Speaker 1: 0:24

Brought to you by Hungry Root.

Speaker 2: 0:25

By Hungry Root yes, we had such a delicious dinner last night. Come on.

Speaker 1: 0:30

We did. Yeah, that wasn't Hungry Root. Oh yeah, that was Hungry Root.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Yes, it was, thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Yeah, Hungry Root Pizza.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Yeah, that's a tip to Hungry.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Root Pizza. This episode we're going to talk about hidden pages, private pages pages that you want to. Put online for some reason and only give access to them to a select few.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Yes.

Speaker 1: 0:50

So we've done an episode on this. I was going to say recently, it's not recently. I looked at it and it was like episode 18, which was a long time ago Once upon a time, because you asked me about this recently.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Yes, I did.

Speaker 1: 1:04

To my own surprise, you remembered that we had done an episode about it.

Speaker 2: 1:07

I thought we did yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:09

And I have gotten this question several other times Interesting, so I figure it's worth-.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Exploring.

Speaker 1: 1:15

Reviewing and revising.

Speaker 2: 1:16

Yes.

Speaker 1: 1:17

So if you're listening to this, it will encompass the things that I talked about. We talked about in that episode, so I don't think you have to go back and listen to them both, unless you just love the sound of our voices. Yeah, okay. So this is a seems to be a pretty common issue for photographers, in that they want to put a page, or you want to put a page online on your website that you can send to clients, either once they schedule with you, just before their session, or when they're thinking about booking right or if there's certain special prices for something and not for you know right.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Whatever reason you want to put a page on your site where you can just send people a link to, rather than send them a pdf, and I don't blame you. Pdfs are can be problematic and then they're out there they're online and then people got to dig through their inbox and they get lost and et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 2:13

You want a central hub.

Speaker 1: 2:15

So the problems with this for SEO is that what a lot of times people do by default is they create a page and they just don't link to it from any other pages, so it's not available on their website.

Speaker 2: 2:25

That would be what I would do.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Yeah, there are two problems with that Number one that starts to look like a what we call a doorway page. And a doorway page is something that we used back in, like SEOs used back in the two thousands before the 2010s, before I was born Years ago. You put a page out there online and you stuff it with all your keyword text and everything, but it's not linked to from the rest of your website. So you're really just trying to spam Google.

Speaker 2: 2:51

That's nasty.

Speaker 1: 2:52

That's why it's called a doorway. There's a doorway into your website because that page links to the rest of your website. It links into your website but not out. It's a doorway in, not connected to the rest of your website.

Speaker 2: 3:02

I think one-way street is a better. Well, it's too late.

Speaker 1: 3:11

It raises a red flag for SEO, it raises a red flag for Google right away.

Speaker 2: 3:17

Really yeah. Why is that? Well, it looks like spam.

Speaker 1: 3:20

It looks like you're trying to trick Google, and even if you're not trying to trick Google, it's just bad practice. Like now, you have pages that are not linked to each other. I think if you were Google, would you want to send your customers or your users to pages, to websites where the pages are not linked properly.

Speaker 2: 3:36

No, no, it sounds a little fishy.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Wouldn't want to do that. And the reason that Google even knows about this is because whenever you create a page on WordPress, on Squarespace, on wherever that platform is going to, put that page into your sitemap and it's going to essentially you're giving that sitemap to Google. So, even though you're not linking to that page from the rest of your website, you are literally giving Google a map of your website, saying here's this page that I don't link to.

Speaker 2: 4:04

So then that makes Google think you're not trustworthy, exactly Because you're trying to be sneaky.

Speaker 1: 4:12

So usually those pages won't get into Google. Google will not put them in their index, and one of the solutions, which I'll cover in just a second, is it would be no indexing that page so that it doesn't appear in Google, and that's a good move. You should do that. But Google decides ultimately whether they're going to put a page in the index or not. So a lot of times those pages do get into the index, even if you have a no index directive. That's also bad for SEO.

Speaker 2: 4:40

Right, and if somebody is listening for the first time, what does indexing mean?

Speaker 1: 4:44

Indexing means getting into Google. If your website is in Google, if it's in Google's system, then it's in the index. It's called the index.

Speaker 2: 4:52

Okay, that's just all it means.

