Is their value in linking to PPC landing pages and using rel="canonical"

[BrandExpSteve]

I have ppc landing pages that are similar to my seo page. The pages are shorter with less text with a focus on converting visitors further along in the purchase cycle.

My questions are:

1. Is there a benefit for having the orphan ppc pages indexed or should I no index them?

2. If indexing does provide benefits, should I create links from my site to the ppc pages or should I just submit them in a sitemap?

3. If indexed, should I use rel="canonical" and point the ppc versions to the appropriate organic page?

Thanks,

[BrandExpSteve]

Thanks Jasmine!

[BrandExpSteve]

Thanks for the great response Bob!

I have decided to structure my pages along the purchase cycle like this:

brandexperience.ca/seo-professional-services > brandexperience.ca/seo-strategy > brandexperience.ca/seo-strategy-free-analysis and brandexperience.ca/seo-strategy-free-analysisB

I will index the free analysis page and use it as a conversion landing page for both SEO and SEM. I'll have a B for A/B testing and use rel="canonical" for the B to point to A. B will always be the challenger for testing.

[BrandExpSteve]

Thanks Monica,

I thought about your statement - "What's wrong with PPC visitors landing on your SEO pages?" and I decided I will incorporate the PPC pages into my SEO content architecture.

[JasmineA]

For the reasons above, you should noindex them, but do make sure that the Google AdWords bot can crawl them - if this is the same bot as the organic bot, then don't noindex. I heard from a reliable source that noindexing will lower your ability to gain a higher Quality Score as google doesn't know what your page is about. If you are using Dynamic Search Ads then you will need to point those to the seo pages on your site, not your ppc pages.

[Bob_van_Biezen]

If your PPC pages use a part of the content that's already on the SEO page (duplicated content) I would noindex those pages. Trying to get both pages indexed can only backfire. A other quick indication, if those pages are only attainable through your Ads and offer no new information to users who started there visit on the home page I would also noindex them.

If however, your PPC pages offer unique value to your visitors they can't find on other pages on your website (or on your organic landingpages) you could let them get indexed.

For point 2: Having a useful internal link structure is a best practice for SEO. If your pages offer unique value I would add them (in a logical way) to your internal navigation structure. If however they **do not ** offer unique value those links won't be useful for your visitors and will only be there to support your SEO. In this case it won't do you any good.

For point 3: Your building a triangle. It doesn't make sense to try to give your PPC pages any status through internal links and then giving a canonincal to merge any status with your organic pages. Either way, I would not canonical those pages. Give them noindex or treat them like a normal page.

Since this question is pretty old, I would love to know how you handled the situation!

[MonicaOConnor]

Wherever you have duplicate content you should try to minimize the effects, usually with canonical tags.

I would shy away from your strategy only because showing viewers one thing and bots another is frowned upon. What's wrong with PPC visitors landing on your SEO pages?

[-Ash-]

Dear Steve,

I've never heard of the importance of a landing page needing to be indexed as it's a single page.

I don't know how having a landing page could be of benefit to you.