How do we ensure our new dynamic site gets indexed?
-
Just wondering if you can point me in the right direction. We're building a 'dynamically generated' website, so basically, pages don’t technically exist until the visitor types in the URL (or clicks an on page link), the pages are then created on the fly for the visitor.
The major concern I’ve got is that Google won’t be able to index the site, as the pages don't exist until they're 'visited', and to top it off, they're rendered in JSPX, which makes things tricky to ensure the bots can view the content
We’re going to build/submit a sitemap.xml to signpost the site for Googlebot but are there any other options/resources/best practices Mozzers could recommend for ensuring our new dynamic website gets indexed?
-
Hi Ryan,
Mirroring what Alan said, if the links are html text links - and they should be - then you will reduce your crawling problem with Google.
If you must use javascript links, make sure to duplicate them using
<noscript>tags so that Google will follow them.</p> <p><a href="http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355">http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355</a></p> <p>But be careful, Google doesn't treat <noscript> links like regular html links. At best, it's a poor alternative.</p> <p>Google derives so many signals from HTML links (anchor text, page rank, context, etc) that it's almost essential for a search engine friendly site to include them.</p> <p>The Beginners Guide to SEO has a relevant chapter on the basics of Search Engine Friendly Design and Development:</p> <p><a href="http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development">http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development</a></p> <p>Best of luck!</p></noscript>
-
Definitely want to get it right before launch. It's not going anywhere until it is absolutely ready!
-
The project this reminds me of took six months to complete and the 301's alone were a full time job.
Get it right the first time... you do not want to restructure like this on a large dynamic site.
I must say the project worked out but I got all my grey hair the day we threw the switch...
-
When I say its costly to rewrite 200,000+ URLS I mean it. Correcting mistakes here can cost big dollars.
In this case it wascostly to the tune of $60,000+ in costs and loss, however the bottle of bubbly at the end of the six month project was tasty.
Point being is to do it right the first time.
As I said before your best bet is documentation. Large dynamic sites generate large dynamic problems very quickly if not watched closely.
-
Thank you Khem, very helpful replies.
-
One more thing, I missed. Internal linking, make sure each of the page is linked with some text link. But avoid over linking. don't try to link all the pages from home page. Generally we links all the categories, pages from footer or site-wide links
-
Okay, lets do it step by step.
First, if it's a product website, create a separate feed for products and submit the sitemap with Google.
if not, that may you would have separate news/articles/videos sections, create separate xml sitemap for each section and submit with Google
If not, make sure to have only search engine friendly URLs, who says rewriting 200,000+ pages is costly, compare this cost with the business you'll loose when all your products would be listed in Google. So, make sure to rewrite all the dynamic URLs, if you feel that Google might face problem in crawling your website's URLs
Second, study webmaster tool's data very carefully for warnings, errors, so that you can figure out the issues which Google might have been facing while visits your websites.
Avoid duplicate entries of products, generally we don't pay attention to these things, and show same products on different pages in different categories. Google will filter all those duplicate pages, and can even penalize your website because of the duplicate content issue.
Third, keep promoting, but avoid grey/black hat techniques, there is no shortcut to the success. you'll have to spend time and money.
-
It's definitely something we're taking a very close look at. Another thing not mentioned is the use of canonical tags to head off duplicate content issues, which I'll be ensuring is implemented.
My next mugshot might have significantly grayer hair after this is all done...
-
Thanks very much for the replies.
I'll ensure proper cross linking from navigation, on pages themselves and submit a full XML sitemap, along with the social media options suggested. My other concern is that the content itself won't be visible to Googlebot due to the site being largely javascript driven, but that's something I'm working with the developers to resolve.
-
As you can tell from the response above indexation is not what you should be worried about.
Dynamic content is not fool proof. The mistakes are costly and you never want to be involved rewriting 200,000+ pages of dynamic rats nest.
Sorting abilities can cause dynamic urls and duplicate content.
Structure changes or practice changes can cause crawl errors. I looked at a report for a client early today that had 3000+ errors today compared to 20 last week. This was all due to a request made by the owner to the developer.
When enough attention is not paid to this stuff it causes real issues.
The best advice I can offer is to make sure you have a best practices document that must be followed by all developers.
-
Make sure every page you would like to be crawled is linked to in any matter. You can create natural links to them, e.g. from your navigation or in text links, or you can put them in a sitemap.
You can also link to these pages from websites like facebook, twitter to have fast crawling.
Tell Google in your robots.txt that it can access your website and make sure non of the pages you would like to be indexed carry the noindex-value in the robots meta-tag.
Good luck!
-
any link, but i should correct what i said, they will be crawled, not necessary indexwed
-
Thanks for the reply Alan, do you mean links from the sitemap?
-
If you have links to the pages they will be indexed, dynamic of static it does not matter
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
-
Getting 'Indexed, not submitted in sitemap' for around a third of my site. But these pages ARE in the sitemap we submitted.
