The SEO effect of adding a front page to a website?
-
I have a client that wants to add a front page to a website so that when a user visitors the site for the first time a full page advert/message/page appears before they enter the site. The client wants this to be cookie controlled so they only see this on the first visit to the website.
I am concerned that even if I put links to a sitemap or xml sitemap on this page that it will affect how well the site performs in search engines. Any ideas/suggestions or experiences?
I found an interesting page on Quora about using pop ups.... Anyone who comments can you link to some good research and a clear simple explanation I can use to explain to the client why this is a bad idea..... https://www.quora.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO/How-would-a-pop-up-ad-on-a-websites-home-page-affect-SEO
And for the record I tried the usability argument....
-
You have to be very careful about this, as Keri suggested. Google can crawl some JS, especially basic stuff, and if they detect a clear intent to present different content to crawlers and people, you can get into trouble fast.
I would say, though, that pop-overs are pretty common these days. These are usually just a CSS-styled box that appears, with an ad, survey, etc., often the first time you visit a site. Even some reputable survey engines used them.
Now, I still think you should absolutely test this for usability issues, but if the pop-over is just an overlay that appears the first time a user visits, the SEO consequences should be minimal.
-
Definitely agree on A/B testing. Nothing will win the argument faster than definitive data that this approach is costing sales.
-
Just to chime in here-the usability argument is so important it should probably even trump the SEO considerations.
Usability is about conversion. It doesn't matter how much traffic you can drive to your website, if the usability sucks and drives visitors away, any traffic would be wasted.
On most of the sites on which I've worked, conversion rate optimization gives vastly better return on investment than just trying to drive more traffic.
But this shouldn't be an argument. This is a perfect example of something that should simply be A/B tested, so that the data from actual users will determine the correct answer. No best practices are going to accurately predict the preferences of users on all types of sites. I've seen examples where pop-ups were actually very effective for business goals, despite the fact that so many people bitch about them.
A fairly quick A/B test of your home page with and without a large pop-up would very quickly tell you whether the process was adding value to the visitor's experience or driving them away.
[But I gotta say, an early 2000's era splash page as the front page of your website sounds like a complete non-starter to me, SEO problems or not.]
Paul
-
That post talks about Google crawling javascript, but doesn't address presenting one thing to Google and another to users.
Here's what Google has to say, and would likely be the reason for your thumbs down:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355
Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines. Cloaking is considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it provides our users with different results than they expected.
Some examples of cloaking include:
- Serving a page of HTML text to search engines, while showing a page of images or Flash to users
- Inserting text or keywords into a page only when the User-agent requesting the page is a search engine, not a human visitor
If your site uses technologies that search engines have difficulty accessing, like JavaScript, images, or Flash, see our recommendations for making that content accessible to search engines and users without cloaking.
-
If it is a negative user response it will be a negative SEO response in most cases. In your case there could be very negative affects. An instant 'back' click is a bad sign to Google, especially it being the homepage.
-
Interesting.... So now I'm just up against the userability argument. Looks like it's do-able then with no negative SEO side-effects.
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
-
Rel canonical tag from shopify page to wordpress site page
We have pages on our shopify site example - https://shop.example.com/collections/cast-aluminum-plaques/products/cast-aluminum-address-plaque That we want to put a rel canonical tag on to direct to our wordpress site page - https://www.example.com/aluminum-plaques/ We have links form the wordpress page to the shop page, and over time ahve found that google has ranked the shop pages over the wp pages, which we do not want. So we want to put rel canonical tags on the shop pages to say the wp page is the authority. I hope that makes sense, and I would appreciate your feeback and best solution. Thanks! Is that possible?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shabbirmoosa0 -
Can Image Quality In Online Store Effect Main Site SEO?
My client is building a new shopping cart that will be mobile friendly BUT will have terrible image quality - tiny images, with text on them. How will these tiny images impact the SEO on the main site? Should they put the store on the mainsite.com or on a subdomain (store.mainsite.com)? Does google see subdomains as part of the main site? I would think that having thousands of shopping product pages could be beneficial to the main site SEO, as long as the images don't negate the content. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jerrico10 -
If I want to update the title of a page on my website would that negatively impact SEO?
I want to update a few page titles on my website. Some are duplicate titles, and some titles are just too long. Will my website be negatively impacted at all if I update these? I read somewhere that once you have created a page you need to stick to the title you have given it. So I am not sure if I should leave these pages be and make note of utilizing better SEO practices for the future or if I can go back and edit them. Any insight is much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | meredithrice0 -
Website URL Structure - keyword targeting on homepage vs internal pages
I have developed a few websites before where the homepage contains the content for the keywords I was targeting. This has been reasonably successful as I have found it easy enough to get links to the homepage. I am considering a new site in a totally different industry that I am thinking about structuring like this: mybrand.com (not necessarily targeting any keywords) mybrand.com/important-keyword-1/ (definitely want to target) mybrand.com/important-keyword-2 (equally important as 1st keyword) There will be several (30-ish) other pages targeting keywords but they are not as significant as the two mentioned above, more so they are about publishing informative information. The two important keywords are quite different but industry related. My questions are: should I be careful targeting keywords away from the homepage when the homepage gets the most links? Would I be better off building 2 different websites where the keyword content is captured in the homepage? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BGu0 -
Splash/Warning Pages at front of site
We are looking at working on a site that needs a warning for users visiting - This splash/warning page is the only just google sees this not performing well in search engine - The sites are Wordpress sites - Would we use script to force a full screen pop up? This would be needed on a visit but if the user leaves and returns to the site the warning would need to reappear. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
Where is the best place for Landing Pages to reside on the Home Page?
On this site http://www.austintenantadvisors.com/ I have my main landing pages listed in the navigation under "Types". The reason why I did this is because I am not sure where to insert those on the home page where it does not look spammy to Google and looks natural for users. Obviously they need to appear somewhere on the home page for Google to be able to continue crawling and indexing them. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webestate0 -
How to Make My Membership Pages More SEO Friendly
I'm working on a website that has multiple member pages. They are generated generically by the cms. Think of this website as a convention visitors bureau. Is it possible or is there a way that I can make the individual member pages more seo friendly. Other than the url structure, do anyway have any advice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TSpike10 -
SEO Landing Page Fail
We have a PPC landing page template that I've used to aggregate blog post collections thematically. http://www.ietravel.com/machu-picchu-travel http://www.ietravel.com/kenya-and-tanzania-safari The hope was that they would start ranking. After 5 months, it has yet to happen.Thought it was a good idea at the time because these pages have a nice prominent call-to-action area. It now occurs to me that the pages are probably under-performing because they are not incorporated into the main site navigation. Do you think that if I move these under their appropriate categories in the main site I'll see some lift? (Of course, I will add 301 redirects as well.) Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | csmithal0