The appliance probably uses the same criteria that google.com uses to index and catalogue the whole of the world wide web. So it makes sense therefore to make sure your pages and sites follow the same optimisation rules as for google.com or google.co.uk. These are:
It is commonly known that search engines find it easier to access properly constructed, validated and accessible code. Therefore the first step is to make sure your pages and sites adhere to the University's Web Publishing Requirements and Web Publishing Guidelines.
Secondly, you should make sure your sites and pages follow the generally accepted search engine optimisation rules. The following are the most common however, this is a constantly changing environment and therefore further research on search engine optimisation (SEO) is recommended.
The content in the <title> tag is considered to be one of the most important elements of on-page optimisation.
The content of this tag is often used by search engines (but rarely by Directories) for indexing web pages. The content may also appear in the search results, i.e. the visible links and descriptions that one sees as a result of a search.
Therefore the content of the description should both contain relevant keywords and be written in a way that entices the search engine user to click the link in the results.
This tag is rarely indexed these days due to 'keyword stuffing'. However, it is recommended to still use a small number of relevant keywords.
Generally speaking it is good to have keywords in the page URL.
For example http://www.mmu.ac.uk/international/courses/
could be improved as:
http://www.mmu.ac.uk/international/international-courses/
The 'alt' attribute in the <img /> tag has several jobs:
You can analyse the page structure to identify any areas that would hinder indexing by a search engine. Two tools are available:
It is recommended to include several paragraphs of descriptive text on each page.
Header tags e.g. The <h1>, <h2>, <h3> hold important clues about the meaning of the page for the search engine indexer.
Ideally the <h1> would contain a keyword that is also found in that page's <title> tag, to provide a consistent keyword theme for the page.
The Google Search Appliance uses sophisticated algorithms from Google to make sure that results are returned in the most relevant order possible. However, if both of the above techniques fail and if you have important content that users will need to find via the search engine it is possible to request using the “Featured Site” feature.
With “Featured Site”, you can list a set of keywords to associate with a particular web page or document. When users type in those keywords, the web page or document will be the first result to appear on the search results page (see example). This is much the same as the sponsored link feature on Google's website.
To request a featured site link, please contact your local Faculty Web Officer in the first instance or the Web Team.
This feature is offered to University staff to make sure key income generating and other important University activities are easily accessible.