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Hi there,
I currently have a number of URLs throughout my site of the form:

https://www.concerthotels.com/venue-hotels/o2-academy-islington-hotels/256133#checkin_4-21-2024&checkout_4-22-2024&rooms_1&guests_2&artistid_15878:256133

This sends the user through to a page showing hotels near the O2 Academy Islington. Once the page loads, my code looks at the parameters specified in the # part of the URL, and uses them to fill in a form, before submitting the form as a POST. This basically reloads the page, but checks the availability of the hotels first, and therefore returns slightly different content to the "canonical" version of this page (which simply lists the hotels before any availability checks done).

Until now, I've marked the page that has had availability checks as noindex,follow. But because the form was submitted with POST parameters, the URL looks exactly like the canonical one.

So the two URLs are identical, but due to POST parameters, the content is slightly different. Does that make sense?

My question is, should both versions of this page be marked as index,follow?

Thanks
Mike

Hi Chris,

thank you very much for your help and suggestions, it is much appreciated.  I'll de-noindex a handful of my biggest artist pages and see if they attract much interest from users.

As for the /venues/ pages, these have been fairly neglected to date, so perhaps I need to really focus my attention on them, as you say, and bring in some cross referencing.

I have also wondered whether allowing companies to create pages dedicated to their events would be a good route to take - it could be done with ease, so perhaps I should investigate further.

Again, thanks very much, and hopefully I can report back with good news at some point.

Best wishes

Mike

Thanks Chris,

appreciate your comments.  Google in indexing a high percentage of the key pages, and does not have any noindex pages indexed.  Pages are loading at a decent speed.   And only indexed pages are in the sitemap.  So perhaps the non-performing pages are not something I should be particularly concerned about, especially they don't necessarily take up much of my time.  I guess if I start to run into issues with overall site speed then perhaps then is is the time to consider whether they should continue to be listed.  So perhaps, you're right, it's more of a business decision, rather than an SEO one.

I have a further question if you don't mind, which is related but I think is an SEO one.  I have a large number of /artist/ pages - these are pages that list which venues a particular artist is performing at, and allows a user to then check hotel availability for the specific venue and date they will be attending.  At the minute the pages are fairly light on content - they just list venues and dates, although I'm planning to start introducing more content in the near future.  An example page can be seen here:

https://www.concerthotels.com/artist/hotels-near-guns-n-roses-events/1227

At the minute, I've noindexed every artist page on the site, because I was worried Google would see them as thin pages.  But I actually think they are potentially very useful to users, and a powerful landing page for quickly taking a user to the correct venue page with the correct dates for the concert.    I also think that not all users will search for "Hotels near Metlife Stadium" - they might instead search for "Hotels for Guns n roses in NJ..." etc etc. so perhaps I can pick up some long tail searches with these additional landing pages.

The question is, should I index these pages?

If the answer to that question is yes..... obviously, artists/bands do a tour and then generally disappear into a recording studio for a year or two - as a result, there will be many /artist/ pages that, for a while, have lots of useful event dates/venues listed, but at the end of the tour, the pages will simply be empty, and no longer useful, at least until the next tour.  Would you recommend that such pages are indexed when there are events, but when no future events are listed, I set them to noindex?

Many thanks

Mike

Hi there,

my website is ConcertHotels.com - a site which helps users find hotels close to concert venues.  I have a hotel listing page for every concert venue on my site - about 12,000 of them I think (and the same for nearby restaurants).

e.g.

https://www.concerthotels.com/venue-hotels/madison-square-garden-hotels/304484

Each of these pages list the nearby hotels to that concert venue.  Users clicking on the individual hotel are brought through to a hotel (product) page e.g.

https://www.concerthotels.com/hotel/the-new-yorker-a-wyndham-hotel/136818

I made a decision years ago to noindex all of the /hotel/ pages since they don't have a huge amount of unique content and aren't the pages I'd like my users to land on .  The primary pages on my site are the /venue-hotels/ listing pages.

I have similar pages for nearby restaurants, so there are approximately 12,000 venue-restaurants pages, again, one listing page for each concert venue.

