Jim Gilbert, who markets Austin Real Estate, is the first person to ask a question. Thanks, Jim! Hopefully this will be the first of many.
Here’s The Question:
“When I began posting neighborhood web pages, I did one for the basic information, another for the homes for sale IDX listings. I now want to combine the 2 pages. What is the best way to do this with minimal SEO issues from not having the second page on my site? ”
Here’s the Answer
Jim, I took a look at your website. You are currently framing the IDX listings into your web pages. In that situation, the search engines aren’t reading the IDX information.
If you want to combine the pages, put the IDX listings on the page that originally had the community overview, and delete the page that originally contained only the IDX listings.
The original content pages are the ones that a search engine would have been paying attention to. Adding the IDX listings to the original content page won’t have a positive impact on the page’s SEO, but it won’t have a negative impact either, so you should be all set.
Leave a comment if you need clarification!
2 Comments
October 19th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Kathleen, thank you for the response. I realize that the search engines do not read the IDX. But (some of) the home search pages are showing up in the searches because of page name (“___ homes for sale”), header name, some other information and links in the header itself. I moved one home search to the primary page last week, but did not delete the home search page. If I delete the pages, will this leave a dead link out there in SEO land? Jim
BTW, the do follow link seems to work better with the www in it.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Jim,
If you delete pages that are showing up in searches, anyone who finds the page through a search and clicks on it will land on an error page on your website.
It looks to me like the way your site is set up, you could “hide” the pages, but not delete them. That way, visitors would always land on a viable page.
The other thing you can do is to instruct the search engines not to index the page. Over time, those pages will then fall out of the index and you can safely delete them. If you are using Google’s Webmaster Tools, there is a URL removal tool you could use to help expedite the removal of pages.
You can instruct the search engines to ignore a page on a Point2 website using the Page Name and Search Engine Information link on the page, and checking the No Index box.
On the other hand, if your IDX pages are showing up in search results, that is another way people can land on your site. You might just want to leave those pages intact!