The 3 most forgotten files in SEO

If you are working on Search Engine Optimization like me, you probably have made the same mistakes.

I had Forgotten the Three Files that you have to be aware of if you want to do a good job on SEO.

You know be now the standard SEO stuff, Keywords, Headings URLs and so on..

But do you look at the following files as well:

404 Error Page

If you rebuild a website, or change the structure of the URLs there are most certainly going to be same Search Index results that link to now non-existing pages.
Make sure to keep those visitors by making a good Error page offering them another way into your website to find the resource the are looking for.
This may cause some problems with Joomla!, but at least try to have a 404 Error-page up.

.htaccess

Sure, you need this one to make sure it works for URL rewrites, but use it also for defining you Error-document 404 page.
And of course redirect the old Search Engine hits to the new pages.
This is best done by a 301 redirect which is both friendly for your visitors as well as for Search Engines.
It is not an easy file to work with, but read and take benefit of this .htaccess file

Robots.txt

In this robots.txt file you allow or disallow search engine robots to index certain directory's or files of your website.
If you want you images to show up in the Search Engine Image searches, you better make sure they can be accessed.
For Joomla! this means taking out the rule ‘Disallow: /images/'

Using these three files in the right way, and your visitors, and the Search Engines, will have a better experience on your Search Engine Optimized website.