However, while all of these pages are potentially money-earners, in reality, the vast majority of subsequent hotel bookings have come from a fraction of the 12,000 venues.  I would say 2000 venues are key money earning pages, a further 6000 have generated income of a low level, and 4000 are yet to generate income.

I have a few related questions:

• Although there is potential for any of these pages to generate revenue, should I be brutal and simply delete a venue if it hasn't generated revenue within a time period, and just accept that, while it "could" be useful, it hasn't proven to be and isn't worth the link equity.  Or should I noindex these "poorly performing pages"?

• Should all 12,000 pages be listed in my XML sitemap?  Or simply the ones that are generating revenue, or perhaps just the ones that have generated significant revenue in the past and have proved to be most important to my business?

Thanks

Mike

Thanks Martijn,

probably too early to have noticed any of my new links, so that's good news.  Hopefully the next update will show an improvement to my domain and page authority,

Thanks

Mike

Hi,

I think I read somewhere that domain authority and page authority are updated twice a month - is this true?  The reason I ask is because I had a very successful content piece released last month (around 20th May) that received some great links (mainly to a landing page, but also many links to my home page) from highly respected sources such as Time.com, Spin.com, RollingStone.com, DailyMail.co.uk...

However, my domain authority hasn't changed at all, and the page authority for the page is only 47, which I was hoping would be higher for a page that received millions of visitors, 100k+ Facebook likes, and a wealth of sites linking in.

Also, in OpenSiteExplorer, when checking against my home page, it says there are no Just-Discovered links for the last 60 days - again, I'm puzzled, as my home page has been referenced by many leading news sites.

Many thanks

Hi everyone,

I've just been checking my MOZ authority scores, and the page authority of my home page, www.concerthotels.com is 53 (mozRank of 6.16) which seems pretty good to me.  However, the domain authority is only showing as 45.  Is this typical?  There is such a big difference between these two scores - what does that suggest?  Is there anything obvious that I can do to bring the domain authority up to the level of authority that the homepage commands?

Similarly, the UK version of my site has a homepage authority of 41, but the domain authority is only 30.  Looking at numerous other websites, quite often the homepage and domain authority scores are very similar, or the domain authority is slightly higher, so it does look as if this is unusual.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated,

Many thanks

Mike

Hi Michael,

firstly, thanks so much for your very thorough reply - I really appreciate it.

I really think it's fundamental that the Hotels tab remains as the initial tab, simply because it's what the main aim of the user's visit is likely to be - I think that immediately presenting the user with the key information is pretty essential, and will hopefully keep bounce rate and conversion rate at respectable levels.  However, displaying the map by default could be a good move - I think the reason against doing this in the past was that I might not be able to rely on the map being served up immediately, as it could be fetched slowly from Google - I guess that's still something to consider - if the user is greeted with an empty screen (where the map should be), then they are pretty likely to bounce.

Good point about the cloaking function name - not the most sensible idea I've ever had

How important do you think "above the fold" content is?  I mean, would it make sense to somehow include the venue reviews information at the bottom of the page, rather than on the separate tab?  Although this review content wouldn't be above the fold, it would be visible to the user (albeit further down the page).  Do you think that is likely to carry more weight in Google's eyes than having the same content, but not immediately visible to the user (hidden in tabs).

I think this is my main problem - combining my pages together into this new design is great, since it eliminates the likelihood of thin pages.  However, I've now got so much information on each venue that it's difficult to find a clear way to present it, at the same time as satisfying the search engines.  My user's like the Hotels tab at the minute (reflected in a high conversion rate, and low bounce rate), as it's really clear - the relative lack of text makes it pretty clear and easy to use.  However, while user's are liking it, the search engines aren't.

I hate the fact that I might have to sacrifice user friendliness in order to satisfy the needs of the search engines, but I guess that's part of running a business that relies on SEO.

