Re: Re: Precise Expansion Patterns

This is to address "SEO" and anchors (<a>)
in documents.

Fortunately, good SEO is more complex then boiling down
well-ranking
in SERPs into how the anchors are set in a document.

Regarding: http://microformats.org/wiki/anti-patterns#empty_hype
rlinks

point A) if there is no href attribute and value set then
the current
document is not pointing to any resource, therefore there is
no impact
on PR as there is no weight to distribute between
documents.

point B) Google or any other search engine will not simply
ban a Web
site from the left-field if there are no obvious indicators
("bad
intentions") to be delisted from SERPs. Needless to
say, getting
banned is not a quick automated action and
"spamming" goes much
further then that.

Moreover this is like suggesting using URL fragments
(internal link
anchors) in href is bad for SEO.

In addition to all this, I do not think that microformats
should be
concerned with the SEO practices as there are many
guidelines out
there and which method works well for one site today on a
particular
engine may not necessarily work tomorrow. Therefore, I
strongly think
that we move away from these sort of practices.

I've written about good SEO practices (read: good Web
development
practices) if anyone would like to give it a read:
http://
www.csarven.ca/internal-seo-guidelines

By mentioning all this I am not suggesting the usage of
empty anchors
(no href attribute/value).

-Sarven
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On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 00:30 -0500, Sarven Capadisli wrote:
> This is to address "SEO" and anchors
(<a>) in documents.
> 
> Fortunately, good SEO is more complex then boiling down
well-ranking
> in SERPs into how the anchors are set in a document.
> 
> Regarding: http://microformats.org/wiki/anti-patterns#empty_hype
rlinks
> 
> point A) if there is no href attribute and value set
then the current
> document is not pointing to any resource, therefore
there is no impact
> on PR as there is no weight to distribute between
documents.

the suggestion was we do this:

<a class="duration"
title="PT2M23S">2:23</a>

or

<a class="duration"
title="PT2M23S"></a>2:23

now unfortunatly on both occasions the "a" is NOT
empty title has a
value and thus robots crawling your site will be expecting a
href
attribute for which there is NONE.

> 
> point B) Google or any other search engine will not
simply ban a Web
> site from the left-field if there are no obvious
indicators ("bad
> intentions") to be delisted from SERPs. Needless
to say, getting
> banned is not a quick automated action and
"spamming" goes much
> further then that.

No you are probably right average joe probably wont get
banned it would
depend on if an unscrupulus SEO decided to exploit this
pattern
(stuffing the title with keywords springs to mind), that
would be a
worse case scenario, but even so the consequences of doing
such things
are way to risky and have little or no benefit to the web
itself. As
Tantek says we should avoid promoting such Anti patterns.

> 
> Moreover this is like suggesting using URL fragments
(internal link
> anchors) in href is bad for SEO.

No Im not links that go somewhere:

<a id="here" href="#here"
class="duration"
title="PT2M23S">2:23</a>

Is acceptable because there is an href value and it goes
somewhere, no
confusing the bots

> 
> In addition to all this, I do not think that
microformats should be
> concerned with the SEO practices as there are many
guidelines out
> there and which method works well for one site today on
a particular
> engine may not necessarily work tomorrow. Therefore, I
strongly think
> that we move away from these sort of practices.

Microformats are "on page" SEO they are good for
the web, and good for
users, lets not spoil things for our respected community by
presenting
half baked solutions that are at best a hack.

Thanks

Martin

> 
> I've written about good SEO practices (read: good Web
development
> practices) if anyone would like to give it a read:
> http://
www.csarven.ca/internal-seo-guidelines
> 
> By mentioning all this I am not suggesting the usage of
empty anchors
> (no href attribute/value).
> 
> -Sarven
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss

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In message <1197809713.11736.31.camellocalhost.localdomain>, Martin 
McEvoy <martinweborganics.co.uk> writes

>> Moreover this is like suggesting using URL
fragments (internal link
>> anchors) in href is bad for SEO.
>
>No Im not links that go somewhere:
>
><a id="here" href="#here"
class="duration"
title="PT2M23S">2:23</a>
>
>Is acceptable because there is an href value and it goes
somewhere, no 
>confusing the bots

...just the users.

