“Under-the-hood of Cobalt websites things got real scary“. None of the content on Cobalt sites is getting properly indexed, and that spells disaster for search rank performance.
There are 2 component of an HMTL document (a web page), the Head and the Body. The end of the body ( </body> ) signals search engines (spiders) to stop reading the web page. Cobalt’s underlying CMS system inserts Body Tags in all the user editable fields. “This will disrupt any spidering” which will cause most content on the page to be rendered useless and result in “a whole bucket of woe”. Webmaster World
Because car dealer websites tend to have very little content on them anyway, there isn’t much to index. That means SEOs must add the content to the page. But because the spider is likely to stop at the first Body Tag, that’s real bad news for you SEOs that are editing your Cobalt dealer website expecting to get some improvement in search results. You are wasting your time.
I contacted Cobalt about this Body Tag problem, not wanting to write such a harsh report about a bug that seemed could be fixed momentarily. A conversation with James Fabin, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, and Jeff Lu Sr. Product Manager SEO at The Cobalt Group assured me that they are acutely aware of the issue and hope to have the problem resolved shortly. I will write another post when it is.
Read the full SEO Analysis Report of Cobalt
This search engine optimization question came across my desk twice, and I thought I would check to make sure I was not missing something and to make sure this was not an SEO myth in the making.
There are obvious reasons why <table> should not be used in place of good CSS for page format and layout. But…
Q: are tables impediments to good SERP position? [click to continue…]
The economy is producing a growing number of SEO consultants and companies. Naturally there is more and more noise about automotive Internet marketing – SEO in particular. It should be intuitive that the louder the marketing message, the less effective the product.
Why? I could not explain it better than Chris Dixon. “the most pernicious aspect to the phrase (SEO) is that the word “optimization” suggests that SEO is a finishing touch, something you bolt on, instead of central to the design and development of your site.” – an excellent post.
So check out the search optimization services being offered before you buy. Internet marketing is not exactly new. And its not difficult to become just a little educated about SEO yourself. A little homework will save thousands!
An experienced SEO specialist will perform tests, so should you. Here is the inside scoop:
1) Ask for (their) top car dealer websites. Do not use the first one that is offered. There is always likely a perfect example website. Use my guide How to pick a good car dealer website SEO specialist.
You can run some tests on your own – and those tests will teach you OTJ.
2) Run those through: http://www.websitegrader.com
There are more tools like this, but that’s a good first step. If they can’t optimize their dealer websites, how do you think it will turn out for your sites? Once educated, you’ll have a better chance of finding the right Automotive SEO – not the loudest automotive Internet marketing guru.
Have you seen this tag?
<meta name=”revisit-after” content=”15 days”>
“The revisit-after META Tag is not supported by any major search engines, it never was supported and probably never will be. It was developed for, and supported by, Vancouver Webpages and their local search engine searchBC.” SEOConsultants.com (If you read the requirements to become an SEOConsultants member, one disqualifier is using the revisit-after meta tag!)
While researching Dealer.com sites, I found it everywhere.
Frankly, I had to Google it, to find the reason for using the tag. I had taken for granted that the tag was used by a search engine that I was just not yet familiar with – true. I never worked with searchBC. I’m sure there is no SEO harm in using the tag. Google, Yahoo and Bing tend to overlook HTML that is not meaningful. But this does illustrate how even (or especially the larger) companies that claim to do SEO, and charge a lot for it, actually don’t know anything about the SEO they do.
Like SEOConsultants.com rule to membership proclaims, anyone in the (Automotive) SEO business that uses this tag probably doesn’t know SEO.
It may take some time to assemble, but I will try to report back as quickly as possible with a list of Automotive SEO companies that use the <meta name=”revisit-after” AND claim to provide SEO compliant car dealer websites.
