Question RE code quality for submission to Yahoo

[Squirrel]

Hi Folks,

I have been doing desktop publishing for a while and have recently started doing web sites for some friends of mine with small businesses. I am preparing one of these sites for submission to Yahoo.

The site was developed using Netscape Composer and the code is riddled with the extraneous tid bits that Composer likes to throw in. I am now using NetObjects Fusion 5.0 to do web sites, but haven't had the time to set this particualr site up in NetObjects.

Will the fact that my code isn't "clean" effect my chances of being accpeted into Yahoo through their Business Express option? Or, should I take the time to set the site up in NetObjects? I have done a lot of research on meta tags & key phrases and believe I am ok in those areas, I'm just afraid that the code produced by Netscape will mess up my chances.

Any advice?

Thank you so much!

-Squirrel

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums squirrel! :hi:

Yahoo editors do not care about your code. They only care if the site is viewable when they visit it.

If you could post the url in question we could be better help as the editor will look at many things when decided to list or not. Those things are very important. The code is not.

[Squirrel]

Thanks, Doug!

http://www.babycakesboutique.net

It's my first site - so be kind! ;)

Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again!

Squirrel

[ihelpyou]

sheesh,... for your first site, I am very impressed! VERY cute pictures!

VERY good job squirrel! I see absolutely no problems getting a listing. You should get into Looksmart as well.

[Squirrel]

Doug,

Great! Thanks for looking at the site. It's nerve-wracking to think that if it doesn't get accepted my client's $300 goes down the drain because of me!

I'll probably submit tonight...

-Squirrel

[MsSearch]

:hi: and welcome to the forums...

Cute Site!!

I don't see any problems...have you viewed the site in an earlier evrison of netscape? (I viewed it in Netscape 6 with no problems).

[Squirrel]

It was actually developed using 4.1! So, I should be safe there... :)

Do you know what do the editors at Yahoo use to view the sites?

-Squirrel

[ihelpyou]

Now, that being said, you will have trouble getting good ranks with the spidered engines as you do need more content, especially on the front page.

[ihelpyou]

Usually NS 4.7. You are fine.

[Squirrel]

I as wondering about that... I need to talk w/ my client about adding some text using the key phrases. They like the clean look of the home page. I guess I need to them explain to them how the spiders work and how important they are.

Should the text appear in a certain area of the page?

Do you sugest I make those changes before submitting to Yahoo - or can that wait a bit? The way I understand it, the spiders won't find the page for a little while.

Many thanks,

-Squirrel

[ihelpyou]

Your most important phrases should appear at the start of the content and sprinkled thruout the content.

You will be surprised about how quick the spiders will find the site so I would get more content asap.

[Squirrel]

I am lead to another question... will screwy code effect spiders - or do they "know" what they are looking for and ignore everything else?

-Squirrel

[Advisor]

I agree with Doug. Getting into Yahoo should not be a problem for this site. It's very easy to get into Yahoo if you pay them their bribe fee. It's very rare to get refused. And even if you do, you simply fix what they tell you is wrong, and resubmit. No problem unless you're trying to pull something sneaky on them (like submit a mirror site, etc.)

As to the search engines, think about this. Someone finding this site through the engines (if it were even possible) would have no idea by looking at the main page what it's all about. I have so far only looked at the main page, and I have absolutely NO clue. You have a quote there, but where is some text saying what this site is, what you offer, etc.? Your visitors want and need this. And you know what? The beautiful thing is so do the search engines! Give them both what they want by writing some paragraphs of keyphrase rich text that describes what you do and how it will benefit your readers. Why are you the company they should use for these services? What makes you better than your competitors?

But also, make sure that you base the text around keyphrases that people are actually searching for that describe your site. If you use these within your paragraphs of text (preferably about 250 words), you'll have a good shot at high rankings. Forget about the "clean look"! Having copy on a page does NOT destroy a clean look. Copy looks plenty clean, and more importantly it sells your product, and ranks you high in the search engines.

No go forth and convince your client of this! If you need any help convincing them, send them over to my Rank Write site in my sig.

Good luck!

Jill

[Squirrel]

Thanks, Jill! I'll be convincing my little heart out at 9:00 tomorrow morning. Have already read several of your articles since posting earlier today and they have helped tremendously.

-Shannon

[Mel]

Hi Squirell:

You have a nice site but when I view it in IE5.51 the picture overlaps the quote so that the last word in each line is missing.

Looks like you need to define your text size as it it very different from Netscape to IE.

I agree with Doug and Jill - when a visitor reaches your sites home page they will make a decision on whether to browse further or click back mostly on what they see on the home page. You need to give them information on what this site is about and why they should investigate further. This information will also be a key component to getting good search engine rankings.