We have a client who has requested that we create a landing page which will contain only their logo and then links to sites which will be physically hosted in different countries - currently UK, Australia and Italy, with others to be added later.
They want to show themselves as a global brand, and be more country specific for their clients.
How are we going to manage this and still achieve their high Google page rankings they crave so much?
An example site they would like to replicate seems to have this landing page hosted in each country, but is otherwise identical. A Google search of the example company name shows the sites to be very poorly indexed.
In addition, for our client each site is going to carry pretty much identical products and information about the company, so there is a very high risk of duplicate content throughout.
How are we going to achieve this without damaging the hard work we have firstly done for the UK website in terms of SEO, and then get the other sites (hosted in their respective country), well indexed because they won’t effectively have an index page with all the usual information so liked by Google.
Hi Jonathan,
I’d be inclined to keep the web site as it is for the sake of good SEO but add a light box style overlay (this could be as large as the viewable area in the browser if the client wanted it to look like a new page) that pops up if the user is visiting from outside of your core market (the UK, Europe, USA etc). This light box would display the links to the other sites around the world but could be easily dismissed.
You can do the location checking using GeoIP to determine where the user is coming from which although not foolproof should be right the majority of the time. The light box overlay can then set a cookie so that users who have already seen it aren’t bothered with it each time they reload the page.
If you look at the experience you get if you load Amazon’s site from outside of their core area (amazon.com from the UK, or amazon.co.uk from the USA for example) you should see a subtle banner suggesting the user switch to their local site.
A solution like this should keep your client happy as well as maintain the good SEO coverage you already have on the site.
Regards,
Tim.
On 22 Jan 2013, at 11:56, Jonathan Riddle wrote:
How are we going to achieve this without damaging the hard work we have firstly done for the UK website in terms of SEO, and then get the other sites (hosted in their respective country), well indexed because they won’t effectively have an index page with all the usual information so liked by Google.
I was looking at how a lot of the Premier League football clubs achieve a similar thing, as most used to share the same backend for websites, with many being really well indexed at the same time, but when you first visited the site after a Google search, you were presented with a single landing page with hardly anything on it suggesting you register to become a member.
Your suggestion seems very similar to www.qpr.co.uk as the site content is just about visible in the background.
Just so we can go back to the client and explain that if done the wrong way, and they insist on just a single landing page with nothing on it but a logo and links to their other sites, that they will really damage their rankings?
Your suggestion seems very similar to www.qpr.co.uk as the site content is just about visible in the background.
Yes it looks like they are blocking access to the site with the light box overlay and then setting a cookie to stop it coming back again when the user returns to the page.
Just so we can go back to the client and explain that if done the wrong way, and they insist on just a single landing page with nothing on it but a logo and links to their other sites, that they will really damage their rankings?
I can’t see how adding a splash page with links to other sites would benefit the client without having a negative impact from an SEO perspective. Also if you wanted the light box content not to impact on any SEO ranking on the site home page you can always mark these sections of the page so that Google won’t index it; http://www4.uwm.edu/search/info/onofftag.cfm