Will Changing My Free Sie To Membership Affect Google Search Results?

7 replies
Two days ago I changed my month-old site from free to 80 percent premium content using s2member plug-in.

My question is: how will this affect my Google search hits, which are averaging about 20 per day. I still post some free content daily, but the researched and longer content is now being tagged as premium. The ration of free to premium is about 20% to 80%.

The content that is now premium was indexed in Google as free.

I posted this question SEO section, but got no replies.

If you can give me some guidance on this issue, it would be most appreciated.

Thanks.
#affect #changing #free #google #membership #results #search #sie
  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    At a guess I would think so, however its hard to say without knowing exactly what changes you've made.

    I would assume that your members area is now restricted and you've set your robots.txt file to disallow certain content? If this is the case, then your rankings for these pages will definitely be affected. As for Google "hits" I have no idea what you're referring to?

    Traffic? Visitors to site???

    Anyway, be sure to set 301 redirects where applicable. Sounds like you've done some major shuffling of content.
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    • Profile picture of the author lastreporter
      Originally Posted by ramone_johnny View Post

      At a guess I would think so, however its hard to say without knowing exactly what changes you've made.

      I would assume that your members area is now restricted and you've set your robots.txt file to disallow certain content? If this is the case, then your rankings for these pages will definitely be affected. As for Google "hits" I have no idea what you're referring to?

      Traffic? Visitors to site???

      Anyway, be sure to set 301 redirects where applicable. Sounds like you've done some major shuffling of content.
      I meant Google visitors. If they choose one of the now premium articles they are automatically sent to a Subscribe Now page, which tells them the content is premium, gives them a link to some free content and pitches them the special subscription price.

      I think that covers it.
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      • Profile picture of the author richblogs
        Originally Posted by lastreporter View Post

        I meant Google visitors. If they choose one of the now premium articles they are automatically sent to a Subscribe Now page, which tells them the content is premium, gives them a link to some free content and pitches them the special subscription price.

        I think that covers it.
        Basically, your Google visitors will arrive only on query matches with the free content.
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        • Profile picture of the author lastreporter
          Originally Posted by richblogs View Post

          Basically, your Google visitors will arrive only on query matches with the free content.
          I really appreciate you help. That makes sense. So, if I continue to post free content on a regular basis, I can expect some Google visitors.

          Thanks.
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      • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
        Originally Posted by lastreporter View Post

        I meant Google visitors.
        Your visitor count statistics will of course vary inline with your search placement positioning, and that can only be determined by what changes you have made.

        I would guess that now you've rescricted a large portion of freely available information on your site, that many of your rankings might be negatively affected. So be sure to publish freely available content to your site in an effort to offset this.

        And again, set 301 redirects to preserve any existing rankings you dont want to lose.
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        • Profile picture of the author lastreporter
          Originally Posted by ramone_johnny View Post

          Your visitor count statistics will of course vary inline with your search placement positioning, and that can only be determined by what changes you have made.

          I would guess that now you've rescricted a large portion of freely available information on your site, that many of your rankings might be negatively affected. So be sure to publish freely available content to your site in an effort to offset this.

          And again, set 301 redirects to preserve any existing rankings you dont want to lose.
          Man, you've gone beyond the call of duty and I appreciate it.

          Currently, the membership plug-in automatically directs such those searching such pages to a Subscribe Now page, which explains to the visitor that he or she has reached a page that is for subscribers only. It also have a link to free content.

          I know little about IM marketing. Is this the same as setting 301 redirects?

          If not, how do I set them? Or, could you point me in the right direction. I don't expect you to do it for me.

          Thanks much!
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          • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
            Originally Posted by lastreporter View Post

            Currently, the membership plug-in automatically directs such those searching such pages to a Subscribe Now page, which explains to the visitor that he or she has reached a page that is for subscribers only. It also have a link to free content.

            I know little about IM marketing. Is this the same as setting 301 redirects?
            I really couldn't say, without knowing what plugin you're using. Im not familiar with the application that you've implemented so I cant offer any advice on that.

            Be aware though that there is a big difference between a simple script based redirect and a 301 redirect, which sole purpose is for SE related webpage redirection.

            Originally Posted by lastreporter View Post

            If not, how do I set them? Or, could you point me in the right direction. I don't expect you to do it for me.

            Thanks much!
            Here's some information on 301 redirects. Im assuming that you're concerns lie with Google's search engine?

            301 redirects - Webmaster Tools Help

            As said, your main concern should be preserving your current rankings, and of course ensuring the impact of making these changes are minimal.

            Perhaps some of the other Warrios might have further suggestions/ideas.
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