Absolute vs. Relative Links

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Patricia Geary

Do you know the difference between an absolute and a relative link? Do you know which is your best choice for SEO  (Seatch Engine Optimization) purposes?

Absolute Link

An absolute link is created when the href value is a fully qualified URL, including:

  • the transfer protocol: http://
  • domain name: e.g. www.yourdomain.com
  • and filename: e.g. your-page.html

An absolute link to the Expression Web Tutorials & Templates homepage looks like this:

<a title=”Expression Web Tutorials &amp; Templates.” href=”http://www.expression-web-tutorials.com/index.html”>Expression Web Tutorials &amp; Templates</a>

If you are linking between websites, you must use an absolute link. If you are linking to the Home Page of your site OR the index page in any directory, then you do not need to include the file name. Why? When the path does not include a filename, the server attempts to open the directory index, or default file. The default file name will depend on what your server requires.

<a title=”Expression Web Tutorials &amp; Templates.” href=”http://www.expression-web-tutorials.com/”>Expression Web Tutorials &amp; Templates</a>

will take you to the same location as the link shown above.

Relative Link

A relative link is created when the destination href value is relative to the location of the current webpage or source anchor.

A relative link to the Expression Web Tutorials & Templates homepage, from any webpage in the SAME directory, looks like this:

<a title=”Expression Web Tutorials &amp; Templates.” href=”index.html”>Expression Web Tutorials &amp; Templates</a>

This tells the browser to look in the current directory and open the file index.html.

A relative link can only be used when linking within a website; or when the source and destination anchors are under the same domain name.

Which is Best SEOwise?

Page rank is determined by the quality (PR) and quantity of incoming links to a page. In most cases the homepage will have far more incoming links than other pages on the site. Links from your own site to other pages are also part of the equation. Google sees the following as totally different pages:

www.expression-web-tutorials.com/
www.expression-web-tutorials.com/index.html

Cricket Walker, who offers free classes on SEO Techniques recommends using absolute links ESPECIALLY for your Home Page. You can read Absolute vs. Relative Links to understand why.

Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Website Design Tips & Tutorials | Leave a comment

13 Ways to Browser Test and Validate Your Work

Posted on July 30, 2009 by Patricia Geary

How many of you are in the habit of validating your web pages as you work on them and before publishing? Do you also check your work in more than just your default browser? Perhaps you assume if it looks good on your monitor, it will render the same way on everyone who visits your sites monitor. Not necessarily so! Jarel Remick lists his favorites in his article 13 Ways to Browser Test and Validate Your Work.

HTML and CSS Validation Tools

  • W3C Validation – HTML – The most commonly known tool  is the online W3C Validation Service. You can validate by URI, file upload or directly inputting the markup.
  • W3C Validation – CSS – W3C also has a CSS validation service that  allows validation via URI, file upload and direct markup input.
  • [Firefox] Web Developer Toolbar -  The Web Developer toolbar extension for Firefox has tools to check HTML and CSS validation. I use this one on a daily basis.
  • [Browser Independent] W3C Validator Favelets – A quick and easy way to give just about any major browser a way to validate HTML and CSS is by using favelets. Favelets are bookmarked snippets of JavaScript to add extra functionality.
  • Your Development Editor – Most development editors offer some sort of validation tool. Expression Web is my editor of choice and it provides validation tools.
  • Validator S.A.C. -  Validator S.A.C. (Stand Alone Complex) is a stand-alone, easy to install, version of the W3C’s HTML / XHTML Markup Validator for Mac OS X. Validator S.A.C. is a normal Mac OS X application. No installation is required, just put Validator S.A.C. where you need it (hard drive, flash drive, CD-R, etc).

Validation is a tool to help you make sure your code is standards compliant.

Browser Compatibility Testing

If everyone was using the same browser and the most up-to-date version of that browser, then browser testing would be much easier. BUT, this is the real world. My default browser is Firefox, but I know from viewing my site statistics, that Internet Explorer is used by a large number of my site visitors. And there are many still using IE6 as well as IE7 and IE8. I want all of them to have a good experience when viewing. So I do testing in three browsers – Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera. My web editor, Expression Web, also allows me to check in multiple browsers from within the editing window by using SuperPreview. I have the current versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera installed on my system. Some of you may also have Safari installed.

