Hiding menus from Google

C

Charley Kyd

I used to have menus at the left, much as Microsoft does at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

However, when Google returned information about a page, their descriptions
of my pages often merely listed my menu text...which provided no useful
information in the search results. Can anyone tell me what Microsoft does to
force the Google spider to reach deep into the html to return actual
content, rather than menu text?

Has anyone else had the problem I did? How did you cure it?

Thanks.

Charley
 
T

Tom [Pepper] Willett

Provide a URL to your page for us to look at.
--
===
Tom [Pepper] Willett
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
---
FrontPage Support:
http://www.frontpagemvps.com/

About FrontPage 2003:
http://office.microsoft.com/home/office.aspx?assetid=FX01085802
===
"Charley Kyd" <kyd at incsight dot com> wrote in message
|
| No. I don't use frames.
|
| Charley
|
|
| | >
| > They don't use frames. Are you?
| >
| > --
| > Murray
| > ============
| >
| > "Charley Kyd" <kyd at incsight dot com> wrote in message
| > | >>
| >> I used to have menus at the left, much as Microsoft does at:
| >> http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
| >>
| >> However, when Google returned information about a page, their
| >> descriptions of my pages often merely listed my menu text...which
| >> provided no useful information in the search results. Can anyone tell
me
| >> what Microsoft does to force the Google spider to reach deep into the
| >> html to return actual content, rather than menu text?
| >>
| >> Has anyone else had the problem I did? How did you cure it?
| >>
| >> Thanks.
| >>
| >> Charley
| >>
| >>
| >
| >
| >
|
|
|
 
C

Charley Kyd

Thanks, Tom, but I've changed the design since I had the problem.

Instead, I played some tricks with tables to put the left-side menu below
the content. That solution worked as far as the search engines are
concerned, but when people use larger fonts the tables get ugly. You can see
that problem if you go to ExcelUser.com and View the largest text size.

So I'm looking at a full redesign, and I don't want to go through all of
that work unless I can find some way to get search engines to ignore menu
text when they summarize each page.

Charley
 
S

Stefan B Rusynko

Server not found at ExcelUser.com
If you have description and title meta tags matching your page content the SE will still use them instead of your page content for
summaries

--

_____________________________________________
SBR @ ENJOY (-: [ Microsoft MVP - FrontPage ]
"Warning - Using the F1 Key will not break anything!" (-;
To find the best Newsgroup for FrontPage support see:
http://www.frontpagemvps.com/FrontPageNewsGroups/tabid/53/Default.aspx
_____________________________________________


"Charley Kyd" <kyd at incsight dot com> wrote in message |
| Thanks, Tom, but I've changed the design since I had the problem.
|
| Instead, I played some tricks with tables to put the left-side menu below
| the content. That solution worked as far as the search engines are
| concerned, but when people use larger fonts the tables get ugly. You can see
| that problem if you go to ExcelUser.com and View the largest text size.
|
| So I'm looking at a full redesign, and I don't want to go through all of
| that work unless I can find some way to get search engines to ignore menu
| text when they summarize each page.
|
| Charley
|
|
| | >
| > Provide a URL to your page for us to look at.
| > --
| > ===
| > Tom [Pepper] Willett
| > Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
| > ---
| > FrontPage Support:
| > http://www.frontpagemvps.com/
| >
| > About FrontPage 2003:
| > http://office.microsoft.com/home/office.aspx?assetid=FX01085802
| > ===
| > "Charley Kyd" <kyd at incsight dot com> wrote in message
| > | > |
| > | No. I don't use frames.
| > |
| > | Charley
| > |
| > |
| > | | > | >
| > | > They don't use frames. Are you?
| > | >
| > | > --
| > | > Murray
| > | > ============
| > | >
| > | > "Charley Kyd" <kyd at incsight dot com> wrote in message
| > | > | > | >>
| > | >> I used to have menus at the left, much as Microsoft does at:
| > | >> http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
| > | >>
| > | >> However, when Google returned information about a page, their
| > | >> descriptions of my pages often merely listed my menu text...which
| > | >> provided no useful information in the search results. Can anyone tell
| > me
| > | >> what Microsoft does to force the Google spider to reach deep into the
| > | >> html to return actual content, rather than menu text?
| > | >>
| > | >> Has anyone else had the problem I did? How did you cure it?
| > | >>
| > | >> Thanks.
| > | >>
| > | >> Charley
| > | >>
| > | >>
| > | >
| > | >
| > | >
| > |
| > |
| > |
| >
| >
| >
|
|
|
 
C

Charley Kyd

The only thing I can do is to experiment. Today, I'll post half-a-dozen
pages that have the menus above the content. These menus should be easy to
identify and exclude, if Google is paying attention. In a couple of weeks
I'll see how the pages are indexed.

Charley
 
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