Cantags within links affect Google's perception of them?
-
Hi, All!
This might be really obvious, but I have little coding experience, so when in doubt - ask...
One of our client site's has navigation that looks (in part) like this:
<a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="http://www.mysite.com/section1"></a>
<a <span="">src="images/arrow6.gif" width="13" height="7" alt="Section 1">Section 1</a><a <span=""></a>
WC3 told us the
tags invalidate, and while I ignored most of their comments because I didn't think it would impact on what search engines saw, because thesetags are right in the links, it raised a question.
Anyone know if this is for sure a problem/not a problem?
Thanks in advance!
Aviva B
-
Thanks, Ryan. Good ideas, and we'll see what "the authorities" choose to do.
-
If they would have to pay a significant amount of money to have it redone, though, would it be worth it in this kind of case? What would the odds be?
Without having any information about the site, it's not possible to offer any credible details, odds or measurements of worth. If you are asking for a guess, I would say it is very unlikely for the div tags to cause any SEO problems, but that's the problem with invalid code, you don't know how it will be handled.
The bigger concern I have is if that line of code was coded so poorly, there are likely other coding issues with the site.
May I suggest asking a couple developers for an estimate on how much it would adjust the site's code so it validates?
-
Thanks, Ryan. Point well taken. I think I may copy and paste this for the client in question. If they would have to pay a significant amount of money to have it redone, though, would it be worth it in this kind of case? What would the odds be?
Aviva
-
Thanks, Kyle. We're not the design/webmaster team, so while it might not have been a good idea to do that in the first place, our job here is just to tell our client what MUST change for SEO and what doesn't need to change, even though it might not have been ideal. The challenges of not having unlimited budget...
Thanks,
Aviva
-
Simply from a front-end development perspective, why would you place a
inside of an <a>? If you are trying to force a block element style, why not simply apply it through the CSS sheet to the</a> <a>tag?
If you supply a URL i can give more specific coding advice
Thanks - Kyle</a>
-
The problem with using invalid code is every browser may handle it differently. Even if your current browser handles it fine today, the next time it updates the results may change.
Code validation is representatives from all the major browsers getting together and agreeing on coding rules. The biggest problem with invalid code is people thinking their site is fine but then later finding out (or worse not finding out) their site does not appear correctly in various browsers.
You have ie6, ie7, ie8, ie9, ie10, Chrome, FF, Opera, Safari and other browsers on the market. You have a variety of phones, ipads and other devices. It is more important then ever to use valid code. If your page doesn't fully validate, it should still be almost valid and the couple errors which remain have been thoroughly researched and you consciously choose to not validate on those particular items. An example would be if you are using HTML 5 and the validation tool has not fully been updated for all the latest changes.
With the above noted, I am not aware of any problem with your code. The challenge is since it is not valid, you cannot predict how it will be handled by Google. Even if it is handled correctly today, a change can be made at any time which can impact you.
-
Thanks, Andy. You've seen sites that have used the tags the same way?
-
To be honest, I can't see, from an SEO perspective, how Google would view these in a negative way. I can only tell you that from all of the sites that I have seen, I have never seen this as a problem.
Someone else might come up with a definitive answer, but I would say that there is nothing wrong with
tags for SEO.
Cheers,
Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Has Google Made Unnatural Link Building Easier?
I see lots of competitors and crappy sites ranking well for highly competitive keywords in the web hosting niche. After analysing their backlinks, I noticed that most of them had only 1 or 2 backlinks to the page they wanted to rank. The anchor text is usually a slight variation of the targeted keyword. Now suppose you are able to rank well for a handful of highly lucrative keywords using very few spammy links. That would mean that even if you got a Penguin penalty, cleaning up your link profile would take an hour at most. I really have no intentions of using this strategy but it's frustrating to see spammy competitors outranking you with crappy sites and a handful of backlinks. Your thoughts?
Technical SEO | | sbrault740 -
Inconsistent page titles in SERP's
I encountered a strange phenomenon lately and I’d like to hear if you have any idea what’s causing it. For the past couple of weeks I’ve seen some our Google rankings getting unstable. While looking for a cause, I found that for some pages, Google results display another page title than the actual meta title of the page. Examples http://www.atexopleiding.nl Meta title: Atex cursus opleider met ruim 40 jaar ervaring - Atexopleiding.nl Title in SERP: Atexopleiding.nl: Atex cursus opleider met ruim 40 jaar ervaring http://www.reedbusinessopleidingen.nl/opleidingen/veiligheid/veiligheidskunde Meta title: Opleiding Veiligheidskunde, MBO & HBO - Reed Business Opleidingen Title in SERP: Veiligheidskunde - Reed Business Opleidingen http://www.pbna.com/vca-examens/ Meta title: Behaal uw VCA diploma bij de grootste van Nederland - PBNA Title in SERP: VCA Examens – PBNA I’ve looked in the source code, fetched some pages as Googlebot in WMT, but the title shown in the SERP doesn’t even exist in the source code. Now I suspect this might have something to do with the “cookiewall” implemented on our sites. Here’s why: Cookiewall was implemented end of January The problem didn’t exist until recently, though I can’t pinpoint an exact date. Problem exists on both rbo.nl, atexopleiding.nl & pbna.com, the latter running on Silverstripe CMS instead of WP. This rules out CMS specific causes. The image preview in the SERPS of many pages show the cookie alert overlay However, I’m not able to technically prove that the cookiescript causes this and I’d like to rule out other any obvious causes before I "blame it on the cookies" :). What do you think?
Technical SEO | | RBO0 -
Duplicate Content - What's the best bad idea?
Hi all, I have 1000s of products where the product description is very technical and extremely hard to rewrite or create an unique one. I'll probably will have to use the contend provided by the brands, which can already be found in dozens of other sites. My options are: Use the Google on/off tags "don't index
Technical SEO | | Carlos-R
" Put the content in an image Are there any other options? We'd always write our own unique copy to go with the technical bit. Cheers0 -
Google webmaster tool doestn allow me to send 'URL and all linked pages"
Hello! I made a lot of optimization changes in my site ( seo urls, and a lot more ) , I always use Google Webmaster tools, fetch as Google Bot to refresh my site but now it doesnt allow me to 'Send URL and all linked pages' check the attachment Thank you
Technical SEO | | matiw0 -
What's the best URL Structure if my company is in multiple locations or cities?
I have read numerous intelligent, well informed responses to this question but have yet to hear a definitive answer from an authority. Here's the situation. Let's say I have a company who's URL is www.awesomecompany.com who provides one service called 'Awesome Service' This company has 20 franchises in the 20 largest US cities. They want a uniform online presence, meaning they want their design to remain consistent across all 20 domains. My question is this; what's the best domain or url structure for these 20 sites? Subdomain - dallas.awesomecompany.co Unique URL - www.dallasawesomecompany.com Directory - www.awesomecompany.com/dallas/ Here's my thoughts on this question but I'm really hoping someone b*tch slaps me and tells me I'm wrong: Of these three potential solutions these are how I would rank them and why: Subdomains Pros: Allows me to build an entire site so if my local site grows to 50+ pages, it's still easy to navigate Allows me to brand root domain and leverage brand trust of root domain (let's say the franchise is starbucks.com for instance) Cons: This subdomain is basically a brand new url in google's eyes and any link building will not benefit root domain. Directory Pros Fully leverages the root domain branding and fully allows for further branding If the domain is an authority site, ranking for sub pages will be achieved much quicker Cons While this is a great solution if you just want a simple map listing and contact info page for each of your 20 locations, what if each location want's their own "about us" page and their own "Awesome Service" page optimized for their respective City (i.e. Awesome Service in Dallas)? The Navigation and potentially the URL is going to start to get really confusing and cumbersome for the end user. Think about it, which is preferable?: dallas.awesomcompany.com/awesome-service/ www.awesomecompany.com/dallas/awesome-service (especially when www.awesomecompany.com/awesome-service/ already exists Unique URL Pros Potentially quicker rankings achieved than a subdomain if it's an exact match domain name (i.e. dallasawesomeservice.com) Cons Does not leverage the www.awesomecompany.com brand Could look like an imposter It is literally a brand new domain in Google's eyes so all SEO efforts would start from scratch Obviously what goes without saying is that all of these domains would need to have unique content on them to avoid duplicate content penalties. I'm very curious to hear what you all have to say.
Technical SEO | | BrianJGomez0 -
Best Practices for adding Dynamic URL's to XML Sitemap
Hi Guys, I'm working on an ecommerce website with all the product pages using dynamic URL's (we also have a few static pages but there is no issue with them). The products are updated on the site every couple of hours (because we sell out or the special offer expires) and as a result I keep seeing heaps of 404 errors in Google Webmaster tools and am trying to avoid this (if possible). I have already created an XML sitemap for the static pages and am now looking at incorporating the dynamic product pages but am not sure what is the best approach. The URL structure for the products are as follows: http://www.xyz.com/products/product1-is-really-cool
Technical SEO | | seekjobs
http://www.xyz.com/products/product2-is-even-cooler
http://www.xyz.com/products/product3-is-the-coolest Here are 2 approaches I was considering: 1. To just include the dynamic product URLS within the same sitemap as the static URLs using just the following http://www.xyz.com/products/ - This is so spiders have access to the folder the products are in and I don't have to create an automated sitemap for all product OR 2. Create a separate automated sitemap that updates when ever a product is updated and include the change frequency to be hourly - This is so spiders always have as close to be up to date sitemap when they crawl the sitemap I look forward to hearing your thoughts, opinions, suggestions and/or previous experiences with this. Thanks heaps, LW0 -
What's the SEO impact of url suffixes?
Is there an advantage/disadvantage to adding an .html suffix to urls in a CMS like WordPress. Plugins exist to do it, but it seems better for the user to leave it off. What do search engines prefer?
Technical SEO | | Cornucopia0 -
Issue with Joomla Site not showing in SERP's
Site: simpsonelectricnc dot com I'm working on a Joomla website for a local business that isn't ranking at all for any relevant keyword - including the business name. The site is only about six months old and has relatively few links. I realize it takes time to compete for even low-volume keywords, but I think something else may be preventing the site from showing up. The site is not blocked by Robots.txt (which includes a valid reference to the sitemap)
Technical SEO | | CGR-Creative
There is no duplicate content issue, the .htaccess is redirecting all non-www traffic to www version
Every page has a unique title and H1 tag.
The URL's are search-engine friendly (not dynamic either)
XML sitemap is live and submitted to Google WM Tools. Google shows that it is indexing about 70% of the submitted URL's. The site has essentially no domain authority (0.02) according to Moz - I'm assuming this is due to lack of links and short life on the web.
Until today, 98% of the pages had identical meta descriptions. Again, I realize six months is not an eternity - but the site will not even show up for "business name + city,state" searches in Google. In fact, the only way I've seen it in organic results is to search for the exact URL. I would greatly appreciate any help.0