How authentic is a dynamic footer from bots' perspective?
-
I have a very meta level question. Well, I was working on dynamic footer for the website: http://www.askme.com/, you can check the same in the footer. Now, if you refresh this page and check the content, you'll be able to see a different combination of the links in every section. I'm calling it a dynamic footer here, as the values are absolutely dynamic in this case.
**Why are we doing this? **For every section in the footer, we have X number of links, but we can show only 25 links in each section. Here, the value of X can be greater than 25 as well (let's say X=50). So, I'm randomizing the list of entries I have for a section and then picking 25 elements from it i.e random 25 elements from the list of entries every time you're refreshing the page.
Benefits from SEO perspective? This will help me exposing all the URLs to bots (in multiple crawls) and will add page freshness element as well.
**What's the problem, if it is? **I'm wondering how bots will treat this as, at any time bot might see us showing different content to bots and something else to users. Will bot consider this as cloaking (a black hat technique)? Or, bots won't consider it as a black hat technique as I'm refreshing the data every single time, even if its bot who's hitting me consecutively twice to understand what I'm doing.
-
Thank you so much Sir Alan. I really appreciate your efforts for compiling this detailed response to my questions. Have noted down all the points along with how better I can handle them, will soon come up with a better fat footer.
-
Nitin
You're dealing with multiple considerations and multiple issues in this setup.
First, it's a matter of link distribution. When you link to x pages from page 1, this informs search engines "we think these are important destination pages". If you change those links every day, or on every refresh, and if crawlers also encounter those changes, it's going to strain that communication.
This is something that happens naturally on news sites - news changes on a regular basis. So it's not completely invalid and alien to search algorithms to see or deal with. And thus it's not likely their systems would consider this black hat.
The scale and frequency of the changes is more of a concern because of that constantly changing link value distribution issue.
Either X cities are really "top" cities, or they are not.
Next, that link value distribution is further weakened by the volume of links. 25 links per section, three sections - that's 75 links. Added to the links at the top of the page, the "scrolling" links in the main content area of the home page, and the actual "footer" links (black background) so it dilutes link equity even further. (Think "going too thin" with too many links).
On category pages it's "only" 50 links in two sub-footer sections. Yet the total number of links even on a category page is a concern.
And on category pages, all those links dilute the primary focus of any main category page. If a category page is "Cell Phone Accessories in Bangalore", then all of those links in the "Top Cities" section dilute the location. All the links in the "Trending Searches" section dilute the non-geo focus.
What we end up with here then is an attempt to "link to all the things". This is never a best practice strategy.
Best practice strategies require a refined experience across the board. Consistency of signals, combined with not over-straining link equity distribution, and combined with refined, non-diluted topical focus are the best path to the most success long-term.
So in the example of where I said initially that news sites change the actual links shown when new news comes along, the best news sites do that while not constantly changing the primary categories featured, and where the overwhelming majority of links on a single category page are not diluted with lots of links to other categories. Consistency is critical.
SO - where any one or a handful of these issues might themselves not be a critical flaw scale big problem, the cumulative negative impact just harms the site's ability to communicate a quality consistent message.
The combined problem here then needs to be recognized as exponentially more problematic because of the scale of what you are doing across the entire site.
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
-
Without prerender.io, is google able to render & index geographical dynamic content?
One section of our website is built as a single page application and serves dynamic content based on geographical location. Before I got here, we had used prerender.io so google can see the page, but now that prerender.io is gone, is google able to render & index geographical dynamic content? I'm assuming no. If no is the answer, what are some solutions other than converting everything to html (would be a huge overhaul)?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imjonny1231 -
Do the links from top websites' forums boost in-terms of backlinks?
If we get any backlinks from discussions/forums of top websites like wordpress and joomla forums; do they count as valid and authority improving backlinks? I mean about the dofollow links.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz1 -
'SEO Footers'
We have an internal debate going on right now about the use of a link list of SEO pages in the footer. My stance is that they serve no purpose to people (heatmaps consistently show near zero activity), therefore they shouldn't be used. I believe that if something on a website is user-facing, then it should also beneficial to a user - not solely there for bots. There are much better ways to get bots to those pages, and for those people who didn't enter through an SEO page, internal linking where appropriate will be much more effective at getting them there. However, I have some opposition to this theory and wanted to get some community feedback on the topic. Anyone have thoughts, experience, or data to share on this subject?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LoganRay1 -
Why isn't Moz recognizing meta description tags using SLIM?
Hey All, I keep getting reports from Moz that many of my pages are missing meta description tags. We use SLIM for our website, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had the same issue getting Moz to recognize that the meta descriptions exist. We have a default layout that we incorporate into every page on our site. In the head of that layout, we've included our meta description parameters: meta description ='#{current_page.data.description}' Then each page has its own description, which is recognized by the source code http://fast.customer.io/s/viewsourcelocalhost4567_20140519_154013_20140519_154149.png Any ideas why Moz still isn't recognizing that we have meta descriptions? -Nora, Customer.io
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sudonim0 -
Why website isn't showing on results?
Hello Moz! Just got a quick question - we have a clientcalled and for some reason they just aren't showing up in the search results. It's not a new domain and hasn't been penalised (or has reason for penalty). All the content is fresh and has no bad back links to the site. It is a new website and has been indexed by Google but for even for branded search terms, it just doesn't show up anywhere on page 1 (i think page 4). Any help or advise is great appreciated is it's doing my head in. We are using www.google.com.au. Kindest Regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kymodo0 -
Are multiple domains spammy if they're similar but different
A client currently has a domain of johnsmith.com (not actual site name, of course). I’m considering splitting this site into multiple domains, which will include brand name plus keyword, such as: Johnsmithlandclearing.com Johnsmithdirtwork.com Johnsmithdemolition.com Johnsmithtimercompany.com Johnsmithhydroseeding.com johnsmithtreeservice.com Each business is unique enough and will cross-link to the other. My questions are: 1) will Google consider cross-linking spammy? 2) what happens to johnsmith.com? Should it redirect to new site with the largest market share, or should it become an umbrella for all? 3) Any pitfalls foreseen? I've done a fair amount of due diligence and feel these separate domains are legit, but am paranoid that Google will not see it that way, or may change direction in the future.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SteveMauldin0 -
What's the right way to gain the benefits of an EMD but avoid cramming the title?
Hi Guys, Say I'm (completely hypothetically) building weddingvenuesnewyork.com and right now I'm organizing the tags for each page. What's the best layout so that I can optimize for "wedding venues new york" as much as possible without it becoming spammy. Right now I'm looking at something like "Wedding Venues New York: Wedding Receptions and Ceremony Venues" for the title.. To get other strong keywords in there too. Is there a better layout/structure?.. And is having the first words of the title on the homepage the same as the domain name going to strengthen the ranking for that term, or look spammy to Google and be a bad move? This is a new site being built
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | xcyte0 -
Are there any "legitimate" paid links in Google's eyes?
The news about paid link campaigns is so frequent, that I have to ask the question....does Google allow any paid links? Aside from SEO, paid links can have visibility value. Much like an exit sign on the highway, the paid link says "Get off here"
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bcmull0