Is this Optimized webpage code?

Marketing
1

Somebody gave this to me to use as a template for html pages that are optimized for SEO.

What, if anything, would need to be changed to this code for SEO purposes???
Any feedback would be appreciated as I’m trying to learn all I can about SEO…

[B]<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN”>
<HTML><HEAD>
<meta name=“robots” content=“index,follow”>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content=“text/html; charset=iso-8859-1”>
<META content=“MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300” name=GENERATOR>
<TITLE>Very important to have descriptive text here that describes each page and should be different for each page, do not use the same key word more than 3 times in this section</TITLE>
<META NAME=“Description” CONTENT=“NOT THE SAME AS TITLE TAGES ABOVE…Very important to have descriptive text here that describes each page and should be different for each page, do not use the same key word more than 3 times in this section”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“keywords” CONTENT=“place general and specific key words in here, preferably keywords that deal with the content of each individual webpage.”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“expires” CONTENT=“0”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“Pragma” CONTENT=“no-cache”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“Cache-Control” CONTENT=“no-cache”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“distribution” CONTENT=“Global”>
<META NAME=“resource-type” CONTENT=“document”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“author” CONTENT=“Your Name or Company name, or Website name here…Google is starting to index actual people, so if you don’t want your personal name all over the net, then don’t place your name in here”>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

General webpage code goes in here, if making pages using flash or graphic images…put the code for that in here while leaving the info above in tact for SEO

</BODY>

</HTML>[/B]

2

That is generally how you start. Being optimized is much more than just title tags though. Here is a link to help with title tags - http://www.addme.com/meta.htm

Also Google Firebug and the PageSpeed addon for firefox. It is made by Google and gives you suggestions on what you can do to increase the performance of your site.

3

OK, so this is in fact a good template to start with?

Is this part OK…
HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN

Is this part OK…
MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300

4

depends on the doctype. I use 4.01 strict usually.
Not sure about the second part.

5

transitional is intended for old html code that you can’t be bothered rewriting up to standard

if you’re starting out, there’s no reason not to use strict

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
 "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
6

What’s wrong with straight forward html code? Browsers seem to all be able to read it just fine.

What’s considered to be new html?

7

Well for example html5. Has a different mark up so you need the doctype to say so. Just different standards. Check out this site for code validation and information on web site standards. http://www.w3.org/

8

i’m not going to open this can of worms

by “old” html i meant stuff like this –

<p>come on
<br>
<br>no, <b><i>you</b> come on</i>
9

It isn’t an SEO issue, but if you need a Transitional doctype that suggests that you’re using outdated coding practices. Transitional was introduced in 1999 to give people time to update legacy code carried over from old systems. There is no excuse for creating a new site in 2011 that needs it.

<meta name=“robots” content=“index,follow”>

Unnecessary. Robots assume they can index and follow anything where they aren’t told not to. You don’t need to tell them to index and follow, they will do it anyway.

<META content=“MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300” name=GENERATOR>

Ah, I guess that’s the reason for the Transitional doctype. If you want to be taken seriously, don’t admit to using any kind of code generator. People are likely to laugh at you behind your back. Definitely don’t admit to using a Microsoft code generator, because they’ll probably laugh at you to your face. I’m only slightly joking on this. Making a website from code generated by a Microsoft application is a bit like trying to make a gourmet meal out of bits you’ve bought from McDonalds.

<TITLE>Very important to have descriptive text here that describes each page and should be different for each page, do not use the same key word more than 3 times in this section</TITLE>

How could you possibly come up with a title that uses the same word three times? The title needs to be brief and to the point - max about 64 characters. It is what appears in the search results, bookmarks/favourites list, title bar etc. Short and snappy.

<META NAME=“Description” CONTENT=“NOT THE SAME AS TITLE TAGES ABOVE…Very important to have descriptive text here that describes each page and should be different for each page, do not use the same key word more than 3 times in this section”>

Good general advice, but I wouldn’t get too obsessed with keyword counting. Write a description that is readable and sounds like it was written by a person and not a machine, max about 160 characters if possible.

<META HTTP-EQUIV=“keywords” CONTENT=“place general and specific key words in here, preferably keywords that deal with the content of each individual webpage.”>

Irrelevant since about 2005. No major search engines pay any attention to the keywords tag. If they can’t figure out the keywords from the content, headings and other semantic markup, the title, the description and the link text and context on inbound links, then you’ve had it.

<META HTTP-EQUIV=“expires” CONTENT=“0”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“Pragma” CONTENT=“no-cache”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“Cache-Control” CONTENT=“no-cache”>

Only if you want to force everyone to download the full page from the server every time, even if it hasn’t changed from the last time they visited. Rarely worth bothering with, and nothing to do with SEO.

<META HTTP-EQUIV=“distribution” CONTENT=“Global”>
<META NAME=“resource-type” CONTENT=“document”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=“author” CONTENT=“Your Name or Company name, or Website name here…Google is starting to index actual people, so if you don’t want your personal name all over the net, then don’t place your name in here”>

No relevance to SEO that I can see. I believe that both the http-equivs there should be name. Apart from ‘author’, which might conceivably be used by some data processor somewhere, I don’t see any value at all in these tags.

10

You could also try running your site through the W3C validator http://validator.w3.org/

Not sure how much this has to do with SEO but every little helps.

11

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN”>

OK, so what doc type do I identify the page as being?
I’ve always heard this was important for browsers that need this information

Think it’d be OK to just remove the word “Transitional”?

<META HTTP-EQUIV=“keywords” CONTENT=“Use no more than 12 unique search terms separated by a comma”>

This should be removed altogether?

<META HTTP-EQUIV=“distribution” CONTENT=“Global”>

If the target audience is in the US, could “Global” be changed to “United States”?

12

Leave keywords in there, always use them even though they do not mean as much anymore. Change it from transitional to strict. And global to local.

13

no, use the one in post #5

:slight_smile:

14

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN”>

Would this work as well?

15

no, not really

just use the STRICT one that i gave you in post #5

16

What if the code is not “strict”?

If it’s not actually compliant with strict way of doing code, it’d probably be best to not label the page as being strict, right?

17

you’ll be fine

no, it would be best not to write any code that isn’t strict

i mean, you do have a choice, right? it’s new code you’re writing?

strict html is a piece of cake

you should try it

:cool:

18

There are two key dates to remember with regard to using HTML 4 strict.

1997 when the standard was first introduced.

Approximately 2005 when the last browser that didn’t fully understand it finally dies allowing it to be actually used.

The second of these is the point at which it became unnecessary to use transitional for new web sites. Any professional web site that uses transitional will have been on the web since before then as all professional sites created since then would use strict. Only amateur/hobby sites created since then would use transitional and then only because they are using a web editor that is poorly written and is unable to produce standard c ompliant code.

19