Indexed Pages – Are more always better?
Circa year 2000, it seems as though the number of pages being indexed is again at the forefront of perceived online success. For those of you who don’t know, “indexed pages” are those pages that a search engine has crawled and “filed,” which then have the ability to rank (and theoretically earn traffic). This number used to serve an indication of site architecture and “crawlability.” In the very beginning this number actually had some merit, but that was before the significant improvements in crawler sophistication and scalability … and you know… logic.
Index Pages. Is more REALLY better?
There are times that being able to check your indexed pages can be helpful, but making any kind of decision based solely on this number is nothing less than shortsighted. (Unless of course that number is zero, in which case, abandon ship!) The real problem is when an unfounded degree of correlation is attached to the number of pages indexed and the overall site traffic. These types of correlations were considered a given when we were in the pre-panda free-for-all of AdSense, Affiliate marketing and duplicate content, but those days are long gone.
It may be more helpful to look at the questions that this indexed pages number doesn’t answer:
1) Where the pages are ranking? (If they rank on page 100, no one will ever click them anyway.)
2) Are people actually searching for the terms these pages are being “optimized” for?
3) How much traffic are these pages earning?
4) Are people being directed to the best possible pages?
5) Do these pages bring the kind of traffic you want?
6) Are visitors to these pages converting?
Furthermore, disproving this false correlation is actually quite easy, even on a conceptual level. Keeping it industry related, considering the following. Would you rather have 1000 cars that nobody wants or 100 you know people want? Of course you’d take the 100.
Let’s take this a step further. Let’s say you could either have 1000 cars made up of 900 nobody really wants and 100 that people do, or just the 100 cars people definitely want. Now, your first reaction may be to say “I want them all!” But as you know, there is a cost to maintain that inventory and as always a limited amount of resources. So why do we forget these principles in a digital environment? This is the reality we face on the web today. This is the challenge.
At DealerFire, we’ve actually made an effort to LIMIT the amount of pages that are being crawled and indexed. This helps in a few ways:
1) Increasing the PageRank and relevance of the pages we do allow to get indexed.
2) Ensuring a better experience for potential customers who are landing on these pages.
3) Protecting against a slew of penalties for having a high concentration both duplicate and low quality pages. (Google has made a point of punishing these sites.)
Try to avoid becoming a prisoner of the moment and apply logic to the numbers you are hearing at conferences and sales pitches. Not everything is as it seems.
By Aaron Schinke
The post Quality over Quantity: The Indexed Pages Myth for Automotive Websites appeared first on DealerFire Blog.
