Content available only on log-in/ sign up - how to optimise?
-
Hi Mozzers.
I'm working on a dev brief for a site with no search visibility at all. You have to log in (well, sign up) to the site (via Facebook) to get any content. Usability issues of this aside, I am wondering what are the possible solutions there are to getting content indexed.
I feel that there are two options:
1. Pinterest-style: this gives the user some visibility of the content on the site before presenting you with a log in overlay. I assume this also allows search engines to cache the content and follow the links.
2. Duplicate HTTP and HTTPS sites. I'm not sure if this is possible in terms of falling foul of the "showing one thing to search engines and another thing to users" guidelines. In my mind, you would block robots from the HTTPS site (and show it to the users where log in etc is required) but URLs would canonicalise to the HTTP version of the page, which you wouldn't present to the users, but would show to the search engines. The actual content on the pages would be the same.
I wonder if anyone knows any example of large(ish) websites which does this well, or any options I haven't considered here.
Many thanks.
-
Thanks Justin and Bruce,
I think I will try and push for the "limited view until signed in" solution. The HTTP/ HTTPS one just feels a bit too much like a dirty hack that will end up hurting in some way, at some point!
Thanks for your responses.
-
Could you model your approach after other subscription sites? Take, for example, the online version of the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/home-page. They present enough content in preview mode to be relevant to both users and Google. You know from the blurb what the story is basically about.
Once someone logs in, they get the rest of the content. But I don't think they get a separate URL.
I wouldn't do the duplicate HTTP/HTTPS approach. In the future, you may want the whole site to be HTTPS, so you'd have to face this issue again.
-
Hi Pascale
If the content is visible to the "not signed in end user" then it is visible to google. If it is not, it is not visible to Google.
I might have this wrong, but it would appear that you have a pinterest style site and that you want further content only be visible when the user is logged in? This then would be a site settings and not crawl issue. This is a trgger on the website server to require the guest to log in after XYZ. The whole site is opened to crawl but you set these parameters for the guest user in your sites back office
I think it is a case of either or, not both
Bruce
edit typo
-
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for your response. I agree - that the whole point of login is to to stop unwanted visitors seeing private content. For the most part.
This is not a log in in that same way - it's more of a "sign up" so like Pinterest or DueDil - you have to sign up in order to view the content.
I hope that makes more sense and I will modify the title (if I can) to make it clearer.
Thanks
-
If the content is for Logged in Users, why would you want it crawled?
Google crawls sites open to the public, therefore if the site is behind a login, then google will not crawl it. If google crawls it, then the content will show up in search results, hence making the login process redundant.
If you want to offer subscription content, then this is a marketing issue, not a crawl issue. You will need to have open content available that the viewing will perhaps then make a call whether to subscribe to your site or not.
Remember login is a cloaking devise, designed to stop unwanted visitors viewing the content, hence why google will view this in the same way.
Hope that helps
Bruce
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
-
ViewState and Duplicate Content
Our site keeps getting duplicated content flagged as an issue... however, the pages being grouped together have very little in common on-page. One area which does seem to recur across them is the ViewState. There's a minimum of 150 lines across the ones we've investigated. Could this be causing the reports?
Technical SEO | | RobLev0 -
What about Panoramic content ?
Hello everyone ,, We have a website include a panoramic images for many pages this panorama is really unique and we did a hard work to collect it , we thought that will be very useful for our target audience !! We have tried to search about how to make a panoramic content working and support the SEO , Unfortunately NO result and NO information yet, _Could you help us in that filed _ _Thanks _
Technical SEO | | Visual-ex0 -
Premium Content
Hey Guys I woking on a site that publishes hundreds of new content a day and part of the content is only available for users for 30 days. After 30 days the content is only accessible to premium users.
Technical SEO | | Mr.bfz
After 30 days, the page removes the content and replaces it with a log in/ sign up option. The same URL is kept for each page and the title of the article.
