I may have 4.863635257276252574636, I may give 0.274545 to another racing site, and take -0.10236528 if I link to a florist :D

With HTML/XHTML + PHP, and a few other bells, you can easily get through without CSS.

[MattR]

Can anyone join this Acronym club? :D

[GlosRFC]

I'm not saying that css is a panacea. But it's a trade-off between site-usability and Google ranking. Sure, you could just put up a plain vanilla page in HTML, PHP, DHTML or whatever that satisifies all of Google's search criteria....a keyword URL, fifty unique metatags, a keyword title tag etc., but would many people bother to stay?

And, to me, usability is far more important than Google ranking. Is it really that vital that a site appears on the first page of Google? I've never clicked on the top-most site purely because it's top...I always look at the descriptive text first. And if that descriptive text doesn't appear to be what I'm looking for, I'll quite happily look through the next Google search page, and the pages after that, until I find a description that does match my search term. And if not, then I'll use better search words! Personally, I don't understand why so much emphasis is placed on trying to get the highest possible ranking - if your site actually contains information that people want, and which they keep visiting, then it'll automatically rise in the rankings. If it doesn't, then no amount of search engine optimisation will improve matters.

Besides, it's also not true that Google ignores css as they're already penalising sites that use css techniques, such as z-indexing, to try to inflate their page rankings. What she means is that css has no bearing over the most important aspect of your ranking which is the content you've provided.

CSS actually makes your pages more search engine friendly. As you've pointed out, search engines are predominantly interested in the text content of your site. The more tags and tables you have in your HTML file, the less likely it is that spiders will find the content they're actually looking for. More code = less optimisation. So, in an ideal world, all of your code would be contained in an external css file while your HTML page would contain nothing apart from your all-important content.

With a css setup like this search engines will love your site (after all, as Fox points out, the spiders don't care about any css code because it has no bearing on your ranking) and yet, because the css makes your page visually more attractive, your users will love you too. And you'll love your css too when you have to make site-wide changes.

[GlosRFC]

Can anyone join this Acronym club? :D

NYFC













That acronym is No You Flipping Can't

[MattR]

I nearly had it before scrolling down. Just got the F wrong :D

[vegyjones]

[Win2Win]

On another note, I'm really liking this MS Web Expression. Very smooth :)

Smaller code, and no dot in the top left