Potential issue: Page design might look like keyword stuffing to a web crawler
-
We have an interesting design element we might try on our home page. Here's a mockup: https://codepen.io/dsbudiac/pen/Bwrgjd
I'm worried web crawlers will interpret this as keyword stuffing and affect our rankings. It features:
- Mostly transparent/hidden text
- Repeating keyword list
I could try a couple methods to skirt around crawling concerns:
- Load keywords through an iframe
- Make the keywords an image (would significantly increase page load)
- Inject keywords after page load into a container w/ javascript (prob not effective as crawlers are only getting better at indexing javascript)
- Load the keywords into an svg element
- Load the keywords into a canvas element via javascript
I have a few questions:
- Should I be concerned about any potential keyword stuffing / SEO issues with this design?
- Can you comment on the effectiveness (with proof) of the above strategies?
- Am I better off just abandoning this type of design?
-
Ah, a very interesting question!
I'd not be too concerned; you're loading the content in through a data attribute rather than directly as text. However, there are definitely a few options you could consider:
- Render via SVG feels like the safest bet, though that's going to be a pretty large, complex set of vectors.
- Save + serve as an image (and overcome the file size concerns by using WebP, HTTP/2, a CDN like Cloudflare, etc)
- Serve the content via a dedicated JavaScript file, which you could block access to via robots.txt (a bit fudgey!)
I'd be keen to explore #2 - feels like you should be able to achieve the effect you're after with an image which isn't ridiculously huge.
-
Never said the image option was hard. It's just not ideal as it increases page load and is less flexible. A noindex'd iframe seems to be the best option. We already have a working proof of concept, thanks.
-
As long as you don't use that text inside a header, link, or some relevant piece of content you don't have to worry about it. As I understand h1 is the main factor of Google to determine the main keyword of a specific page.
-
I thought about using googleon/googleoff tags, but apparently that's only for Google Search Appliance, and not traditional google search/index: https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/54735/can-you-use-googleon-and-googleoff-comments-to-prevent-googlebot-from-indexing-p
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
-
Confused with rankings for keywords that are not on the actual page?
Hey Guys, So I went to search a keyword, my competitor came up, when I looked for that keyword on their page i didn't see it at all, and the page is content thin, how is it they are ranking for the keyword at all? Bit confused at how this works. So having the keyword in your content is not necessary a ranking factor? Please advise and sorry if this question is really amateur, I'm sure based on this search there is more to it then that.... could you other ranking factors as to why they rank for a keyword that is not in their content? Does the whole exact keyword have to be in the content to rank? Thanks all
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Some site's links look different on google search. For example Games.com › Flash games › Decoration games How can we do our url's like this?
For example Games.com › Flash games › Decoration games How can we do our url's like this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lutfigunduz0 -
2 pages optimised for same keyword... what should I do?
Hi, I have two pages appearing in positions 11 and 12 for the keyword: 80 btl mortgage. These are: https://www.commercialtrust.co.uk/btl/landlord-advice/mortgages/btl-mortgage-80-ltv/ https://www.commercialtrust.co.uk/btl/product-types/80-buy-to-let-mortgages/ Both pages are good, provide useful information and I would not wish to remove one of them. However, I am concerned that the reason neither one of the pages is on page 1 is because the keywords targeted on both pages is essentially the same. Should I reoptimise one of them for other variations of 80 BTL mortgage keywords? (e.g. 80% LTV Buy to Let Mortgage, 80 Buy to Let Mortgage, etc etc) Or, is there another solution I haven't yet thought of? I welcome your insights! Thanks! Amelia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommT0 -
301 redirect for page 2, page 3 etc of an article or feed
Hey guys, We're looking to move a blog feed we have to a new static URL page. We are using 301 redirects but I'm unsure of what to regarding page 2, page 3 etc. of the feed. How do I make sure those urls are being redirected as well? For example: Moving FloridaDentist.com/blog/dental-tips/ to a new page url FloridaDentist.com/dental-tips. So, we are using a 301 on that old url to the new one. My questions is what to do with the other pages like FloridaDentist.com/blog/dental-tips/page/3. How do we make sure that page is also 301'd to the new main url?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Duplicate content within sections of a page but not full page duplicate content
Hi, I am working on a website redesign and the client offers several services and within those services some elements of the services crossover with one another. For example, they offer a service called Modelling and when you click onto that page several elements that build up that service are featured, so in this case 'mentoring'. Now mentoring is common to other services therefore will feature on other service pages. The page will feature a mixture of unique content to that service and small sections of duplicate content and I'm not sure how to treat this. One thing we have come up with is take the user through to a unique page to host all the content however some features do not warrant a page being created for this. Another idea is to have the feature pop up with inline content. Any thoughts/experience on this would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | J_Sinclair0 -
Does Google make continued attempts to crawl an old page one it has followed a 301 to the new page?
I am curious about this for a couple of reasons. We have all dealt with a site who switched platforms and didn't plan properly and now have 1,000's of crawl errors. Many of the developers I have talked to have stated very clearly that the HTacccess file should not be used for 1,000's of singe redirects. I figured If I only needed them in their temporarily it wouldn't be an issue. I am curious if once Google follows a 301 from an old page to a new page, will they stop crawling the old page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RossFruin0 -
Dynamic pages - ecommerce product pages
Hi guys, Before I dive into my question, let me give you some background.. I manage an ecommerce site and we're got thousands of product pages. The pages contain dynamic blocks and information in these blocks are fed by another system. So in a nutshell, our product team enters the data in a software and boom, the information is generated in these page blocks. But that's not all, these pages then redirect to a duplicate version with a custom URL. This is cached and this is what the end user sees. This was done to speed up load, rather than the system generate a dynamic page on the fly, the cache page is loaded and the user sees it super fast. Another benefit happened as well, after going live with the cached pages, they started getting indexed and ranking in Google. The problem is that, the redirect to the duplicate cached page isn't a permanent one, it's a meta refresh, a 302 that happens in a second. So yeah, I've got 302s kicking about. The development team can set up 301 but then there won't be any caching, pages will just load dynamically. Google records pages that are cached but does it cache a dynamic page though? Without a cached page, I'm wondering if I would drop in traffic. The view source might just show a list of dynamic blocks, no content! How would you tackle this? I've already setup canonical tags on the cached pages but removing cache.. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Multiple URL's exist for the same page, canonicaliazation issue?
All of the following URL's take me to the same page on my site: 1. www.mysite.com/category1/subcategory.aspx 2. www.mysite.com/subcategory.aspx 3. www.mysite.com/category1/category1/category1/subcategory.aspx All of those pages are canonicalized to #1, so is that okay? I was told the following my a company trying to make our sitemap: "the site's platform dynamically creates URLs that resolve as 200 and should be 404. This is a huge spider trap for any search engine and will make them wary of crawling the site." What would I need to do to fix this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbhatt0