Technical SEO and it’s place in multi-signal SEORichard FalconerBrightonSEO12th April 2013

We are…

What my friends think I do

What my Mum thinks I do

What SEO Account Managers think I do

What I think I do

What I really do

Underused technical SEO techniques

1. prefetch and prerender

1. prefetch and prerender

PrefetchDownloads the file you request and holds it until clicked. You can request multiple files.

<link rel="prefetch" href="/images/big.jpeg"> <meta http-equiv="Link" content="</images/big.jpeg>; rel=prefetch">[HTTP header] Link: </images/big.jpeg>; rel=prefetch

PrerenderDownloads and fully renders the page (including CSS, JavaScript etc.) and holds for 30 seconds, waiting for the click.

<link rel="prerender" href="http://example.org/index.html">

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Link_prefetching_FAQhttps://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/prerender

1. prefetch and prerender

Areas where you could make use of prefetch or prerender:

Checkout areasSimple multi-page formsMulti-page articles

1. prefetch and prerender

Use analytics to identify areas where you can use

prefetch and prerender

Implementation requires consideration and testing. The system should not be overused and can cause side effects:

Analytics problems – registering page views incorrectly

Bandwidth problems – overuse could slow down your site

Bandwidth problems – think about external sites too

2. SEO friendly AJAX

AJAX can be good for user experience, bad for search

Previous hashbang #! solution was rubbish

HTML5 includes a JavaScript function called pushState()

Address bar URL, title and history can be changed

If your web application fails in browsers with scripting disabled, Jakob Neilsen’s dog will come to your house and shit on your carpet.

pushState

All major browsers now support pushState

Bing recommends pushState over hashbangs

Google encourages webmasters to look into it

pushState

Get the speed benefit of AJAX

Allow users to bookmark and link to AJAX content

Allows users to use their back button

Keeps content accessible to all, including search

engines

3. Supercharge your crawling

SEOs need to crawl web sites

Screaming Frog is awesome

Power Mapper is also awesome

There are many others

Most have big limitations

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/

http://www.powermapper.com/

Powermapper

www.brightonseo.com

Powermapper

www.brightonseo.com

Powermapper

www.brightonseo.com

Grepping

Grep allows us to search for a string of

characters using regex patterns

Blekko allows you to grep the whole internet:

http://blekko.com/webgrep?status=completed

Blekko Grep The Web

Thing 872,652 URLs 1,173 Domains

Person 101,078,860 URLs 56,603 DomainsProduct 31,437, 841 URLs 33,539 Domains

1,664,598 Domains

Crawl and grep

Crawl files

Checks for patterns

Disguard files

Crawl files

Save files

Check for patterns

Conventional Crawlers Crawl and grep

How to do it

Install HTTrackhttp://www.httrack.com/

Crawl the site using httrack and save the filesInstall grepWin

http://tools.tortoisesvn.net/grepWin.htmlGrep the pages using grepWin.Search for text matches or regex patternsBuild a library of regex patterns for future use

What you can discover

Check server logsGrep competitor pagesGrep link prospectsPagination with Rel=”prev” Rel=”next”Authorship Rel=”author”Schema.org markupOther structured dataIframesNofollow linksAnalytics tracking codeLike buttonsTwitter cards, Facebook MarkupAnything else that you want, whenever you want

Grepping found…

Top 100 pages for “car insurance” on Google.co.uk

“car insurance” used 2011 times. Average 20 times per page.6 pages use schema.org, 4 of them for product52 use canonical link element, 2 use it twice!1 site uses prefetch

40% of pages on The Daily Mail website contain the word “immigrant” (sample of 2772 pages) 6% on The Guardian website (sample 3442 pages)F*** used on 7% and C*** used on 3.5% Guardian pagesNever used on The Daily Mail

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

Default text to use during design is “Lorem ipsum dolor…”I checked the Conservative website. They have one page which seems to be neglected:

Thank you