NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW - Any SEO benefit to these pages?
-
Hi
I could use some advice on a site architecture decision. I am developing something akin to an affiliate scheme for my business. However it is not quite as simple as an affliate setup because the products sold through "affiliates" will be slightly different, as a result I intend to run the site from a subdomain of my main domain.
I am intending to NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW the subdomained site because it will contain huge amounts of duplication from my main site (it is really a subset of the main site with some slightly different functionality in places). I don't really want or need this subdomain site indexed, hence my decision to NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW it.
However given I will, hopefully, be having lots of people link into the subdomain I am hoping to come up with some sort of arrangement that will mean that my main domain derives some sort of benefit from the linking. They are, after all, votes for my business so they feel like "good links". I am assuming here that a direct link into my NOFOLLOW,NOINDEX subdomain is going to provide ZERO benefit to my main domain. Happy to be corrected!
The best I can come up with is to have a "landing page" on my main domain which links into parts of my main domain and then provides a link through to the subdomain site. However this feels like a bad experience from the user's point of view (i.e. land on a page and then have to click to get to the real action) and feels a bit spammy, i.e. I don't really have a good reason for this page other than linking!
Equally I could NOINDEX,FOLLOW the homepage of the affiliate site and link back to the main domain from there. However this also feels a bit spammy and would be far less beneficial, I guess, because the subdomain homepage would have many more outgoing links than I envisaged for my "landing page" idea above. Also, it also looks a bit spammy (i.e. why follow the homepage and nofollow everything else?)!
The trouble, I guess, is that whatever I do feels a bit spammy. I suppose this is because IT IS spammy! Has anyone got any good ideas how I could setup an arrangement like I described above and derive benefit to my main domain without it looking (or being) spammy? I just hate to think of all of those links being wasted (in an SEO sense).
Thanks
Gary
-
Ha, brilliant. take care!
-
Would you believe me if I told you I had a brother called Derek? Most don't but it is sadly TRUE! Named before the show, my parents aren't that cruel.
I think we might have just excluded any US readers of this thread!
Have a good day!
-
Ha, no worries, glad it helped. I find I have to let things percolate or just draw them on a big white board. Often, the answer is pretty simple, it's just all too easy to box yourself into a 'I must do it this way' way of thinking when with a little flexibility, things are easy solved.
So, your a Trotter, any relation to Derrick?
-
Thanks Marcus. Today I learnt that I think best in the shower.....
Somtimes it just helps to get the question out there for others to comment - Your responses obviously got me thinking!
Thanks for all for your input!
-
Gary, I think that is spot on, we are telling you how to suck eggs!
-
After a long hot shower, I just thought this one up, how about.....
1.) I give each affiliate/trade user a URL with an affiliate ID on the URL, i.e. ?ID=123 (say) which points at my websites homepage
2.) If a user lands on my site with a URL containing an affiliate ID, the homepage is served up to the user with links that take the user to pages onto the affiliate subdomain site (the homepage that gets served up will be slightly different to the standard homepage). If the user navigates anywhere from this page they end up surfing the subdomain pages (all of which will be NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW).
3.) The "homepage" that gets displayed to the user is always INDEX,FOLLOW and has a rel=canonical tag for the homepage itself.
I "think" that this way my main domain gets the benefit of the links and the users always get the version of the site they are looking for without any extra "spammy" landing pages. Any one see any problems with this?
-
Is that really right? If that was the case presumably Google needs an index of NOINDEX pages or am I way off?
I "site A" gets a link from a NOINDEX page then Google must have some sort of record of that page's "WORTH" (for want of a better word) to attribute some value to "site A". That page's "WORTH" being derived from those pages that link to it.
That suggests to me (and my poor befuddled brain) that NOINDEX means it is indexed it just doesnt show in search results?
-
Thanks for your response. I don't think I can realistically go down the route of rewriting the entire site (the products change every year so it would not be a one-off cost by any means) - I would not get a return on that investment/time. I suppose, if I thought I might then why bother making it an affiliate site?
I agree with "a bit risky or just wouldn't work" - that's why I am asking because I didn't much like my own ideas!
Thanks again.
-
Well, it's true, in SEO, you really can learn something every day, even after ten + years.
I did not think the link value would pass through if the page was not indexed, almost like a cup with a hole, it would not hold the benefit.
-
I agree with Marcus about doing the writing. In the meantime I would NOINDEX, FOLLOW. The FOLLOW will allow pagerank to flow through these pages into the other pages of your site. If you use NOFOLLOW that pagerank is lost.
I have some syndicated content on one of my sites and some thin content that have NOINDEX, FOLLOW.
-
In my mind the best solution here would be to write (or have written) unique content for the sub domains so you could have them indexed, get increased exposure via search and win back links from these sites into the main page.
