Dynamic vs Static content for SEO

Banned 10 years ago

You don't need a lot of text to rank a page per main target keyword.

Meta tags isn't going to rank anything, it's just fluff.

Internal/external links from relevant pages is where most of the authority comes from to rank pages.

Thanks

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Google will classify your site as thin when you don't do something and thus your rankings will stay behind. Not sure if cloaking is the right solution though.

It will be very hard/impossible to make the pages unique when you have teachers of every language in every major city. It will start to look like spun content and that will work against you so the whole bio idea is probably not so bad, however I would serve the same info to visitors as to the crawlers, you can easily hide laps of text with accordeon scripts so that it doesn't look ugly.

To get away with thin sites you need authority, so with a brand new site it will become quite nasty. You could look for a strong expired domain though and host your site on that, way higher chance to succeed then starting from zero with a less then ideal concept (onpage SEO wise).

The comments of Yukon are based on old established sites, you can't compare that to someone just starting with a new site, new sites new rules, old sites old rules. Simple as that.

Thanks
1 reply

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by nik0

The comments of Yukon are based on old established sites, you can't compare that to someone just starting with a new site, new sites new rules, old sites old rules. Simple as that.

Lol, I started out with one webpage just like everyone else.

I have a few very small sites one of them is less than 20 pages. Still ranking.

You've been making some crazy claims on the forum today. What the heck are old rules?

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OP, ignore anyone that claims you need a lot of text to rank a page, it's just nonsense. Like I said, it's mostly about links from relevant pages, links from relevant pages on relevant domains is even better (long term SEO).

Get your keyword in the page title & an alternative relevant keyword in a single <h1> tag, point relevant internal links with similar page titles & <h1> tags to the page your trying to rank. Surround your anchor-text keywords with relevant plain text.

Example:

geico quote
auto insurance
driving school

Obviously make the page useful.

You have a problem with <h> tags on your webpage, your wasting any <h> tag authority & focused on nothing. Major overkill for such a small page:

2 = <h1> tags
10 = <h2> tags
6 = <h3> tags

Only use a single <h1> tag & tone all those others down to maybe a single <h2> with text that's focused on the subject, not irrelevant text like:

Header signed out
Main menu
Advertisers & Press
etc...

IMO that URL needs overhauled (hxxps://lingos.co/language-teachers/french/london), If you add the teachers name to the URL it's going to be nested 5 pages deep into the site.

Thanks

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mikaeldia

10 years ago

Thanks for the quick responses.

Nik0 has a point that our content might look like it has been spun? For example, lingos.co/language-teachers/english/london is the same as /french/london but obviously it's english teachers...

This is fine for AdWords and directed traffic - but for SEO purposes will Google penalize us if the content looks too similar for every page (even if the meta data and tags are all different)?

I guess this is why my developer thinks it's best to show crawlers different content for each page so that each page looks 100% unique from each other.

Thank you for the tip about the h1, h2, and h3 tags

Thanks
1 reply

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by mikaeldia

Thanks for the quick responses.

Nik0 has a point that our content might look like it has been spun? For example, lingos.co/language-teachers/english/london is the same as /french/london but obviously it's english teachers...

This is fine for AdWords and directed traffic - but for SEO purposes will Google penalize us if the content looks too similar for every page (even if the meta data and tags are all different)?

I guess this is why my developer thinks it's best to show crawlers different content for each page so that each page looks 100% unique from each other.

Thank you for the tip about the h1, h2, and h3 tags

Is it a brand new site or do you already have tons of legit links?

If it's brand new you don't make much of a chance when having the same content over and over on the same pages, as this is not going to be happen just once, it's with every country / teacher the same.

You can add internal links as much as you like, won't make much of a difference when most of the pages are considered thin by Google.

Actually I think Google won't really like your approach as you only use this structure to optimize for keywords and nothing else, very easy to detect.

Normal sites would probably have a decent search function to find teachers in their area, and the site would thus be dynamic.

Alternatively, ever thought about only creating city pages instead of country teacher + city page? You can easily optimize one page for:

- English teacher London
- French teacher London
- Dutch teacher London

Your developer knows what he's talking about, same like every single professional SEO firm adds content to category pages of eCommerce sites as otherwise they don't have much of a chance of ranking. Just SEO 101.

It's a shame that there's some stubborn mod who try's to make people believe that it can work like this and they who try fail hard at it. I've seen dozens of sites with similar setups fail miserably.

Thanks
1 reply

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by mikaeldia

My developer keeps insisting that there is not enough content to rank the page so he thinks the best thing to do is "trick" Google crawlers by showing them the details for EVERY French teacher (in London) that signs up to the site.