Thanks again,

Mike

Hi everyone,

my site has suffered from a number of organic drops this year, following a redesign, panda, and penguin.  An example of one of my key pages is shown below:

http://www.concerthotels.com/venue-hotels/bridgestone-arena-hotels/326895

Earlier this year, I redesigned my site, so that, for example, 4 pages associated with each Bridgestone Arena (a page with nearby hotels, one for user reviews, one for upcoming events, one for general information) were combined into one "Bridgestone Arena Hotels" page.  The reason I did this is because I felt that many of the pages were very thin.  My new page has tabs for reviews, tickets etc., with the default tab listing nearby hotel information - the primary aim of my website.

I'm worried that all the great unique user review information that I'm collecting is not being given the weighting it deserves, because it is content that is not immediately visible when the user lands on the page - only click the Reviews tab makes the content visible.

The hidden content is definitely being picked up by Google e.g. searching for a portion of the review content in Google such as "We were here for the Aerosmith concert. The workers were so friendly and helpful - great experience!" serves up the Bridgestone Arena page in the results.

But do you think Google still sees the page as being pretty thin in content, because much of the unique content is initially hidden?

I am considering introducing a little featured reviews section to the visible content, that just includes a couple of the latest venue reviews, with a link to open the reviews tab.  But if I have some review content here, and the same reviews in a hidden section of the same page, is Google likely to treat this as spammy?

Thanks for your help and advice,

Mike

My site experienced a 60-70% drop in google organic traffic too, late on Friday 11th October/early Saturday 12th October, and hasn't recovered at all yet.  Is this when you experienced a drop too?  There doesn't seem to be any online chatter from anyone else experiencing a similar drop.  I had thought I'd managed to avoid any ranking drop following the latest Penguin/Hummingbird, but it looks like a delayed reaction!

Hi Cyrus,

thanks for spending so much time looking through my site and comparing my new design with the old one - I really appreciate it.  The feedback you've provided is great - I'm really happy that you like the new look and feel, and the points you've raised have certainly got me thinking.

1. I do agree, it is a little top heavy, and on the venue page the hotels are hidden beneath the fold, so you might be right that I notice a drop in conversion.  I'll launch the site to a small number of visitors and collect some stats.  It might not be a major issue, since the vast majority of users to the website actually land on the hotel listings page (as opposed to the general venue information page) - but I guess we'll find out

2. Mmmm, good point - I guess the only page I'm removing that Google might have thought contained high quality ranking signals would be my old venue reviews pages - they contain a lot of unique, customer reviews of the concert venue.  So there is potential for weird things to happen - I'll monitor it closely.

I hadn't thought of how the website would look, or work, if Javascript/cookies were disabled, so thank you for highlighting this - I'll certainly look into this.

3. You definitely raise a worrying point here - I hadn't thought of it from a duplicate content view - I simply thought that it would be nice to show the user a sample of hotels from the general venue page, before prompting them to view the entire list.  I don't know how I can change this - I guess reducing the number of hotels might help?  That way, I'd be reducing the amount of duplicate content.

4. Good point, I'll read the article and put the changes in place.

5. Ah, I hadn't thought of that - I was just going to put a sitemap of the new URLs up - how long would I need to include the "old" URLs in the sitemap for?

Thanks again for all your advice!

Best wishes

Mike

Hi Mat,

thanks for your reply.  I'll definitely change the link, but I agree that it would be harsh if it was the sole reason for the 30% drop in organic traffic.

There are definitely some directories linking to ConcertHotels.com - at one stage I used the SEOmoz list of directories and got my website listed on some of the recommendations from the list.  But my strategy for the last two years has been to approach venue's own websites and ask if they'd be interested in linking to our nearby hotels page, as a useful resource for their visitors.  This strategy has worked quite well for me, and to me it sounds like a very natural, sensible link building strategy.  I'll certainly work through my list of backlinks, but I would hope that the majority of them are from very relevant websites (due to the strategy I adopted).  I guess there could be a percentage that I have not had any control over however, and I guess I should disavow these?

As for the directories, should I now be disavowing directory links?  I didn't think that the percentage of directory links to my site would be that high -I used the directory link strategy in the past to simply enhance the number of links to my homepage - the strategy I described above is one which achieve links to specific pages throughout my website, not my homepage, so I felt the need to grow the number of homepage links.

Thanks again for your help and advice

Mike