SEO Advice (probably)!

[LooseDrumSticks]

If I use "nofollow" on the index page, will this provent my site from being indexed, or just the index.html page? Do I therefore need to add the "nofollow" to all pages?

I need to move my site to a test area, and set-up a "comming soon" page on the sites URL that Google can start to index, pre-upload of the complete site.

Can anyone offer any advice on this?

Thanks Cappa...

[leehack]

If i wanted to block the robots from a site, i would use a "robots.txt" file.

However, in your situation, i'd ftp a temporary home page and then put the site in test mode to work on.

[LooseDrumSticks]

Hi Lee,

The site is 'semi-live' in the sense that it's being updated constantly for the client to view -- a situation he wants to continue with.

So ... I was going to create a sub-directory within my home page that he can use, but I'm not sure how this would affect my cgi folder etc..

Would there be any problems that you could see with this kind of setup?

Tell me if I'm correct, but would I need to install (network setup) my catalog in the subdirectory, but point the cgi stuff to my root/cgi folder.

Its seems really complicated, but other than use an old, redundant domain name, I can't think of any other way to keep them seperate.

[leehack]

Hi Lee,

The site is 'semi-live' in the sense that it's being updated constantly for the client to view -- a situation he wants to continue with.

I'd recommend having a read up on "test mode", the idea is that a site can be uploaded and function as it will ultimately in the proper area, although it will have no visibility to the SE's. So anyone that knows or is told how to access the test area, can continue as normal. Put it in test mode, load it up and send him the link.

[LooseDrumSticks]

Thanks Lee, I wasn't sure if test mode would be 'seen' by the SE's.

I'll look into it now.

[los_design]

Bang on the money Lee (as usual ;-))

Put your store into test and add a robot.txt file that excludes this folder from bot crawling

###################

# robots.txt for http://www.example.com/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /test_site folder

###################

That will ensure no crawling.

Just remember you can tell a bot where NOT to go, but not where to go....

HTH

[LooseDrumSticks]

Following on from this (and thanks for the advice), is there a way I can let the search engines start to collect information for the site while it's in development?

I don't want to put words into anyones mouth, but I feel I may be contradicting the previous advice.

Could I use a sitemap for example?