login names and passwords

[elpuerco]

Good Afternoon from the pig!

If my clients require a login and password to access my site how does a spider index my secure pages??

thanks

[scottiecl]

Good afternoon to you too!

It doesn't. Most people do not want their secure pages indexed... that's why they secure them! To keep people and nosy bots out.

[elpuerco]

So there is no point to optimizing the members pages.

I should just create a couple of highley optimized pages to attract customers. And hope that that is enough.

how about this:

Can I identify a search engine spider and let it crawl through my secure site?

is this a very risky propostion?

greg

[Mertu]

Usually that's defeating the purpose of securing them to begin with. As Scottie said, they're usually secure because you don't want just anyone to see them.

Even if you did let a search engine see and index the contents, anyone who clicked on the link in the results would either get an access denied and/or a login prompt. Either way, you're not going to get a warm-fuzzy response from the visitor. (Also, unless you tell Google not to cache the page, the content of the page will be available from the Google cache.)

For things like articles and so forth, a common tactic is to put the first couple of paragraphs or so on a page outside the member area with an explanation that you need to become a member to see the rest.

[scottiecl]

Originally posted by elpuerco
So there is no point to optimizing the members pages. Nope.
Originally posted by elpuerco
I should just create a couple of highley optimized pages to attract customers. And hope that that is enough.
I don't know what your site is about, but it is likely that you can create content that compliments your site that doesn't have to be secured. As Sean said, partial articles that are teasers or even full articles are a great idea. FAQ pages, About Us pages, there are plenty of things that your potential members (?) might want to know about that can add to your indexable content on the site.

Good luck!

[ihelpyou]

If my clients require a login and password to access my site how does a spider index my secure pages??
I am very curious about this. Why would you want those "secure" pages ranked if no one but your current clients can see them anyhoo?? :)

[Alan Perkins]

elpuerco

If I wanted to *see* these pages, would I need a user name and password? If so, forget about getting them indexed by search engines.

Or would I only need a user name and password if I wanted to *edit* them? If so, they can probably be indexed already.

[elpuerco]

The secure pages contain valuable information that users of the web may search for..

therefore I would want surfers to know these pages exist.

It is a moot point though, because even if I index the secure pages users clicking on the link will get a login/pass prompt.

Which is not a good thing. Unless I could somehow re-direct them to an info page that would allow them to become a member.

which could be considered unethical.

in conclusion, I am going to make an info site for regular users that is optimized for search engines.

[SusyQ]

maybe you could do it this way... have a few pages optimized with a little bit of the information on it... but if they want more, juicier info then they would have to be required to have a username and password.

would that work?

[elpuerco]

you are correct my fellow westcoaster.

that is what I am doing as we speak.

It's someone elses site so I have to actually "read" the info so that I can effectively make an "info" site :)

time consuming..but that's why I'm here I guess.

go canucks go.

sorry, I couldn't resist.

the pig

[SusyQ]

haha :cheers:

they are doing pretty good!