Would using javascript onclick functions to override href target be ok?
-
Hi all,
I am currently working on a new search facility for me ecommerce site... it has very quickly dawned on me that this new facility is far better than my standard product pages - from a user point of view - i.e lots of product attributes for customers to find what they need faster, ability to compare products etc... All in all just better. BUT NO SEO VALUE!!!
i want to use this search facility instead of my category/product pages... however as they are search pages i have "robots noindex them" and dont think its wise to change that...
I have spoken to the developers of this software and they suggested i could use some javascript in the navigation to change the onlclick function to take the user to the search equivelant of the page...
They said this way my normal pages are the ones that are still indexed by google etc, but the user has the benefit of using the improved search pages...
This sounds perfect, however it also sounds a little deceptive... and i know google has loads of rules about these kinds of things, the last thing i want is to get any kind of penalty or any negative reaction from an SEO point of view... I am only considering this as it will improve the user experience on my website...
Can any one advise if this is OK, or a "no no"...
P.s for those wondering i use an "off the shelf" cart system and it would cost me an arm and a leg to have these features built into my actual category / product pages.
-
Hello James,
Why do these pages have "no SEO value"? Is it because they are AJAX pages or because you have them noindexed? Or both?
To answer your original question, using an on-click javascript event to send a user to a page other than the URL listed in the href tag is borderline. It goes beyond the risk level I would feel comfortable with on an eCommerce site, but a lot of affiliate sites do this. For instance, all of their links out to merchant sites may go through a directory called /outlink/ so the href tag might look like .../outlink/link1234 and appear to send the user to another page on their domain, when actually the user gets redirected to the merchant's (e.g. Amazon.com, Best Buy...) website. Sometimes the user is redirected from the /outlink/... URL and sometimes they never even get that far because the javascript sends them to the merchant's URL first.
It is not cloaking unless you are specifically treating Google differently. If Google doesn't understand your site that is their problem. If you have code that essentially says "IF Google, THEN do this. ELSE do that" it is your problem because you are cloaking. Make sense? There is a very distinct line there.
The bottom line is if you want to show users a certain page then you should be showing that page to Google as well. If the problem is the content on that page doesn't appear for Google (e.g. AJAX) then you should look into optimizing that type of content to the best of your ability. For example, look into the use of hashbangs (#!) as in:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/getting-started
-
1. Google understands simple JS that is inline with your HTML. So Google understands that
is a link to domain.com. You can obfuscate this further and Google might not understand it. I've not seen Google try to parse or execute JS but that doesn't mean they can't or won't in the future.3. Google is very unlikely to spider AJAX. Many AJAX pages don't return any user readable content (most of mine return things like JSON, which is not for end user consumption) and , as such, are beyond the scope of indexation. Again, as in #2, you might want this content to be shown elsewhere if you want it indexed. https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/
-
ok, i am not keen on this approach, the developers have offered an alternative... but again, i'm not sure about it, they have said they can use ajax to force their search results / navigation over my current navigation / products on my category / product pages...
this gets rid of having to use javascript to send to different url... but up above Alan mentions cloaking, which to my understanding is basically serving anything different for a search engine / person... and thats what this will do... it serves up a different navigation to people... and the products could be listed in a different order etc... search engines do not see the ajax...
Is this any better? or just as negative?
-
Are they identical, you say the search equivalent, I just wouldn't treat search engines any different
-
even thou the content is identical?
It is only the way that content can then be navigated that is different...
-
Well then, yes I would be concerned, you are serving up different content to users, that is cloaking.
-
Hi Alan,
i think i may have explained incorrectly - my search page does have the meta tag noindex,follow - it also has a canonical link back to the main search page (i.e search.html) so i do not think any of the search results will be indexed. So my concern is not duplicate content, this should not happen...
My concern is the fact i am using javascript to litterally divert customers from one page to another... its almost like the static pages are there only for the benefit of google... and thats concerning me...
-
Google can follow JavaScript links, unless you are very good at hiding them.
I would not worry too much about the duplicate content, don't expect the duplicates to rank, but your not likely to be penalized for them. you can use a canonical tag to point all search results back to the one page.
I would not no index any pages, any links pointed to a no-index page are pouring their link juice away. if you want to no index a page use the meta tag no-index,follow, this way the search engine will follow the links and flow back out to your site
read about page rank and how link juice flows
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank
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
-
Using the same domain for two websites (for different geographical locations)
Hi all, My client has a new E-commerce site coming out in few months.
Technical SEO | | skifr
His requirement is to use the same domain (lets call it www.domain.com for now) for two seperate websites:
The first site, for users with ip addresses from USA - which will include prices in US dollars.
The second site - for users outside of the US - will not include any prices, and will have different pages and design. Now, lets say that googlebot crawls the websites from different ip ranges. How can i make sure a user from France, for example, won't see crawled pages from the US? Sure, once he will click the result, I can redirect him to a "Sorry, but this content is unavailable in your country" page. The problem is, I don't want a user from France to see the in the search results the meta description snippets of pages related only to users in the US (in some cases, the snippets may include the prices in $).
Is Geotargeting through Webmaster Tools can help in this case? I know I can target a part of the website for a specific country (e.g. - www.domain.com/us/), but how can I make sure global users won't see the pages targeted only to the US in the search results? Thanks in Advance0 -
Still ok to use
This is the flag to prevent google storing a copy of your webpage. I want to use it for good reasons but in 2013 is it still safe to use. My websites not spammy but it's still very fresh with little to no links. Each item I sell takes a lot of research to both buy and sell with the correct info. Once it's sold one I may just come across another and want to hold my advantage of having already done my research and my sold price to myself. Competitors will easily find my old page from a long tail search. Some off my old sold pages keep getting hits and high bounce rates from people using it as reasearch and price benchmark. I want to stop this. So, No archive first, then 301 to category page once sold. Will the two cause a problem in googles eyes?
Technical SEO | | Peter24680 -
Sub-domains for keyword targeting? (specific example question)
Hey everyone, I have a question I believe is interesting and may help others as well. Our competitor heavily (over 100-200) uses sub-domains to rank in the search engines... and is doing quite well. What's strange, however, is that all of these sub-domains are just archives -- they're 100% duplicate content! An example can be seen here where they just have a bunch of relevant posts archived with excerpts. How is this ranking so well? Many of them are top 5 for keywords in the 100k+ range. In fact their #1 source of traffic is SEO for many of the pages. As an added question: is this effective if you were to actually have a quality/non-duplicate page? Thanks! Loving this community.
Technical SEO | | naturalsociety0 -
Should we use "and" or "&"?
Our client has an ampersand in their brand name. The logo has "&", their url is spelled out. I'm trying to get them to standardize the use of the name for directories/listings. Should we use "and" or "&"?
Technical SEO | | vernonmack0 -
Using an exsisting domain for a new busines?
I have a domain name that is in use and has a domain age of 4 years. My question is this, will taking that domain name and promoting it under a completely new business in a completely different industry with a totally different business model hurt getting this new business to rank? The domain name is my first and last name. I've been promoting videos that I like under this domain name. I would now like to use the domain name to promote my local SEO services. Will this hurt my efforts to rank with search engines since Google and others have been indexing the site for a certain industry and topic? Thanks
Technical SEO | | fun52dig
Gary0 -
Track Backs how to use them
Hi i am trying to learn how to use track backs as a way to get link exposure. Cana anyone please explain to me the importance of them and how to use them please. Would i use one by putting a link back to my site or am i wrong on this. any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Javascript bad for SEO?
If we utilize javascript to pull information from a database to display on a site, is that bad for SEO? Can search engines still see the data?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0