As in the title, we have a site with around 40k pages, but around a third of them are showing as "Indexed, not submitted in sitemap" in Google Search Console. We've double-checked the sitemaps we have submitted and the URLs are definitely in the sitemap. Any idea why this might be happening? Example URL with the error: https://www.teacherstoyourhome.co.uk/german-tutor/Egham Sitemap it is located on: https://www.teacherstoyourhome.co.uk/sitemap-subject-locations-surrey.xml
Technical SEO | | TTYH0 -
Why is there a difference in the number of indexed pages shown by GWT and site: search?
Hi Moz Fans, I have noticed that there is a huge difference between the number of indexed pages of my site shown via site: search and the one that shows Webmaster Tools. While searching for my site directly in the browser (site:), there are about 435,000 results coming up. According to GWT there are over 2.000.000 My question is: Why is there such a huge difference and which source is correct? We have launched the site about 3 months ago, there are over 5 million urls within the site and we get lots of organic traffic from the very beginning. Hope you can help! Thanks! Aleksandra
Technical SEO | | aleker0 -
Partner Sites
Hi All, Within our company we have a media group that publishes magazines and videos, the sites have footers that link to our shopping site, one of them has 118,459 links to one URL, domain authority 23, and the other 17,726 to seven URLs, domain authority 52, (there are some articles which link organically). My question is are these links because they're from identifiable companies with the same ownership worth keeping or are they detrimental? The site being linked to has a DA of 39 Cheers Stew
Technical SEO | | StewMcG0 -
Mobile site not getting indexed
My site is www.findyogi.com - a shopping comparison site The mobile site is hosted at m.findyogi.com I fixed my sitemap and attribution to mobile site in May last week. My mobile site pages are getting de-indexed since then. Website - www.findyogi.com/mobiles/motorola/motorola-moto-g-16gb-b95ef8/price - indexed Mobile - m.findyogi.com/mobiles/motorola/motorola-moto-g-16gb-b95ef8/price - _not indexed. _ Google is crawling my website and mobile site normally. What am I am doing wrong?
Technical SEO | | namansr0 -
Why are my URL's with a trailing slash still getting indexed even though they are redirected in the .htaccess file?
My .htaccess file is set up to redirect a URL with a trailing / to the URL without the /. However, my SEOmoz crawl diagnostics report is showing both URL's. I took a look at my Google Webmaster account and saw some duplicate META title issues. Same thing, Google Webmaster is showing the URL with the trailing /. My website was live for about 3 days before I added the code to the .htaccess file to remove the trailing /. Is it possible that in those 3 days that both versions were indexed and haven't been removed even though the .htaccess file has been updated?
Technical SEO | | mkhGT0 -
301 Redirect How Long until the juice passes through to new site
Hi Guys, Following on from a question i asked last week in regard to a 301 http://www.seomoz.org/q/301-redirect-have-no-ranking I was thinking that i had some kind of issue on the site, although i have gone over it with a fine tooth comb i cannot find any issue's and from the amount of reads the thread has had im sure if there was something obvious it would have been pointed out. So i am quite confident the 301 from site A to site B is fine and working as intended, so my question is how long should it take until the juice is passed From site A to Site B as its 9 weeks now and still down 85% on traffic and even text for my home page if copied into the search bar don't bring up my site Bing is fine and did not see any real traffic drops but Google is not giving me back the rankings i had prior Whenever i have done a 301 before the rankings pretty steady and i see no real loss in rankings but this time ... painful all changes in WMT made
Technical SEO | | kellymandingo
Canonical tag implemented
all Pages 301 and correct 200 response from the targeted page
Sitemap Updated
Many Links Changed from Old site to new (including DMOZ)
no Robots text Blocking directory's
Google crawling freely and regularly The strange thing is New content is indexed immediately and ranks easily, I added a page for my service in my local area and went straight to position 5 in Google however old existing content wont move, I tracked 150 keywords only 4 are top 75 Don't know what else to do so any advice would be much appreciated PS site is around 17k pages Paul0 -
Should this site start again on a new domain
Hi We have not done SEO on this site they have used another company who looks like they outsourced and the links have been built by a third party all blog networks and this company have said they cannot get the links removed. Google flagged artificial links on this web site in February and in April it lost over 10000 visitors in a month and its just free falled ever since. The categories have been recreated and no redirects created due to the amount of backlinks from the blog sites to the original category pages but the site is not recovering its down to 1500 visitors a month and used to get 14000 a month. So should my customer ditch the domain and move this site to fresh domain? http://www.kids-beds-online.com Any answers would really be appreciated. thanks Tracy
Technical SEO | | dashesndots0 -
If I redirect my WordPress blog to my main site, will it help my main site's SEO?
I have separate sites for my blog and main website. I'd like to link them in a way that enables the blog to boost my main site's SEO. Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks in advance for any advice...
Technical SEO | | matt-145670