Can Dramatically Increasing Site Size Have Negative Effects?
-
I have a site with about 1000 pages. I'm planning to add about 30,000 pages to it. Can increasing the footprint by such an amount all of a sudden have any negative consequences for existing organic or hoped-for benefits from new pages?
Would the site draw any increased scrutiny from Google for doing this?
Any other considerations?
Thanks... Darcy
-
Hi Robert,
Good point. From a time cost to search benefit point of view, the initial set up is the big cost... getting the template right.
After that, if you're creating 3000 or 30,000 pages is really no extra time... just flowing in the data. So, with that in mind, wouldn't the site be better off search wise-with 10x the pages (30k vs 3k) to monetize the set-up cost over?
Also, having cut the list down already based on non-search criteria, I have no reliable way of knowing which of the 30,000 is better than the next search-wise. They're all kinda medium nichey with low volume and about the same estimated difficulty. So, no idea which page would do better than the next in search.
Also, I can't look at 30,000 pages or even 3000 of search data to make that cut. Know what I mean? So, the cut, if there were one, would be random.
Thanks... Darcy
-
Here's a question I often ask of our team: What are we spending our time on in terms of time cost vs. benefit? So, if putting in the 30K product pages is taking x amount of time, have you asked yourself - Why? Just to get clicks on some you don't have? Etc. So, if you were to take say the best 3000 and put the reviews, other content, etc. and when that was done then start on the next 3000 in the same way, would your result be improved? Would gaining PA on the ones you had truly optimized get you high enough that you can get more traffic to the site? Do you then keep improving at a rate that is augmenting where you are going?
So, instead of asking is this a good idea (and on the face it is), ask is this the best idea?
Hope it helps
-
Hi Dana & BigFish22,
Both good points... thanks!
Here's a little more detail... the site has been about a certain product area for a long time. I'm adding catalog pages for 30,000 different products.
The pages are geared to searches around the word "buy" plus the product name. The pages are different from each other in that the product name, manufacturer, pictures, picture tagging, title & description tags all use different product names and other information. So, the pages are different from each other, but out of the gate not amazingly different from the basic info available on other sites that sell these products... all manufacturer data flowing into a template.
My plan is to put up the catalog and then over time add reviews and other content to make the pages really different from other site's catalog paes that draw on substantially the same basic information.
What do you think? Thanks! Best... Darcy
-
Darcy,
I think Dana makes the best point possible and that is...is the content GOOD? Is it something people are looking for? etc.
To just add content is not helpful in my opinion. But, we have sites that we add 100's of pages a month to and it is all unique content around specific verticals. It is amazing to watch what happens as you add better and better content and more of it to a site.Hope this helps. A question would be: Over what period and is the content already created?
-
Hi Darcy,
I don't think anyone here can give you a concrete answer to your question. If they do, be suspicious. If you add 30,000 pages of totally unique content....then I think you will skyrocket to the top of organic listings. If your content is substantially similar, or just copies of content from other places, then, it's not really going to help you at all. It might hurt you. It might not.
I;m not sure that's the answer you were looking for but I hope it's helpful!
Dana
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
-
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amarieyoussef0 -
Can anyone help me diagnose an indexing/sitemap issue on a large e-commerce site?
Hey guys. Wondering if someone can help diagnose a problem for me. Here's our site: https://www.flagandbanner.com/ We have a fairly large e-commerce site--roughly 23,000 urls according to crawls using both Moz and Screaming Frog. I have created an XML sitemap (using SF) and uploading to Webmaster Tools. WMT is only showing about 2,500 urls indexed. Further, WMT is showing that Google is indexing only about 1/2 (approx. 11,000) of the urls. Finally (to add even more confusion), when doing a site search on Google (site:) it's only showing about 5,400 urls found. The numbers are all over the place! Here's the robots.txt file: User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webrocket
Allow: /
Disallow: /aspnet_client/
Disallow: /httperrors/
Disallow: /HTTPErrors/
Disallow: /temp/
Disallow: /test/ Disallow: /i_i_email_friend_request
Disallow: /i_i_narrow_your_search
Disallow: /shopping_cart
Disallow: /add_product_to_favorites
Disallow: /email_friend_request
Disallow: /searchformaction
Disallow: /search_keyword
Disallow: /page=
Disallow: /hid=
Disallow: /fab/* Sitemap: https://www.flagandbanner.com/images/sitemap.xml Anyone have any thoughts as to what our problems are?? Mike0 -
International Site Migration
Hi guys, In the process of launching internationally ecommerce site (Magento CMS) for two different countries (Australia and US). Then later on expand to other countries like the UK, Canada, etc. The plan is for each country will have its own sub-folder e.g. www.domain.com/us, www.domain.com.au/au, www.domain.com.au/uk A lot of the content between these English based countries are the same. E.g. same product descriptions.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
So in order to prevent duplication, from what I’ve read we will need to add Hreflang tags to every single page on the site? So for: Australian pages: United States pages: Just wanted to make sure this is the correct strategy (will hreflang prevent duplicate content issues?) and anything else i should be considering? Thankyou, Chris0 -
Is my site being penalized?
I've gone through all the points on https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015 but the site only ranks for its brand name after months. The website is not ranking in the top 100 for any main keywords (2,3,4 word phrases), only for a handful of very long phrases (4+). All of the content is unique, all pages are indexed, the website is fast and doesn't contain any crawl errors and there are a couple of links pointing to it. There is a sitewide follow link in the footer pointing to another domain, its parent company and vice-versa. This is not done for any SEO reasons but the companies are related and also the products are supplementary of each other. Could this be an issue? Or is my site being penalized by something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Robbern0 -
Why are these sites outranking me?
I am trying to rank for the phrase "a link between worlds walkthrough" I am on page 1 but there are several results that just outranks me and I cannot see any reason that they would be doing so. My site is hiddentriforce.com/a-link-between-worlds/walkthrough/ For that page I have 5 linking domains, varied anchor text that spans from things like "here" to a variety of related phrases. All of the links come from really good sites My page has 1400 likes, 90 shares, and about 20 each in tweets and +'s DA of 44 PA of 37 The 4 and 5 ranked sites both have WAY less social interactions, lower PA and DA, less links, etc Yet they outrank me why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Hit by Penguin, Can I move the content from the old site to a new domain and start again with the same content which is high quality
I need some advice please. My website got the unnatural links detected message and was hit by penguin.. hard. Can I move the content from the current domain to a new domain and start again or does the content need to be redone also. I will obviously turn of the old domain once its moved. The other option is to try and identify the bad links and change my anchor profile which is a hit and miss task in my opinion. Would it not be easier just to identify the good links pointing to the old domain and get those changed to point to the new domain with better anchors. thanks Warren
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | warren0071 -
Site dancing
Hi guys I have a site which is dancing. I mean one day is on position 20 , if I put more backlinks is falling, after rising again,, I dont know what is going on. The site is 2 years old, pr 2, authority 35. Why this is happening? Usually when he appears again is ranking higher, but today he disappear totally from rankings. Maybe return tomorrow? But anyway why is dancing? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nyanainc0 -
Load balanced Site
Our client ecommerce site load from 3 different servers using load balancing. abc.com : IP: 222.222.222 Abc.com: IP: 111.111.111 For testing purpose 111.111.111 also point to beta.abc.com Now google crawling site beta.abc.com If we block beta.abc.com using robots.txt it will block google bot also , since beta.abc.com is really abc.com I know its confusing but I been trying to figure out. Ofcourse I can ask my dev to remove beta.abc.com make a seperate code and block it using .htaccess
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tpt.com0