Site Launching, not SEO Ready
-
Hi,
So, we have a site going up on Monday, that in many ways hasn't been gotten ready for search. The focus has been on functionality and UX rather than search, which is fair enough.
As a result, I have a big list of things for the developer to complete after launch (like sorting out duplicate pages and adding titles that aren't "undefined" etc.).
So, my question is whether it would be better to noindex the site until all the main things are sorted before essentially presenting search engines with the best version we can, or to have the site be indexed (duplicate pages and all) and sort these issues "live", as it were?
Would either method be advisable over the other, or are there any other solutions? I just want to ensure we start ranking as well as possible as quickly as possible and don't know which way to go.
Thanks so much!
-
It seems the general consensus is to launch the "good enough" site without blocking Google, and to fix the SEO issues as soon as possible.
However, I'd say that it really all depends on what those SEO issues are. For example, if you think you're going to be releasing thousands of non-canonical URLs into the SERPs without using any "fixes" it could be a long time before you get those out of the index once they're "fixed", especially on a new site with no deep external links. If waiting a couple of weeks before allowing the site to be indexed could save me from having to do thousands of individual redirects (as in those not handled easily by regular expressions), and could keep my site from launching with thousands of pages of thin and near duplicate content (why not start off in Google's good graces? Why start off on the wrong foot?) I would seriously consider blocking everything but the home page in the robots.txt file.
You would want the home page to be indexed no matter what because the launch will likely coincide with lots of press, advertising, etc... and people will be searching for your domain and/or brand. This would allow the "domain" to be indexed, which would take care of the date of indexation ranking factor discussed above (though in the grand scheme of things a few weeks is not going to matter), and would allow you to show up for a large proportion of searches (i.e. brand and navigational queries) since you would be unlikely to rank for many big non-brand searches out of the box anyway.
Then again, if you are just concerned with some small SEO issues, such as adding alt attributes or improving internal linking, I'd go ahead and launch.
-
The debate between UX and SEO has always been a pressing concern within the internet marketing community. While years ago these two factors were considered separate, as time passes the industry has realized that these two are not independent from one another but should work together.
That being said, I am always an advocate of launching a website as soon as it is ready. Of course this is only the case if all of the duplicate content, low-quality links and SEO black hat strategies have been removed. If any of these factors are present it can have a negative impact on site performance and where possible should be removed.
Like mentioned below, how long the website has been up can have an influence on ranking as well as other factors that you can be receiving credit for by not postponing the launch. In addition, SEO is a continuous effort that is never completely done, therefore I would recommend launching the website and then implementing your changes.
-
I would not "noindex" the site.
Because once you do that, google can visit less often and you might have to wait a while before the noindex is undone - especially for a new site with a very low page rank.
-
I thought this was an interesting question. I have a lot of admiration for one particular guy who knows a lot about launching a Website before it's perfect. His company's motto is "Doing is better than perfect."
He's Mark Zuckerberg.
Yeah. I'd launch it and then make gosh darn sure you follow up and clean up after the explosion.
-
Hi,
Unless the SEO issues you are talking about are very serious, I would rather let search engines index the website from the start, to gain time. History is a factor in SEO and, for a new website, it may take time to get noticed by SE.
I mean that Google gives a positive weight to the fact that a website has been out there for a longer time, compared with new website. Moreover, if you implement Google Analytics from the start, you can start optimizing having already some data (vs. having no data at all when you start optimizing).
The only strong case in which it is wrong to index a website is if you thing people should not see it, which does not seem to be your case.
SEO is a process and a game of adaptation.
Wish you good luck.
-
Since I'd guess you're only talking about a matter of days or a few weeks, I really don't think it matters, so I would lean towards getting it indexed as early as possible and dealing with the SEO once the site is "live".
-
Thanks guys, I appreciate it. I didn't even consider that Google would evaluate a site with a noindex, just not display it.
If that's the case, it seems it's best to rank lowly at first and then have the engines crawl when they will and notice the changes we implement over the coming weeks. As you say, it'd make no difference to how the site is viewed at the time we'd remove the noindex (unless the times between crawls were massive!), but that we'd lose out on potential traffic from ranking lowly.
-
I could be wrong in this, but I have always thought of no index as meaning "don't display". I have never actually tested it, but I would be willing to be that google crawls and rates your site even with a no index tag. The only difference being it is not displayed in the serp.
If I were you I would leave the no index tag out and just get things squared away after launch. In my opinion what will happen is when google keeps crawling it, they will see that the content has changed. Which will help you more in the long run than a no index tag. You might rank low at first, but through the SEO changes your ranking should go up. In my mind it is better to rank low at first then not to rank.
