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North Square completes an evaluation of Tandridge Borough Council. We have now worked for over 50 local authorities in the United Kingdom. View major clients, testimonials, and request references in our Client Portfolio.
(January 2010)
06 June 2009
Due to the number of factors governing search engine results and the never ending complexity of the algorithms used to calculate relevancy, the practice of ethical search engine optimisation (SEO) has developed a by-product; assisting with some of the requirements of creating an accessible.
Optimising websites for search engines relies on them being read and understood by the lowest common denominator i.e. search engine robots. The practice of utilising text instead of graphics, picture naming and table naming gives the robots the information they need to interpret a website accurately.
There are several countries that have legislation in place for website accessibility, with more countries expected to follow. Like search engines spiders, older browsers or speech browsers do not understand modern web site production techniques e.g. Flash and Java. Even the humble image button can be completely misunderstood. The one thing that ethical search engine optimisation does is to take these design techniques and return them to the principles that make website pages readable across platforms and browsers. Websites that can be read efficiently by a robot are more likely to work with assistive technologies, such as screen readers.
This is not to say that optimising a website for search engine robots will make it accessible, a properly optimised website will in most cases improve the situation but issues still need to be resolved in the use of tables, layers and frames.
by Matt Paines
Director,
XSEO (external website)
North Square Interactive is an online consultancy that delivers cost effective, best practice, Website Evaluation reports, Usability Testing, Website Competitor Analysis, Accessibility Audits, Browser Testing, and more. For further information about all of our services, please visit our Online Consultancy Index.
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