Understanding Google’s

Google seems to have guidelines for everything, and Web site design is no
exception. Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (which I cover in some detail in
Chapter 2) are the de facto guidelines for how any Web site associated with
Google should be designed.
Google is certainly one of the most visible companies in the world. The
number of people who watch Google in hopes that it will one day screw up is
shadowed only by the number of people who are watching Microsoft hoping
for the same. And because Google is such a target, the company needs to
ensure that anyone who’s even very remotely associated with it meets certain
guidelines to help avoid the ire of an offended public.
The Google Webmaster Guidelines are only one step in the requirements that
Google has for people, but the guidelines are an important step — and it’ll
benefit you to understand them completely. Here’s a quick overview, but take
the time to read the complete guidelines at www.google.com/webmasters
as the ideas underpinning them are valuable for Web design even if you’re not
planning to use AdSense or any of Google’s other applications:
Make your site easy to navigate by creating a consistent navigational
structure across your site and by making that navigational structure
obvious to visitors. Nothing’s worse than getting stuck on a Web page
without a link to the home page or another way off the page without
using your back button or closing your browser completely.
Include relevant links to other Web sites.
Use a site map (a text document that links to every page on the site)
and submit it to Google. To submit your site map, you have to be a
member of Google’s Webmaster Central, but signing up for that is as
easy as signing up for any other Google account. After you sign up,
submit your site map by using the form. (You can find links to the forms
as well as other pertinent info at www.google.com/webmasters/
start.)
Include clear, relevant content.
Make sure the HTML that makes up your site is written correctly.
Repair broken links as soon as they’re noticed.
Allow crawlers access to your Web site by including a robots.txt file in
the design of your site. The robots.txt file has two lines:
User agent: *
Disallow: /
Create the file with a text editor, such as Notepad, save it using robots.
txt, and then when you upload your Web site to a server, be sure to
also upload this file. The file tells Web site crawlers that they’re
welcome to look at all the pages on your Web site.
Design your pages for users, not for search engines. Users come to your
site because they need something. Design your site so that the visitors
you’re targeting get exactly what they need — information and products
that they’re searching for. By designing your site with your visitors in
mind, you’ll automatically hit most of the requirements that search engines
have for ranking you in search results. A good rule of thumb is the more
useful your site is to real people, the better crawlers will rank the site.
Avoid any kind of underhanded Web site design, such as using hidden
pages or hidden text that’s only meant to be seen by Web crawlers.
Believe it or not, crawlers recognize this kind of sneaky design, and
you’ll be penalized in search rankings for it.
Use only relevant keywords in the titles, headings, and text of your
Web site. (You’ll also be using them in your HTML code, but more about
that is in Chapter 4.)
Many more guidelines are in the document, but these basics are a good place
to start. And one in particular really sums up the whole concept of Google’s
Webmaster Guidelines: Build your site for people, not for search engines. If you
do that, the chances that you’ll end up in trouble with Google (or AdSense) are
very slim.