Site Activity, SEO, and behind login
-
I have a site that provides online education and as such, most of the user activity happens behind a login. This has me thinking about potential SEO impacts with a few questions that maybe someone could lend some light on:
-
How important is activity (above just search activity) to the search engines
-
Would it help to enter these pages, even though they're behind a login, into GA as we have with the front-end of the site
-
Does a subdomain make a difference (right now we implement the course as a subdomain of the main site
-
Lastly, as I was looking at compete.com, I am wondering how they get these use statistics?
-
-
1. Google does not use GA data for rankings. They only use data they have access to "outside" of your analytics, such as possibly;
- Click through rate
- bounce rate/time on site
- +1's
- "Block this site" (sometimes it shows up in the SERPs when you return)
- Google Toolbar activity like bookmarking
2. So following from question 1, it would not help for SEO to do this. It might help you however in gaining some more insight as to how logged in users use your site.
3. Its thought sub-domains do not pass much link juice across sub-domains, but for a subdomain to be on a private part of the site, this may not matter quite so much. If you've always done it that way, it may be better to just keep it the same. In these cases I always do what makes the most sense to the user. Eliminate confusion. Have a short but description word for the subdomain.
4. Compete's official documentation is here - and Rand did an interview with them back in 2008 here
Hope that all helps!!
-Dan
-
Activity is important but google does not use GA to determine the activity more than likely your CTR off of google and social activity.
I think compete is just a best guess....
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
-
New ecommerce site: Close old site and full domain redirect or keep it linking to new site?
We have rebranded and are working on our new site (B). Our old site (A) has a much higher domain/page authority than our new site. Currently we have the original Site A still there, with all links/pages pointing to the new Site B when people click. I am unsure whether we'd be best to close down the Site A completely and do a full domain redirect to Site B. Site A: 10 years age and has a moderate amount of links to it.
Web Design | | ModowestNZ
Homepage - PA: 24 DA:11 Site B: 6 months age, few links
Homepage - PA: 1 DA:2 My concern with the full domain redirect is that the indexed/ranking pages would dissapear. The benefit is less brand confusion for our niche range of party accessories.0 -
Infinite Scroll and SEO - Is it enough to only link to the previous and next page in the pagination?
Hi all, We are implementing an eCommerce site where the results pages of the products will be visibile on one page (always loading new products when you scroll down the page). Now, I have read that the Google spiders cannot "load" new products scrolling down the page, hence the spider only sees the first few products of the results page. Our developer wants to implement a system where a users sees the first products on example.com/products Then scrolling down, he will see new products with the URL changing to example.com/page/2 and so on. Is it enough that we add a pagination link that goes from example.com/products to example.com/page/2 Then another link that goes from example.com/page/2 to example.com/page/3 and so on, so the Google spider can make his way through all the pages? Or is that too much deep linking and the spider wouldn't even crawl all the results pages? Any recommendations how to go about this? Many thanks in advance!
Web Design | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
How Can I Make My Site iPhone Friendly?
I have been looking into making my website for iphone friendly as my analytics are not great for the iphone and I know when I try to navigate around it on an iphone it can be tough. I was told that if I make changes to the layout that it would affect my layout across everything, which I did not want to do. So I have two questions: Is this correct regarding the layout? If so, if you did something like m.waikoloavacationrentals.com which would be the mobile version how would that possibly effect your rankings with regards to the traffic distribution? Any feedback would be appreciated. Also if anyone has any experience in doing this I would be interested in discussing further.
Web Design | | RobDalton0 -
How to change the entire contents and design in my site without getting troubles with google?
Hello everyone This is my first post over here. In the next few weeks we going to change the entire content and design in our site. The site has 240 pages with poor contents and design. Except 301 redirects for all the old url’s I wanted to consult with you what is the right way to do it without harm my organic traffic that come from google? How google refers to this kind of changes? Which steps should I need to take to do it properly? Hope to get your help in the issue. Tahnks in advance.
Web Design | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Tips on website redesign on site with messy URLs?
So I've inherited quite a messy website. It was in drupal and the owner wants it in wordpress. One of the problems is the link paths. Should I try to recreate them exactly? i.e. something/somethingelse/page/ or use redirects (which I'm not confident in doing). Also, some of the pages end in .html, others in a back slash and others without slahes, there's no consistency. Do you have any tips in general? I remember an older seomoz blogpost about successful website relaunches (with press releases and mass emails and stuff being sent out on launch to boot). Thanks!
Web Design | | seonubblet0 -
Best Forum Platform from an SEO perspective
Hi All, I am looking to start a eCommerce business and would like to centre the user engagement of the site around a forum. Can anyone suggest a forum platform that adopts good SEO practice? So far my considerations are; phpBB vBulletin Wordpress with bbPress plugin Wordpress with Tal.ki plugin Anyone used these with great success? Do you have another suggestion? I am simply in the preliminary stage of sourcing something and am eager to here your thoughts... Thanks in advance... Dan
Web Design | | djlaidler0 -
What are some of the best Word Press themes for SEO?
Does anyone have any suggestions on the best wordpress themes to use? Here is one that has been recommended to me before: http://www.smallbiztheme.com/
Web Design | | webestate0 -
Does page speed worth for SEO?
I always broken my head to try to follow all pagespeed guidelines. I increase my pagespeed significantly, but i didnt saw any effect in my SEO performance. In my keywords, my concorrents are crap on it (I have score of 90 and they are at 60-70).Does google gives importance to it?
Web Design | | Naghirniac0