Appropriate SEO strategies for a website's own SERPs?
-
Hello all,
What are good on-page SEO practices for the search result pages on our own sites? For instance, what page titles do you use? Do you include page numbers? Meta-descriptions? Headers? Keyword utilization?
This is a consideration for us as we link to some popular search results on our sites.
Thanks!
-
Gotcha! I say those pages should be excluded via robots.txt. Build static landing pages for any keyword term you wish to rank for and optimize those. Or rather than build a new page, take the top result of a search for keyword site:yourdomain.com, which will tell you what page already ranks highest for that target phrase, and and use that for your landing page for a term; optimize on page and build internal and external links to the page for the term.
-
Google's Webmaster Guidelines at http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 states "Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines."
So, they frown on having search result pages in the index in the first place.
-
That's a really great point, and thanks for the "Good Answer!" I particularly appreciate the duplicate content point.
What are your thoughts on the matter if the popular searches are not created automatically (e.g., could include "kitten" and "kittens" because those are perfectly reasonable search terms) but rather created manually? They reflect broad categories to help provide search engines a way of seeing important items, along with a site map. (All this is, regretfully, in lieu of a proper browse functionality that will require a bit more work given how the data is structured). Search pages would then reflect only orthogonal terms, such as "kitten" "puppy" "guppy" etc, so they are (at least as far as I can think) unlikely to produce duplicate result pages.
That's only my uninformed, amateur strategy. What are your thoughts?
Thanks!
-
The best practice is to not let your internal search get indexed. Use no-index,follow so that Google can follow any links on the page, but doesn't place your search pages in the index.
Reason why: duplicate content
How different is a search for "kitten" going to be from the search "kittens" on your website? Probably pretty exact. However, they will possess two different url's. Ta-da! Duplicate content! Not to mention:
Kittie, Kitty, Kitties, cute kittens, funny kittens, black kittens, grey kittens, cat, cats, etc.
For proof, go check out your google analytics, how many different ways are people finding you right now?
-
I would ask the question, "What makes the most sense to the end user?" The reason I would ask this question is because I have a strong feeling that this is the same question that search engines are asking and overall trying to achieve.
I suggest following Google, Bing, and Yahoo as an example, they have the same title for each page. If I search "Christmas Decorations" in each of those engines, the title of the page is just "Christmas Decorations" no matter how deep I go. At the top of each page they let me know which page or which set of results I am looking at.
-
Thanks, M.-J.!
Yes, I am not concerned about optimizing my content pages for my search engine. Rather, I am concerned with optimizing my search engine result pages for Google/Bing/Yahoo.
For instance, suppose the page title was:
"kitten - Search Results | MyCompany.com"
What should page 2 of these results be?
"kitten - Search Results | Page 2 | MyCompany.com"
I ask because it seems that linking to popular searches on my own search engine seems like a reasonable strategy to help Google crawl a site and find content. What are the best on-page strategies?
I have consistently used page numbers on a site when I had multi-page articles and either my CMS or authors were unwilling/unable to create an appropriate page title for each subsequent page. (e.g, "My article title | MyCompany.com" and "My article title | Page 2 | MyCompany.com")
Thoughts?
-
I would not be concerned with optimizing for internal search. You want to optimize for Google, Bing and Yahoo. The Learn SEO files here on SEOMoz should give you the basics, and you might find it very helpful to use the on page analysis tool to go over the basic onsite optimization factors.
Not sure I have ever used a page number on a site, though I do see sites that use them when they have a string of say, affiliate pages ... a way to answer this question is to ask: how will it help the visitor to my site?
