Are there any penalties to having multiple landing pages?

[blinkingspirit]

Suppose I were an online vet (I'm not exactly sure how this would work, but go along with me here...). My site offers extremely good pet care. Pet care! Care for pets! Your pet - in safe hands! And so on.

I imagine I'd likely want landing pages for search terms like 'sick cat', so I'd make one about 'Caring for your Cat', and 'Care for Cats' and 'Your cat - in safe hands! And so on.'

Now there are the long tail pets - like peacocks! So I'll make a page about 'Caring for your Peacock' and 'Your peacock - in safe hands'... can you see where this is going?

So my question is - are there penalties for doing this? Or is every landing page I make an unambiguous gain?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

One page would cover all those phrases, so there is no need (or real benefit) from writing multiple pages of thin content, you would be better off writing a single page that incorporated all those phrases, and had a good title

 

[blinkingspirit]

OldWelshGuy - that seems a surprise to me! In my (admittedly ridiculous) example, there's no way the peacocks stuff would belong on any mainstream page. Rather, you'd want a whole load of stuff about "drooping feathers" and "cracked eggs" and so forth - people who searched for 'peacock vet' would definitely convert better if they felt that the site really did cater to their animal?

(But you're the pro - you'd know! Just curious why this is)

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Hang on, maybe I didn't explain it well enough. I read your post of

I imagine I'd likely want landing pages for search terms like 'sick cat', so I'd make one about 'Caring for your Cat', and 'Care for Cats' and 'Your cat - in safe hands! And so on.'

as you proposing to have a page for
'sick cat',
'Caring for your Cat',
'Care for Cats'
'Your cat - in safe hands!

i.e 4 pages for those phrases, when they should all be on a single page.

If you were talking about a budgie, then 'common ailments'
H2 - dropping feathers
a bit about budgies dropping feathers here

Is enough to get the page ranking especially if you cross link it using the corect anchor text internally.

 

[blinkingspirit]

Ah sorry - miscommunication! I certainly didn't mean separate pages for 'caring for your cat' vs 'cat care' - I simply meant one for each animal!

 

[BusyVids]

One website equals one landing page, which is the home page or index page. So you would need multiple websites/domains to have more than one landing page. Alternatively you could create sub directories of the main domain for each individual animal or service etc, all linked to the main home/landing page.

 

[fisicx]

One website equals one landing page, which is the home page or index page.

Are you sure?

I've got sites where nobody ever lands on the homepage. They go straight form the SERPS to the page they need.

Every page on a website is a potential landing page.

 

[blinkingspirit]

Busyvids - well, a landing is anywhere people can arrive, as I understand it? For instance, a search expert I read (I'm not a spambot, honest!) runs a site called 'appointment reminder'. Try googling 'appointment reminder patrick hair salon' and you'll arrive at a page which tells you about the advantages of his product - for hair salons. It's not at the index.htm address, sure, but it's where people who search that term arrive.

 

[eog]

One website equals one landing page, which is the home page or index page. So you would need multiple websites/domains to have more than one landing page. Alternatively you could create sub directories of the main domain for each individual animal or service etc, all linked to the main home/landing page.

Are you honestly suggesting he sets up a new website for each keyword group or the very least a sub domain for each keyword group?? Are you seriously suggesting that?



a landing page for each keyword group (grouped by animal) should do the trick

 

[blinkingspirit]

(Just to protect this discussion from meandering - what I'm really asking is: "does there come a point, after I add 'your iguana - in safe hands!' where google/bing punish the listing for cats and dogs?". If so, how do I start thinking about when to stop?)

 

[bdw]

I would say that in the example you gave there would be an advantage in having separate page focussed on particular types of veterinary treatment or particular animals. As long as this was kept at a reasonable level I see no reason why Google would penalise you for this. By "reasonable level" I mean a page for the main animals (like dogs, cats, horses, etc.) for which treatment is being offered and not a couple of hundred pages with some optimised for tarantula treatment and pet crocodile treatment.

Each page would of course need to have content that was useful to the visitor.

Try googling 'appointment reminder patrick hair salon' and you'll arrive at a page which tells you about the advantages of his product - for hair salons. It's not at the index.htm address, sure, but it's where people who search that term arrive.

