Backlinks to unique login pages
-
Hi There,
This has turned out to be slightly long winded! Congrats to anyone who manages to follow what I am on about and cheers to anyone that can help!
The company I work for has several hundred backlinks from customer sites (authority sites) that link to their unique login pages (e.g. customer.oursitesname.com/unique-identifier). From these pages they can access our learning platform.
For maximum SEO benefits we have been trying to think of a way to get these customers to link to our start page. This is what we have come up with.
Customers would link to us using a URL with this format www.oursitesname.com/#customer-unique-identifier. (I have read somewhere that Google “ignores” everything after a #). This URL would then cause a Jscript pop-up or drop-down to open. The pop-up or drop-down would be hidden for the normal user and only be visible for users that visit over the unique URL. The pop-up or drop-down would be unique for each customer (mainly for branding purposes). The pop-up or drop-down would contain signup/login fields.
So now to my question, will this get us in trouble with Google? Is there a better solution than this?
Are we over thinking it and should we just do something like this: www.oursitesname.com/customer-login/unique -identifier and set www.oursitesname.com/customer-login/ as the canonical? Does the Google bot get suspicious of hundreds of canonical tags pointing back to the one URL?
Thanks in advance!
Henry
-
Cheers Bryce!
-
I don't think that should be an issue. The only time it would really be a problem is if you were doing "sniffing" for google bot and then displaying something different all-together.
The canonical tag isn't a bad idea either.
-
Thanks for that tip mate.
If all the customers were to link oursitesname.com/login. Would Google be suspicious if we were showing different content (branded login pages with text) to different referrers? I mean before they are logged in.
-
You have a measure of control over how Google treats parameters.
Log into Google Webmaster Tools > Site Configuration > Settings > Parameter Handling tab. You can then add or modify any parameter and tell Google how they should react (i.e. ignore, dont ignore, let Google decide, or use a specific value).
Bing has a similar process.
-
Hi Ryan,
This is a very valid point and would be easy to do if the referrer was always coming directly from the customer site. The issue is that sometimes the customers (which are libraries) send their traffic over a 3<sup>rd</sup> party referrer (so the user can input a library card number) and some libraries use the same 3<sup>rd</sup> party referrer which makes things messy. This is the case about 40% of the time.
Any suggestions?
On a side note… How does Google treat the ? parameter in URLs (e.g. www.oursitesname.com/?customer-indentifier). Do these types of links carry the same link power as without the parameter?
Thanks for your help mate!
Henry
-
Hi Henry.
My primary question to you is regarding the approach you are taking. Why create a unique page for each customer?
It is a common practice among websites to offer login screens for users, and to customize pages based on cookies or login information. This can be accomplished without providing new pages on your site with unique URLs, but rather by allowing users to customize their page.
When I open my browser and go to Google.com, I am automatically logged in and I see my current background image of a lion. The page URL is shown as google.com and it is customized for me. This example is rather simple, but you can display current information relevant to your customer in the same manner.
I would suggest speaking to your website developer about making your site more dynamic in this regard. You will receive not only SEO benefits, but your site should become easier to maintain as well. If you do take this approach, be sure to work with your customers to update their current links, and to properly 301 your pages.
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
-
Why google does not remove my page?
Hi everyone, last week i add "Noindex" tag into my page, but that site still appear in the organic search. what other things i can do for remove from google?
Technical SEO | | Jorge_HDI0 -
Are image pages considered 'thin' content pages?
I am currently doing a site audit. The total number of pages on the website are around 400... 187 of them are image pages and coming up as 'zero' word count in Screaming Frog report. I needed to know if they will be considered 'thin' content by search engines? Should I include them as an issue? An answer would be most appreciated.
Technical SEO | | MTalhaImtiaz0 -
Pages extensions
Hi guys, We're in the process of moving one of our sites to a newer version of the CMS. The new version doesn't support page extensions (.aspx) but we'll keep them for all existing pages (about 8,000) to avoid redirects. The technical team is wondering about the new pages - does it make any difference if the new pages are without extensions, except for usability? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | lgrozeva0 -
Page URL Change
We're planning on rolling out a redesign of an existing page, and at the same time, we're looking to possibly changing the URL of the page. Currently, the URL is www.blah.com/phraseword1-phraseword2-phraseword3-phraseword4 and we're ranking top 3 in Google SERP for that 4-word phrase. The keyword phrase is something we have in our Page Title, Site Copy and the URL. Now, we are planning on simplifying the URL to below.. www.blah.com/phraseword1-phraseword2 The plan is to 301 redirect the original URL to this new URL and actually work the exact phrase into the copy a few more times. My understanding is that URL doesn't get as much weight as it does in the past, but it's still important. So my question is... How important is the URL in this case where we will continue to have it in our page title and also we'll be working more copy on to the page with the appropriate keyword? Will 301 redirect from the old URL address the issue of passing SEO value for that keyword phrase? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | JoeLin
Joe0 -
Too Many On-Page Links?
How much would this affect my page ranks performance? There are many Too Many On-Page Links? warning on my campaign. should I address this issue right away to fix it or leave it as it would not matter seriously ? I've looked at some of the pages and think all of them are necessary. Could someone help me? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | LauraHT0 -
Is it bad to have your pages as .php pages?
Hello everyone, Is it bad to have your website pages indexed as .php? For example, the contact page is site.com/contact.php and not /contact. Does this affect your SEO rankings in any way? Is it better to have your pages without the extension? Also, if I'm working with a news site and the urls are dynamic for every article (ie site.com/articleid=2323.) Should I change all of those dynamic urls to static? Thank You.
Technical SEO | | BruLee0 -
Where to put Schema On Page
What part of my page should I put Schema data? Header? Footer? Also All pages? or just home page?
Technical SEO | | bozzie3114 -
How many pages should my site have?
Right now I think I only have 36. What is a good amount of pages to have? Any ideas on ways to add relevant pages to my site? I was thinking about starting a message board. Also, I have a free tech support chat room, and was thinking about posting the logs somewhere on the site. Does that sound like a good idea? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | eugenecomputergeeks0