Will Hiding Pages Damage SEO?

[AHayes183]

Hi Warriors,

I am soon to launch a new company website and as part of the marketing strategy, have targeted a number of keywords. Only 3 of these keywords will be used as web pages on the website (accessible from menu), while the remaining keywords are simply to be picked up by anyone searching via Google.

Do you think there is any risk of these pages not ranking well because they are not accessible from my website, or whether there is any risk of being penalized for some unknown reason?

Much appreciated,
Antony.

[ichl13]

So basically you want some pages with no internal links pointing to them? I don't see a problem with that, they'll just be harder to rank but I'm guessing you're not wanting to rank these pages anyway right?

[AHayes183]

Originally Posted by ichl13

So basically you want some pages with no internal links pointing to them? I don't see a problem with that, they'll just be harder to rank but I'm guessing you're not wanting to rank these pages anyway right?

Thanks for getting back to me. I actually do want to rank for these keywords since they are basically product/service pages targeting different keywords and it would be silly to place them all within the menu. I might create an "index" page in the footer links with a link to each of these pages which should help boost rankings due to internal linking.

[Snow_Predator]

If you have no links pointing to these pages from the Home Page or your category pages, then Google will assume that these pages are less important than the pages you DO have linked to from the home page and/or category pages.

So my understanding is that ichl13 is totally right - you will have a harder time ranking for these hidden terms.

[Johnny Optimo]

Just put them in your sitemap and it should be good. You should consider some internal linking anyway though just so your internal pages can benefit from your main page link building and vice versa

[AHayes183]

Thanks for all of your responses - I will use both suggestions. Perhaps creating an index page, and like Johnny Optimo suggested, make sure they are present in my sitemap. Perhaps it might just take a little more back linking to get them on top of Google.

Thanks again!

[webapex]

Why rank for keywords that are silly, there must be a logical way for the pages to linked within your site, even if it is a reference link within another article. Having orphaned pages is rather uncommon, I have seen on site optimization guides suggest avoiding such pages.

"Hidden Pages" usually would be some sort of "Cloaked" pages, in some cases designed to present an image to Google that is less commercial that than the ones visitors see, Google hates that sort of cloaking and sill defiantly penalize a site using that stragety (this is not the case with your ophaned pages)

[AHayes183]

Originally Posted by webapex

Why rank for keywords that are silly, there must be a logical way for the pages to linked within your site, even if it is a reference link within another article. Having orphaned pages is rather uncommon, I have seen on site optimization guides suggest avoiding such pages.

"Hidden Pages" usually would be some sort of "Cloaked" pages, in some cases designed to present an image to Google that is less commercial that than the ones visitors see, Google hates that sort of cloaking and sill defiantly penalize a site using that stragety (this is not the case with your ophaned pages)

My terminology may be wrong, by hidden I mean I don't want them to be present in my menu or front page. They are not "silly keywords"; what I mean is that these include very logical keywords that people might use to find my service - what is silly is having 50 pages all offering the same service in my menu.

[ichl13]

Or why don't you put the pages into categories, with buffer pages acting as category menus. That way you'll at least have some linking towards them? Not sure, just a suggestion

[AHayes183]

Originally Posted by ichl13

Or why don't you put the pages into categories, with buffer pages acting as category menus. That way you'll at least have some linking towards them? Not sure, just a suggestion

I'm not quite sure that would work for the site, thanks for the suggestion though.