How many people do you honestly think would google something like that? :|:|

.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

One website equals one landing page, which is the home page or index page. So you would need multiple websites/domains to have more than one landing page. Alternatively you could create sub directories of the main domain for each individual animal or service etc, all linked to the main home/landing page.

This is why I don't claim to be a Video expert honestly that is so wrong, it is painful to read.

In 1995 I started talking to people about the internet.

The internet is like a library where all the information is held, with books being lent between libraries via alectronic means

the search engines are like librarians, they will help you get what you want. If you wanted to know about growing tomatoes in a greenhouse, you would be pointed to the gardening section, there you would instantly disregard all the books NOT about tomatoes, disregard all the books about outside growing, and then have a look at the book about grwoing tomatoes at home. You do this by looking at the book title. within that book you have chapters, you look at the list and find the section on 'growing tomatoes in a greenhouse'.

THAT is how the internet and search engines work.

Going by your logic, if that book had 15 chapters, it should be 15 books :|

(Just to protect this discussion from meandering - what I'm really asking is: "does there come a point, after I add 'your iguana - in safe hands!' where google/bing punish the listing for cats and dogs?". If so, how do I start thinking about when to stop?)

If your titles are going to be formulaic and you are only changing 'breed-type' then forget about having maximum results from your SEO efforts. SEO by numbers died a few years ago.

FAR better to have something like
Caring for your cat - advice and help on health matters including Feline Distemper, urinary tract infection, diabetes in cats and other common cat illnesses.

you will have covered a huge gamut of searches there, and by writing about it will naturally include those target phrases you mentioned

 

[blinkingspirit]

How many people do you honestly think would google something like that?

I wasn't giving that as a sensible search term - I just included the guy's name so it'd be nearer the top of the listings, so people could see an example of a landing page.

I like OWG's advice once again

 

[DesignerNick]

If you are writing decent content about each animal which includes a couple of the most common illnesses, treatments and generally what people are likely to search for then you will catch longtails.

Just make sure you dont go OTT and write about Gorillas and Tigers when it is a local vet!

 

[BusyVids]

This is why I don't claim to be a Video expert honestly that is so wrong, it is painful to read.

In 1995 I started talking to people about the internet.

The internet is like a library where all the information is held, with books being lent between libraries via alectronic means

the search engines are like librarians, they will help you get what you want. If you wanted to know about growing tomatoes in a greenhouse, you would be pointed to the gardening section, there you would instantly disregard all the books NOT about tomatoes, disregard all the books about outside growing, and then have a look at the book about grwoing tomatoes at home. You do this by looking at the book title. within that book you have chapters, you look at the list and find the section on 'growing tomatoes in a greenhouse'.

THAT is how the internet and search engines work.

Going by your logic, if that book had 15 chapters, it should be 15 books :|




If your titles are going to be formulaic and you are only changing 'breed-type' then forget about having maximum results from your SEO efforts. SEO by numbers died a few years ago.

FAR better to have something like
Caring for your cat - advice and help on health matters including Feline Distemper, urinary tract infection, diabetes in cats and other common cat illnesses.

you will have covered a huge gamut of searches there, and by writing about it will naturally include those target phrases you mentioned

Wow! If you don't want to get slated you have to be sooo careful what you say here. Meant to say webpage but said website and paid the price dearly

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I wasn't slating you for the sake of slating you, I was pointing out how bad the advice (as you wrote it) was.

 

[eog]

Wow! If you don't want to get slated you have to be sooo careful what you say here. Meant to say webpage but said website and paid the price dearly

No, you also mentioned domains and sub domains - sometimes it's better to admit you are wrong - it's far to painful watching someone dig a deeper hole for themselves

 

[UKSBD]

(Just to protect this discussion from meandering - what I'm really asking is: "does there come a point, after I add 'your iguana - in safe hands!' where google/bing punish the listing for cats and dogs?". If so, how do I start thinking about when to stop?)

If the pages are too similar all but one can be pushed in to the supplememtal index and you can get the crazy situation that when someone searches for "cat care" your "dog care" page will rank higher than your "cat care" page.

The thing is that it can work, but you are always taking the risk that you add a few to many and lose the lot.

What's a few too many? you know when they get supped :redface:

Annoying thing is you can see your rivals getting away with similar things, so you then have to decide whether to risk it or not.