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.
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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