Creating a Robots.txt file

In order to prevent your site from being penalized for spamming, you need to prevent the search engine spiders from indexing pages which are not meant for it.

Roy, Sumantra. 1stSearchRanking (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Creating Keyword-Rich Pages

Once you have established the keywords for which you should optimize your site for the search engines, it is time to figure out how you can get a high ranking in the search engines for those keywords. The solution is to create Keyword Rich Pages (KRPs) - pages which provide good content and in which a particular keyword is repeated a number of times so that the page gets a top ranking for that keyword.

Roy, Sumantra. 1stSearchRanking (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Creating Usable, Search Engine Friendly URLs

There are many reasons to use mod_rewrite to create informative, useful URLs for your website. Most dynamic websites use some form of PHP or ASP to pull the data from the database and often times use that data in the URL as a string. This is not only a potential security flaw, it also gives the user and search engine alike a very uninformative destination for your website.

Robbins, Kyle. ReEncoded (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization>Usability

The Definitive Link-Building Strategy

Learn how to go about starting that all-important link building campaign, to help ensure a higher search engine ranking for your website.

McGaffin, Ken. Webcredible (2005). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Designing a Search People Can Really Use  

The challenge of finding the right information at the right time has grown with the Web. The information superhighway is larger and more crowded than ever, and individual sites are also larger and more complex. With this explosion in the sheer volume of pages, finding the information you need is harder than ever. Search engines have always held out the promise of solving this problem, but they are often a usability disaster area. Inaccurate results, cluttered search entries, and a narrow focus on technological capabilities are only a few of the issues that make search features so difficult to use.

Quesenbery, Whitney. Intercom (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>Usability

Designing an Effective Search Facility

Whilst some designers would insist that to even contemplate adding a search engine to a site is to admit some sort of failure of interaction design, most would agree that in certain circumstances some form of search facility can be appropriate. Either way, it is an issue that sooner or later is likely to be addressed by many site developers. It is important to recognise that when we speak of a 'search facility' we are often applying one catch-all name to what is in fact many distinct functions. There is a significant difference, for example, between searching for specific items with specific names (such as books in a bookshop) and looking for any documents that contain certain words or phrases. The former is a targeted, 'hard' search, the latter a much more complex 'soft' process that is likely to place greater demands on the user if they are to be successful. Although in terms of interface design and technology these searches may be similar, for the user they are very different processes.

Frontend Infocentre (2001). Design>Web Design>Search

Designing for Search Engines and Stars

Great search engine placement doesn't require you to sacrifice appealing design. While 'content is king' for high search engine rankings as well as overall site popularity, your imagination and creativity with designs can still reach for the stars. This tutorial provides a broad overview of ideal approaches, what can still work, and what you ought to avoid if search engine rankings are important. There are times when we forego the ideal for various reasons, so I'll try to steer you around the roadblocks on the way regarding graphics, Flash, frames, splash pages, and other potential perils. At the end of the tutorial are some resources for further exploration, too.

Kaiser, Shirley E. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Designing Search Pages  

Many web sites and applications include a search feature. Often they provide an extremely simple search interface consisting of a single text box and a "Go" button. Sometimes, however, the users' tasks call for more sophistication, and guidelines for complex search interfaces are difficult to find. This paper details four levels of search interface, and it provides heuristics (guidelines) to use when designing complex search interfaces. Different solutions are appropriate, depending on the users' motivation and knowledge of their subject, experience using search interfaces, and search goals. Finally, PubMed serves as a useful example to illustrate how these guidelines can be used to analyze existing search interfaces.

McDaniel, Scott M. STC Proceedings (2004). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Search

Digiglut.com

There is just too much stuff out there. Web surfing has turned to web surfeit, as web users and independent content site authors are buried alive in a sea of ever-more-useless crap. Bob Jacobson sifts through the wreckage.

Jacobson, Bob. List Apart, A (2000). Articles>Web Design>Search

Directory Submissions: Understanding DMOZ and Yahoo!

Directory submissions, unlike search engine submissions, are reviewed by human beings and undergo a great deal of scrutiny by the editors reviewing them. It is important that your website is submitted correctly in order to obtain the listings you need.

