Matt Cutts of Google Discussing SEO: Session 5

Contributed by MickeyMouse August 1, 2006  
Tagged: Google

Matt answers questions regarding using 301 redirects to merge existing sites, using directories to theme from keywords, feeding googlebot static pages on a dynamic site, and the potential dangers of A/B testing.

Reference: Session 5 Video

Will google apply a penalty for using 301 redirects to merge to existing sites?

As long as the sites are closely related in type of content, doing 301 redirects “should be no problems whatsoever.” Redirecting to or from obvious spam links however would be bad.

(Matt does not give details on google determines if two sites are closely related in content.)

What’s the best way to theme a site using keywords? Should each keyword be a separate directory?

Matt says that the webmaster should not worry about this too much. If you wish to categorize using directories into a natural tree, that is certainly fine. People typically and naturally will categorize by keywords anyway.

He does state that “it really doesn’t matter” in google’s algo if the keyword is in the directory or in the html file name. Keywords in both places are treated equally. (Woah, I always wondered that!!!)

In a site with dynamically created files and URLS, is it okay to feed the google bot static pages instead?

Matt restates that showing googlebot one thing and showing users something else is cloaking and evil. He suggests reworking the site to show the users and the spider the same, easily index-able urls.

How do you use A/B split testing on a static site without getting penalized for perceived cloaking?

Having the googlebot falling into this type of A/B testing is not good. He suggests performing this type of testing somewhere where the spider can not find.

He states that he would not use a php redirect and instead would use something server-side to actually serve up the two pages in place.

If you are ever sending something to googlebot that you are not sending to your users, you are at risk of cloaking penalties.