SEO Experts: Is This Site Truly Crawlable?

by cozandeffect

Posted: 12 years ago 16 replies

Hi Warriors,

I've developing a large travel site. The homepage is AJAX, and I'm not sure the search engines can crawl through it.

I submitted an XML to Google and it seems to index all the pages fine.

BUT I'm concerned that if we build links to the homepage, the "Google Juice" won't flow through to the article pages (which we really, really want).

Is the site OK for crawling? Or should we make a change?

The site is trekity . com (not sure if posting links is kosher).

Thanks for your help!

Coz

#crawlable #experts #seo #site

linkvana 12 years ago

AJAX crawling is a tricky subject. It might be easier for you to consider using a more basic strategy for the homepage content, but you can learn everything you need to know straight from Google themselves here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/
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- cozandeffect 12 years ago
  
  Thanks for your input.
  
  I'd really, really like to keep the homepage the way it is (if you take a look you'll see how user-friendly it is).
  
  Would it help if I placed xml sitemaps in the footer? That way the search engines could crawl them that way? Or does that fail to properly let the "Google Juice" flow throughout the site?
  
  -Coz
  
  Thanks
  
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Michael Nguyen

12 years ago

Site is not crawlable

This is how Google views your site:

Trekity.com: Find, Plan & Share Your Next Adventure

Great concept but Ajax is too advance for Google at the moment

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cozandeffect

12 years ago

Bummer.

Is there a workaround so search engines can crawl through to the article pages?

For example:

adding a sitemap in the footer
using window.history.pushState() (I don't really understand this, but read about it here: Create Crawlable, Link-Friendly AJAX Websites Using pushState() | SEOmoz

Or any other ideas which I may have missed?

(btw the way, thank you for all your help!)

Thanks
1 reply

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Michael Nguyen

12 years ago

Outside my skill set but what about creating a dynamic "tag cloud" with links to each post that can be placed on the left or the side. Each cloud could be
a location, mood etc. And can link to a category. Use meta robots noindex follow to avoid duplication.

Originally Posted by cozandeffect

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cozandeffect

12 years ago

Interesting idea... though I'm not sure it would scale.

We currently have over 500 pages of content, and will be doubling that in the next two months.

There are three separate taxonomies (you can see them on the left hand side) which means there are a lot of links to go through.

I REALLY appreciate your feedback, and if you - or anyone else - has other ideas I would love to hear them.

-Coz

Thanks
1 reply

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Michael Nguyen

12 years ago

Sure it would scale. The tag cloud would be random, combination of latest post, most popular destination etc. Fact is, not all pages will get the link juice you want it to but, but what you can do is make sure all pages get a chance of being index by using the homepage to link to it via the cloud.

Originally Posted by cozandeffect

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yukon

Banned 12 years ago

Originally Posted by Michael Nguyen

Site is not crawlable

This is how Google views your site:

Trekity.com: Find, Plan & Share Your Next Adventure

Great concept but Ajax is too advance for Google at the moment

Here is your answer.

What you see on the cache page (text-version) is what Google is looking at.

Thanks

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cozandeffect

12 years ago

Ah, good point. So you'd suggest a tag cloud over a sitemap in the footer? Or would both work well together?

Thanks
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Michael Nguyen

12 years ago

Originally Posted by cozandeffect

Ah, good point. So you'd suggest a tag cloud over a sitemap in the footer? Or would both work well together?

I would use the tag cloud because as a general rule, a page should have no more than 100 links. As your site grows, it will have more than 100 pages. What would really help with the tag cloud is if you built an xml sitemap and directly submit to Google webmasters.

The first think you should do with a site is to remove all barriers to improve your sites indexation ie, make it easy for the search engine spiders to crawl your site. The spiders have only a certain amount of crawling resource before it will decide to move on.

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cozandeffect

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Michael Nguyen

Hi Michael,

Yep, I created an XML sitemap (http://trekity.com/sitemap_index.xml) and submitted to Google and Bing.

So the pages are indeed indexed.

My concern is that - given the use of AJAX on the homepage - any links to the homepage won't pass any SEO goodness to deeper article pages (like those featured on the homepage).

The tag cloud seems like a possible solution. Would you suggest adding the sitemap to the footer in conjunction with the tag cloud? Sorry if this sounds dense, I'm decent with SEO but new to Wordpress and development.

And once again - thank you for your brain and willingness to lend a hand

-Coz

Thanks
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Michael Nguyen

12 years ago

Originally Posted by cozandeffect

-Coz

If it's the xml sitemap you're talking about then IMO there's no need as you've submitted it to webmasters but it doesn't hurt to do so.

Your homepage looks like it will continually update with new posts so the deeper links will never benefit long term. You will have to manually places the link somewhere or on side bar if you want a deep link to benefit.

BTW

http://trekity.com/post_tag-sitemap.xml

these pages throw up errors. Empty pages so no much value to google. I would suggest go into your plugins section and noindex follow the tags section at that level.

Thanks
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cozandeffect 12 years ago

Thanks for catching the tags sitemap - I'll be sure to noindex them.

So if I place a sitemap in the footer, wouldn't that help with deep linking?
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- AskJon 12 years ago
  
  I know you're trying to make it works, but if you don't know what you're doing with ajax (I don't!) I really would recommend you to switch to a more google friendly website with html/css. Your website is great btw, and could easily be done in html so I would take that option instead, but that's just my opinion!
  
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TheFBGuy 12 years ago

Sorry, have ask, why Ajax if you are going to rely on search engine traffic?
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- cozandeffect 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by TheFBGuy
  
  Sorry, have ask, why Ajax if you are going to rely on search engine traffic?
  
  It's a great question. As far as I knew, the articles would be able to be crawled from the homepage.
  
  Sadly, that's not the case.
  
  Still, I'm very happy with the front-end... it's very user-friendly, just not search engine friendly.
  
  Thanks
  
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