I am a web desginer with a decade of experience. I started learning HTML back in the 90's. Back then I learned HTML through looking at other people's source code. I was constantly learning new tricks - such as the new language of Javascript and its bewildering array of syntax combinations.
Eventually CSS became predominant and a lot of what I had learned became obsolete. Such as the <center> tag I was so fond of at the time. That did not stop me though, I trenched onwards learning the new fangled design code which would eventually replace most the design aspects of HTML - Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Over the years I picked up a few tricks that would guarantee me a #1 position in any ranking system - such as search engines (namely, Google.)
I also learned how to design for every browser on the market - and get my website to display correctly and identically throughout the cross-browser wars over the past 10 years. This was no mean feta. It was hard cheese.
In this book I will depart to you some of the information, the raw statistical data, that confounded me in the beginnings of the Internet - only to enlighten me at the end of the Internet. There is life after computers - and the dark days that follow leaving a computer behind to seek new pastures can only mean you've gotten to a certain skill level, a certain mastery with the computer underworld. So much so that there is nothing left to learn. Nothing new to gain from computing. The door is open to infinite possibilities - only to be closed by a lack of imagination.
Intro by Xander Obrzut (13:25 - 24/12/2009)
#1#There is nothing special about google rankings. It follows a basic pattern matching scheme that most other search engines have tried to emulate in their own works and endeavours of trawling the Internet. Did you know that Google only holds some 5 per cent of the total of the Internet? So, how do you even get your site registered with Google, let alone at the top of the search query page?
The main algorythm is thus; TIME ONLINE * SEARCH TERMS * HTML. These are the three aspects that are required to be met before even thinking of getting that number #1 spot. Time Online: This is how long your site has been active. When you first register your site and put content on it - that is day zero. From then on - any changes to existing site content is deterimenatal to your search ranking. Next comes SEARCH TERMS. This is your site content - not your entire site - just a specific sentence google staff decide to extract from your site which seems to define the content page. It could be your opening welcome message such as 'Welcome to UK Books. We sell books on HTML'. That is your definition on Google. Next is your web name. www.peyoteuk.com - this got me top rankings on the day I registered the name for the search term 'Peyote UK'. It was a hard choice to either pick www.buypeyoteuk.com or just www.peyoteuk.com but I settled with the latter.
Finally, comes HTML. This is the hardest part to get right - but once you master HTML your rankings will improve significantly. Google prefers websites with good design and HTML practises. Such as following the W3C HTML and CSS Standards. When your site passes both of these tests - which can be performed online over at the www.w3c.org site (search for 'W3C HTML Validator') - then you can proudly put on your site the W3C banners that state your site conforms to the standards of CSS and HTML.
That is all there is to getting a good ranking on Google. Don't let anyone else fool you into thinking otherwise. All my sites that follow this basic receipe has succeeded in getting number one rankings for their search criteria.
This might seem an odd section to some designers. But, if you code for the Lynx browser - this will improve your market share considerably - as well as improving your rankings with Google. The fact remains that if your site can be accessed with the Lynx browser and successfully navigated with the Lynx browser you are onto a winner! Check www.peyoteuk.com - a design masterpeice for HTML and CSS. It gets a lot of visits from the Lynx browser. Just because people can use it to visit this site they do. It looks on the surface to be a polished site - and that is because it is polished up for the latest browsers. But, that does not stop it from being displayed right down to the command line browsers.
The secret to www.peyoteuk.com success is that it is static HTML pages. Not dynamic PHP. That is one trick I learned a while ago - use static HTML pages and use PHP to create these static pages leaving apache doing what it does best - serving files rather than processing power. Next, is the secret of CSS - the site has been designed completely in CSS with the only exception of a HTML table for positioning which will soon be replaced with the on-set of CSS 3.
The fact that the site's design in CSS based means older browsers not supporting CSS will simply display the page sans-CSS. Which is fine and will remain looking very similar to what is already there. A title, a navigation menu, and a content section. The same is true for command line browsers. My only complaint with the site is that there is no 'Where am I?' answers on each page. It might adhere to the 6-8 rule by having a maximum of 6-8 items to select from the menu - and also the three's company rule - whereby the site is broken up into three main areas (navigation, title, content) but as stated it does not tell you which page out of the 6-8 pages available that you are currently viewing. That would be a major improvement on site design in the future for www.peyoteuk.com.
To design for LYNX has the side-effect of cross-browser compatiblity resolved for now and the future. Designing websites to work with older browsers means not using the latest in technological advances such as 'Flash' and the likes. Removing all possible media content over retaining textual content is a further advantage for the site designer. People want to read content when surfing the web - this is why such sites as wikipedia and Google are prosperous whereas other mixed media based sites fail.
In the HEAD section of your web page are meta-tags. Also, there is a constant in JAVASCRIPT called 'null'. Both of these must always be written in lower case for compatibility issues. Firstly, meta-tags as well as most HTML tags and their properties must be written in lower case. This is to adhere to the standards of the W3C. Secondly, the JAVASCRIPT 'null' declaration must also always be written in lower case for adhering to the standards of the language. Most of what you find in HTML, CSS, and JAVASCRIPT will be in lowercase with the odd exceptions here and there such as the getElementByID extension of a class in JAVASCRIPT. This uses capitalisation exclusively for each class extension.
In true Neitschian fashion, we turn all of the rules outlined in this article on its head in designing for the underground. If you do not want high rankings for your site information on Google, and want to retain an underground audience, then avoid at all costs adhering to W3C standards. Use capitalisation throughout your site in HTML tags, META-TAGS, and CSS (but not Javascript otherwise it will break the code). Finally, to avoid all possible search engine trawling, use PHP GFX to produce your web pages. Most good PHP sites will have a script available for download that converts HTML into a PHP GFX image for displaying on site content.
On a final note - there are a golden rule to follow (as shown by peyoteuk.com) in designing web areas. A web area is a space for opportunities. It is a space for arranging information in a golden fashion - which means - a space that is roughly 4:3 in rationa. That is the Golden Rule.
There fore, if your site is 400 x 300 in size - you fit the bill - approx. A site that is 800 x 600 is also cool. But, avoid other dimensions if you want your site aesthetically pleasing to the eye.