Creating a Website, the FAQ

Essential questions about the creation and the design of a new website and the problems faced by a webmaster. This is supplemented by a FAQ on how to manage a website.

Frames or no frames? Should I avoid them?

It is better to avoid using frames. They can be replaced advantageously by CSS. Frames are usually a disadvantage. If the header and the menu are in a frameset page, and content in other parts of the frameset, when someone open a page directly from a search engine, he does not know on which site it is located and how to access other pages.

The file which receives most links from other sites (the file that contains the frameset) has no content, and this is not a good thing for the PageRank.

The Site Update tool provided by Scriptol.com, allows to avoid frames by copying the header and menu of the site on all pages.

Do I need to separate words with a dash or an underscore?

It has been announced recently by Google that an underscore is recognized as a separator in filenames or anchors.
Until now underscore character "_" did not separate words for search engines, so my_site is seen as one word, while my-site contains two words for engines. Using a dash as separator is still recommended.

What is a CMS?

CMS stands for "Content Management System", and it is a software or a set of scripts to dynamically create the site from a predefined format and from text files that are stored into a database.
A CMS delivers the webmaster of most management task, and allows to concentrate on the content. CMS also provide tools as tag cloud, RSS generator and various other tools.
There are general CMS and other specialized blogs, wikis, faqs, and so on.... See the list of CMS written in PHP.

What is RSS?

Really Simple Syndication is a file format designed to provide a list of links on the articles of a website.
The main objective is promoting a site, but there are many applications in the RSS format, practice to obtain news and other information by subscribing to a list whose content changes over time.

Is the choice of the domain name extension important?

The extension, or TLD (Top Level Domain) may be related to a language. A site with the country extension matching the language of the site arrives in a better position for a search in this language.
For the generic extensions as com, net, org, the advantage is not obvious.

For a bilingual site, do I have to create different domains, subdomains or subdirectories?

"At present I use a script to display my site in the language of the browser. I wonder if I should
- use different TLD, form exemple .com for the English version, .fr for the French version,
- or rather sub-domains in the form en.scriptol.com and fr.scriptol.com,
- or subdirectories as scriptol.com/en/ and scriptol.com/fr/? "

These solutions are suitable for different situations. In this case, the less relevant is the use of sub-domains. Indeed, they are different sites for search engines, and that divides the PageRank. It is better to have a big site than two small sites.
Subdomains should be used mainly for multiple users, each with access to his own web space.
Using different domains has the same drawback but with the advantage of the extension in relation to the language that is an SEO advantage.
If the traffic on the site is not important enough to justify multiple domain names, subdirectories are preferable.

Should I use a complete URL for internal links?

Search engines are obviously able to index local URL and rebuild the full URL with the domain name included. But it should be better to facilitate their task with a full URL.
You can also provide a sitemap, which will contain the complete URL of each page.

Do I have to add the meta-tags?

Google makes use at least of the meta "robots" and sometimes it uses the meta "description". Keywords are rarely used now and not by Google.
Note that you can automatically generate metas with the freeware utility Spider SEO.

Is it a drawback, pages of big size?

Yes for a variety of reasons (search engines, load time, etc.). The recommended size would range 1000 to 20000 characters, and it is often the standard for professionals. Robots give more importance to the first part of the pages and this is a reason to shorten them but short pages are less lucky to get backlinks.

How can I have a picture in front of my site in the URL bar of browsers?

This image is named a favicon. It also appears in the bookmark panel.
It's a kind of icon from Windows, named favicon.ico, with a size of 16x16 pixels or 32x32 pixels, which must be placed in the root directory.

How do I know if another site steals my pages?

You can find out it from a search engine, by typing in a phrase written in a page of your site, and putting it in quotation marks.
Or even more simply, go to Copyscape and enter the URL of your site or page.

How do I know if search engine robots find the pages on my site?

For this we need to test the links on your site from the home page. The best way would be to create a sitemap and compare a list generated with the list of the site's pages.
Easier yet, the site Spider Simulator can parse your site and provide internal links it finds. Just type in the URL of the site.

How to have statistics of visits?

If your host do not provides good statistics, you have a choice of solutions for integrating a statistics tool for free. Analytics, Direct-Stats and Xiti in particular. All three systems require to put JavaScript code in the pages. Only Xiti requires that you display a logo on the page. No traffic restrictions.
PhpMyVisites is a software that you install on the host, which requires PHP and MySQL. It appears to be limited in traffic, around 1500 visitors a day.

Can I have a one-letter domain name?

ICANN banned domain names in one letter. There were, however, some exceptions: I.NET, Q.COM, Q.NET, X.COM, and Z.COM.
G.COM is the latest registered, by Google.

Can we have a brand name in a domain name?

No because people could think that your site is related to the company that owns the brand, which it would not want to. It could ask you to return them the domain name. The big brands are trying also to register most of the names that could create confusion. See list of domain names of Google.

What size should have web pages?

The size of web pages on average increases from year to year. According to the study published by the site Websiteoptimization, in 2008 the average size of pages was 312 ko.