Since working in the web development industry I’ve always wanted to clear my throat of the following itches.

1. Recommending .com domains for Australian orientated websites

   Australian companies providing products and services to Australians should hold a “.com.au” extension. Having an Australian domain extension assists search engines in providing the most relevant local information to searchers.

2. Using Image Titles or Flash Instead of HTML Headers and Markup

   Flash sites (unless packed within structured XML files) and image headers are not “seen” by search engines. Simply put, your fancy Flash navigation and poorly implemented image headers limits the depth search engines can crawl and what they know about your business.

3. On page redirection to “/asp/index.asp” or “/index.php”

   If you type in “www.domain.com.au” and yet the URL in the address bar appears as “www.domain.com.au/asp/index.asp” your site may be using on-page redirections. This form of redirection is ignored by search engines meaning they don’t see your site until someone links to you, there are many ethical ways to redirect pages.

4. Limited site search

   Site visitors are using site search more than ever and yet across the industry poorly implemented internal search continue to respond with “No results have been found”. Inclusion of advanced search functions and intelligent suggestions are required.

5. Not defining page backgrounds

   If a page background is not set the current Operating System theme window background is used. For XP users this is light-grey, for everyone else, who knows…

6. Lack of integration of “robots.txt” and XML Site maps

   These services have been made available to assist site owners in managing how and which content is presenting to major search engines.

7. Prominent back linking on client sites to web developer site

   Web development firms that place links to their own site artificially boost their ranking for competitive keywords. Unless a clear benefit is seen by your users this practice should be abolished and any back links removed.

What other things are done wrong within Australia’s web development industry? Have you worked with companies that don’t build search engine friendly sites?