Scrolling Text Old School SEO and hidden index page
-
We have taken over a site and now find our self looking at the homepage of the site which has hidden scrolling text.
A old school way of adding text without leaving loads of paragraphs. I have also removed all links to the index.htm page but somewhere visitors are still coming to this page in there droves.
I am considering using a canonical url code but I would rather nip it in the bud.
Would love some feedback from some other experts here is the site -
You never stop learning in seo and maybe we can all learn from this example.
Thanks
-
This is more commentary for your next step, after you have this question answered.
The links at the bottom right of the page seem more for search engines than users. As a user, I expected to be taken to a page about that particular topic, not have a paragraph or two display. My gut is telling me that some of the work that was done (in not the best way) for SEO was at the expense of usability. You might look at installing Crazyegg or a similar tracking software that looks where users click on the page, even if they're not clicking on a link. In addition to making the SEO right on the site, you'll want to look at the user experience and conversions.
-
Good to hear. Don't forget to set up the 301 Redirect to eventually flush out lingering entries in search engines though
-
found the offending link good spot Alan.
-
Also check opensiteexplorer.org for links to the index.htm version - I see 7 links coming from your blog - feed and pages
-
been looking into it and the index page is being shown in Google analytics as receiving a good few thousand visitors per month. So as a result I am going to check the adwords accounts also.
-
Garry
Don't leave it to the canonical process alone. Definitely set up a 301 redirect. This is the only way to ensure the best chance that any search engine that currently has the index.htm version in it will eventually clear that out.
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 and Indexing via a Document Reader
My questions are in regards to Google being able to index PDF's and Images that are viewed from a document reader. The website offers visitors that login to view a variety of documents including PDFs and images. Will Google be able to find and index these documents so they can show up in search results? Will the PDFs show up in search results and will the images show up in search results? Will Google be able to find and index these documents so they can show up in search results? Will the PDFs show up in search results and will the images show up in search results? Will the PDFs show up in search results and will the images show up in search results? How does the document reader affect the SEO of the website? How does the login affect the SEO of the website? Thank you, Joey
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JoeyGedgaud0 -
Should we 301 redirect old events pages on a website?
We have a client that has an events category section that is filled to the brim with past events webpages. Another issue is that these old events webpages all contain duplicate meta description tags, so we are concerned that Google might be penalizing our client's website for this issue. Our client does not want to create specialized meta description tags for these old events pages. Would it be a good idea to 301 redirect these old events landing pages to the main events category page to pass off link equity & remove the duplicate meta description tag issue? This seems drastic (we even noticed that searchmarketingexpo.com is keeping their old events pages). However it seems like these old events webpages offer little value to our website visitors. Any feedback would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Incorrect cached page indexing in Google while correct page indexes intermittently
Hi, we are a South African insurance company. We have a page http://www.miway.co.za/midrivestyle which has a 301 redirect to http://www.miway.co.za/car-insurance. Problem is that the former page is ranking in the index rather than the latter. The latter page does index occasionally in the same position, but rarely. This is primarily for search phrases like "car insurance" and "car insurance quotes". The ranking was knocked down the index with Penquin 2.0. It was not ranking at all but we have managed to recover to 12/13. This abnormally has only been occurring since the recovery. The correct page does index for other search terms like "insurance for car". Your help would be appreciated, thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | miway0 -
How can you indexed pages or content on pages that are behind a pay wall or subscription login.
I have a client that has a boat of awesome content they provide to their client that's behind a pay wall ( ie: paid subscribers can only access ) Any suggestions mozzers? How do I get those pages index? Without completely giving away the contents in the front end.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BizDetox0 -
To index or not to index search pages - (Panda related)
Hi Mozzers I have a WordPress site with Relevanssi the search engine plugin, free version. Questions: Should I let Google index my site's SERPS? I am scared the page quality is to thin, and then Panda bear will get angry. This plugin (or my previous search engine plugin) created many of these "no-results" uris: /?s=no-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Akids+wall&cat=no-results&pg=6 I have added a robots.txt rule to disallow these pages and did a GWT URL removal request. But links to these pages are still being displayed in Google's SERPS under "repeat the search with the omitted results included" results. So will this affect me negatively or are these results harmless? What exactly is an omitted result? As I understand it is that Google found a link to a page they but can't display it because I block GoogleBot. Thanx in advance guys.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClassifiedsKing0 -
How to Make My Membership Pages More SEO Friendly
I'm working on a website that has multiple member pages. They are generated generically by the cms. Think of this website as a convention visitors bureau. Is it possible or is there a way that I can make the individual member pages more seo friendly. Other than the url structure, do anyway have any advice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TSpike10 -
Should I prevent Google from indexing blog tag and category pages?
I am working on a website that has a regularly updated Wordpress blog and am unsure whether or not the category and tag pages should be indexable. The blog posts are often outranked by the tag and category pages and they are ultimately leaving me with a duplicate content issue. With this in mind, I assumed that the best thing to do would be to remove the tag and category pages from the index, but after speaking to someone else about the issue, I am no longer sure. I have tried researching online, but there isn't anything that provided any further information. Please can anyone with any experience of dealing with issues like this or with any knowledge of the topic help me to resolve this annoying issue. Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulRogers0 -
RSS feeds- What are the secrets to getting them, and the links inside then, indexed and counted for SEO purposes?
RSS feeds, at least on paper, should be a great way to build backlinks and boost rankings. They are also very seductive from a link-builder's point of view- free, easy to create, allows you to specifiy anchor text, etc. There are even several SEO articles, anda few products, extolling the virtues of RSS for SEO puposes. However, I hear anecdotedly that they are extremely ineffective in getting their internal links indexed. And my success rate has been abysmal- perhaps 15% have ever been indexed,and so far, I havenever seem Google show an RSS feed as a source for a backlink. I have even thrown some token backlinks against RSS feeds to see if that helped in getting them indexed, but even that has a very low success rate. I recently read a blog post saying that Google "hates aRSS feeds" and "rarely spiders perhaps the first link or two." Yet there are many SEO advocates who claim that RSS feeds are a great untapped resource for SEO. I am rather befuddled. Has anyone "crackedthe code" onhow to get them,and the links that they contain, indexed and helping rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tclendaniel0