What you see isn’t what Google sees
It’s easy to forget that web pages aren’t just a physical entity. We can make them look incredibly attractive, with pictures and texts set in just the right places, and make them look as much like a printed page as we can. We make the web look like the things we’re familiar with, and forget that it’s something completely unfamiliar to most people underneath.
Most people don’t think about the coding side of websites until they encounter an error. When things start appearing on the screen in an awkward manner, they might consider that there is something wrong with the code but haven’t got a clue how to fix it. Only workers in particular industries think about the raw code that is behind it all - that code is what Google sees.
It’s important for every site owner to think about what Google sees. They may not be the only search engine, but in the western world they have a huge share of the market and that means that if you want to make the most of your site’s potential, you need to optimise for the biggest search engine. What Google sees is something completely different to what the average internet user will view when they look at your web pages. When you want to see what Google sees, you need to use a search engine spider simulator, also known as a search engine spider test tool.
What is a search engine spider test tool?
Finding out what Google sees is fairly easy, especially if you use our search engine spider test tool here at Searchengineoptimisation.com. Simply type your page address into the search engine spider test tool and it will assemble a page presenting your code in the same way as what Google will see.
The search engine spider simulator does exactly what it says; simulating what Google sees when it reviews your code. It shows where your keywords are, how your meta tags are optimised, what links exist on the page and the many other factors that a search engine spider is looking for when it crawls over your site.
Using the search engine spider simulator
The aim of the search engine spider simulator is to display the code exactly how a search engine spider sees it. The report the tool produces should show you where the problem areas are in your code, and where things can be tightened up.
There are two main areas that this tool should help with. The first is for things that are missing. If there are patches of code that look a little thin and need amendments, they may be worth reviewing. The second area is for things that are present - but shouldn’t be. The search engine spider test tool can help you spot excess keywords and clunky code. It can also help you to spot malignant code that has been inserted by others.
The HTML form of the code displayed by the search engine spider simulator may seem a bit confusing if you’re not used to dealing with HTML. It is a technical language, and it does take some training to completely understand it. There are aspects of the code that are easy to understand if you ignore all of the markup characters, however. If you stick to the words displayed within the code, you should be able to spot any potential trouble with a quick review. If you’re still concerned, it can be a good idea to bring the report to your SEO consultant.
Why use the search engine spider test tool?
The trouble with some web design programs is that they tend to present a certain view of code. If the web design program is for the mainstream user market, they tend to present the best use of code possible. They set in lots of paragraphing, and align the code in ways we’ve come to expect from dealing with text documents. In other words, web design programs tend to make code look nice and pretty.
There are web design programs that go the other way as well, such as the ones designed for the programming market. These tend to make code look tough and complicated, because computer programmers are used to looking under the hood of a computer program and prefer to see the gritty side of things. Either way, the code is presented with a certain angle to it, which is completely unlike that shown with a search engine spider test tool.
A search engine spider test tool can help you to review your code in a matter-of-fact way. The search engine spider simulator from us at Searchengineoptimisation.com presents what Google sees when it deals with code, without any interference from a design program. This enables you to review the code more easily and spot problem areas. Our search engine spider simulator is a simple tool that can save you a lot of hard work.