How to get Google to index another page

[Petersen11]

Hi,

I will try to make my question clear, although it is a bit complex.

For my site the most important keyword is "Insurance" or at least the danish variation of this.

My problem is that Google are'nt indexing my frontpage on this, but are indexing a subpage - www.mydomain.dk/insurance instead of www.mydomain.dk.

My link bulding will be to subpages and to my main domain, but i wont be able to get that many links to www.mydomain.dk/insurance.

So im interested in making my frontpage the page that is my main page for the keyword insurance, but without just blowing the traffic im getting from the subpage at the moment.

Is there any solutions to do this?

Thanks in advance.

[Petersen11]

Hi Kate,

Thanks for your reply, im glad for yours and all others contribution, it really make me reflect on which direction i should choose.

The whole page is an insurance page, but there is many different things you can do, you can buy insurance, calculate prize, make a claim and so on, so the frontpage has many purposes.

The reason why i want to be ranked on the frontpage, is because it converts better, and im sure i can get it ranked higher, in the long run, because of the link building oppertunities i have on that page.

So right now, it maybe would preferrebly to focus on /insurance, but in the long run i think the frontpage will be stronger.

It's also important for me to underline, that im a part of a big company, and its not entirely up to me to decide changes and etc. on the homepage.

[katemorris]

Keith and Bryan are dead on. If your homepage is better for users looking for insurance, then why is there an insurance page? My guess is because your site offers more than insurance.

Yes, getting links to the homepage will be easier, but that should not be the reason for killing a well ranking page that seems to be the better page.  I'd recommend updating the insurance page to make it convert like the homepage and let it remain the focus of insurance traffic. Then make sure that your homepage links to the insurance page with good anchor text, and that it doesn't link to another page with any insurance related text.

[Petersen11]

Hi,

Thank you, and all other, for your replies - it's very helpful.

The reason i want the traffic on the frontpage is the following:

• It's alot easier for me to get link juice to the frontpage, at the moment we havent been working focused with link building, but when we start doing that, it will be alot easier to get links to the frontpage.

• Im quite sure the frontpage is a better landing page for this traffic than the /insurance page, so the conversion rates and etc. will be better on the frontpage.

[SEOKeith]

Again, my advise would be the same as Bryan's - leave it alone and build more links to the insurance page.

I don't see a problem with that page out ranking your home page?

[BryanCasson]

Rel canonical will kill the insurance page, likely not the best idea!

[BryanCasson]

I don't advise 301 redirecting /insurance as it looks to me like it is very strong. It will lose most of its link juice when redirected. Rather optimise your homepage with the desired keyword. Google chooses the most relevant page which is why /insurance is showing up for insurance. As it should! Don't worry about your home page, rather link to the /insurance page and your entire domain will gain strength over time. Actually the deep linked /insurance page will likely get stronger quicker than trying to get the home page stronger.

Once you link all everything to the home page it will eventually get stronger so long as it contains Insurance in the title and is optimised for this word.

[SEOKeith]

I would either use rel canonical as Nakul instructed above, although this is a bit of hack IMO.

Or just build some better quality links at the page you want to rank, I don't see a problem with building links to the /insurance page?

[NakulGoyal]

If that's the case, I would suggest doing a rel=canonical tag on www.tryg.dk/forsikring to your homepage. Essentially, it's like a 301 for search engines but not for the users. The users will be able to come to your homepage, use navigation and or other links to visit www.tryg.dk/forsikring or they can come from external links which are linking to www.tryg.dk/forsikring. But Google will de-index that page and rank the homepage instead.

I hope that helps. The exact canonical tag you would use on www.tryg.dk/forsikring page would be :

[Petersen11]

Hi Keith,

the page is www.tryg.dk and it is ranked, i just want it to rank on keyword "insurance" as well, as the link building oppertunities on that page is alot better than on www.tryg.dk/forsikring.

A 301 redirect wont work, since i still want people to be able to access www.tryg.dk/forsikring.

[Petersen11]

Hi, the domain is www.tryg.dk and it is cached and indexed in Google.

Because of the possibilities to link build to my main page, i would like to optimize that to the keyword "Insurance", and that process i could start right away.

My question is if there is any possibility to get Google to "understand" this, or i has to work my way up with my main page, whilst i stop focus on www.tryg.dk/forsikringer - that is at this moment the page getting the highest ranking on "insurance".

[SEOKeith]

I suspect his home page is just not ranking for the keywords, could you post the URL in question?

If not then type

_site:www.yourdomain.com _

Into Google and let us know if your site is listed.

Thanks,

[NakulGoyal]

are you saying your homepage is not indexed/cached in Google ? If that's the case, there might be something wrong. There might be a noindex tag, some sort of a disallow to your homepage. Personally, I can't remember seeing a similar scenario where inner pages are indexed and the homepage is not. If it's not ranking but is cached, that's another issue.

Please confirm.

[SEOKeith]

Optimise your home page for your chosen keyword and 301 the page /insurance to your root domain.

To do this you need to create a .htaccess file in the / directory on your server and enter the following information.

Redirect 301 /insurance  http://www.mydomain.dk

About 90% of the link juice "should" flow through if you use a 301 redirect, you can test the above is working by visting http://www.mydomain.dk/insurance and making sure it redirect you to your home page.

Note that a 301 can take a few weeks (possibly longer) for Google to pick up so do not expect overnight changes.

Hope that helps.