Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google crawling different content--ever ok?
-
Here are a couple of scenarios I'm encountering where Google will crawl different content than my users on initial visit to the site--and which I think should be ok. Of course, it is normally NOT ok, I'm here to find out if Google is flexible enough to allow these situations:
1. My mobile friendly site has users select a city, and then it displays the location options div which includes an explanation for why they may want to have the program use their gps location. The user must choose the gps, the entire city, or he can enter a zip code, or choose a suburb of the city, which then goes to the link chosen. OTOH it is programmed so that if it is a Google bot it doesn't get just a meaningless 'choose further' page, but rather the crawler sees the page of results for the entire city (as you would expect from the url), So basically the program defaults for the entire city results for google bot, but for for the user it first gives him the initial ability to choose gps.
2. A user comes to mysite.com/gps-loc/city/results The site, seeing the literal words 'gps-loc' in the url goes out and fetches the gps for his location and returns results dependent on his location. If Googlebot comes to that url then there is no way the program will return the same results because the program wouldn't be able to get the same long latitude as that user.
So, what do you think? Are these scenarios a concern for getting penalized by Google?
Thanks, Ted
-
Thanks Cyrus. Very good points!
-
Thanks Sheena. In the second scenario good point--they are generated via user POST so in theory Google should never see them or index them, but since they can be shared Google ends up finding them, so I do need to make sure Google doesn't index them if possible.
-
This is not the definition of cloaking and I wouldn't worry too much about any penalty.
That said, anytime you redirect googlebot to a different experience than users it's a situation you want to be very careful with, and in most situations avoid. Often this is solved by serving different experiences via javascript. Even though Google is pretty darn good at parsing javascript, they will often interpret the default version of a page as if the javascript is turned off.
Regardless, I'd keep an eye on search results, Google Webmaster Tools, cached versions of your site and make ample use of "Fetch and Render" in GWT to ensure Google interprets your site they way you think it should.
-
I do not have experience with any site using this type of selector, but theoretically you should not encounter any problems as you're showing different content with the intent of improving the experience, not to deceive. If Google handles this like an ip-redirect, then you should be fine.
In scenario 2, however, I'm wondering if you even want Google to index these URLs - since it sounds like these URLs will be dynamically generated & might end up being duplicates of other pages on the site (similar to internal search pages). Something to watch out for!
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
-
Content Below the Fold
Hi I wondered what the view is on content below the fold? We have the H1, product listings & then some written content under the products - will Google just ignore this? I can't hide it under a tab or put a lot of content above products - so I'm not sure what the other option is? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Google Adsbot crawling order confirmation pages?
Hi, We have had roughly 1000+ requests per 24 hours from Google-adsbot to our confirmation pages. This generates an error as the confirmation page cannot be viewed after closing or by anyone who didn't complete the order. How is google-adsbot finding pages to crawl that are not linked to anywhere on the site, in the sitemap or linked to anywhere else? Is there any harm in a google crawler receiving a higher percentage of errors - even though the pages are not supposed to be requested. Is there anything we can do to prevent the errors for the benefit of our network team and what are the possible risks of any measures we can take? This bot seems to be for evaluating the quality of landing pages used in for Adwords so why is it trying to access confirmation pages when they have not been set for any of our adverts? We included "Disallow: /confirmation" in the robots.txt but it has continued to request these pages, generating a 403 page and an error in the log files so it seems Adsbot doesn't follow robots.txt. Thanks in advance for any help, Sam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoeuroflorist0 -
Does collapsing content impact Google SEO signals?
Recently I have been promoting custom long form content development for major brand clients. For UX reasons we collapse the content so only 2-3 sentences of the first paragraph are visible. However there is a "read more" link that expands the entire content piece.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
I have believed that the searchbots would have no problem crawling, indexing and applying a positive SEO signal for this content. However I'm starting to wonder. Is there any evidence that the Google search algorithm could possible discount or even ignore collapsed content?1 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
If a website Uses <select>to dropdown some choices, will Google see every option as Content Or Hyperlink?</select>
If a website Uses <select> to dropdown some choices, will Google see every option as Content Or Hyperlink?</select>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox0 -
Does Google bot read embedded content?
Is embedded content "really" on my page? There are many addons nowadays that are used by embedded code and they bring the texts after the page is loaded. For example - embedded surveys. Are these read by the Google bot or do they in fact act like iframes and are not physically on my page? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Could you use a robots.txt file to disalow a duplicate content page from being crawled?
A website has duplicate content pages to make it easier for users to find the information from a couple spots in the site navigation. Site owner would like to keep it this way without hurting SEO. I've thought of using the robots.txt file to disallow search engines from crawling one of the pages. Would you think this is a workable/acceptable solution?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gregelwell0 -
How to prevent Google from crawling our product filter?
Hi All, We have a crawler problem on one of our sites www.sneakerskoopjeonline.nl. On this site, visitors can specify criteria to filter available products. These filters are passed as http/get arguments. The number of possible filter urls is virtually limitless. In order to prevent duplicate content, or an insane amount of pages in the search indices, our software automatically adds noindex, nofollow and noarchive directives to these filter result pages. However, we’re unable to explain to crawlers (Google in particular) to ignore these urls. We’ve already changed the on page filter html to javascript, hoping this would cause the crawler to ignore it. However, it seems that Googlebot executes the javascript and crawls the generated urls anyway. What can we do to prevent Google from crawling all the filter options? Thanks in advance for the help. Kind regards, Gerwin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | footsteps0