Optimizing A Homepage URL That Is Only Accessible To Logged In Users
-
I have a client who has a very old site with lots and lots of links to it. The site offers www.examplesite.com/loggedin as the homepage to logged in users. So, once you're logged in, you can't get back to examplesite.com anymore (unless you log out) and are instead given /loggedin as your new personalized homepage.
The problem is that many users over time who linked to the site linked to the site they saw after they signed up and were logged in.... www.examplesite.com/loggedin. So, there's all these inbound links going to a page that is inaccessible to non-logged-in users. Thus linking to nowheresville.
One idea is to fire off a 301 to non-logged in users, forwarding them to the homepage. Thus capturing much of that stranded link juice. Honestly, I'm not 100% sure you can fire off a server code conditioned on if they are logged in or not. I imagine you can, but don't know that for a technical fact.
Another idea is to offer some content on /loggedin that is right now mostly currently blank, except for an offer to sign in.
Which do you think is better and why?
Thanks... Mike
-
Hey Mike
Have you considered using a canonical to the unlogged-in homepage?
www.domain.com - canonical is to www.domain.com
www.domain.com/loggedin - canonical is to www.domain.com
As long as the page can be loaded and the canonical in the head seen by bots, that link equity should go to the homepage.
-
Hi,
The issue is not where is the login. The login is on the top of every page.
The issue is what to do with this /loggedin page that only has content for logged in users. The choices seem to be add content to it or 301 to the homepage for non-logged in users, if that is even possible/advisable.
Best... Mike
-
If it was me I would position the login block at the top of every page, rather than having a specific login page. That also means you can personalise with the users name.
Then 301 your old login page back to the homepage that should transfer almost all of the authority from any links.
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
-
Internal links from homepage and other pages
Hello, I'm curious what the difference is between internal links from the homepage and category pages. Make it sense to give some internal links from category pages (with a high PA) to an another page for a boost in the search results? Or is the link value too low in this case? Thanks in advance,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarcelMoz
Marcel1 -
Any insight on optimizing a single URL for locations in different states?
What good/bad experiences have people had trying to optimize a single URL for multiple locations in different states? eg optimizing a page of the site for "dentist atlanta", "dentist orlando", and "dentist miami" (the client has offices in all these locations). Has anyone found that Google has an algorithm that get's suspicious if you try to optimize a given URL for either too many locations and/or for locations that are too far apart?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdamThompson2 -
Replicating keywords in the URL - bad?
Our site URL structure used to be (example site) frogsforsale.com/cute-frogs-for-sale/blue-frogs wherefrogsforsale.com/cute-frogs-for-sale/ was in front of every URL on the site. We changed it by removing the for-sale part of the URL to be frogsforsale.com/cute-frogs/blue-frogs. Would that have hurt our rankings and traffic by removing the for-sale? Or was having for-sale in the URL twice (once in domain, again in URL) hurting our site? The business wants to change the URLs again to put for-sale back in, but in a new spot such as frogsforsale.com/cute-frogs/blue-frogs-for-sale as they are convinced that is the cause of the rankings and traffic drop. However the entire site was redesigned at the same time, the site architecture is very different, so it is very hard to say whether the traffic drop is due to this or not.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Canonical URL availability
Hi We have a website selling cellphones. They are available in different colors and with various data capacity, which slightly changes the URL. For instance: Black iphone, 16GB: www.site.com/iphone(black,16,000000000010204783).html White iphone, 16GB: www.site.com/iphone(white,16,000000000010204783).html White iphone, 24GB: www.site.com/iphone(white,24,000000000010204783).html Now, the canonical URL indicates a standard URL: But this URL is never physically available. Instead, a user gets 301 redirected to one of the above URLs. Is this a problem? Does a URL have to be "physically" available if it is indicated as canonical?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zeepartner0 -
Internal links and URL shortners
Hi guys, what are your thoughts using bit.ly links as internal links on blog posts of a website? Some posts have 4/5 bit.ly links going to other pages of our website (noindexed pages). I have nofollowed them so no seo value is lost, also the links are going to noindexed pages so no need to pass seo value directly. However what are your thoughts on how Google will see internal links which have essential become re-direct links? They are bit.ly links going to result pages basically. Am I also to assume the tracking for internal links would also be better using google analytics functionality? is bit.ly accurate for tracking clicks? Any advice much appreciated, I just wanted to double check this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Optimal image location in news stories?
We recently watched a video where a Google News developer advocated displaying large images near the top of articles. As a matter of practice, we tend to follow the below formats instead. Are we shooting ourselves in the foot? Use a gallery at the top: http://www.whatsonstage.com/west-end-theatre/news/07-2014/great-britain-billie-piper-west-end_34919.html Use a medium size square image on the right side: http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/07-2014/arts-council-funding-npo-orange-tree_34910.html Use a large image with a caption at the top: http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/07-2014/meera-syal-national-theatre_34913.html Also, do elements like a 'Buy ticket' console in the middle of article pages hurt us?: http://screencast.com/t/rqqMk2dATfmE
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheaterMania0 -
Google News URL Structure
Hi there folks I am looking for some guidance on Google News URLs. We are restructuring the site. A main traffic driver will be the traffic we get from Google News. Most large publishers use: www.site.com/news/12345/this-is-the-title/ Others use www.example.com/news/celebrity/12345/this-is-the-title/ etc. www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/12345/this-is-the-title/ www.example.com/celebrity-news/12345/this-is-the-title/ (Celebrity is a channel on Google News so should we try and follow that format?) www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/this-is-the-title/12345/ www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/this-is-the-title-12345/ (unique ID no at the end and part of the title URL) www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/celebrity-name/this-is-the-title-12345/ Others include the date. So as you can see there are so many combinations and there doesnt seem to be any unity across news sites for this format. Have you any advice on how to structure these URLs? Particularly if we want to been seen as an authority on the following topics: fashion, hair, beauty, and celebrity news - in particular "celebrity name" So should the celebrity news section be www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/celebrity-name/this-is-the-title-12345/ or what? This is for a completely new site build. Thanks Barry
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Deepti_C0 -
Canonical URL Tag Usage
Hi there, I have a .co.uk website and a .ie website, which have the exact same content on both, should I put a canonical tag on both websites, on every page? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780