420 Design Blog
Company suing Google
19 Mar 2006 | Angie H
Reuters reports that a company is suing Google for their site's low page rank. The company, KinderStart, is accusing Google of violating their constitutional right to free speech by blocking search engine results showing Web site content and other communications.
While I personally think the whole thing is ridiculous, I decided to take a closer look.
So I went to the KinderStart site and took a look at their code. Keep in mind, this was a relatively brief look, and it was concentrated primarily on their home page since they noted that they rank at the top when typing in "kinderstart" in Yahoo and MSN.
The very first thing I noticed on the KinderStart site (before looking at the source code) is the lack of content. A lot of links, animated graphics and ads. Nowhere did I find a descriptive paragraph (or even just a sentence) describing their site or services or anything of the sort. Their logo says the site is a search engine, so that might explain the lack of some sort of content. The reason I even bring the issue of content up is due to the simple fact that Google tends to favor sites with relevant content.
The lack of content I suppose can be slightly (and only slightly) overlooked, especially when one begins to look through the code itself. Immediately I noticed many, many table tags (but I've seen worse).
From Search Engine Optimization and recoding work we've done with clients, I know firsthand that table-less HTML code can actually benefit your site in page ranking. And conversely, nested tables can penalize you in search engine ranking. How much is another question. And really, the number of poorly coded, "table-full" sites that rank decently can tell us that just the "mere appearance of many nested tables in [one's] code does not have a strong enough negative effect to be considered a drag on search engine ranking." (Source)
The next thing I looked at was the alt attribute. The alt attribute (often mistakenly called the alt tag) is used to specify alternative, meaningful text to primarily images that are used for more than just decorative purposes. Examples of images that should use an alt attribute are logos and photos that help tell the story or message on a web page. The alt attribute is helpful for visitors who, for one reason or another (such as a slow connection), have elected to not display any images in their web browser. However, the attribute is most helpful for accessibility reasons.
In looking at the KinderSmart site, however, many key elements in their site were missing crucial alt attributes. Their logo, for starters. If any image on any site should have an alt attribute, it's the logo. And remember how I said the text should be meaningful? The places where KinderSmart does use the alt attribute, much of them contain "click here!" right after a word or two. Even in an alt attribute, "click here" doesn't really help.
Next I noticed that the site doesn't have a proper doctype declaration. In fact, it doesn't have one at all. While I have no idea how that affects Google ranking (if at all), I do know that without a doctype, a site can't be properly validated. As Mike Davidson points out, it's hard to tell if validity helps a site's ranking, but errors in a site's code can get the site completely removed from indexes. KinderStart hasn't been removed at all. They're in Google somewhere, they're just not anywhere near the top. So that makes me wonder if Google considers an absent doctype as an error?
And is it possible that there are further errors in the code that has resulted in the KinderStart site ranking to drop? (I did notice something - see image - on one particular line that looked like an attempt to comment out the line. This could be causing a major error.)
Conclusion
Again, this was a very brief, somewhat rudimentary test of the KinderStart site. These would be a few of the first things I would look for if a client came to us asking for SEO help.
Quite frankly (and this is just my opinion), it just seems like folk in charge of keeping the site ranking well haven't done their homework. SEO is a tough thing to deal with overall. Google is constantly changing their algorithm in order to keep the honest sites on top, and the sites that use keyword spamming and keyword stuffing closer to the bottom. Good SEO requires constant monitoring and tweaking of the site in question. There's just no substitute for it. But in this sue-happy society, should we really be all that surprised?