Blank hyperlinks and spiders / crawlers 2

[NigeW]

Splash pages are considered a no no for sites when considering search engine optimisation.

However the customer is always right . . .

Does anyone know if doing something like <a href=&quot;URL goes here&quot;>&nbsp;</a> would be considered spam, or not advantageous for spiders to find pages lying behind a splash page ??

Thanks

Nige
Kiwi-kid

 

[ChrisHirst]

It's hidden links. One of the oldest tricks in the book and will get penalized.

Splash pages are pretty much a no-no for visitors rather than spiders, because the link that takes the visitor into the site will be followed by the spider (unless it's javascript or flash). It's not the lack of links that makes splash pages useless for SEO, it's the lack of text on the page.

See if you can add some text to the splash page 'below the fold', provided it looks right rather than just in sans serif the client should approve it.
To make sure it gets spidered build a site map and add a visible link to the bottom of the splash page along with the copyright notice.





Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[NigeW]

Hi Chris

Thanks for your time in providing feedback - confirms my suspicions.

Hope Im not breaking the rules but take a look at

http://www.daviesfurniture.co.nz

- the navigation on the splash page is in effect the same a site map page and therefore should have the same effect - do you agree ??

Thanks again

Nige

 

[ChrisHirst]

Adding navigation like that is not a problem. It fits in as part of the design and give the visitors (spiders and real) a route into the site. It's common practice as one of my sites shows

http://www.deschorley.ltd.uk

One thing to bear in mind is that any internal links back to the 'home' page should be done using an absolute address (

http://www.mydomain.com)

with keyword anchor text rather than a relative address (index.htm)

There's not really any rules about url posting provided it's not pr0n, gambling and the like, and it's relevant to the thread (or in your sig). Drive by url drops are definitely out.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[luds]

Chris ....

Could you elaborate on

&quot;...any internal links back to the 'home' page should be done using an absolute address (

http://www.mydomain.com)

with keyword anchor text rather than a relative address (index.htm)&quot;
please... especially how you do this with anchors.

thanks

 

[ChrisHirst]

Hi luds,

As the default page is dependent on your server config and type, the crawlers do not know what your default page is, so can (and do) see

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.mydomain.com[/URL] and [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.mydomain.com/index.htm[/URL]

(or whatever the default page is) as two different pages. For Google this results in the 'home' page having two different levels of PageRank (PR), one from external links and one from the internal link structure. As the majority of backlinks will be to the domain name only, your internal links should be the same. So everywhere you have a link to the home page use the domain name;

<a href=&quot;[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.mydomain.com&quot;[/URL] title=&quot;Keyword link description&quot;>Main Keyphrase Anchor Text</a>

.
As with most aspects of SEO the main thing is to be consistent.

One other factor where this method is useful is if you change servers or technologies for any reason and the default page has to change. As relative links are converted to absolutes on indexing, if your home pages links are to index.htm and you need move to default.asp then any PR built up for the domain name from internal links will be lost, using the domain for the home page links you won't need to edit the site and the PR will remain.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[luds]

Thanks Chris,

I understand now. THanks for explaining it :¬)

Luds

 

[ChrisHunt]

Having said all that, if you're using a splash page presumably

http://www.mydomain.com

will be the address of the splash page, whilst all your &quot;Home&quot; links will point to the real home page that you get to after the splash. Another reason not to use splash pages IMO.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.extracon.com

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[tmphuskers]

Great information, thanks Chris, once again you come through with a bang. I was wondering the same thing Luds was as far as an explanation. I appreciate the feedback!