Free Article Previews (Free Registration Wall)
-
My site is www.optionmonster.com It has a few different areas of "Free" and "Premium" content.
1. We have a first click free program for Google visitors, where they can read the first news article in full.
2. Other visitors and subsequent news article views have a content preview, which includes headline and first paragraph of content, and then asks for a name and email address in order to consume the rest of the free news.
3. We have premium content (paid), and all of those folders are currently on our robots.txt file
My questions are as follows....
a. How much content is needed in front of the "pay/reg wall" in order to still get proper juice from linkbacks/pagerank crawls
b. Should I make the premium content a robots meta noindex tag, or because you can't see the article at all without logging in, is a proper place to include on robots.txt
-
Since GoogleBots can't access the premium regardless, is it redundant to have on the robots.txt file?
You are indeed correct the best practice is to minimize your robots.txt file. That is why the very first sentence in my initial response was the suggestion to NOT include your premium sections in the robots.txt file
Will google and other bots will hurt you if you have premium sections that they try to crawl but can't?
No.
-
Okay. But since GoogleBots can't access the premium regardless, is it redundant to have on the robots.txt file? I thought the best practice was to have almost nothing on the robots.txt file per (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/serious-robotstxt-misuse-high-impact-solutions)
So my question comes down to if google and other bots will hurt you if you have premium sections that they try to crawl but can't, vs ignoring them because they are on the robots.txt
-
So you wouldn't No index FOLLOW those pages, in case someone links to them?
I am not sure what I said to offer that impression.
By "those pages" I am guessing you are referring to your premium content? If so, it really doesn't matter what you do with the content as Google can't get to it due to the robots.txt file. Even if you change the meta tag, Google wont be able to see the change.
Yes, it is possible they could try to follow a link but since this is premium content, they wont be able to access it.
Perhaps I am not clear on your Free vs Premium division. In short, any content which you do not desire to be indexed should contain the NoIndex tag, but that only applies if a crawler has access to the content.
-
So you wouldn't No index FOLLOW those pages, in case someone links to them?
-
I would not include your premium area in the robots.txt file at all. Google will recognize that they are unable to access the content, and it won't get indexed. There is no need to block it further.
For your other content, as long as you are showing Google the same exact information as you are showing to other visitors, you are fine. If you show Google more then you do to other visitors, then your site can be blacklisted.
How much content is needed in front of the "pay/reg wall" in order to still get proper juice from linkbacks/pagerank crawls
There are many factors involved. There isn't an answer like "400 words and you are good". These type of setups can be tricky. If you have a forum, then you can allow visitors to see the first thread but not any of the replies. By limiting content based on a number of words, you will be cutting off some articles, and it is possible a small article can be viewed in it's entirety.
It is more important your key words are in the content. If I linked to an article with the anchor text of 1980 Corvette, and your article started off discussing cars but you cut it off before discussing the 1980 Corvette, then that link can be devalued.
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
-
Redirect chain error free htaccess code for website
i want to redirect domain, example.com to https://www.example.com, is anyone can help me to provide redirect chain error free ht-access code. I implemented this htaccess code on the website and mhy site show on the moz redirect chain error RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !=""
Technical SEO | | truehab
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]+\s//+(.)\sHTTP/[0-9.]+$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]+\s(./)/+\sHTTP/[0-9.]+$
RewriteRule .* http://%{HTTP_HOST}/%1 [R=301,L]0 -
JSON-LD meta data: Do you have any rules/recommendations for using BlogPosting vs Article?
Dear Moz Community. I'm looking at moving from in-line Microdata in the HTML to JSON-LD on the web pages that I manage. Seems a far simpler solution having all the meta data in one place - especially for trouble shooting! With this in mind I've started to change the page templates on my personal site before I tackle the ones for my eCommerce site. I've made a start, and I'm still working on the templates producing some default values (like if a page doesn't have an associated image) but have been wondering if any of you have any rules/recommendations for using BlogPosting vs Article? I'd call this type of page an Article:
Technical SEO | | andystorey
https://cycling-jersey-collection.com/browse-collection/selle-italia-chinol-seb-bennotto-1982-team-jersey Whereas this page is from the /blog so that should probably be a BlogPosting:
https://cycling-jersey-collection.com/blog/2017-worldtour-team-jerseys I've used the following resources but it would be great to get a discussion on here.
https://yoast.com/structured-data-schema-ultimate-guide/
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/data-type-selector
https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/ I'm keen to get this 100% right as once this is done I'm going to drive through some further changes to get some progress on things like this: https://moz.com/blog/ranking-zero-seo-for-answers
https://moz.com/blog/what-we-learned-analyzing-featured-snippets Kind Regards andy moz-screenshot.jpg1 -
Internal duplicated content on articles, when is too much?
I have an automotive rental blog with articles that explain the pros of renting a specific model. So in this articles the advantages of rental versus the buying of a new model. This advantages are a list with bullets like this:
Technical SEO | | markovald
Rental | Buy new car
Rental:
Free car insurance
Free assistance
etc.
Buy new car
You have to pay insurance
You have to pay assistance
etc. etc. I want to do this because i want to make all articles like landing pages...
This "advantages box" have 100 characters. The general length of articles on my blog is 500/600 characters. So i have an average of 15/20% internal duplicated content on all my articles. Is this bad for seo? Any alternatives?0 -
No-follow for article directory?
My clients pull from a central article directory on our server (medical directory), as the information is about standard medical issues. This said, the MOZ analytics is showing these articles for each client as indexed and duplicate in content, descriptions, titles, etc. Would it be better to use a no-follow for these articles to avoid looking like duplicate content, or should I consider overhauling the resource section into static pages and making each article unique to each client-considering the latest updates in Google? Any help/insight would be greatly appreciated!!!!! Thanks
Technical SEO | | lfrazer0 -
Using the word "FREE" in domain name
Hi, This may seem like a simple question but a new client of mine wishes to use a domain name with the word "free" in it. The website will offer free activity vouchers. I couldn't see this being a problem as there a lot of websites that do this although he was told it may present a problem with the search engines thinking the site was spammy. It won't be and will be offering information and vouchers on local sporting activities. I was wondering if anybody could clarify this please so I can give him a more definitive answer to his question. Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | malinkymedia0 -
Should I just have links on my home page or intro to articles
Hi, i am having problems optimizing my home page for the words, lifestyle magazine, online magazine and lifestyle news. my site is here www.in2town.co.uk I am just wondering if i have to much content on the page for google to understand that it is a lifestyle magazine. I am wondering if i should just have the links on the page and no introduction to the articles which i have seen here with a site http://www.femalefirst.co.uk and i am wondering how sites like this are ranking better than ours when they have hardly any content on their home page http://www.nelifestyle.co.uk/
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-184886
http://www.lifestyle.org/
http://www.internationallifestylemagazine.com/ any advice would be most welcome0 -
Should I change hosting / registration when buying an established website?
I am buying an established website that is currently ranking very well for several keywords. I have no intentions of changing anything on the site. My question is, will it matter if I change where the site is hosted, and the whois information (I want to change it from public to private)? i.e., I don't want to do anything to mess up the current rankings of the site - will these changes have any effect? Thanks for the help.
Technical SEO | | red6marketing0 -
Should I include A Description Tag for an article page
Hi, I am wondering if i should include a description tag for an article page where the news on that page will change around five times a day. I am not sure if to fill a description in for local news or to leave it blank so the search engines pick up the latest local news and then the next day they show the latest local news again in the search engines instead of having a static description of the news page. any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860