Anything else would be either a bit risky or just wouldnt work.
Hope that helps
Marcus
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
-
Nofollow/Noindex Category Listing Pages with Filters
Our e-commerce site currently has thousands of duplicate pages indexed because category listing pages with all the different filters selected are indexed. So, for example, you would see indexed: example.com/boots example.com/boots/black example.com/boots/black-size-small etc. There is a logic in place that when more than one filter is selected all the links on the page are nofollowed, but Googlebot is still getting to them, and the variations are being indexed. At this point I'd like to add 'noindex' or canonical tags to the filtered versions of the category pages, but many of these filtered pages are driving traffic. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | fayfr0 -
Unavoidable duplicate page
Hi, I have an issue where I need to duplicate content on a new site that I am launching. Visitors to the site need to think that product x is part of two different services. e.g. domain.com/service1/product-x domain.com/service2/product-x Re-writing content for product x for each service section is not an option but possibly I could get over that only one product-x page is indexed by search engines. What's the best way to do this? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks, Stuart
Technical SEO | | Stuart260 -
GWT Malware notification for meta noindex'ed pages ?
I was wondering if GWT will send me Malware notification for pages that are tagged with meta noindex ? EG: I have a site with pages like example.com/indexed/content-1.html
Technical SEO | | Saijo.George
example.com/indexed/content-2.html
example.com/indexed/content-3.html
....
example.com/not-indexed/content-1.html
example.com/not-indexed/content-2.html
example.com/not-indexed/content-3.html
.... Here all the pages like the ones below, are tagged with meta noindex and does not show up in search.
example.com/not-indexed/content-1.html
example.com/not-indexed/content-2.html
example.com/not-indexed/content-3.html Now one fine day example.com/not-indexed/content-2.html page on the site gets hacked and starts to serve malware, none of the other pages are affected .. Will GWT send me a warning for this ? What if the pages are blocked by Robots.txt instead of meta noindex ? Regard
Saijo UPDATE hope this helps someone else : https://plus.google.com/u/0/109548904802332365989/posts/4m17sUtPyUS0 -
Pages to be indexed in Google
Hi, We have 70K posts in our site but Google has scanned 500K pages and these extra pages are category pages or User profile pages. Each category has a page and each user has a page. When we have 90K users so Google has indexed 90K pages of users alone. My question is. Should we leave it as they are or should we block them from being indexed? As we get unwanted landings to the pages and huge bounce rate. If we need to remove what needs to be done? Robots block or Noindex/Nofollow Regards
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Off-page SEO and on-page SEO improvements
I would like to know what off-page SEO and on-page SEO improvements can be made to one of our client websites http://www.nd-center.com Best regards,
Technical SEO | | fkdpl2420 -
Does our new home page design look better and better for seo
Hi, i would like to know if our new design for our home www.in2town.co.uk page looks better than it did. We are trying to target the keyword for lifestyle magazine and lifestyle news. We are wondering if we should add more colour or graphics to the home page. we are going through each section of the site to make it a more enjoyable experience for our readers. If anyone can give us advice on keeping people on the page and using different social media techniques then that would be great. Through some excellent advice on here we are going to be starting a facebook page
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Should i use NoIndex, Follow & Rel=Canonical Tag In One Page?
I am having pagination problem with one of my clients site , So I am deciding to use noindex, follow tag for the Page 2,3,4 etc for not to have duplicated content issue, Because obviously SEOMoz Crawl Diagnostics showing me lot of duplicate page contents. And past 2 days i was in constant battle whether to use noindex, follow tag or rel=canonical tag for the Page 2,3,4 and after going through all the Q&A,None of them gives me crystal clear answer. So i thought "Why can't i use 2 of them together in one page"? Because I think (correct me if i am wrong) 1.noindex, follow is old and traditional way to battle with dup contents
Technical SEO | | DigitalJungle
2.rel=canonical is new way to battle with dup contents Reason to use 2 of them together is: Bot finds to the non-canonical page first and looks at the tag nofollow,index and he knows not to index that page,meantime he finds out that canonical url is something something according to the url given in the tag,NO? Help Please???0 -
Canonical on ecommerce pages
I have seen some competitors using the nofollow tag as well as canonical on all refinements and sorts on their ecommerce pages. Example being if you went to their hard drive category page and refined by 500gb hard drives then that page would have a canonical element to send it back to hard drives page without the refinement. I see how this could be good for control indexation and the amount pages Google crawls, but do you see problems in using the canonical tag this way? Also I have seen competitors have category page descriptions (describing what that type of product is) on all pagenation and refinements (the exact same block of text on all of the pages). Would this be a duplicate content problem or is it not that big of a deal since the content is only on their site so they are only competiting with themselves. Thanks for your help
Technical SEO | | Gordian0