I have 2 concerns about this method. Is it healthy for the site to be removing tons of content of live pages and replace with a log in options Should I worry about Panda for creating tons of pages with unique URL but very similar source /content - the log in module and the text explaining that it is only available to premium users. The site is pretty big so google has some tolerance of things we can get away with it. Should I add a noindex attribute for those pages after 30 days? Even though it can takes months until google actually removes from the index. Is there a proper way for performing this type of feature in sites with a log in option after a period of time (first click free is not an option) Thanks Guys and I appreciate any help!0 -
Is this duplicate content when there is a link back to the original content?
Hello, My question is: Is it duplicate content when there is a link back to the original content? For example, here is the original page: http://www.saugstrup.org/en-ny-content-marketing-case-infografik/. But that same content can be found here: http://www.kommunikationsforum.dk/anders-saugstrup/blog/en-ny-content-marketing-case-til-dig, but there is a link back to the original content. Is it still duplicate content? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | JoLindahl912 -
Wordpress tags and duplicate content?
I've seen a few other Q&A posts on this but I haven't found a complete answer. I read somewhere a while ago that you can use as many tags as you would like. I found that I rank for each tag I used. For example, I could rank for best night clubs in san antonio, good best night clubs in san antonio, great best night clubs in san antonio, top best night clubs in san antonio, etc. However, I now see that I'm creating a ton of duplicate content. Is there any way to set a canonical tag on the tag pages to link back to the original post so that I still keep my rankings? Would future tags be ignored if I did this?
Technical SEO | | howlusa0 -
How do I Address Low Quality/Duplicate Content Issue for a Job portal?
Hi, I want to optimize my job portal for maximum search traffic. Problems Duplicate content- The portal takes jobs from other portals/blogs and posts on our site. Sometimes employers provide the same job posting to multiple portals and we are not allowed to change it resulting in duplicate content Empty Content Pages- We have a lot of pages which can be reached via filtering for multiple options. Like IT jobs in New York. If there are no IT jobs posted in New York, then it's a blank page with little or no content Repeated Content- When we have job postings, we have about the company information on each job listing page. If a company has 1000 jobs listed with us, that means 1000 pages have the exact same about the company wording Solutions Implemented Rel=prev and next. We have implemented this for pagination. We also have self referencing canonical tags on each page. Even if they are filtered with additional parameters, our system strips of the parameters and shows the correct URL all the time for both rel=prev and next as well as self canonical tags For duplicate content- Due to the volume of the job listings that come each day, it's impossible to create unique content for each. We try to make the initial paragraph (at least 130 characters) unique. However, we use a template system for each jobs. So a similar pattern can be detected after even 10 or 15 jobs. Sometimes we also take the wordy job descriptions and convert them into bullet points. If bullet points already available, we take only a few bullet points and try to re-shuffle them at times Can anyone provide me additional pointers to improve my site in terms of on-page SEO/technical SEO? Any help would be much appreciated. We are also thinking of no-indexing or deleting old jobs once they cross X number of days. Do you think this would be a smart strategy? Should I No-index empty listing pages as well? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | jombay3 -
Block /tag/ or not?
I've asked this question in another area but now i want to ask it as a bigger question. Do we block /tag/ with robots.txt or not. Here's why I ask: My wordpress site does not block /tag/ and I have many /tag/ results in the top 10 results of Google. Have for months. The question is, does Google see /tag/ on WordPress as duplicate content? SEOMoz says it's duplicate content but it's a tag. It's not really content per say. I'm all for optimizing my site but Google is not penalizing me for /tag/ results. I don't want to block /tag/ if Google is not seeing it as duplicate content for only one reason and that's because I have many results in the top 10 on G. So, can someone who knows more about this weigh in on the subject for I really would like a accurate answer. Thanks in advance...
Technical SEO | | MyAllenMedia0 -
Duplicate Content For Trailing Slashes?
I have several website in campaigns and I consistently get flagged for duplicate content and duplicate page titles from the domain and the domain/ versions of the sites even though they are properly redirected. How can I fix this?
Technical SEO | | RyanKelly0