Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
What is the best way to handle annual events on a website?
-
Every year our company has a user conference with between 300 - 400 attendees. I've just begun giving the event more of a presence on our website. I'm wondering, what is the best way to handle highlights from previous years? Would it be to create an archive (e.g. www.companyname.com/eventname/2015) while constantly updating the main landing page to promote the current event? We also use an event website (cvent) to handle our registrations. So once we have an agenda for the current years event I do a temporary redirect from the main landing page to the registration website. I don't really like this practice and I feel like it might be better to keep all of the info on the main domain. Wondering if anybody has any opinions or feedback on that process as well.
Just looking for best practices or what others have done and have had success with.
-
Thank you Paul,
This is exactly what I needed. I've been trying to push us in this direction but it's sometimes hard to break old habits. We might even be able to save a bit of money going this route.
Thank again for the input!
-Brandon
-
Yup, there are many ways to do it, but it's vastly superior (I'd say critical) in terms of ongoing ranking and traffic generation to keep the primary content on a consistent URL the main domain. It's also vastly better for user experience as well.
Ad EGOL recommends, definitely keep the URL on your own site consistent from year to year. Create the archives of each year's highlights as children of the primary page, and make sure you are linking to the current year's page from each of the year-archive pages. This give Search Engines a clear understanding of the relative hierarchy and currency of the pages.
Do NOT 302 this page to the registration page. Simply add a call-to-action on the primary page to the registration page. You must have lots of good conference-related content on the primary page, not just a thin paragraph and a link to the reg page. You'll then want - if at all possible - to have the reg page (especially after successful registration) to redirect the visitor back to the primary page to give the followup info after registration.
Ideally, you'll want to be able to insert your Analytics tracking code on the reg site as well, and then configure cross-domain tracking for it. That way you can easily track conversions. At the very least, if you can't set up your own Analytics on the reg page, add a referral exclusion for it so the visitor coming back from the reg page doesn't show as a new visit on the primary page. You can then add conversion tracking to that return page.
These recommendations come from a background managing sites running up to 425 events per year, often with ticketing handled on a third-party site.
Hope that all makes sense?
Paul
-
So it sounds like you create an archive for the previous years event? Moving the previous years highlights to another page so it can still be accessed?
The url on our registration site changes but we redirect the main landing page to that url temporary. I think ideally the content for the event should be on the main domain and just utilize the third part event site to manage the registrations.
Seems like there are so many ways to do this.
-
We have a website with a page that links to events in our industry.
Most of the events have a single homepage that is updated every year. These homepages have a description of the upcoming event and links to agendas, registration, lodging, sponsors, speakers, exhibitors, past year highlights, etc. If you do this your search engine visibility will develop over time because almost everyone that links to your event will link to this single page year after year, for all of their websites, and every time they mention the event over time. Also, repeat visitors will be familiar and getting information, registering and finding lodging is "just like they did last year".
However, other events change the URL and everything else every year. This is a really bad idea because employees at businesses like mine, who link to events, will be snarling when they see that you have changed the URL again and must go on a treasure hunt to find it. Potential attendees will have trouble finding your event too. We have stopped linking to some of these events because finding the new pages, updating the links, and editing information is too demanding of employee time. We have not deleted a lot of events. Just the ones that are pain in the butt. When they get in touch with us to complain we tell them, let us know when you are done playing musical URLs.
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
-
Is The HREF Link "Title" Tag Needed on Mobile Websites?
Hello To Those Who Are Wiser Than I, I am wondering if the href link "title" tag is needed, or serves any purpose, on mobile websites? Also, does it effect SEO in any way? I ask because generally the href link title tag provides more information to the user when they scroll their mouse over the link - but this action does not happen on mobile! Users have no mouse and thus no extra information would be displayed. I'm really wondering if it still matters for SEO purposes on mobile though. -The UnEnlightened
Web Design | | Stew2220 -
Multiple websites for different service areas/business functions?
I'm wondering what the implications are for having multiple domains for different service areas of a company? I realize having multiple domains for one company can be troublesome because of the possibility of duplicate content, keyword cannibalization, and linkbuilding to multiple domains. But when the domains are for very different service offerings/unique business functions that each serve their own purpose (and have different positionings), is there a downside to having more than one domain? Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Web Design | | KevinBloom0 -
New Website launch, asking for feedback
Hey Guys, I just launched my new website. I just asking around for feedback. Please check it out if you have time and let me know www.benjaminmarc.com
Web Design | | benjaminmarcinc1 -
Subdomains For Real Estate Website
I am currently working on a proposal for a clients Wordpress website development which includes ongoing SEO after the website is developed. I have looked into a number of options and the one that seems the most cost effective involves using subdomains for the individual listings pages. What I want: clientsdomain.com/listings/idxnumber/ What I can get for a decent price: listings.clientsdomain.com/idxnumber/ So the majority of the website will actually exist on a subdomain because the IDX API will automatically populate pages for all of the MLS listings in the area (hundreds or thousands). Meanwhile the domain itself will have all the neighborhood pages and other optimized content, blogs and whatnot. My concern is that dividing the website like this will have negative effects on SEO. There wont be duplicate content across subdomain and main domain, but they will share a lot of links back and forth. I haven't found any recent sources on the topic. Almost everything I have found says that dividing a website in this manor is bad for SEO, but these articles are often many years old. Does anyone know of a Wordpress plugin/IDX company that can provide a solution that doesn't use a subdomain and actually just lists each MLS page within a directory? I am open to using another platform, I am just most familiar with Wordpress. Will using a subdomain in the ways mentioned above have a profound negative effect on SEO? Thank you for your time in responding, I greatly appreciate it.
Web Design | | TotalMarketExposure0 -
Will google penalize a website for using a table layout?
I just got a new client today and his entire website layout and structure is using tables instead of divs. This client is on a tight budget and wants to avoid unnecessary hours for re-coding the website, but at the same time he wants me to improve his SEO organically. This is the first time I've been asked to do work on an existing website that uses pure tables for the entire layout and I'm wondering if this effects the SEO in any way. So my question is, will tables effect rankings and SEO in any way?
Web Design | | ScottMcPherson0 -
Does Google penalize duplicate website design?
Hello, We are very close to launching five new websites, all in the same business sector. Because we would like to keep our brand intact, we are looking to use the same design on all five websites. My question is, will Google penalize the sites if they have the same design? Thank you! Best regards,
Web Design | | Tiberiu
Tiberiu0 -
What is the best tool to view your page as Googlebot?
Our site was done with asp.net and a lot of scripting. I want to see what Google can see and what it can't. What is the best tool that duplicates Googlebot? I have found several but they seem old or inaccurate.
Web Design | | EcommerceSite0 -
Need to rebuild client's flash website
I am working with their web designer and need to figure out a way to rebuild their site which is currently all in flash. I was wondering if there was a way to do this without spending a ton of time in completely re-doing the site from scratch.
Web Design | | awalker840