Content available only on log-in/ sign up - how to optimise?

[Pascale]

Hi Mozzers.

I'm working on a dev brief for a site with no search visibility at all. You have to log in (well, sign up) to the site (via Facebook) to get any content.  Usability issues of this aside, I am wondering what are the possible solutions there are to getting content indexed.

I feel that there are two options:

1. Pinterest-style: this gives the user some visibility of the content on the site before presenting you with a log in overlay.  I assume this also allows search engines to cache the content and follow the links.

2. Duplicate HTTP and HTTPS sites. I'm not sure if this is possible in terms of falling foul of the "showing one thing to search engines and another thing to users" guidelines.  In my mind, you would block robots from the HTTPS site (and show it to the users where log in etc is required) but URLs would canonicalise to the HTTP version of the page, which you wouldn't present to the users, but would show to the search engines.  The actual content on the pages would be the same.

I wonder if anyone knows any example of large(ish) websites which does this well, or any options I haven't considered here.

Many thanks.

[Pascale]

Thanks Justin and Bruce,

I think I will try and push for the "limited view until signed in" solution.  The HTTP/ HTTPS one just feels a bit too much like a dirty hack that will end up hurting in some way, at some point!

Thanks for your responses.

[justin-brock]

Could you model your approach after other subscription sites? Take, for example, the online version of the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/home-page. They present enough content in preview mode to be relevant to both users and Google. You know from the blurb what the story is basically about.

Once someone logs in, they get the rest of the content. But I don't think they get a separate URL.

I wouldn't do the duplicate HTTP/HTTPS approach. In the future, you may want the whole site to be HTTPS, so you'd have to face this issue again.

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[BruceA]

Hi Pascale

If the content is visible to the "not signed in end user" then it is visible to google. If it is not, it is not visible to Google.

I might have this wrong, but it would appear that you have a pinterest style site and that you want further content only be visible when the user is logged in? This then would be a site settings and not crawl issue.  This is a trgger on the website server to require the guest to log in after XYZ.  The whole site is opened to crawl but you set these parameters for the guest user in your sites back office

I think it is a case of either or, not both

Bruce

edit typo

[Pascale]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for your response.  I agree - that the whole point of login is to to stop unwanted visitors seeing private content.  For the most part.

This is not a log in in that same way - it's more of a "sign up" so like Pinterest or DueDil - you have to sign up in order to view the content.

I hope that makes more sense and I will modify the title (if I can) to make it clearer.

Thanks

[BruceA]

If the content is for Logged in Users, why would you want it crawled?

Google crawls sites open to the public, therefore if the site is behind a login, then google will not crawl it. If google crawls it, then the content will show up in search results, hence making the login process redundant.

If you want to offer subscription content, then this is a marketing issue, not a crawl issue. You will need to have open content available that the viewing will perhaps then make a call whether to subscribe to your site or not.

Remember login is a cloaking devise, designed to stop unwanted visitors viewing the content, hence why google will view this in the same way.

Hope that helps

Bruce