The SEO effect of adding a front page to a website?

[JohnW-UK]

I have a client that wants to add a front page to a website so that when a user visitors the site for the first time a full page advert/message/page appears before they enter the site. The client wants this to be cookie controlled so they only see this on the first visit to the website.

I am concerned that even if I put links to a sitemap or xml sitemap on this page that it will affect how well the site performs in search engines. Any ideas/suggestions or experiences?

I found an interesting page on Quora about using pop ups.... Anyone who comments can you link to some good research and a clear simple explanation I can use to explain to the client why this is a bad idea..... https://www.quora.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO/How-would-a-pop-up-ad-on-a-websites-home-page-affect-SEO

And for the record I tried the usability argument....

[Dr-Pete]

You have to be very careful about this, as Keri suggested. Google can crawl some JS, especially basic stuff, and if they detect a clear intent to present different content to crawlers and people, you can get into trouble fast.

I would say, though, that pop-overs are pretty common these days. These are usually just a CSS-styled box that appears, with an ad, survey, etc., often the first time you visit a site. Even some reputable survey engines used them.

Now, I still think you should absolutely test this for usability issues, but if the pop-over is just an overlay that appears the first time a user visits, the SEO consequences should be minimal.

[Dr-Pete]

Definitely agree on A/B testing. Nothing will win the argument faster than definitive data that this approach is costing sales.

[ThompsonPaul]

Just to chime in here-the usability argument is so important it should probably even trump the SEO considerations.

Usability is about conversion. It doesn't matter how much traffic you can drive to your website, if the usability sucks and drives visitors away, any traffic would be wasted.

On most of the sites on which I've worked, conversion rate optimization gives vastly better return on investment than just trying to drive more traffic.

But this shouldn't be an argument. This is a perfect example of something that should simply be A/B tested, so that the data from actual users will determine the correct answer. No best practices are going to accurately predict the preferences of users on all types of sites. I've seen examples where pop-ups were actually very effective for business goals, despite the fact that so many people bitch about them.

A fairly quick A/B test of your home page with and without a large pop-up would very quickly tell you whether the process was adding value to the visitor's experience or driving them away.

[But I gotta say, an early 2000's era splash page as the front page of your website sounds like a complete non-starter to me, SEO problems or not.]

Paul

[KeriMorgret]

That post talks about Google crawling javascript, but doesn't address presenting one thing to Google and another to users.

Here's what Google has to say, and would likely be the reason for your thumbs down:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355

Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines. Cloaking is considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it provides our users with different results than they expected.

Some examples of cloaking include:

• Serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users
• Inserting text or keywords into a page only when the User-agent requesting the page is a search engine, not a human visitor

If your site uses technologies that search engines have difficulty accessing, like JavaScript, images, or Flash, see our recommendations for making that content accessible to search engines and users without cloaking.

[GYMSN]

If it is a negative user response it will be a negative SEO response in most cases.  In your case there could be very negative affects.  An instant 'back' click is a bad sign to Google, especially it being the homepage.

[JohnW-UK]

Interesting.... So now I'm just up against the userability argument. Looks like it's do-able then with no negative SEO side-effects.