I wanted to get some input on how to do seo for a site that lets say is like a craigslist where people post listings but then after 5 months the listing disappears.
My worry is that the pages/listings being created will eventually get indexed and crawled by google but then after a few months when the listing expires and is deleted a problem may come up with search engine not being able to find page?
Would this be a potential problem?
How do listing sites like craigslist fix these sort of things? That is an issue, you would lose your backlink, I use to use craigslist a lot for temporary rankings, it was a quite effective tool, however it is just temporary. As for craigslist fixing that sort of thing, they really don't need to, they are seen as a top authority site in googles eyes, their pages index and rank almost immediately. I have a customer with a shop, they buy in a product, then when it's sold out that's it and they remove the page, so a similar problem.
The only real work around I have, is to have permanent category pages etc which are optimised for generic search terms. Then we have a blog in a folder, which is where they put the product descriptions and link to the shop page using nofollow, then when it's sold out they just say so on that blog post. The shops actual product/buy now pages are all noindex.
The upshot being we have a homepage, category pages and blog pages to optimise, but when a product is sold out all they have to do is say so on the blog page itself.
The idea is that because the description pages still exist and show alternate products below, they will each still attract traffic, then send them off to other pages.
It's early days, but seems to be working so far. Quote: Originally Posted by Steve_gts
I have a customer with a shop, they buy in a product, then when it's sold out that's it and they remove the page, so a similar problem.
The only real work around I have, is to have permanent category pages etc which are optimised for generic search terms. Then we have a blog in a folder, which is where they put the product descriptions and link to the shop page using nofollow, then when it's sold out they just say so on that blog post. The shops actual product/buy now pages are all noindex.
The upshot being we have a homepage, category pages and blog pages to optimise, but when a product is sold out all they have to do is say so on the blog page itself.
The idea is that because the description pages still exist and show alternate products below, they will each still attract traffic, then send them off to other pages.
It's early days, but seems to be working so far. Nice workaround, online stores are tough, from an seo point of view. That does seem to be the preferred method for seo on a store, just optimize for categories, I think this is the first time I heard of no-indexing the product pages, but it actually seems as though it could be a very beneficial strategy. you should also try to consider not just the backlinks for your site but a possible traffic and sales, since those site are build for that.
My worry is that the pages/listings being created will eventually get indexed and crawled by google but then after a few months when the listing expires and is deleted a problem may come up with search engine not being able to find page?
Would this be a potential problem?
How do listing sites like craigslist fix these sort of things? That is an issue, you would lose your backlink, I use to use craigslist a lot for temporary rankings, it was a quite effective tool, however it is just temporary. As for craigslist fixing that sort of thing, they really don't need to, they are seen as a top authority site in googles eyes, their pages index and rank almost immediately. I have a customer with a shop, they buy in a product, then when it's sold out that's it and they remove the page, so a similar problem.
The only real work around I have, is to have permanent category pages etc which are optimised for generic search terms. Then we have a blog in a folder, which is where they put the product descriptions and link to the shop page using nofollow, then when it's sold out they just say so on that blog post. The shops actual product/buy now pages are all noindex.
The upshot being we have a homepage, category pages and blog pages to optimise, but when a product is sold out all they have to do is say so on the blog page itself.
The idea is that because the description pages still exist and show alternate products below, they will each still attract traffic, then send them off to other pages.
It's early days, but seems to be working so far. Quote: Originally Posted by Steve_gts
I have a customer with a shop, they buy in a product, then when it's sold out that's it and they remove the page, so a similar problem. The only real work around I have, is to have permanent category pages etc which are optimised for generic search terms. Then we have a blog in a folder, which is where they put the product descriptions and link to the shop page using nofollow, then when it's sold out they just say so on that blog post. The shops actual product/buy now pages are all noindex.
The upshot being we have a homepage, category pages and blog pages to optimise, but when a product is sold out all they have to do is say so on the blog page itself.
The idea is that because the description pages still exist and show alternate products below, they will each still attract traffic, then send them off to other pages.
It's early days, but seems to be working so far. Nice workaround, online stores are tough, from an seo point of view. That does seem to be the preferred method for seo on a store, just optimize for categories, I think this is the first time I heard of no-indexing the product pages, but it actually seems as though it could be a very beneficial strategy. you should also try to consider not just the backlinks for your site but a possible traffic and sales, since those site are build for that.