I assume there is a way to get google to index pages that are not directly linked to the main index page. Where can I find an explanation of how to do it. Does many links on the main index page lower the ranking of a page.
Thanks
Texas Pete
Google will index any page it knows about and can reach (unless you tell it not to, of course). If your pages are linked from an inner page, or another site, then there’s no problem.
Numerous links might lower the ranking of a page if they’re all out-going, and particularly if they’re to non-relevant sites, because that will look like a link farm. Numerous links to internal pages on your own site won’t cause any problem. Just make sure they’re all relevant and necessary, so you don’t cause confusion for human visitors.
Do I have to link these links to the first page. I have many keywords to link for and I have about six locations I service. Example of a possible link. “Tree Care Conroe” another “Tree Care Houston” ect… I want these pages included but I do not want to intentional stuff keywords or spam to much. I do want these pages included. Each page is tailored for the key words.
Texas Pete
If you want pages to be indexed but not linked into your site then you can tell the search engines about the pages by including them in the sitemap.xml file.
No - as I said before, if they’re linked from any page, Google will find them and index them. As felgall says, you can use a sitemap to tell search engines about pages which have no links to them, but if there are no links, how will human visitors to your site find them? Relying on folk entering your site on the correct page via a search engine is a very big gamble, in my view.
Are you sure you need to link for all your keywords?
If you feel all the links are necessary, and there are too many to be easily navigable from one page, consider setting up intermediate pages for each area. So your home page would link to “Services in Conroe”, “Services in Houston”, etc., and those pages would contain the links to the specific services within those area - maybe with a couple of lines of introductory text about each, rather than just a solid list of links.
My impression is that there is one page for each area serviced where the content is similar enough that there is no reason for anyone to see more than their local version. There would be a generic version of the page linked into the site and these extra pages are localized versions of that page for SEO purposes. So there is still a copy of all the significant info from those pages linked into the site, just not with all the localized keywords embedded in it. I have seen other sites do that - whether it helps to get higher rankings for the local searches or not I don’t know.
Felgall, I did a test to see if the ranking improved over each location in google. It did. I went from 20 or 30 spot to number 3. Finding those long tail keywords did improve the search results. I guess the trick is to know the correct long tail keywords to use. I tested for sas “pest control the woodlands” and few results came up. I tested for "Pest Control The Woodlands , Texas " and Many results came up. I also test for “Pest Control The Woodlands, TX” . Most people appeared to be using “Pest Control The Woodlands, Texas”. It was over 10 times as many people. Thanks, to Technobear. I may have to use a combination of the methods to get my pages out there.
Texas Pete
note: Google may change there algorithm and links going to the pages may also affect ranking.