[pmwiki-users]SEO: Avoiding Headings in the SideBar

Bronwyn Boltwood arndis at gmail.com
Tue Aug 16 14:31:04 CDT 2005


On 8/15/05, H. Fox <haganfox at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/15/05, Bronwyn Boltwood <arndis at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Now isn't that a nice joke: the validator's output code is invalid.
> > See details at http://arndis.godsong.org/static/misc/invalid.html.
> 
> How ironic.
> 
> To me, it indicates they *really* want to drive the point home.

To me, the valid code sample suggests that the people who say "you
can't skip heading levels!" are the ones who designed the proper
nesting for <ul> and <li>.
 
> > Why don't we try putting an <hn>Sidebar</hn> at the top of the
> > sidebar, and hide it through CSS?  At least the outline will be more
> > accurate that way.
> 
> Short answer: Mostly because of SEO (See the subject of this thread)
> 
> Long answer:
> I think it's because that would result in every PmWiki installation
> competing for the top search engine ranking for the keyword "sidebar".

Ew.  Thought process hadn't made it that far before posting.  So no,
that is not a good solution -- solves a minor problem to replace it
with a major problem.
 
> This is not to say search engine optimization is the only purpose for
> extracting the document outline, but it's an important one.

Yes, and probably more important in most cases than for accessibility,
because a human will be better able to make a correct judgement call.

Anyway, my thought of making a true mobile/screenreader/braille skin
sometime later is reinforced.

Bronwyn




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