Multiple urls for posting multiple classified ads
-
Want to optimize referral traffic while at same time keep search engines happy and the ads posted.
Have a client who advertises on several classified ad sites around the globe.
Which is better (post Panda), having multiple identical urls using canonicals to redirect juice to original url?
For example: www.bluewidgets.com is the original
Or, should the duplicate pages be directed to original using a 301?
Currently using duplicate urls.
Am currently not using "nofollow" tags on those pages.
-
So you are saying 301 redirects are better?
Would amount to 50 redirects (in that ball park).
Does not affect google ranking?
-
So you are saying 301 redirects are better?
Would amount to 50 redirects (in that ball park).
Does not affect google ranking?
-
Google Analytics allows you to setup what are called tracking URLs. They can be used when you "tag" your URLs with tracking code that allows for GA to translate which medium is generating what traffic.
http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1033867 This is a tool that Google offers to help you generate your URLs. There are also spreadsheets available online that allow you to create the URLs in Excel but they aren't always 100% accurate. What you are doing is ultimately creating parameters that allow for custom campaigns to be setup within Analytics. This allows you to monitor more than just the clicks, but allows you to generate custom reports that are more insightful and provide better data.
Once your URLs and Campaigns are created and running smoothly, you will be able to look at the data of the multi-channel funnels. This feature allows for attribution to be given to the digital and non-digital channels that don't always get the credit for the conversion. There is a lot of data can be pulled from these models and they really help to better allocate resources if needed.
I hope this all makes sense and Google actually did a very good job of explaining these resources on their analytics guide. I would take a look there as well to get a better understanding before diving right in.
-
The reason for so many duplicate urls is that classified ads limit the number of posting to one url from one classified account. To post multiple ads, therefore, you create multiple websites with different urls.
I appreciate you bearing with me. Making headway with classified ads vs. google seo are two different entities. And this is a area with scant information on it, as if classifieds are the black sheep of the family. But getting a 2:1 ads v. seo traffic ratio out of the experience.
Creating a couple of additional websites with different urls accomplishes the ability to reach a wider audience with classified ads. One goes where the traffic is.
But does using canonicals that way offend Google?
I have consciously done a u-turn on this account in terms of time and seen both seo and referral traffic increase in the past couple of months.
But thinking that by increasing SEO ranking = more traffic = revenue.
Adding twitter, quora, facebook since October has given the site a nice boost. However, Yahoo Answers did nothing.
It all comes down to do those canonicals get penalized with Google? Is my seo traffic being suppressed because of it?
-
Your offer is inviting. I do want to hear more about what traffic drivers are creating the most conversions on.
-
In my opinion no. The canonical is telling search engines that there are pages with similar content that do exist, but one of them is the one you want to be crawled for the information and content.
Best practices suggest that you only have one canonical per page, but I am unsure as to the penalties associated with having more.
I am still confused as to why you couldn't use tracking URLs to achieve your goals because it allows you to see which site is referring the traffic without having to create multiple URLs. Tracking URLs are different from analytics tracking that you have installed on your sites.
-
Goal is to post as many classified ads as possible, which takes multiple duplicate urls on different websites to be competitive, without those duplicate pages impacting the seo ranking on the original site.
Do not care about SEO ranking on those duplicate pages. Just using them to drive traffic via classified ads.
My goal is to have the same page but with multiple urls in order to post several classified ads daily without being penalized by Google.
Have Google Analytics tracking already in place.Using same tracking code for the duplicated pages on different sites as using on original site. I see the # of visitors coming to the site from those pages.
I have the increased referral traffic the customer wants.
I want to make sure I am not hurting my SEO traffic, that Google isn't penalizing me for the duplicate pages on other sites.
My seo traffic is increasing, due to intensive improvements to the content, keywords, etc.
But do those duplicate pages on different website urls using canonicals to the original page hurt my rankings?
-
Im with brooke on this one.
Still don't see the exact point of your approach?
If I had to choose between the 2 options you are giving I would go with the rel=canonical but it all depends on the true meaning of your assignment. That is not very clear in this case.
Jarno
-
David,
Something else you may want to try are tracking URLs. If you are utilizing Google Analytics, you can setup tracking URLs that allow you to know which website the clicks are coming from, but also allows you to point users to the same URL/content on the website.
There are a lot of templates out there that can help you to get started using them, but once you do, it makes it a lot easier to track what mediums are driving what traffic. If you want to get really spiffy, you can start tracking what traffic drivers are creating the most conversions and also start to utlize multi-channel funnels.
If you are interested I would be more than happy to help you get started.
Hope this helps!
-
Whats your overall goal . It was difficult to get that in the post.
Do you want the traffic to land on your site ?
If so then 301 redirect all url to the url you want ?
