Adding dynamic item to static page - good for SEO?
-
We have a static page we want to rank for a competitive phrase.
Would it help, or would it make little to no difference, if we added a small dynamic item to the page so that each time the googlebot visited the page it wouldn't be 100% the same as the last time it visited?
The reason to do this would be because of the belief that Google likes pages that update once in a while.
The dynamic portion of the page wouldn't be as simple as a page counter, but it wouldn't be very elaborate either. A tiny portion of the page. Think of something like current temperature or current CPU utilization (it won't be that, but it will be a small updating number that is not incrementing like current time or a page counter).
Would that make any difference at all? (I know there will be responses that I should add real updating data to the page to make it dynamic; let's take that one off the table for right now --trying to see if there's something I can do that is simpler for now). Thanks.
-
If you wanted to try this approach, the easiest dynamic piece of content you can add to a page is the current date.
In my experience adding dynamic content of the nature you are describing would not offer any benefit at all.
I believe the above information fully responds to your question as presented. This is where I feel compelled to at least explain a bit further regarding the topic you did not wish to discuss, adding "real" data to the page.
I have spoken to people who have said "I read adding a blog to my site would help with my Google rankings. I added a blog and have not seen any benefit at all. Why not?"
Whether you are adding a blog, social networking or dynamic content the point is not the physical structure (i.e. blog software, social icons or in your case a piece of data which changes on a page). The focus is the authentic engagement with visitors.
For a blog, you are offering users the opportunity to generate fresh content by creating articles and responding to articles with comments. With dynamic content, if you link to "latest news", "latest comments", "twitter feed" and other information which is updated daily, then you are adding a real value for your users and Google will recognize that value.
Making a change just for the sake of making a change does not offer any real value, therefore you will not be rewarded with any noticeable benefit.
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
-
What would you do about this Pillar Page conundrum?
I am re-organizing site structure for an e-commerce site. Here's the problem I have: The product (shipping container) is available to BUY and HIRE in four sizes, for example a 20ft container is one of them. Now, should I have a 20ft container product page for buying -- and also a 20ft container for hiring? I want the container sales and seperate container hire page to be pillar pages, if I don't have any cluster pages for the different container sizes below them it I'm worried it'll just be floating out there in the ocean while the sales page gets all the cluster love. At the same time I don't want to have something that looks like duplicate content with 20ft hire and 20ft sale page. Any ideas please?
On-Page Optimization | | scjames0 -
Product Descriptions (SEO)
Hello, I sell products relating to wood. Although the products vary, I like to give description of the wood type for the customers who might not be familiar with it. Will it hurt my rankings to give the same descriptions for the same wood type as long as the majority of the description is different? Here is an example of the layout: 1. Different description for different products 2. The same short description for the same wood types (seen throughout multiple pages) Hopefully my question makes sense.
On-Page Optimization | | mattl992 -
FAQ page structure
I have read in other discussions that having all questions on an FAQ page is the way to go and then if the question has an answer worthy of its own page, you should abbreviate the answer and link to the page with more content. My question is when using some templates in WP, they have a little + button you can click and it reveal the answer to the question. Does this hurt SEO versus having all text visible and then using headers/subheaders? An example of the + button https://fyrfyret.dk/faq/
On-Page Optimization | | OrlandSEO1 -
Is it a good idea to rel=canonical dozens of old outdated pages?
we have dozens old outdated manual pages that still need to be up, but have terrible code issues (they're exported from word) and no image tagging, etc. there are new pages in place, so should i rel=canonical to the new pages? will this transfer any link juice to the newer, more seo-friendly ones?
On-Page Optimization | | DerekM880 -
Too Many On-Page Links
Hi All, New to SEOMoz, so thanks in advance for any answers! Looking at our Crawl Diagnostics and "Too Many On-Page Links" is first on the list. The site was build with the intention of users being able to quickly get to where they want to go with drop down menus (sub nav), so we built the navigation using bullet points/css. Yes, agreed there are too many links on each page from our navigation, main nav cats are 4 with sub nav about 40, but what is the best way to resolve the problem other then removing most of the links (from the sub nav drop down)? Could we just use the attribute rel=nofollow for the sub nav links? TIA
On-Page Optimization | | bmmedia0 -
Do product pages need unique content or does having duplcate content hurt on those pages?
We are adding product rapidly to our website but this requires allowing duplicate to exist on our product pages of furniture-online.com. From an SEO standpoint do we need to make this content unique for each product. Since we aren't link building to specific product pages and we don't anticipate product pages being found in a search result, are we ok leaving the duplicate content in place and spending our dollars elsewhere?
On-Page Optimization | | gallreddy0 -
Should I use a Page Name variable after the ? for a dynamic web page
I'm converting for static to dynamic web pages. It appears that the page name is used for page ranking in the search engines. Will adding a Page Name variable help to increase our SEO. For example aspecialgift.com/subcat.php?PageName=GiftPage&ProductID=ABCDE. Does the page name variable make a difference?
On-Page Optimization | | NCBob0 -
The SEO and CRO Value of an Image Next to Page Content
If given the choice to add an attractive stock photo to a conversion focused page, do the pros out number the cons in terms of SEO and CRO. Some pros are that you can include the keyword in the image filename and image alt tag. It can also increase user experience by making the page more attractive. Some cons might be that it increases page load time which can have a negative impact on SEO and user expereience. Also the visitor might get distracted away from the lead form button.
On-Page Optimization | | SparkplugDigital0