August 3, 2006

Website Design: Different Auto-Redirecting Techniques

There is more than one auto-redirecting technique you can utilize to achieve a high ranking within search engines. If you’re not familiar with the term or the purpose of auto-redirecting, the following information will help you understand how this method may be of use to you.

What is auto-redirecting? It is a technique that automatically sends web surfers to another page as soon as they land on the page they clicked. Basically, the web browser receives a coded page that has been designed to automatically load a different page once the site visitor accesses it. The different page is usually on the same website, but it can also be on another site.

What is the purpose of auto-redirecting? Auto-redirecting is used when a site has been designed only for the purpose of generating high rankings in search engines. When a web surfer lands at a page on the website listed from the search engine results, the surfer is automatically redirected to the main website.

You should know that for the most part, search engines are against the use of auto-redirecting. That being said, they don’t generally have a problem with auto-redirection if it is done for a valid reason. For instance, if you post a message in a forum, you will usually receive a confirmation page that waits a few seconds before auto-directing you to the forum messages.

Nevertheless, fortunately for most auto-directing users, whether they approve them or not, search engines are not always able to detect the different auto-redirecting techniques available.

The following are a few auto-directing methods you can use to appear search engine friendly:

Meta Refresh Tag – This method is highly detectable by search engines, but is fine as long as there is a practical delay period that takes place between the time a visitor lands on a page, and the time they are redirected from it.
When setting up this method, you will discover that the “content” parameter has two sections separated with a semi-colon. The first section is the time delay (in seconds) prior to redirection. The second section is the redirected URL which can be a relative or absolute URL.
Since, search engines are designed to read HTML, and meta tags are HTML, you can receive a penalty from redirecting a web surfer away from it too quickly, which is why you need to make sure the time delay is a considerable amount of time. Five seconds is the ideal, recommended time, as it is considered enough time for the visitor to read a small portion of the contents.
If you are using auto-directing for SEO purposes, auto-redirection delay, which is necessary for this method, is not particularly desirable. You should consider another method.
Javascript Redirect – Search engines can not automatically detect this auto-redirection technique, as they haven’t quite yet figured out javascript. Script can be put anywhere on the page, but the section is usually the best place so that javascript will run as soon as the page starts loading.

This use of the Javascript’s “replace” function is what causes the redirected page to replace the original page found in the History list of the web browser’s “Back button”. Thus, if a surfer clicks the “Back button” to return to the original page that was clicked, they will go back to the page before the auto-redirect one. Hence they won’t see the contents of the auto-redirect page, and won’t be taken back to it only to end up on the redirected page again.

Form technique – Did you know that search engine spiders do not attempt to submit forms because they can’t fill in form fields? This means that forms can be utilized for auto-redirecting purposes.

A form’s “action” parameter is simply a URL that is requested from the server by the browser. The browser gives it special treatment by adding a few name-value pairs to the URL that has been requested. However, if no pairs exist, the browser will continue to make the request for the URL. Then, as soon as the page starts loading, javascript can be utilized to submit the form.

Finally, if you decide to use auto-redirecting, choose the most suitable method. Essentially, if you don’t want visitors to view the content on the page that they will be redirected from, the Javascript method is your best option.

Mark.

Posted by Mark at August 3, 2006 7:25 AM

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