Do we really want to present people with hyperlinks that
link to the 
place they're already at?

-- 
Andy Mabbett
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On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 13:48 +0000, Andy Mabbett wrote:
> In message <1197809713.11736.31.camellocalhost.localdomain>, Martin 
> McEvoy <martinweborganics.co.uk> writes
> 
> >> Moreover this is like suggesting using URL
fragments (internal link
> >> anchors) in href is bad for SEO.
> >
> >No Im not links that go somewhere:
> >
> ><a id="here" href="#here"
class="duration"
title="PT2M23S">2:23</a>
> >
> >Is acceptable because there is an href value and it
goes somewhere, no 
> >confusing the bots
> 
> ...just the users.
> 
> Do we really want to present people with hyperlinks
that link to the 
> place they're already at?

no not really just presenting an example, and people already
do create
hyperlinks to the content they are already at, named anchors
are a
useful feature in long pages of content.

I also am not supporting any such usage (just for the
record) ;)

Thanks

Martin 
> 

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On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 15:42 +0000, Martin McEvoy wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 13:48 +0000, Andy Mabbett wrote:
> > In message <1197809713.11736.31.camellocalhost.localdomain>, Martin 
> > McEvoy <martinweborganics.co.uk>
writes
> > 
> > >> Moreover this is like suggesting using
URL fragments (internal link
> > >> anchors) in href is bad for SEO.
> > >
> > >No Im not links that go somewhere:
> > >
> > ><a id="here"
href="#here" class="duration"
title="PT2M23S">2:23</a>
> > >
> > >Is acceptable because there is an href value
and it goes somewhere, no 
> > >confusing the bots
> > 
> > ...just the users.
> > 
> > Do we really want to present people with
hyperlinks that link to the 
> > place they're already at?
> 
> no not really just presenting an example, and people
already do create
> hyperlinks to the content they are already at, named
anchors are a
> useful feature in long pages of content.
> 
> I also am not supporting any such usage (just for the
record) ;)

The crux of what I am trying to explain is that at the
moment empty
anchor text links mean nothing as far as SEO is concerned,
bots will
either ignore or simply erase them from there index.

If we as a respected community say that empty anchor text DO
mean
something, then bots and other applications that crawl the
web will have
to take this into account in order to correctly represent
their indexes.

Black Hat SEO's will undoubtedly exploit this to their own
means
rel="nofollow" is a classic example of where a
microformat has been
exploited by SEO's to do something its not meant for and
thus may be
regarded as an Anti design pattern.

I do not wish (although the intentions are good) to be
responsible for
opening the floodgates on any such behavior, and as a
community we have
a responsibility to steer well clear of hacks, and half
hearted
solutions that may end up causing more damage than good. 

Thanks

martin
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Martin 
> > 

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On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 18:01 +0000, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
wrote:
> 1. Search engines currently "ignore" TITLE on
non-linking A. (Does 
> anyone has any clear evidence to confirm this? Does
that evidence
> hold 
> for all major engines, or only for Google? I can't find
anything
> solid.) 

this may help:
go here http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator
.php
copy and paste this url 
http://webor
ganics.co.uk/files/test.html

the test consists of four anchor texts two with href
attributes two
without

It isnt the definitive answer but I would say pretty
accurate ;)

Martin

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On Dec 17, 2007 7:01 AM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
<bhawkeslewisgooglemail.com> wrote:
> NB: This email isn't intended as a general endorsement
of TITLE on
> non-linking A. I'm deeply sceptical about misusing the
TITLE attribute
> for human-unfriendly data, especially on anything other
than an empty
> SPAN. I'm just saying I don't buy Martin's SEO-based
argument against
> non-linking A in particular.

