I am new to web page development and my head is spinning in regards to all of the different aspects that must be considered for SEO. One of the things that I am having a hard time understanding is what is the best programming language (ASP.NET, JavaScript, PSP, etc.) to use for SEO purposes. From my limited understanding of the subject, some are better than others. Can anyone give me a primer on the subject or point me to a web link where this is discussed? Thanks in advance for your help!
To further clarify, I guess I am talking in terms of processing forms and the like without adding lots of extraneous HTML code which could hurt SEO efforts by diluting the content. Does that help clarify what I am looking for in terms of answers?
just use all kind of meta tags, but actually we can divide meta tags into several groups and the first one I consider to be the most important and even obligatory for every site, and disregarding those will be really harmful for any site popularity. I’m talking about description meta tags --that will add unique description for every page on your site. There are also description meta tags, which are the unique description of every page of any site that are created for search engines and its uniqueness and relevance are as important for search engines as unique content and well performed design is important for visitors. but this all is useful only if that post about meta tag uselessness is just a rumor
It won't make a bit of difference which language you use, whether it be straight up HTML and CSS or a server-side programming language that creates the HTML for you. All the search engines are going to see is the content on the page, and that is what you should worry about. For more information, read All You Need to Know About SEO thread I wrote here and the Search Engine Optimization FAQ from SitePoint (FREEBIE - no registration required).
Agree with Dan Schulz comment. The server side language is not relevant. The html, javascript, css you produce is spider food. The only comment I would make in addition is that with any server side language you can create dynamic pages with un-friendly url's (bunch of parameters ? id= sess= etc) which is a bad idea. Other than that concentrate on the language you know best and is easiest for you (like php )
parameters and IDs aren't as bad as they used to be - hell, www.classicbattletech.com gets spidered just as well as sites that use keyword friendly URLs (not my site) even though it uses ID based query stirngs. What you have to watch out for thogh are session IDs.
Thanks for all the comments. My next question then would be what is considered the "best" programming language for web development? I was a programmer in a former life (on mainframes no less), so I have the mindset to learn a new language, but I have been out of the programming world for so long, I don't know which language would be the best (and hopefully easiest) to pick-up. Thanks.
Well, PHP is a pretty easy to learn server-side programming language for creating dynamic Web sites and applications, whereas others such as .NET are actually frameworks as opposed to languages. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, though PHP is pretty popular among Web developers (as is the .NET framework). The first thing I'd do is ask yourself whether you want to work for another company (in which a framework such as .NET or Java would be better) or go after your own clients (which would make PHP a very attractive option) and then go from there.
I am sure you wouldnt want to miss this one: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34431 Thats what they say. Since they say they can crawl there shudnt be any problem choosing any out of the three majors, PHP, ASP or even JSP..
Yes and no, as long as you're creating content that spiders can read you'll be fine. Common languages like plain HTML and PHP or .NET are fine. However, some of the Web 2.0 technologies can throw up problems, especially Ajax and Flash, if you're using either use sparingly and make sure your text content is in HTML
There isn't really a "best" programming language. Like Dan said, PHP is quite easy to learn while Java and .Net have a steeper learning curves.
The answer is yes and that language is HTML5. The segmentation used in HTML5 helps a lot in SEO and according to this news here Google have updated its algorithm in accordance with HTML5. News Links: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/dynamic-views-seven-new-ways-to-share.html http://doubleclickadvertisers.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-html5-is-changing-game-for-creative.html
SEO can be apply on any website developed on any platform no specific programming language needed for SEO and for development php is best