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Neil Cameron

SEO for Drupal

29 October 2009

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The optimisation of your site for search engines, with the goal of achieving a high page rank in search results

What is SEO?

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• SEO ≠ magic• SEO ≠ expensive• SEO ≠ difficult• SEO = contested

What isn’t SEO?

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1. The Single, Most Important Thing.2. URLs3. Meta Data4. Duplicate Content5. Crawlability6. Further Info7. Questions

SEO for Drupal

1. The Single, Most Important Thing.2. URLs3. Meta Data4. Duplicate Content5. Crawlability6. Further Info7. Questions

SEO for Drupal

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Step 1/2:Create original, engaging and useful content.

The Single, Most Important Thing

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Step 2/2:Get it out there. Get it linked.

The Single, Most Important Thing

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Unfortunately, Drupal can’t help you.

The Single, Most Important Thing

1. The Single, Most Important Thing.2. URLs3. Meta Data4. Duplicate Content5. Crawlability6. Further Info7. Questions

SEO for Drupal

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Bad:

Good :

• URLs should be clean and descriptive.

URLs

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Modules:• Path auto– Allows for automatic

generation of URLs– Following a set pattern

URLs

e.g. [content-type]/[author name]/[content title]

1. The Single Most Important Thing.2. URLs3. Meta Data4. Duplicate Content5. Crawlability6. Further Info7. Questions

SEO for Drupal

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What is Meta Data?

Meta Data

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Title:• Not a true meta tag but important none-the-less.• Consider using different title for content and Meta

Data• e.g.: David Beckham -> Top English Footballers: David BeckhamOctober Meetup -> London, October Drupal Meetup (seminar)

Meta Data

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Description:- Make sure the main pages (front, ‘landing

pages’ or ‘channel pages’) have an accurate description.

- Make sure the description is automated for other content pages.

Meta Data

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Meta Data

Modules• Nodewords– Automatically or

manually configure title, description and keyword meta information

1. The Single Most Important Thing.2. URLs3. Meta Data4. Duplicate Content5. Crawlability6. Further Info7. Questions

SEO for Drupal

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• Duplicate content can cause Sandboxing*• But where is the duplicate content?

Duplicate Content

* See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_Effect

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Duplicate Content

http://example.com/node/347 http://example.com/path/to/content

http://example.com/node/347/ http://example.com/path/to/content/

http://www.example.com/node/347 http://www.example.com/path/to/content

http://www.example.com/node/347/ http://www.example.com/path/to/content/

http://www.example.com/index.php?q=node/347 http://www.example.com/index.php?q=path/to/content

http://www.example.com/index.php?q=node/347/ http://www.example.com/index.php?q=path/to/content/

http://example.com/index.php?q=node/347 http://example.com/index.php?q=path/to/content

http://example.com/index.php?q=node/347/ http://example.com/index.php?q=path/to/content/

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Modules: • Global Redirect– Automatic redirection for “index.php?q=”, trailing

“/” and “node/NID”. • Path Redirect– Manual redirection, e.g. from legacy sites

Duplicate Content

1. The Single Most Important Thing.2. URLs3. Meta Data4. Duplicate Content5. Crawlability6. Further Info7. Questions

SEO for Drupal

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Make it easy for robots to crawl the sitePart i (sitemap):• Create a sitemap• Submit it to Google and Bing• Module: XML sitemap (warning: buggy)

Crawlability

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Part ii (content)• Use clean HTML code in theme, validate as

much as possible (validator.w3.org)• Ensure user entered content is clean.• If using a WYSIWIG editor, consider ‘HTML

purifier’, ‘paste from word button’ or education.

Crawlability

1. The Single Most Important Thing.2. URLs3. Meta Data4. Duplicate Content5. Crawlability6. Further Info7. Questions

SEO for Drupal

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• SEO == Scam: (http://powazek.com/posts/2090 )

• Drupal + SEO: – http://pagerankandalexa.com/content/seo-drupal-page-optimiz

ation

– http://tips.webdesign10.com/basic-drupal-seo-on-site-optimization

– http://devbee.com/drupal_seo – http://groups.drupal.org/search-engine-optimization

• Drupal Modules:– SEO Checklist (http://drupal.org/project/seo_checklist)

– Pathauto (http://drupal.org/project/pathauto)

– Page Title (http://drupal.org/project/page_title)

– Nodewords (meta info) http://drupal.org/project/nodewords)

– Global redirect (http://drupal.org/project/globalredirect)

– Path redirect (http://drupal.org/project/path_redirect)

– XML Sitemap (http://drupal.org/project/xmlsitemap)

– HTML purifier (http://drupal.org/project/htmlpurifier)

• Sandboxing: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_Effect) • Google Webmaster tools: (

http://google.com/webmasters/tools/)

• Google Analytics: (http://google.com/analytics/)

• HTML Validator: (http://validator.w3.org/)

• Photo credit: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/timcaynes/2734530841/)

• About Neil: (http://ndev.co.uk)

Further Info

1. The Single Most Important Thing.2. URLs3. Meta Data4. Duplicate Content5. Crawlability6. Further Info7. Questions

SEO for Drupal

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?Questions?