-
Hey Philip,
Hope you are well...
I would focus on getting the site up and ready and removing duplicate content etc, then have google index your site through GWT.
Hope this helps
Dave
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
-
Should we launch a new site as responsive or mobile.
need advice - we are launching a new responsive website. one team member very vocal that we should launch as mobile. site first then take that away. I think is a waste of time .. thoughts?
Technical SEO | | AJFanter0 -
Technical SEO - Where to begin?
Hi all, I'm looking to learn more about technical SEO. My background was digital marketing/PR where I learned the importance of links, of anchor text, of page speed, of improving UX signals, of SSL, utilising things like Google My Business etc. However, I find I am chasing my tail when it comes to things like understanding JS/CSS/log file analysis etc. I've tried reading so many articles on the subjects and I just find it so damn confusing. AnugalarJS/BackboneJS. Fetching & rendering, URL parameters...etc. I know from my own experiments that JS pages struggle to rank and I've created two very similar pages, one without JS, one with JS (which had far more links) and the non-JS page ranked far higher. So, I suppose I'm asking for some help with how to begin learning this stuff. I find the articles on Moz, Search Engine Land etc to be a bit confusing...maybe I'm not technically minded enough! Cheers, Rhys
Technical SEO | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
YouTube vs. LimeLight - What are the SEO pros and cons of each platform for on-site video viewing?
Are there any SEO benefits of hosting on-site videos using LimeLight? I know the various benefits of using YouTube but before going forward with a site redesign I want to hear what others have to say. Thanks, Jake
Technical SEO | | JakeMatulewicz1 -
Seo For Forum Sites
I have forum site.I've opened it 2 months ago.But there is a problem.Therefore my content is unique , my site's keyword ranking constantly changing..Sometimes my site's ranking drops from first 500.After came to 70s. I didn't make any off page seo to my site.What is the problem ?
Technical SEO | | tutarmi0 -
Site Navigation
Hello, I have some questions about best practices with site navigation & internal linking. I'm currently assisting aplossoftware.com with its navigation. The site has about 200 pages total. They currently have a very sparse header with a lot of links in the footer. The three most important keywords they want to rank for are nonprofit accounting software, church accounting software and file 990 online. 1. What are your thoughts about including a drop down menu in the header for the different products? (they have 3 main products). This would allow us to include a few more links in the header and give more real estate to include full keywords in anchor text. 2. They have a good blog with content that gets regularly updated. Currently it's linked in the footer and gets a tiny amount of visits. What are your thoughts about including it as a link in the header instead? 3. What are best practices with using (or not using) no follow with site navigation and footer links? How about with links to social media pages like Facebook/Twitter? Any other thoughts/ideas about the site navigation for this site (www.aplossoftware.com) would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | stageagent0 -
When Should You Start SEO?
I am launching a new website (related to IT services) on Monday 6th May 2013. What should be my SEO/SMO/PPC strategy for a brand new website with new domain ? I have a blog within the website as well. Is it better to promote internal blog or should i focus on external bogs like wordpress ?
Technical SEO | | afycon0 -
Domain redirect seo
Hello, my domain www.pacomarca.com and when i start the new campaing i get this pronblem: We have detected that the domain www.pacomarca.com and the domain pacomarca.com both respond to web requests and do not redirect. Having two "twin" domains that both resolve forces them to battle for SERP positions, making your SEO efforts less effective. We suggest redirecting one, then entering the other here. my domain is in networksolutions.com. how can i resolve it? many thanks Gonzalo
Technical SEO | | Kuna0 -
Penalities in a brand new site, Sandbox Time or rather a problem of the site?
Hi guys, 4 weeks ago we launched a site www.adsl-test.it. We just make some article marketing and developed a lots of functionalities to test and share the result of the speed tests runned throug the site. We have been for weeks in 9th google serp page then suddendly for a day (the 29 of february) in the second page next day the website home is disappeared even to brand search like adsl-test. The actual situalion is: it looks like we are not banned (site:www.adsl-test.it is still listed) GWT doesn't show any suggestion and everything looks good for it we are quite high on bing.it and yahoo.it (4th place in the first page) for adsl test search Anybody could help us to understand? Another think that I thought is that we create a single ID for each test that we are running and these test are indexed by google Ex: <cite>www.adsl-test.it/speedtest/w08ZMPKl3R or</cite> <cite>www.adsl-test.it/speedtest/P87t7Z7cd9</cite> Actually the content of these urls are quite different (because the speed measured is different) but, being a badge the other contents in the page are pretty the same. Could be a possible reason? I mean google just think we are creating duplicate content also if they are not effectively duplicated content but just the result of a speed test?
Technical SEO | | codicemigrazione0