[wdvltalk-social] OT ;-) coldfusion

[joseph harris]

From: "David Blakey"
> The interesting feature of this discussion is the apparent link
> between SEO and the script language.  The SE specialist may 
> code only
> in PHP, but surely the code has little to do with SEO.  We have 
> been
> told for some time that the content is one of the main drivers 
> for
> high SE visibility.
>
> If the SE specialist wants to recode to give users more control 
> over
> content, then I can understand the need for this.  (There may 
> be a
> lot of hard coding of content that is not SE-friendly.)  But 
> does the
> SE specialist need to understand the scripting language?
>
> Given that the current scripting language is ColdFusion, which 
> lends
> itself well to being a front-end vehicle for back-end content, 
> I
> would be surprised if the current scripts contain much hard 
> coding,
> apart from meta tags.  And most sites must surely generate meta 
> tag
> content from the back-end, too.  (I question whether meta tags 
> have
> much relevance to the major SEs these days, but I don't pretend 
> to be
> an SE specialist.)
>
> This situation sounds as if the client has not kept control 
> over the
> work that the SE specialist is supposed to be doing, and is now
> having the project scope creep out to involve recoding.  That 
> isn't
> what SE people are engaged to do.  It's as if the makers of a 
> TV
> commercial wanted to dictate the make and model of cameras used 
> in the shoot.
>
> Regards,
> David
>


David,

You are spot on with the 'not kept control' bit.   But the blame 
otherwise is a bit different. [As I understand it, and it has 
been a bit like pulling teeth  ;-)]

The client is essentially a salesman who has come up with a quite 
clever and original book idea - with which I gave a little 
editorial help - and which is selling quite well.   [He sent me a 
copy as a thanks and it is good]   Some years - two, three? - ago 
he paid 'thousands of $' to have a website built but he desired 
and desires no understanding of the activity.

He has recently engaged a fellow list member - who I have respect 
for and therefore think the story may be more complex - to apply 
SEO, since he feels the site is not producing results.  She has 
no understanding of coldfusion but is happy with php.   In the 
course of a series of posts I have told him to sit down and 
rethink what he is trying to achieve with the site - and to learn 
a bit about coding !;-).

He has also pointed out he gets amazingly high sales at bookfairs 
with demonstrating the way to use the book;  the obvious is to 
make a site which duplicates that!

For some reason he has fallen out with the host, though not I 
think a rancourous matter, simply an inability to see what needs 
to be done.   So, having engaged the SEO expert, his first 
thought was just to spend a little on getting the site rewritten 
in php and hosted on such a place.   While there has been a 
raging debate - and I had not appreciated what coldfusion was at 
first - it seems that the site could, as you and Cheryl indicate, 
be easily rewritten in php.

Like you I wonder at the SEO person having a problem with what 
the code is, but I can't imagine I have the whole story.   Not 
that that has ever stopped me having an opinion ;-).

Joseph