2 Basic SEO Questions!

[dolphin77]

Hi there

Im soon to be setting up an ecommerce site using roman cart (which utilizes javascript client side shopping basket).

I remember years ago being told that spiders cant see javascript, is this still the case? My pages are going to be flat html and optimised as best i can. Will this type of cart effect my efforts?

duplicate content? yes that old chestnut, i'm hearing mixed things here, I have a lot of articles off another site i have, will i get penalised if i use the same articles on this one?

any advice appreciated!

 

[seo_uk]

robots can read javascript, however if there are no keywords to read it has little benefit. Hence sites with a full flash homepages generally end up on page 100 in the SERP's (I know that is going to get a wave of back lash), unless they are cleverly optimised.

Steer clear of duplicate content is my suggestion. Mixed opinion on dupe content seems to be coming from black hatters, who don't care if they get banned or not. Your business should mean more to you then being black listed for something as trivial as duplicate content.

I wish you the best of luck with your new site.

 

[sherlock]

You could be thinking of Flash. Google can't read Flash at all

 

[h20ho]

pages with alot of javascript do not do will with Google PageRank or SERPs. A little bit is OK but too much will make you invisible. Duplicate content can get you banned entirely. Google views it as search engine manipulation and they might deem it Copyright infringment.I have full flash sites I have tested. I my flash sites work like Stealth bombers. Totally invisible.

 

[pete_m]

Google is pretty good with duplicate content. It certainly won't get your site "banned". Just look at the number of legit sites that duplicate press releases, for example. However, Google do look at a lot of "quality signals" when deciding on how to rank new (and existing) websites. Launching a new site with a high proportion of duplicate content would be a bad idea.

If I were you I'd rewrite the content to fit the angle of the new site. It shouldn't take particularly long to do, but I do mean a proper rewrite - don't just change a few words here and there.

If you're worried about JavaScript, just dump it off-page into a separate .js file. Google certainly won't punish you for having a JS-heavy site. As long as your content and navigation are in HTML, then Google won't care about any amount of JS. Plus, you don't want the spiders to see the basket pages anyway - you want them to concentrate on your content pages (which include the product and category pages, obviously).

 

[h20ho]

Hi Pete,

When I stated they might ban your site I was actually pulling words from articles found in google webmasters area ... I find it a bit odd myself, but when google says they might do that... I usually listen.

Here is the article I was referencing
I can't post URLs yet

but if you type in the google url and add this after the com/
support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66359

 

[pete_m]

Hi h20ho

Sorry, the only reason I put "banned" into quotes because it's not really a banning per se (i.e. it's possible to get relisted).

Anyway, in those guidelines it says that you'll only get delisted if they manually review your site and it appears that you're being deceptive. Obviously the term "deceptive" is open to interpretation...

 

[I, Brian]

A couple of pointers:

Google can and does index links in Javascript
Google can and does index content in Flash

If your shopping cart is Javascript, it shouldn't be a problem - but if your products and category pages are in JS, it's not advised.

Adding articles to your site - well, you really need to ask yourself why you are adding these. If you think these articles will seriously bring in converting sales traffic, then go ahead, though be warned that content for content sake is not a good strategy.

2c.

 

[Keepsmilin]

Hi there

Im soon to be setting up an ecommerce site using roman cart (which utilizes javascript client side shopping basket).

I remember years ago being told that spiders cant see javascript, is this still the case? My pages are going to be flat html and optimised as best i can. Will this type of cart effect my efforts?

duplicate content? yes that old chestnut, i'm hearing mixed things here, I have a lot of articles off another site i have, will i get penalised if i use the same articles on this one?

any advice appreciated!

Duplicate content definite NO...No

Cheers,


Ezylet.co.uk

 

[newbie.soletrader]

Google can and does index links in Javascript

just to clarify,

google can *see* full urls in javascript, it may or may not then include them in its index

javascript is not an alternative to no follow, and you cant use it to hide your affiliate links

in terms of optimising a site for search engines, javascript (and flash) are still nowhere near as effective as good old fashioned text and anchor text links