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
-
No index for http version of website
Hi, I've had a message from Google search console to say the sitemap for the http version of my site is tagged as no index. As the https version is indexed, do I need to change the http version to be indexed as well? Do I need to keep the http version of the site in search console alongside the https version, or should I remove it? Advice appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | Robingoodlad0 -
Website Titles in Google
I currently have a Wordpress platform website and previously I noticed that when I optimized my pages, if I indicated what I wanted my page names to be (through an application like SEO Yoast) that most times, the keyword would show up exactly how I had it typed in. Recently I have noticed that the title of my website is showing in my page titles too. So for example: Before: Shoe Stores Windsor - XYZ Company Now: XYZ Company | Shoe Stores Windsor - XYZ Company In SEO practices, I know it's most often best to have the keyword you would like as close to the front of your title tag, but now this recent search adds my website title first. Plus this also seems to be making my titles longer. I know Google ultimately has the 'final say' in a page title and I have ensured that I have the "rewrite titles/descriptions option" check in Wordpress to allow me to overwrite titles, but I am hoping someone can possibly provide me with a tip or trick to avoid this in search rankings. I think it's important to have the name of my site entered through Wordpress so that any pages that I have no optimized default to the page name and site name, but the ones I have optimized seem to be showing differently all of a sudden. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MainstreamMktg0 -
Undoing Video SEO
Ok, so here's a good one for you. I was ranking well (2-3rd) position when I got it into my head that I should implement some video SEO to get the video to appear next to my ranking. Well I did that with the help of Wistia. Only problem is my 2-3 ranking become 4-5, and I also became convinced that the page seemed less desirable as video content when I saw it in the rankings. So... I want to undo what I did. I removed the video sitemap and the SEO video markup from wistia, but it's been weeks and Google has still got me listed as video content. Any thoughts on how to accelerate the undoing of this damage?
On-Page Optimization | | CPollock0 -
Keyword repeats/presence in url's & over-optimisation
Hi I'm about to launch a redesigned site and worried about overdoing kw presence on-page, primarily using in url's since will already be using kw in titles as well as page content. What's current thinking re over optimisation: If kw is in titles and page content is it best not to repeat again in url structure i.e. less is more, even though this will cause things like SeoMoz on-page grade score to fall, or better to keep them/add them ? Personally i think it makes sense to include kw in url again since helps make the page relevant, and so long as matches the content should help as opposed to hinder rankings for the pages target keyword. However when i look into this some say don't do this since is over-optimisation The sites generally ranking quite well for its target kw which i obviously don't want to lose after re-launch & hopefully improve further, in the case of this example they are 'Sports Centre Services' & 'Sports Centre Equipment Rental'). The sites current url structure is similar to this below example: frankssportscentres.com/services/sports-centre-equipment-rental Would it be better to keep following existing/above format or to go with either of the below options i.e. more kw rich urls or less: frankssportscentres.com/sports-centre-services/sports-centre-equipment-rental Or frankssportscentres.com/sports-centre-services/equipment-rental Or even less frankssportscentres.com/services/equipment-rental Many Thanks in advance for any helpful comments Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Are flip books - pdf readers on websites SEO friendly?
I have a client with bar, most of their content is menus that are displayed in a flip book format. Is this content indexed by search engines, and if so, are they of any value for ranking?
On-Page Optimization | | SteveK640 -
Disclaimer in footer - is it affecting my SEO?
For legal reasons I am required to include a 266 word disclaimer in the footer of every page of my credit card comparison site creditcards.com.au. My question is in 2 parts: is this indexable content likely to be hurting my SEO? if so, what is the best way to include the text in the footer but prevent search engines from indexing it? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | OMGPyrmont0 -
SEO for Japan
Google and Yahoo are the two major search engines in Japan. You can search using Western characters, and you often see English language results with Japanese (Chinese) characters next to them. As I don't speak Japanese, how do I approach SEO for my Japanese-language site? would appreciate any experiences and educational sources on the topic.
On-Page Optimization | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
SEO Titles and Keyword Density
Hey guys, I'm doing some on page SEO for a few clients and I've always wondered about this question. I have read tons of articles on the perfect <title>tag, but they don't often mention this.</p> <p>So my titles, like most others follow this format:</p> <p>Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 - Company</p> <p>So say for example I am trying to rank for 'life insurance' and 'life insurance quote' for 'axa sunlife'.</p> <p>It's my assumption that the title should be:</p> <p>Life Insurance Quote - Axa Sunlife</p> <p>rather than:</p> <p>Life Insurance | Life Insurance Quote - Axa Sunlife</p> <p>Am I right in thinking that putting it twice has no added value, and could in fact have an adverse effect?</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>Lewis.</p> <p> </p></title>
On-Page Optimization | | SEOMyGod0