| Warning to Microsoft FrontPage and other WYSIWYG Editor
Users
As you would expect, Microsoft is hard at work trying to dominate another Internet software product category - Web site creation tools.
If you don't own Microsoft FrontPage now, chances are you are considering it for your next Web site project.
We discovered a critical shortcoming in Microsoft FrontPage that Web site marketers must address. It may apply even if you use one of the other visual or WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing tools, so pay close attention!
Your <TITLE> tag plays a crucial role in determining your rank in many of the spider-driven search engines. Normally, when writing HTML, the <TITLE> tag is placed immediately after the <HEAD> tag and is followed by assorted <META> tags. |
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However, if you use Microsoft FrontPage or another visual editing tool, the software writes the HTML and handles all those tedious tags for you. Unfortunately, FrontPage 97 and even
FrontPage 98 insert the <TITLE> tag AFTER the <META> tags like this:
<html>
<head> <META http-equiv=" Content-Type" content=" text/ html; charset= iso-8859-1">
<META name=" GENERATOR" content=" Microsoft FrontPage 3.0">
<META name=" Microsoft Theme" content=" global 101, default">
<META name=" Microsoft Border" content=" tl, default">
<title> My test title</ title>
</ head>
</ html>
Although this is technically correct and won't interfere with
someone viewing your Web site, it gains you no points with
the search engines and could hurt your Web site's ranking.
We have been advised that some search engines expect the <TITLE>
tag to immediately follow the <HEAD> tag. If it doesn't,
the search engine may determine that your Web site doesn't
have a <TITLE> tag and this would hurt your ranking
considerably.
Additionally, as a general rule of thumb, you want your keywords
to appear as close to the top of your page as possible. The
standard <META> tag is not supported by at least half
of the major search engines, but the <TITLE> tag is
almost universally recognized. For this reason, having four
lines of META tags proceed your title tag can make it easy
for your competitors to outrank
you.
FrontPage 98 allows you to modify the HTML code simply by
clicking on the HTML tab at the bottom of the screen. To correct
the problem in the above example, you would simply move the
<TITLE> line up as follows:
<html>
<head> <title> My test title</ title>
<META http-equiv=" Content-Type" content=" text/ html;
charset= iso-8859-1"> <META name=" GENERATOR" content="
Microsoft FrontPage 3.0">
<META name=" Microsoft Theme" content=" global 101, default">
<META name=" Microsoft Border" content=" tl, default">
<title> My test title</ title> </ head>
</ html>
If you have an editor that does not allow you to edit HTML
directly, you should consider getting an HTML editor such
as HomeSite or Luckman Interactive's WebEdit: http:// www.
allaire. com (HomeSite) http:// www. luckman. com (WebEdit)
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