  • Older Versions of Firefox – If you need to check in older versions of Firfox, there are ways to do this. For Windows Users: Standalone Firefox (older versions) via Portableapps.com and for Mac Users: MultiFirefox 2.0
  • Older Versions of Safari – for  Windows based web developers there is no easy solution to test multiple versions of Safari. For Mac users there is a nice collection of standalone versions of Safari provided by Michel Fortin.
  • Older Versions of Internet Explorer - There’s no easy way to interactively test older versions of IE.

Snapshot Services

You can use several browser snapshot services which will just show an image of how the site will look for a wide array of browsers. This will not allow you to interact with your site in the various browsers but will give you an idea of how it renders.

  • Adobe BrowserLab -  Adobe recently came out with a new service called BrowserLab which lets you view a snap shot of a website via URL in different browsers. It’s fast, free and gives you a couple different viewing options to compare different browser versions.
  • Browsershots.org – Browsershots.org is the same idea has Adobe BrowserLab but with several differences. You can test way more browsers on more platforms with more options like screensize, color depth, javascript, flash, etc. The downside is that the service is a little slower (sometimes too slow).
  • Browsercam - Browsercam is basically the same thing as Browsershots but is a paid service but offers some more in depth features. I have not yet used this service.

Read  13 Ways to Browser Test and Validate Your Work in its entirety.

Posted in Troubleshooting Tips, Website Design Tips & Tutorials | 3 Comments

10 Ways To Make Your Site Accessible Using Web Standards

Posted on June 19, 2009 by Patricia Geary

Smashing Magazine’s latest article 10 Ways To Make Your Site Accessible Using Web Standards

Without argument, one of the most important things to consider when creating a website is that it be accessible to everyone who wants to view it. Does your website play nice with screen readers? Can a user override your style sheet with a more accessible one and still see everything your website has to offer? Would another Web developer be embarrassed if they saw your code? If your website is standards-compliant, you could more confidently answer these questions.

The article lists 10 ways to improve the accessibility of your XHTML website by making it standards-compliant. They include:

  1. Specify the correct DOCTYPE
  2. Define The Namespace And Default Language
  3. Supply Proper Meta Tags
  4. Use Accessible Navigation
  5. Properly Escape JavaScript
  6. Properly Escape HTML Entities
  7. Use Only Lowercase Tags And Attributes
  8. Label All Form Input Elements
  9. Supply Alternative Content For Images
  10. Use The "id" And "class" CSS Attributes Correctly

You can read the entire article 10 Ways To Make Your Site Accessible Using Web Standards

Posted in Accessibility, Website Design Tips & Tutorials | Leave a comment

ON SALE! CSS Sculptor for Expression Web

Posted on June 15, 2009 by Patricia Geary

ON SALE though June 30th 2009 Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web for $39.99 which is ten dollars off the regular price.

Create standards compliant CSS-based website layouts with ease. You can see some examples of templates created and availabkle for free download at Expression Web Tutorials and Templates.

Overview of Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web.

  • Total Customization – The included wizard gives you total control over all aspects of your layout so that you can design unique one-of-a-kind layouts.
  • Efficient and Intuitive -  Now you can develop CSS-based layouts faster than ever before with our powerful easy-to-use wizard.
  • Cross Browser Compatibility – Create CSS-based layouts that are compatible with all modern browsers.
  • CSS Expertise -We have partnered with Eric Meyer, renowned CSS master, so that you too can create professional looking CSS-based layouts without CSS knowledge or experience.

Get it now as the sale lasts ONLY though June 30th 2009 Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web for $39.99 which is ten dollars off the regular price.

Posted in Announcements, CSS, Expression Web News | 1 Comment

10 HTML Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit

Posted on June 1, 2009 by Patricia Geary

You best watch out, because the HTML police are about. They scour your code and pick out the most unspeakable crimes against HTML markup.

The writer lists ten of the most common coding mistakes and how to correct them. They include:

  1. Placing Block Elements Inside Inline Element
  2. Not Including an ALT Attribute on Images
  3. Not Using Lists When Necessary
  4. Using <b> and <i> for Bolding and Italicizing
  5. Using Too Many Line Breaks
  6. Using The Wrong Strikethrough Tags
  7. Using Inline Styling
  8. Adding or Removing Borders in HTML
  9. Not Using Header Tags
  10. The Unspeakable Use of <blink> or <marquee>

How does your code measure up? With Spring here, is it time to do some “Spring cleaning” of your code? You can read 10 HTML Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit for the solutions.

Posted in Website Design Tips & Tutorials | 1 Comment