By this he means that the page will automatically look (to crawlers) like it's continuously adding content by pulling what teachers write in their bio section. To regular users, the page would look exactly the same as above - they would not see what crawlers see

My argument is that not every teacher's bio will be related to "french teachers in London" and the constant change in content will hurt our rankings, not help them.

He argues that the constant change in content will look like our page is constantly being updated - which is more important (in his mind)

You do not need to constantly update a page to improve rankings. In fact, updating content all the time, can screw up your rankings, like you said. If the page is ranking based on the content of the page, and Google returns a week later to find new content, that could drop the rankings.

This is one of the most common causes of what people call the 'Google Dance', where rankings bounce around constantly. Happens a lot when someone creates a blog type site and all their posts are published to the homepage. The homepage rankings jump all over the place because the content is changing all the time.

On top of that, hiding content from users but displaying it to search engine crawlers is a HORRIBLE idea. That is a great way to get a site manually penalized.

Originally Posted by nik0

Google will classify your site as thin when you don't do something

Completely disagree. The content is good and not full of fluff. The page has what is needed. There are a few things that could be tightened up, but the content is not thin.

Thanks
2 replies

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mikaeldia

10 years ago

This is a new site (domain is about 1 year old but ranking and content is new)

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

You do not need to constantly update a page to improve rankings. In fact, updating content all the time, can screw up your rankings, like you said. If the page is ranking based on the content of the page, and Google returns a week later to find new content, that could drop the rankings.

This is one of the most common causes of what people call the 'Google Dance', where rankings bounce around constantly. Happens a lot when someone creates a blog type site and all their posts are published to the homepage. The homepage rankings jump all over the place because the content is changing all the time.

That's what I thought but nik0 does have a point when it comes to the content looking very similar on all pages. For example, we have /language-teachers/french/london , /language-teachers/german/london , eventually when we have teachers in NY we will have /language-teachers/german/new-york

The general format is /language-teachers/[language]/[location]

I think we should be OK because it's actually different languages and locations ... but the content is the same (apart from the [language] and [location] within the page) and I don't want someone searching for "French language teachers in New York" to see "German language teachers in New York"

See what I mean... sounds a bit ridiculous but I just want to make sure that i'm building these pages properly so that as we grow the proper pages rank for the proper keywords

Thanks

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Completely disagree. The content is good and not full of fluff. The page has what is needed. There are a few things that could be tightened up, but the content is not thin.

And you think it doesn't become thin when there are let's say 10 cities and 10 languages, or in other words 100 pages with close to exact the same content, where only the word French is replaced with English or German.

Good luck ranking such site in Google.

Thanks

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

In your situation, I would take a look at sites like Zillow and emulate what they are doing. Obviously, they are in a completely different market, but the functionality is very similar.

Thanks

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gsinfovision

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by mikaeldia

Hey everyone,

Quick question - maybe you guys can help me settle a debate. I have a website where language teachers can create profiles and language learners can go and find them.

Now I have structured directories for each language and location where we have teachers

For example: https://lingos.co/language-teachers/french/london

This page is meant to rank for "French language teachers London" and keywords along the same lines.

Now I wrote the page content to match this keyword.

My developer keeps insisting that there is not enough content to rank the page so he thinks the best thing to do is "trick" Google crawlers by showing them the details for EVERY French teacher (in London) that signs up to the site.

By this he means that the page will automatically look (to crawlers) like it's continuously adding content by pulling what teachers write in their bio section. To regular users, the page would look exactly the same as above - they would not see what crawlers see

My argument is that not every teacher's bio will be related to "french teachers in London" and the constant change in content will hurt our rankings, not help them.

He argues that the constant change in content will look like our page is constantly being updated - which is more important (in his mind)

Now I know that on-site SEO is just 20% (give or take) of the battle. I completely understand that getting on page 1 for that search term is about quality and relevant links, low bounce rate, social engagement, etc.

But I want to make sure we get the on-page SEO correct...

Should we trick Google crawlers into seeing the bios of all users that sign up as french teachers in london. In other words the page is constantly updated with new content.

Or should we keep the page as is - make sure that the H tags, meta data and structure is good, and focus on off-site?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Cheers,
Mikael

With all due respect to your Developer, you can't "trick" Google big time. Mind you, the recent algo updates are in place to kick out sites that solely try to "trick" Google with thin content.

Making profile details available to SEs isn't a bad idea, but that won't serve your SEO purposes. Think of it this way - forums rank high on SEs, but not because there's someone hitting the "join now" button every few seconds - its because fresh posts are being put up every few seconds.

Hope that helps.

