Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with webdesign and seo

Best practice for "other content" link placement

chillmost — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 16:24:09 -0800

Most Read Articles | Related Articles | Recommended Articles: These kinds of things that you see on news websites, what are they called? Is there an all encompassing UX term for this? How do content managers decide what is placed where? Do users even click on these links or are they just used to make sure search crawlers get to deeper content? So these collection of links that you might see on news websites, they usually appear in the left or right column next to the main content and they provide links to other content. The types of links that they have and their position on the page are what and where they are for a reason.

So what I'm looking for is info on how web content managers or UX wizards decide on placement and the kinds of links that are displayed in such things. Also, I don't know if this is really "a thing", but if there is a standard industry term for what these collection of non-navigation but somehow otherwise content-related links next to the main content are called, I would like to know what it is, because then I would have something to google and possible lead me to a trove of info.

I can imagine that sites with a lot of resources and a large user base could use A/B testing to determine what kind of links and placement results in more clicks. Where can I find info about what works best? Or is that irrelevant because it is different for every site?

Another possibility: Do these kind of things actually engage users or are they mainly helpful for SEO and making sure deeplinks get crawled and indexed?

Is there a science to this sort of thing?

Please somebody point me in the right direction.

Redesign for dummies

xicana63 — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:22:44 -0800

Redesigning a website and need to explain to supervisors and other departments all the aspects of redesigning a site that is optimized to current best standards. Is there a map for that? (pls click for more details) Hello hive!

So it's easy for people at work to say lets redesign the website, without understanding the intricacies of redesigning it. I want to explain how a redesign works, how the different departments (PR, Mktg, Service, IT) need to work together to make this possible from an aesthetic design to content being SEO to maintenance and how a redesign should be incorporated with a social media/e-marketing strategy..etc. in the simplest forms possible. Does anyone know of diagrams, maps, images that convey this or any parts of this?

What about books, sites, checklists..?

I hope I'm letting myself be understood if not please ask and I'll clarify. FYI - this is my first huge website redesign, our competitors have done it and we are lagging behind so there is extreme urgency behind this project and has fallen on my shoulders.

Thanks again!

Does listing every single location you service help your PageRank?

study the living world — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:02:14 -0800

SEOFilter: I'm no pro at this, but check out the footer here. Is this crazy strategy of any benefit when it comes to location-specific searches? One would think so, but I've never seen such an exhaustive, derivative list of pages before.

Usurping our old website's Google ranking for make benefit glorious new website

springbound — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:42:10 -0800

New website with a new address can't compete on Google against its previous incarnation, which has been up (at a different address) since forever. And we can't use a 301 (or any other) redirect. Is there anything else we can do? So I've recently developed a website for an academic journal. It's the first "real" website they've had. It'd be nice (to say the least) to have the site come up first when you type the journal's name into Google, but for years now the journal's editor has had a little info page up about it on the web space provided by the uni she's at; and as far as Google's concerned, that's the top-ranked site when you type in the name of her journal. That address has both longevity on its side and the fact that it's a .edu domain, which I understand translates into credibility. There's also, I suspect, going to be links from other academic sites to it, though I can't say for sure.

In a normal world I'd like to pop a 301 redirect on there: all that fabulous high ranking would flow to the new site and we'd be in business. Alas, the uni has an intermediate page (of the "You are now entering an area where opinions aren't necessarily the university's, etc etc" kind) and doesn't permit other redirects from staff accounts.

Given that we'd really like to hang onto that top Google position currently held by the old site if we can utilise that at all, what would you do?

Other pertinent details: The editor's pretty modest about the number of interested parties expected, so traffic following links may never count for much. Content's never going to change as (for now at least) it's just an information site (what the journal is, how to subscribe). Also the new domain is unfortunately an acronym.

Extra Characters in Title Meta Tags

napdynmite — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:07:04 -0800

Does adding symbol characters to your title meta tags hurt your SEO? Our company has a title format of "-- Our Web Site : A Page --" and since we're going through a redesign I was wondering if it might be a good time to drop that convention.