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See the ratings...
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Commentaries
on the 9th edition of LAB 40.
These ratings have seen markedly less volatility
than the two previous editions. |
| THE
MAIN DEVELOPMENTS |
Let us
start by acknowledging the near stability of the
top 3 in these ratings, with a special mention for
the Société Générale,
which took 1st place in the ratings for the second
time, and for Cap Gemini Sogeti which, after taking
first place twice in succession, has remained near
the top in a very respectable third place.
The most spectacular rise in these ratings comes
from the Accor group, which goes from 23rd to 5th
place, notably due to the loading speed of its home
page.
As we explained at the time of our last ratings,
EDF has since joined the CAC 40 and therefore
appears in our ratings, and indeed in a strong
position as it occupies 6th place, far ahead of
Gaz de France which is stagnating at the bottom
of the ratings.
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| Is it the beginning
of the end for cloaking with the start of proper
practices? |
| The
media attention given to the latest incidents of
Google’s blacklisting (delisting all the pages
of a site) the sites of major brands seems to have
borne fruit, and it is now (finally!) uncommon for
major groups to resort to the technique of cloaking
(a practice which aims to present content to the
indexing robots which is different to that displayed
to Internet users).
Two other points should also be emphasised:
- less and less frequent recourse to “total
Flash”. * In effect using Flash * enables
sites to be produced which are very successful
graphically, but offer the disadvantage of being
very difficult for search engines to index.
- and the enrichment of site content. Certain
groups, possibly influenced by the fashion in
blogs, adopt a very editorial logic with sites
and in particular have very dense home pages.
However, care should be taken not to give priority
to density of information (which does indeed play
a part in good organic listing) to the detriment
of page weight. This time round BNP Paribas has
had the painful experience of having a new home
page which is very rich in content, while the
loading speed turned out to be very disappointing.
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| ACCESSIBILITY |
| Accessibility,
in other words the fact of offering website access
which has been modified for people suffering from
a handicap, is coming to preoccupy the major companies.
Article 47 of the Act No. 2005-102 of 11th February
2005 on equal rights and opportunities [la Loi
N° 2005-102 du 11 février 2005 pour
l’égalité des droits et des
chances] specifies in particular that “the
public online communication services provided
by State services, administrative bodies and the
public establishments which depend on them must
be accessible by handicapped people.”
This means there is nothing actually to compel
major companies to offer versions that are accessible
to people suffering from a handicap, but these
companies are proving themselves eager to maintain
their image of having citizen-friendly ethics,
and we can only be delighted at this.
This is a significant criterion and we will be
integrating it in our next ratings, as we are
aware that Arcelor, BNP Paribas, the Crédit
Agricole and EDF have already launched initiatives
in this respect.
* by Google of the sites
of major brands, and notably
BMW Germany in February 2006
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