Thanks
1 reply

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mikaeldia 10 years ago

Thanks everyone - much appreciated!
- Thanks
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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Plenty of sites do just fine that way. Just look at Zillow and Trulia, for example.

Thanks
1 reply

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Plenty of sites do just fine that way. Just look at Zillow and Trulia, for example.

Yes, now show me a brand new site that's doing absolutely fine that way!

Thanks
2 replies

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yukon Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by nik0

Yes, now show me a brand new site that's doing absolutely fine that way!

I'm not flaming here but what's the deal with the talk about established sites being different than new sites?

Once your links/pages are all found for a new site, it's no longer a new site.

Established sites all start out just like every other site, one page/link at a time.

There's no different rules for new/old sites, either Google found the links/pages or they didn't. That's basic SEO.
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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by nik0

Yes, now show me a brand new site that's doing absolutely fine that way!

nik0, this does not appear to be some crappy affiliate or AdSense type site. It looks like someone trying to establish a real service for the long haul.

I would not go creating a bunch of different content for each page that all basically says the exact same thing.

Like I said, I would model the site after other sites that have a similar business model, in that they are really trying to appear for geo-specific search results like Zillow and Trulia.

I could care less about new sites versus old sites. Frankly, that's crap cheap backlinkers worry about.

Thanks
1 reply

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

nik0, this does not appear to be some crappy affiliate or AdSense type site. It looks like someone trying to establish a real service for the long haul.

I would not go creating a bunch of different content for each page that all basically says the exact same thing.

Like I said, I would model the site after other sites that have a similar business model, in that they are really trying to appear for geo-specific search results like Zillow and Trulia.

I could care less about new sites versus old sites. Frankly, that's crap cheap backlinkers worry about.

Maybe you should look at Zillow again and see that their content is spread out over whole the web.

Not that that relates to this as we are here talking about the same content on the same site, which is unavoidable in the current setup as copying the page to a different language / location would make it look like it's spun.

New sites get treated differently then old sites that already have the required authority so you can bet he'll get slapped by Panda. Perhaps that slap gets lifted once the site grows.

Back when Zillow and such started there was no Panda, that's the difference between old and new sites.

Thanks
2 replies

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Just to back it up with some proof without exposing sites, so you have to just take my word on it.

I setup a few Amazon ecommerce sites on expired PR3 domains and they all get decent amounts of traffic while they are fully scraped. Not huge but 25-50 unique's day.

I also setup a few Amazon ecommerce sites on brand new domains and they don't receive any traffic at all, not a single visitor.

That's the ultimate proof that Google treats new sites differently, based on that you can easily conclude that old sites get away with much much more then new sites.

Thanks
1 reply

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by nik0

Just to back it up with some proof without exposing sites, so you have to just take my word on it.

I setup a few Amazon ecommerce sites on expired PR3 domains and they all get decent amounts of traffic while they are fully scraped. Not huge but 25-50 unique's day.

I also setup a few Amazon ecommerce sites on brand new domains and they don't receive any traffic at all, not a single visitor.

That's the ultimate proof that Google treats new sites differently, based on that you can easily conclude that old sites get away with much much more then new sites.

Good grief,

You've proved your not ranking pages on one site while ranking pages on a 2nd site.

What's that got to do with the price of eggs?

Thanks

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MikeFriedman 10 years ago

Originally Posted by nik0

Maybe you should look at Zillow again and see that their content is spread out over whole the web.

Maybe you should look at Zillow again.

When I search "real estate york, pa" I find Zillow #2, with this page:

York Township PA Real Estate - 670 Homes For Sale - Zillow

When I search "real estate baltimore, md" I find them #3, with this page:

Baltimore MD Real Estate - 22097 Homes For Sale - Zillow

Outside of the listings themselves, look at the content at the bottom of the page. It is basically the exact same thing.

Don't give me junk about old sites and new sites being treated differently in Panda. That is simply not true. There were plenty of well known older sites that got hit when Panda rolled out.

As for your "example", and assuming it is true, there are a ton of reasons why that result could happen. The most likely being that if you are buying domains where the homepage is a PR 3, it is naturally likely to rank pages a lot easier because the internal links are going to be stronger right off the bat.

The reason that I mention sites like Zillow as a model to follow for this project is because if you start creating completely different content on every page, for essentially the same service, you are going to be screwing with conversion rates drastically. If you find content that converts really well, across multiple markets, that would be the content I would want to put in front of as many visitors as possible.
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anoopsparx

10 years ago

I think, you should think about what user want in your website. Are they getting right information the page they landing. For ranking try to technical optimize the page, do blogging, social media, off page. it will work fine for you. Focus on quality content and users, you will start getting ranking.

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Dynamic vs Static content for SEO

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