Improving search rankings

Search rankings screenshot

If you find that your pages are difficult to find using search (either from our own search of an external search such as Google), the following tips should help.

Use the right words

Make sure that the words people will use when looking for your pages are actually included in your content. This may mean making sure that everyday terms are used as well as technical terms.

Give pages descriptive titles

Give pages descriptive titles, using the <title> attribute. Page with no title will appear in search results as "Untitled document", and pages with titles such as "Home" don't give the user any idea as to what the page is about.

Don't use images for important text

If you use an image containing text, rather than text itself, search engines won't be able to read it. If you have to use text in an image, for example a logo, make sure that the text is also given using the "alt" attribute.

Make sure that there are links to your pages

Make sure that there are links to your pages, from both elsewhere on the University website, and from other relevant websites.

Search engines index pages by following links they find on other pages, so if there aren't any links to your content, search engines won't be able to find it. Your page ranking in Google (how close a page comes to the top of the results list) is also influenced by how many links point to it.

 

Further information

Who to contact