How do we ensure our new dynamic site gets indexed?

[Hutch_e]

Just wondering if you can point me in the right direction. We're building a 'dynamically generated' website, so basically, pages don’t technically exist until the visitor types in the URL (or clicks an on page link), the pages are then created on the fly for the visitor.

The major concern I’ve got is that Google won’t be able to index the site, as the pages don't exist until they're 'visited', and to top it off, they're rendered in JSPX, which makes things tricky to ensure the bots can view the content

We’re going to build/submit a sitemap.xml to signpost the site for Googlebot but are there any other options/resources/best practices Mozzers could recommend for ensuring our new dynamic website gets indexed?

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Ryan,

Mirroring what Alan said, if the links are html text links - and they should be - then you will reduce your crawling problem with Google.

If you must use javascript links, make sure to duplicate them using

<noscript>tags so that Google will follow them.</p> <p><a href="http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355">http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355</a></p> <p>But be careful, Google doesn't treat <noscript> links like regular html links. At best, it's a poor alternative.</p> <p>Google derives so many signals from HTML links (anchor text, page rank, context, etc) that it's almost essential for a search engine friendly site to include them.</p> <p>The Beginners Guide to SEO has a relevant chapter on the basics of Search Engine Friendly Design and Development:</p> <p><a href="http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development">http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development</a></p> <p>Best of luck!</p></noscript>

[Hutch_e]

Definitely want to get it right before launch. It's not going anywhere until it is absolutely ready!

[samfiora]

The project this reminds me of took six months to complete and the 301's alone were a full time job.

Get it right the first time... you do not want to restructure like this on a large dynamic site.

I must say the project worked out but I got all my grey hair the day we threw the switch...

[samfiora]

When I say its costly to rewrite 200,000+ URLS I mean it.  Correcting mistakes here can cost big dollars.

In this case it wascostly to the tune of $60,000+ in costs and loss, however the bottle of bubbly at the end of the six month project was tasty.

Point being is to do it right the first time.

As I said before your best bet is documentation.  Large dynamic sites generate large dynamic problems very quickly if not watched closely.

[Hutch_e]

Thank you Khem, very helpful replies.

[Khem_Raj7]

One more thing, I missed. Internal linking, make sure each of the page is linked with some text link. But avoid over linking. don't try to link all the pages from home page. Generally we links all the categories, pages from footer or site-wide links

[Khem_Raj7]

Okay, lets do it step by step.

First, if it's a product website, create a separate feed for products and submit the sitemap with Google.

if not, that may you would have separate news/articles/videos sections, create separate xml sitemap for each section and submit with Google

If not, make sure to have only search engine friendly URLs, who says rewriting 200,000+ pages is costly, compare this cost with the business you'll loose when all your products would be listed in Google. So, make sure to rewrite all the dynamic URLs, if you feel that Google might face problem in crawling your website's URLs

Second, study webmaster tool's data very carefully for warnings, errors, so that you can figure out the issues which Google might have been facing while visits your websites.

Avoid duplicate entries of products, generally we don't pay attention to these things, and show same products on different pages in different categories. Google will filter all those duplicate pages, and can even penalize your website because of the duplicate content issue.

Third, keep promoting, but avoid grey/black hat techniques, there is no shortcut to the success. you'll have to spend time and money.

[Hutch_e]

It's definitely something we're taking a very close look at. Another thing not mentioned is the use of canonical tags to head off duplicate content issues, which I'll be ensuring is implemented.

My next mugshot might have significantly grayer hair after this is all done...

[Hutch_e]

Thanks very much for the replies.

I'll ensure proper cross linking from navigation, on pages themselves and submit a full XML sitemap, along with the social media options suggested. My other concern is that the content itself won't be visible to Googlebot due to the site being largely javascript driven, but that's something I'm working with the developers to resolve.

[samfiora]

As you can tell from the response above indexation is not what you should be worried about.

Dynamic content is not fool proof.  The mistakes are costly and you never want to be involved rewriting 200,000+ pages of dynamic rats nest.

Sorting abilities can cause dynamic urls and duplicate content.

Structure changes or practice changes can cause crawl errors.  I looked at a report for a client early today that had 3000+ errors today compared to 20 last week.  This was all due to a request made by the owner to the developer.

When enough attention is not paid to this stuff it causes real issues.

The best advice I can offer is to make sure you have a best practices document that must be followed by all developers.

[X-com]

Make sure every page you would like to be crawled is linked to in any matter. You can create natural links to them, e.g. from your navigation or in text links, or you can put them in a sitemap.

You can also link to these pages from websites like facebook, twitter to have fast crawling.

Tell Google in your robots.txt that it can access your website and make sure non of the pages you would like to be indexed carry the noindex-value in the robots meta-tag.

Good luck!

[AlanMosley]

any link, but i should correct what i said, they will be crawled, not necessary indexwed

[Hutch_e]

Thanks for the reply Alan, do you mean links from the sitemap?

[AlanMosley]

If you have links to the pages they will be indexed, dynamic of static it does not matter