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
-
Changing site URL structure
Hey everybody, I'm looking for a bit of advice. A few weeks ago Google sent me an email saying all pages with any text input on them need to switch to https for those pages. This is no problem, I was slowly switching the site to https anyway using a 301 redirect. However, my site also has a language subfolder in the url, mysite.com/en/ mysite.com/ru/ etc. Due to poor work on my part the translations of the site haven't been updated in a long time and lots of the pages are in english even on the russian version etc. So I'm thinking of just removing this url structure and just having mysite.com My plan is to 301 all requests to https and remove the language subfolder in the url at the same time. So far the https switching hasn't changed my rankings. Am I more at risk of losing my rankings by doing this? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ruhol0 -
Tool to Generate All the URLs on a Domain
Hi all, I've been using xml-sitemaps.com for a while to generate a list of all the URLs that exist on a domain. However, this tool only works for websites with under 500 URLs on a domain. The paid tool doesn't offer what we are looking for either. I'm hoping someone can help with a recommendation. We're looking for a tool that can: Crawl, and list, all the indexed URLs on a domain, including .pdf and .doc files (ideally in a .xls or .txt file) Crawl multiple domains with unlimited URLs (we have 5 websites with 500+ URLs on them) Seems pretty simple, but we haven't been able to find something that isn't tailored toward management of a single domain or that can crawl a huge volume of content.
Technical SEO | | timfrick0 -
How to delete specific url?
I just ran drawl diagnostics and trying to delete pages such as "oops that page can't be found" or "404 (not found_ error response pages. Can anyone help?
Technical SEO | | sawedding0 -
Change in url structure - added category page
I have recently started an e-commerce website and have now changed the url structure and added another level to my category pages. So where it before was www.website.com/shirts it is now www.website.com/clothes/shirts. So I added the clothes category (just an example) before the shirt category and am now finding that the old url is still found in the search index and is still live on my site. How could this be? I use wordpress and simply change the urls in the backend. The products are still under www.website.com/product/blue-shirt-123 so they won't be affected but I suppose it now means I have duplicate category pages? So my question is: Should I 301 the the old category page (www.website.com/shirts)to the new url (www.website.com/clothes/shirts). And how can the old url still be live on my site? If this was a bit unclear, please let me know. Appreciate your replies!
Technical SEO | | bitte0 -
Category URL Duplicate Content
I've recently been hired as the web developer for a company with an existing web site. Their web architecture includes category names in product urls, and of course we have many products in multiple categories thus generating duplicate content. According to the SEOMoz Site Crawl, we have roughly 1600 pages of duplicate content, I expect primarily from this issue. This is out of roughly 3600 pages crawled. My questions are: 1. Fixing this for the long term will obviously mean restructuring the URLs for the site. Is this worthwhile and what will the ramifications be of performing such a move? 2. How can I determine the level and extent of the effects of this duplicated content? 3. Is it possible the best course of action is to do nothing? The site has many, many other issues, and I'm not sure how highly to prioritize this problem. In addition, the IT man is highly doubtful this is causing an SEO issue, and I'm going to need to be able to back up any action I request. I do feel I will need to strongly justify any possible risks this level of site change could cause. Thanks in advance, and please let me know if any more information is needed.
Technical SEO | | MagnetsUSA0 -
GWT, URL Parameters, and Magento
I'm getting into the URL parameters in Google Webmaster Tools and I was just wondering if anyone that uses Magento has used this functionality to make sure filter pages aren't being indexed. Basically, I know what the different parameters (manufacturer, price, etc.) are doing to the content - narrowing. I was just wondering what you choose after you tell Google what the parameter's function is. For narrowing, it gives the following options: Which URLs with this parameter should Googlebot crawl? <label for="cup-crawl-LET_GOOGLEBOT_DECIDE">Let Googlebot decide</label> (Default) <label for="cup-crawl-EVERY_URL">Every URL</label> (the page content changes for each value) <label style="color: #5e5e5e;" for="cup-crawl-ONLY_URLS_WITH_VALUE">Only URLs with value</label> ▼(may hide content from Googlebot) <label for="cup-crawl-NO_URLS">No URLs</label> I'm not sure which one I want. Something tells me probably "No URLs", as this content isn't something a user will see unless they filter the results (and, therefore, should not come through on a search to this page). However, the page content does change for each value.I want to make sure I don't exclude the wrong thing and end up with a bunch of pages disappearing from Google.Any help with this is greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Marketing.SCG0 -
Wordpress URL weirdness - why is google registering non-pretty URLS?
I've noticed in my stats that google is indexing some non-pretty URLs from my wordpress-based blog.
Technical SEO | | peterdbaron
For instance, this URL is appearing google search: http://www.admissionsquest.com/onboardingschools/index.php?p=439 It should be: http://www.admissionsquest.com/onboardingschools/2009/01/do-american-boarding-schools-face-growing-international-competition.html Last week I added the plugin Redirection in order to consolidate categories & tags. Any chance that this has something to do with it? Recs on how to solve this? Fyi - I've been using pretty URLS with wordpress from the very beginning and this is the first time that I've seen this issue. Thanks in advance for your help!0 -
URL Structure with deep Categories
Ladies n gents Which sort of URLs do you suggest for Webshops with a deep structure of categories: http://www.yourdomain.com/cat1/cat2/cat3/cat4/cat5/cat6/ (could get really long) or better use just the last 2 categories: http://www.yourdomain.com/cat5/cat6/ ? thanks for your suggestions seth
Technical SEO | | sethgecko0