Changing H1 Tag based on referrer
-
Hello,
I need some quick help and advice. We're going through a website re-design, and we have a few H1 tags set on some of our inner pages. The team is ok with these, however they want to change the H1 tag if the user gets to that page from a page within the site.
Example:
When the referrer is our site (www.domain.com), the H1 tag = Go to Step 2When the referrer is anything else, the H1 tag = Welcome to our site
I'd like to keep the H1 tag as the SEO rich keyword text we agreed on (in this case "Welcome to Our Site"), however our developers don't think its directional enough and wants to change it based on the user path.
I'm ok with the suggestion, however I want to make sure that if we choose the option with the referrer that this doesn't impact our SEO efforts.
I'm assuming the referrer will changed based on how the bot gets to the page, but i'm not certain and was wondering if anyone had some thoughts on this..
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks...
-
Changing the content to show a bot something different than regular user is always considered black hat and is frowned upon.
That being said, if you're trying to create different messages based on where the user came from, you may want to consider something like a bright box to provide direction and interaction to the visitor. Some general text in the page like that could be dynamic without being considered deceitful to Google.
I would have to recommend not trying to show Google something completely different than what users see in any regard.
-
Good question.. I'm not sure but inclined to say that googlebot wont accept sessions either. They used to have many problems with sessions and would index pages with session ids (don't see those anymore). Hopefully whatever they changed would help you too.
-
Hey,
Thank you..that helps..Welcome to our site isn't the keyword rich text i was referring to..lol..was just trying to keep it as general as possible...
Also, would this be the same if we used session instead?
-
I don't see how "Welcome to Our Site" is keyword rich but you can make the message changing cookie based instead. Since Googlebot doesn't accept cookies, it will always see "Welcome to Our Site".
Googlebot can't read cookie experiment - http://www.danclarkie.co.uk/googlebot-javascript-ajax-and-cookies-its-complicated.html
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Alt tag for SEO
What’s are best rules around alt tag images for tagging? is this still relevant for SEO purposes
Web Design | | aplnzoctober180 -
Have you changed 100's of links on your site? Tell me the why's, the how's and what's!
Hello there. If you've changed 100's of links, then I'd like for you to contribute to this thread. I've created a new URL structure for a website with 500+ posts in an effort to make it more user friendly, and more accessible to crawlers. I was just about to pull the trigger, when I started reading up on the subject and found that I might have a few surprises waiting for me around the corner. The status of my site. 500 posts 10 different categories 50+ tags No Backlinks No recent hits (according to Google Analytics) No rankings. I'm going to keep roughly 75% of the posts, and put them in different (new) categories to strengthen SEO for the topic which I'd like to rank multiple categories for, and also sorted a list with content which I'd like to 410. Created new structure created new categories Compiled list of old URLs, and new URLs New H1, Meta Title & Descriptions New tags It looks simple on paper, but I've got problems executing it. **Question 1. **What do I need to keep in mind when deleting posts, categories, and tags - besides 410, Google URL removal? Question 2. What do I do with all the old posts that I am going to re-direct? Each post has between 10-15 internal links. I've started manually removing each link in old posts before 301'ing them. The reason I'm doing this is control the UX, as well as internal link juice to strengthen main categories. Am I on the right path? On a side note, I've prepared for the 301'ing by changing the H1's, meta data and adding alt text to images. But I can't help but to think that just deleting the old posts, and copying over the content to the new url (with the original dates set) would be a better alternative. Any contribution to this thread would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Web Design | | Dan-Louis1 -
H1 for users or SEO in this case
Hello, A client of mine has an online store with a pre-made cart. In this cart the name below the product in the category pages and the H1 tag on the product pages themselves are the same textbox entry (they have to be the same thing) We want to add two product features to the product name, but this will make the H1 longer and diluted. Let me give you a fictional example, A category page for cross-trainer shoes would have products in it. Below each product it says things like "Nike Sports One Shoes" and "Adidas Action Series Shoes". We want to make it "Nike Sports Shoes size 7 through 12 for running and walking" and "Adidas Action Series Shoes size 5 through 10 for running, walking, and hiking". The reason for the change is that we want users to know about size and one more important feature before they visit the product page in our case to save them time. But this changes the H1 on the product page (a pre-made cart problem) from "Adidas Action Series Shoes" which is the direct search term to "Adidas Action Series Shoes size 5 through 10 for running, walking, and hiking" which is not a direct search term. This dilutes the keyword in the H1 but will save users time. We will put a tag inside the H1 just so you know, so that we can bold the name of the product to still be seen clearly, I hope that's not an HTML SEO problem. **What do you think, for users with diluted SEO or better SEO in this case? Our product pages are our most important pages in this industry. Thanks**
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Adding Nofollow tag
To stop getting our sites particular page in search engine we use "nofollow" tag. But the code is inside <a>tag and i didn't have that tag in my page. What would i do? how do i insert it in my page and where?</a>
Web Design | | FhyzicsBCPL0 -
Using H1 in a carousel
Hi, I have a homepage with a carousel rotator that has text in it. My question is what's the best practice in using H1 tags within the carousel. Will placing H1 tags in each be considered excessive H1 use and if so can this still cause SEO problems? Thank you
Web Design | | mirel0 -
Site Change / CMS Change
Hi Guys I have a very good client with whom we have been working with for over 2 years. When we 1st arrived, their website was built in Wordpress. During our SEO, the dleted the site and changed it to Drupal over night. Youc an imagin i went balistic and its been a horrid year in getting all the rrors down and redirects etc. Finally done I have just been informed that they will be deleting the website from Drupal to Joomla again! This is crazy as we have finally fix all the rrors and are driving quality traffic to the site. Now its back to square one... What do i do? ps the change from Drupal to Joomla is due to MYSQL issues
Web Design | | stefanok0 -
SEO Considerations for a Platform Change
We are getting ready to move our e-commerce platform from Zencart to Magento as the original Zencart framework is pretty dated. while I'm excited to move to a more modern platform, I'm terrified at the potential SEO risk involved with doing so given that all URLs will likely be different and we're considering updating many product listings. Almost all of the site's traffic is organic, so maintaining rankings is extremely important. I'd love any advice, but especially that related to: Best way to redirect all new URLs sitewide The prudence of heavily editing product listings at the same time of redirecting the URL (i.e. updating product descriptions) Site structure: Should I strive to keep the new site link structure as similar to the old as possible? Resources or guides on transitioning a site from a SEO perspective Other major facets I'm missing I appreciate any help or sights you can offer! Thank you....
Web Design | | AndrewY0 -
H1 Tag, necessary or not? Hidden or not?
Our new site design utilizes H1 tags on all pages except the home page. We couldn't find a way to work it into the design. That being said, what's the opinion on necessity? Do we need an H1? If we do the image replacement thing, will that be better for SEO than none at all? Our old site had one and once we changed it to the term we wanted to optimize for we made the top 10 in less than 60 days. We don't want to lose that placement. Thoughts? You input is very much appreciated.
Web Design | | BMDM0