Can Membership Sites Rank Well in SEs?

[ukonline]

Hi,

Given that the content is going
to be in a 'members' area...how
can membershp sites rank well
in the search engines?

I would love to get my new site
to the top, or close. It's already
on the front page of Google, but
7 or 8.

I think that might not last long
unless I do something about it!

Any thoughts?

I suppose I could add free content
to it in addition to the members
content.

Brian.

[Mark Brian]

SE's won't be able to see because they don't have a login account in your private content however I read somewhere that Google can do it, I just don't know how to implement it.

[dburk]

Hi ukonline,

Obviously, Google isn't going to index pages that it's users can't view.

You could create some free content. What some folks do is create a summary of each page, or just part of some of the best pages and encourage a signup by leaving the reading dangling from a cliffhanger. Add a nice call to action, right where it starts to get good.

<button>Read The Rest of This Article - Get a Free Trial Membership Now!</button>

[MikeC]

I read somewhere that the membership site program Membergate (I think?) does allow Google to spider private membership content thereby getting traction in the listings but keeping the content secret. I haven't heard of any other scripts allowing this.

[PPC-Coach]

Attach a public blog to the front end...

[dburk]

Originally Posted by MikeC

I read somewhere that the membership site program Membergate (I think?) does allow Google to spider private membership content thereby getting traction in the listings but keeping the content secret. I haven't heard of any other scripts allowing this.

I think you might be referring to Google's Site Authentication feature that is part of the AdSense program. This is done to allow better targeting of AdSense ads and has nothing to do with SERPs.

[Simplweb]

There are a couple of things you can do.

Many content management systems use various "read more" like formats where you click on a link to ready the main body of an article. Often, subscription plugins for these CMS's kick in and try to get the subscription when you go to read more. So, if your intro text for an article is rich enough, it can server as a teaser for google as well as potential subscribers

I know of at least one set up that allegedly lets google see the whole article. Its called JoomSuite Member and runs on Joomla:

JoomSuite Member - Pay To Access -

"Open to Google, msn, Yahoo and other SE crawlers. They can see and index protected content not being visible for users"

Note, I have not tested that specific feature, so can't attest to it.

[ukonline]

Thanks for all the replies.

Much appreciated.

:-)

Brian.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Simplweb

I know of at least one set up that allegedly lets google see the whole article. Its called JoomSuite Member and runs on Joomla:

JoomSuite Member - Pay To Access -

"Open to Google, msn, Yahoo and other SE crawlers. They can see and index protected content not being visible for users"

Note, I have not tested that specific feature, so can't attest to it.

Hi Simpleweb,

Technically speaking, this is very easy to do and is commonly referred to as cloaking. Google doesn't like it and if they catch you, they are likely to remove your entire site from their index, not just the offending pages.

I'm not positive but I think the JoomSuite Pay To Access component allows for a summary preview which would be viewable by all, not just search engines.

[Simplweb]

Thanks Don, I'll look closer at Joomsuite about that