22 May 2007

Designing websites to comply with accessibility standards is one the best ways to ensure that they are visible to potential customers, it has been claimed.

Search engine expert Frank Stoczko, writing for DevStart's Promotion World site, said that both visitors and search engine spiders will be able to view a web page more easily if it is accessible.

"You'll want to make sure that any pages with Flash, frames, are mostly graphics or that include fancy navigation schemes allow the spiders to enter properly and find other links to your website," explained Mr Stoczko.

He added that robots.txt files should also be checked, as if they are not available to search engines, spiders will simply ignore the page.

Other key factors of visible design highlighted were usability, linking, sitemaps and navigation.

Last month search specialist Mike Valentine, writing on WebProNews, said that spiders "demand accessibility" as they rely on similar methods as assistive technology devices to read web pages.

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