See What Search Engines See When They Visit Your Website

As part of your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts, take time to run your website or blog through a few tests to see how a search engine sees your website or blog when they visit. It’s a good learning experience.

Things to look for are:

• What is seen first, second, and third.
• When the “meat” or content is seen – sooner or later?
• What elements are skipped or ignored.
• What HTML/XHTML elements stop the process?
• What links are found? These indicate links the search engine crawler may follow.

If you find an element that is stopping the search engine as it moves through your web page or website, then fix it. Check your page for validation errors to ensure you’ve found the possible errors that may distract or halt a search engine’s process through your site.

Closely examine the list of links the search engine crawler finds. Is it finding enough? Is it finding other pages within your site to continue on its path? Or is it finding more links to external sites, encouraging the crawler to leave your site rather than spend a little more time within it, gathering information? Is it finding the “right” links to your categories, Pages, and site search tags? Make the appropriate changes to your navigation links to increase the search engine’s opportunities to flow through your site to see all the web pages.

Here are some tools to help you see what search engines see when they visit your website or blog:

• Webconfs – Search Engine Spider Simulator
• SEO Bench – Search Engine Crawler Simulator
• Site Map Tool checks your spidered pages with Google.com’s database
• Web Page Promotions – Free Search Engine Submission and Search Engine Crawler Simulator
• Delorie Search Engine Simulator
• Delorie Lynx Viewer
• Webmaster Toolkit – Search Engine Simulator
• Grit Technologies – Poodle Spider Simulator
• Rex Swains HTTP View

Related Articles

• More Than You Want to Know About Search Engines Articles, Information, and Resources
• How Search Engines See, Search, and Visit Your Website
• How People Search the Web and How They Can Find Your Blog
• Website Development – Search Engine Submission Preparation
• Secret Out – How Google Ranks Websites
• The Power of the Link
• What Website Owners and Bloggers Know About Their Visitors
• Search Engine Friendly: Helping Googlebot Crawl Your Blog
• Hook, Line and Sinker: Luring Blog Traffic to Stay
• Meet Them: Benefits of Compliance with Web Standards
• Website Development – Make a Schedule and Calendar
• Site Optimization: Checking Loose Links
• Website Development – Search Engine Submission Preparation
• Website Development – What Needs to Be Done and How Much Does It Cost
• Start the Stopwatch: You Have 50 Milliseconds to Make a Good First Impression
• Beauty is Only Skin Deep: Designing Blogs For Feeds, Search Engines and Audience
• DYI Search Engine Optimization
• Extreme Site Optimization For Speed Loading
• Help Visitors Navigate Your Site: Make a Site Index

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen