Would using javascript onclick functions to override href target be ok?
-
Hi all,
I am currently working on a new search facility for me ecommerce site... it has very quickly dawned on me that this new facility is far better than my standard product pages - from a user point of view - i.e lots of product attributes for customers to find what they need faster, ability to compare products etc... All in all just better. BUT NO SEO VALUE!!!
i want to use this search facility instead of my category/product pages... however as they are search pages i have "robots noindex them" and dont think its wise to change that...
I have spoken to the developers of this software and they suggested i could use some javascript in the navigation to change the onlclick function to take the user to the search equivelant of the page...
They said this way my normal pages are the ones that are still indexed by google etc, but the user has the benefit of using the improved search pages...
This sounds perfect, however it also sounds a little deceptive... and i know google has loads of rules about these kinds of things, the last thing i want is to get any kind of penalty or any negative reaction from an SEO point of view... I am only considering this as it will improve the user experience on my website...
Can any one advise if this is OK, or a "no no"...
P.s for those wondering i use an "off the shelf" cart system and it would cost me an arm and a leg to have these features built into my actual category / product pages.
-
Hello James,
Why do these pages have "no SEO value"? Is it because they are AJAX pages or because you have them noindexed? Or both?
To answer your original question, using an on-click javascript event to send a user to a page other than the URL listed in the href tag is borderline. It goes beyond the risk level I would feel comfortable with on an eCommerce site, but a lot of affiliate sites do this. For instance, all of their links out to merchant sites may go through a directory called /outlink/ so the href tag might look like .../outlink/link1234 and appear to send the user to another page on their domain, when actually the user gets redirected to the merchant's (e.g. Amazon.com, Best Buy...) website. Sometimes the user is redirected from the /outlink/... URL and sometimes they never even get that far because the javascript sends them to the merchant's URL first.
It is not cloaking unless you are specifically treating Google differently. If Google doesn't understand your site that is their problem. If you have code that essentially says "IF Google, THEN do this. ELSE do that" it is your problem because you are cloaking. Make sense? There is a very distinct line there.
The bottom line is if you want to show users a certain page then you should be showing that page to Google as well. If the problem is the content on that page doesn't appear for Google (e.g. AJAX) then you should look into optimizing that type of content to the best of your ability. For example, look into the use of hashbangs (#!) as in:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/getting-started
-
1. Google understands simple JS that is inline with your HTML. So Google understands that
is a link to domain.com. You can obfuscate this further and Google might not understand it. I've not seen Google try to parse or execute JS but that doesn't mean they can't or won't in the future.3. Google is very unlikely to spider AJAX. Many AJAX pages don't return any user readable content (most of mine return things like JSON, which is not for end user consumption) and , as such, are beyond the scope of indexation. Again, as in #2, you might want this content to be shown elsewhere if you want it indexed. https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/
-
ok, i am not keen on this approach, the developers have offered an alternative... but again, i'm not sure about it, they have said they can use ajax to force their search results / navigation over my current navigation / products on my category / product pages...
this gets rid of having to use javascript to send to different url... but up above Alan mentions cloaking, which to my understanding is basically serving anything different for a search engine / person... and thats what this will do... it serves up a different navigation to people... and the products could be listed in a different order etc... search engines do not see the ajax...
Is this any better? or just as negative?
-
Are they identical, you say the search equivalent, I just wouldn't treat search engines any different
-
even thou the content is identical?
It is only the way that content can then be navigated that is different...
-
Well then, yes I would be concerned, you are serving up different content to users, that is cloaking.
-
Hi Alan,
i think i may have explained incorrectly - my search page does have the meta tag noindex,follow - it also has a canonical link back to the main search page (i.e search.html) so i do not think any of the search results will be indexed. So my concern is not duplicate content, this should not happen...
My concern is the fact i am using javascript to litterally divert customers from one page to another... its almost like the static pages are there only for the benefit of google... and thats concerning me...
-
Google can follow JavaScript links, unless you are very good at hiding them.
I would not worry too much about the duplicate content, don't expect the duplicates to rank, but your not likely to be penalized for them. you can use a canonical tag to point all search results back to the one page.
I would not no index any pages, any links pointed to a no-index page are pouring their link juice away. if you want to no index a page use the meta tag no-index,follow, this way the search engine will follow the links and flow back out to your site
read about page rank and how link juice flows
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank
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
-
SEO implications when changing the business function however using the same domain name
Hi Everyone, Request some advice on the following situation please: If a client wishes to start a new business (advertising agency) using a domain name that they previously used for a completely different business function (selling hats & t-shirts) Is there anything you can do to "clean" the domain so that the previous indexing of the domain does not effect the new business and give the client a fresh start. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Regards and thanks.
Technical SEO | | Republica0 -
Use hreflang language or hreflang language & country code
Hi, our website has 7 languages, but only one English version (site.com/en). When I add a hreflang tag below, is it enough to just target English search queries no matter where they come from by using only the language code, or should I specify all countries (UK, USA, Ireland, Australia, NZ, ...) by using separate hreflangs? Same for Portuguese, Dutch & French... Should I just add the language tags or specify all countries? Like I said, we don't have localized versions for those countries, with specific content targeting those countries.
Technical SEO | | jorisbrabants0 -
Using a Colo Load Balancer to serve content
So this is a little complicated (at least for me...) We have a client who is having us rebuild and optimize about 350 pages of their website in our CMS. However, the rest of the website will not be on our CMS. We wanted to build these pages on a sub-domain that is pointed to our IPs so it could remain on our CMS--which the client wants. However, they want the content on a sub-directory. This would be fine but they will not point the main domain to us and for whatever reason this becomes impossible per their Dev team. They have proposed using a Colo Load Balancer to deliver the content from our system (which will be on the sub domain) to their sub directory. This seems very sketchy to me. Possible duplicate content? Would this be a sort of URL masking? How would Google see this? Has anyone ever even heard of doing anything like this?
Technical SEO | | Vizergy0 -
Do other search engines use meta keywords
Just want to know even those Google states it doesn't use them is there any benefit from using them for the other search engines?
Technical SEO | | ReSEOlve0 -
The use of robots.txt
Could someone please confirm that if I do not want to block any pages from my URL, then I do not need a robots.txt file on my site? Thanks
Technical SEO | | ICON_Malta0 -
Should we use & or and in our url's?
Example: /Zambia/kasanka-&-bangweulu or /Zambia/kasanka-and-bangweulu which is the better url from the search engines point of view?
Technical SEO | | tribes0 -
Using a non-visible H1
I have a developer that wants to use style="text-indent:-9999px" to make the H1 non-visible to the user. Being the conservative person I am, I've never tried this before and worry that Search Engines may think this is a form of cloaking. Am I worrying about nothing? And apologies if it's already been covered here. I couldn't find it. Thanks in advance!!!!
Technical SEO | | elytical0 -
How to attach at text to image that other websites use from my website
I often have other websites link to my website. They will do this with an image that they pull off of my website. (actually my website continues to serve the image). These inbound links are great, but they don't have alt text. Is there a way for me to attach alt text to the images, or is this something the other website needs to code themselves?
Technical SEO | | EugeneF0