Thanks for going through this.

Because the HTML spec doesn't allow for what we're trying to
achieve,
one possibility was to use non-linking anchors, but there
are several
issues with that.

I still prefer the abbr include pattern though.

The PT2M23S is to indicate a duration of time, but using
such a format
meets resistance in that it's not easy for people to
correctly markup
in such a manner.

Another option is to use hh:mm:ss instead. This is
indicating an
actual moment in time.

Is it viable to consider that if we play a track from
midnight, that
we can specify that moment in time when it ends?

<abbr title="00:02:23">2:23</abbr>

-- 
Paul Wilkins
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Martin McEvoy wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 18:01 +0000, Benjamin
Hawkes-Lewis wrote:
>> 1. Search engines currently "ignore"
TITLE on non-linking A. (Does 
>> anyone has any clear evidence to confirm this? Does
that evidence
>> hold 
>> for all major engines, or only for Google? I can't
find anything
>> solid.) 
> 
> this may help:
> go here http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator
.php
> copy and paste this url 
> http://webor
ganics.co.uk/files/test.html
> 
> the test consists of four anchor texts two with href
attributes two
> without
> 
> It isnt the definitive answer but I would say pretty
accurate ;)

That's a cute tool, but I certainly wouldn't rely on a
search engine 
simulator to be an accurate guide to the details of how real
search 
engines like Google and Yahoo! Search index and weight
content.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
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On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 19:16 +0000, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
wrote:
> Martin McEvoy wrote:
> > On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 18:01 +0000, Benjamin
Hawkes-Lewis wrote:
> >> 1. Search engines currently "ignore"
TITLE on non-linking A. (Does 
> >> anyone has any clear evidence to confirm this?
Does that evidence
> >> hold 
> >> for all major engines, or only for Google? I
can't find anything
> >> solid.) 
> > 
> > this may help:
> > go here http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator
.php
> > copy and paste this url 
> > http://webor
ganics.co.uk/files/test.html
> > 
> > the test consists of four anchor texts two with
href attributes two
> > without
> > 
> > It isnt the definitive answer but I would say
pretty accurate ;)
> 
> That's a cute tool, but I certainly wouldn't rely on a
search engine 
> simulator to be an accurate guide to the details of how
real search 
> engines like Google and Yahoo! Search index and weight
content.

No neither would I but I as you cannot find any definitive
answer to
this.

still searching...


Martin
> 
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

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On Dec 16, 2007 2:16 PM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
<bhawkeslewisgooglemail.com> wrote:
> Martin McEvoy wrote:
> > On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 18:01 +0000, Benjamin
Hawkes-Lewis wrote:
> >> 1. Search engines currently "ignore"
TITLE on non-linking A. (Does
> >> anyone has any clear evidence to confirm this?
Does that evidence
> >> hold
> >> for all major engines, or only for Google? I
can't find anything
> >> solid.)
> >
> > this may help:
> > go here http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator
.php
> > copy and paste this url
> > http://webor
ganics.co.uk/files/test.html
> >
> > the test consists of four anchor texts two with
href attributes two
> > without
> >
> > It isnt the definitive answer but I would say
pretty accurate ;)
>
> That's a cute tool, but I certainly wouldn't rely on a
search engine
> simulator to be an accurate guide to the details of how
real search
> engines like Google and Yahoo! Search index and weight
content.
>
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
>
> _______________________________________________
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>


This is one of the reasons not to rely on what some of the
agents are
doing with the documents. Not only is it not reliable
(because they
all take a guess) but also there is no guarantee how the
information
will be extracted/perceived in the future with the actual
search
engines.

As I mentioned before, the formats should steer clear from
what these
agents may be doing and instead focus on deriving solutions
that is
sound within the document.


Jeremy Keith wrote:
> If a design pattern is going to *mandate* that authors
must use a
> particular element, then the semantic meaning of that
element needs
> to be pretty solid.

I totally agree with this.

-Sarven
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