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Optimizing pages with JavaScript and style sheets
for search engines
Dale Goetsch
Search Innovation
June 28, 2002
Background
Search Engines use a number of criteria to decide what a given web page
is all about. These criteria, which can be different from Search Engine
to Search Engine, and which may even change over time, all aim at deciding
how "relevant" a page is to a given user's search. The Search
Engine wants to return the results most relevant to a user's search.
While the particulars may change over time, there are some criteria which
remain constant. One of these is where the keywords are located on the
page. Typically words that are located closer to the beginning of a page
are considered more important than words that occur further down the page.
This stands to reason: think of a newspaper article, where the headline
and the first paragraph usually have more "meat" than the rest
of the story.
Another measure of relevance is "keyword density". This is
roughly the ratio of keywords on a page to the total number of words on
a page. Having a higher ratio of keywords to total words will make a page
more relevant for a search on those keywords.
When a Search Engine sends its robot out to look at your page, you want
to make sure that it finds important information near the top of the web
page, and that the page has a high keyword density. Sometimes there are
complications, even when you have a lot of keyword-rich text early in
the visible portion of your page. Two of these complications, extensive
JavaScript code and extensive Cascading Style Sheet code, can be easily
remedied.
JavaScript problem
Large amounts of JavaScript code can get in the way. Typically the largest
amount of JavaScript code in a web page is found in the HEAD section.
This is usually where variables and functions are defined, and so forth.
Unfortunately, having a large amount of JavaScript code in a page can
be detrimental to a page's ranking in the Search Engines.
Since Search Engines tend to pay more attention to text at the beginning
of a web page than they do to text further from the beginning, it stands
to reason that if you have several dozen lines of JavaScript code at the
top of the page, your real content is going to be further from the beginning
of the page. Further down the page means less important to the Search
Engine.
Keyword density is also important. Here again, if you have several hundred
words of JavaScript code in a page, the keyword density—the ratio
of your keywords to all the words in the whole page, both text and code—is
going to be much lower. That means that some Search Engines will decide
that your page is less relevant.
JavaScript solution
So how do you maintain JavaScript functionality, but make your page as
Search Engine-friendly as possible? You put the JavaScript code into a
separate file, and link it back to the web page.
The original page, "mypage.html", may look something like this.
<html>
<head>
<title>My Title</title>
<script>
function helloWorld(){
alert("Hello, World!");
return;
}
</script>
</head>
<body onLoad="helloWorld()">
...body of page...
</body>
</html>
Example 1—mypage.html with JavaScript code
We replace the JavaScript code with an instruction for the browser to
go and grab the code from a separate file. The new page will look like
this.
<html>
<head>
<title>My Title</title>
<script src="codepage.js"></script>
</head>
<body onLoad="helloWorld()">
...body of page...
</body>
</html>
Example 2—mypage.html with JavaScript code offloaded
Note the addition of the "src" attribute to the SCRIPT tag.
The value assigned to that attribute is the name of the external file
that contains the JavaScript code. Typically, these external files will
be given the filename extension ".js" to indicate that they
contain JavaScript code. Note also that there are both <script>
and </script> tags here, even though there is nothing between those
tags.
A new page is then created that holds the code that was formerly held
in the SCRIPT tags. We will call it "codepage.js", and it looks
like this.
function helloWorld(){
alert("Hello, World!");
return;
}
Example 3—codepage.js includes only JavaScript code
This new file doesn't need any kind of HTML markup. It contains only
the code that was originally held between the SCRIPT tags.
Style Sheet problem
In addition to JavaScript code, Style Sheet code can cause complications
for Search Engines when it is put into a web page. For the same reasons
as JavaScript—moving the important content further down the page,
and diluting the keyword density—it is important to move Style Sheet
code off of the page as well.
Style Sheet solution
The thought behind removing Style Sheet information from a page is very
similar to that of offloading JavaScript; the syntax to do so is different.
The original page, "mypage.html", may look something like this.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My Title</TITLE>
<style>
body{
background:white;
color:red;
}
</style>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
...body of page...
</BODY>
</HTML>
Example 4—mypage.html with style sheet code
We want to move this code into a separate file, so we remove it from
the original page, and add a link to point to the separate file that now
holds the Style Sheet code.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>My Title</TITLE>
<link rel='stylesheet' href='style.css' type='text/css'>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
...body of page...
</BODY>
</HTML>
Example 5—mypage.html with Style Sheet code offloaded
Note the addition of the LINK tag. This contains three types of information
that the browser will need to reconstruct the page when a visitor looks
at it. The "rel='stylesheet'" attribute/value pair indicates
that we are looking at a Style Sheet file here. The "href='style.css'"
attribute/value pair points to the external file that contains the Style
Sheet information. Typically these external files will be given the filename
extension ".css" to indicate that they contain Cascading Style
Sheet code. You will replace the filename "style.css" with the
name of the actual file into which you place your stylesheet code. Finally,
we have to specify the MIME type of the file, in the "type='text/css'"
attribute/value pair.
A new page is then created that holds the code that was formerly held
in the STYLE tags. We will call it "style.css", and it looks
like this.
body{
background:white;
color:red;
}
Example 6—style.css includes only Style Sheet code
This new file doesn't need any kind of HTML markup. It contains only
the code that was originally held between the STYLE tags.
Conclusion
By following these two procedures, you have now made your web page more
friendly to the Search Engines. This means that the next time your page
is spidered by the Search Engine robots, the important content on your
page will be closer to the top of the page, and you will have a better
keyword density. This will result in your page appearing higher in the
Search Engine listings, and will probably bring more traffic to your website.
About the author
Dale Goetsch is the Technical Consultant for Search Innovation Marketing
(http://www.searchinnovation.com),
a Search Engine Promotion company serving small businesses and non-profits.
He has over twelve years experience in software development. Along
with programming in Perl, JavaScript, ASP and VB, he is a technical
writer and editor, with an emphasis on making technical subjects accessible
to non-technical readers.
Copyright © 2002-2004 Search Innovation Marketing. http://www.searchinnovation.com
All Rights Reserved.
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