Pass, Leann. Website Tips (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Diversity is Power for Specialized Sites

Small websites get less traffic than big ones, but they can still dominate their niches. For each question users ask, the Web delivers a different set of sites to provide the answers.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Does a Question Mark in the URL Affect Ranking?

For a long time search engine professionals have claimed that a question mark in a web page's URL is bad for its search ranking. Is this still true today? This article investigates.

Ricerca, Jon. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Does Keyword Location on Page Affect Ranking?

Find out the best position to place your keywords on web pages to optimise them for the search engines.

Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Does the Number of Links on a Page Affect its Ranking?

The more outbound links there are, the higher in the search rankings your web pages will be, according to this article.

Ricerca, Jon. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Does Website Hosting Affect Rankings at Google?

After planning and developing a website the next part is to host it on the internet. Web Hosting is indeed an issue to be spent time on but the question arises if you need to look at it with your SEO eye or not? The answer in plain words is Yes and No.

Goyal, Nakul. ISEDB (2004). Design>Web Design>Hosting>Search Engine Optimization

Don't Submit Your Website to Any Search Engines

Submitting your website to every search engine is an incredibly time-consuming process. There are hundreds and hundreds of them out there - no doubt, you've come across the companies who'll submit your website to 1000 search engines for you. Search engine professionals know that the vast majority of these search engines have a very low usage rate and will drive hardly any traffic your way. In fact, it's only a handful of search engines that drive the majority of traffic from search engines to websites.

Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Marketing>Search

Effective Search Engine Submission Strategies

Now that you've got a website it's time to start thinking about promoting it. Search engine listings are the number one way to generate traffic to your website.

stevenforsyth.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Search Engine Optimization

Effective Search Results

Search result pages must make information easy to find and present results in a format that is easy to use.

Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search

The Effects of Contrast and Density on Visual Web Search

This study evaluated the effects of white space on visual search time. Participants were required to search for a target word on a web page with different levels of white space, measured by level of text density. Screens were formatted with one of four types of graphical manipulation, including: no graphics, contrast, borders and contrast with borders under two levels of overall density and three levels of local density. Results show that search times were longer with increased overall density but significant differences were not found between levels of local density. Only the use of contrast was found to be significant, resulting in an increase in search time.

Weller, Donnelle. Usability News (2004). Design>Web Design>Visual Rhetoric>Search

Eight Quick Ways to Fix Your Search Engine

Almost every site's search engine could use improvement. Most organizations' Web teams couldn't really affect the quality of their search results--they were stuck tweaking search technologies that had already been purchased and installed. Often, the most dramatic change they could make was in the design of the search and results interfaces.

Veen, Jeffrey. Adaptive Path (2004). Design>Web Design>Search

Eight Ways to Use Alexa.com's Toolbar as Your Secret Traffic Weapon

By now, most web marketers know that the Alexa.com ranking of their site is important. It gives an independent measure of your monthly unique visitors and reach on the web to potential advertisers.

Abayomi-Paul, Tinu. Free Traffic Directory. Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

El Título de la Página

El título de la página es un metadato acerca del contenido de la página, que se define a través de la etiqueta HTML <title>. Definir el título en todas las páginas que conforman el sitio web es una norma básica que aumenta considerablemente la 'findability' de la información contenida en cada página. Además, no definirlo supone mostrar una imagen poco profesional del sitio web y su diseño. Al contrario de lo que pudiera parecer, el título de la página no es un elemento de orientación del usuario en su navegación, ya que la mayoría de los usuarios ni tan siquiera advertirán su existencia.

Hassan Montero, Yusef. Nosolousabilidad.com (2003). (Spanish) Design>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization

Enhance Usability by Highlighting Search Terms

Google's cache offers users a copy of your website with their search terms highlighted. You can do the same thing and make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for — whether they're coming from an external search engine or your own site search — by making their search terms easy to spot.

Suda, Brian and Matt Riggott. List Apart, A (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search

Faceted Metadata for Image Search and Browsing  

The authors present a new method of image searching based on conceptual descriptors. This method differs from the traditional methods of image searching that are based on keywords and visual similarity.

Hearst, Marti, Kevin Li, Kirsten Swearingen and Ka-Ping Yee. University of California Berkeley (2003). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>Search