Speaker 1: 4:54

Right, and so that's also bad for SEO, but it also means that your page is no longer private. So you have this page that you want to keep hidden or private for some reason and it's out there on Google and people can arrive right on that page and you would never know it. This happens, I would say, when people create pages like this that they don't want to have appearing in Google. I would say this it does get indexed and it does appear in Google, I would say more than 50% of the time.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Like Google is going like it's. Google's sole objective in the universe is to index websites, so it's going to do that. It's pretty good at it. So I'll tell you what the solutions are, or all the solutions that I can think of. Number one does the page have to be private? Can you create a version that you could put on your blog somewhere? Now, this is just a question. You just want to make sure. I'm not saying you have to do this, but just ask yourself this question. If it is, then go ahead and do that. I mean, the more content you have on your website typically the better, so it would be good to do that.

Speaker 1: 5:53

So just make sure before you take any of these next steps that you've answered this question and you're like no, I don't want this page public. So, okay, question number two is there another platform where you could put this page? So you, for example, you use Dubsado, you use PickTime, you use these other platforms yeah, wherever, Whatever would make sense, wherever clients might go. If you can create a sort of central hub for our clients when they join and that's where they go to get the session guide, that's where they go to get this, this is where they go to get their portal, exactly, that would be great. So could you do something like that? That would be, you would completely avoid this problem of the hidden pages.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Would that be remember? I used to use issue.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Issue.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:43

I don't, I don't remember. Yeah, I mean I do remember I used to put all my PDFs up there. Those, yeah, again, those are PDFs or Canva.

Speaker 2: 6:50

Could you do it on Canva?

Speaker 1: 6:51

You could absolutely create PDFs in Canva but then we're back to creating PDFs. We're really just talking and it's a link, absolutely. I don't know if Canva has an option where you can share links, maybe they do, they do.

Speaker 2: 7:03

Oh, absolutely Okay.

Speaker 1: 7:15

Well then, you to do that, for whatever reason. Okay. So number three you need to no-index that page. Now that literally means you need to no-index it, and what that means is you give Google a little instructions saying Google, please don't put this in your index, it's no index.

Speaker 2: 7:32

How do you do that?

Speaker 1: 7:33

There are usually options in ShowIt in Squarespace. In WordPress there are options where you can say the wording is usually something like hide this page from Google. Oh okay, I will link below. I have a tutorial on just kind of how to do that on each of the platforms. It's very quick. I will link that below. So I would say you have to do that. Okay, that's a requirement if you're going to have this page, whether it's a main page, a blog page or whatever. However, like I said, Google is ultimately going to decide.

Speaker 2: 8:02

Now you've given them a set of instructions saying please don't index this and, like I said, they're going to make that decision.

Speaker 1: 8:11

A lot of times you might put a no index directive it's called a no index directive on your website and that page has already been indexed and in that case Google does not take it out of the index.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Oh, once something's been indexed, that's it.

Speaker 1: 8:27

I'll get to that in a second, but I'm so psychic today, yeah you are. So solution number four, and this is the best way to do this for. Seo is to put a password on that page. Now I understand people don't like to do this. They don't like to send a link to somebody and require a password because you might think it's an extra hassle for the client to have to type in.

Speaker 2: 8:50

I think it's kind of like oh, this is a secret.

Speaker 1: 8:54

I agree. I think it makes you know. When I get something and there's a password, I'm like, oh, this is just for me.

Speaker 2: 8:59

I feel more special yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:01

However, I have also sent probably dozens of emails to people that are two sentences. Here's the link the password is blah, blah blah. And they inevitably write back and say what's the password? And I have learned that those two sentences should be reversed. They should be the password is blah, blah, blah. Here's the link yeah Once people click on a link, it doesn't matter what comes after.

Speaker 2: 9:30

They're not going to see it. It's a doorway, it's a link. It doesn't matter what comes after. They're not going to see it, it's a doorway. It's a doorway, yes. Once you step through, it's like one of those you know in the films when you open a door and it's just sky and you're in another dimension.

Speaker 1: 9:44

That happened to me this morning.

Speaker 2: 9:45

You had a dream.

Speaker 1: 9:46

No, that was a joke. It's obviously a good one.

Speaker 2: 9:51

Yeah, that was a home run.

Speaker 1: 9:53

So, but, like I mentioned, sometimes this page gets into Google before you do any of this stuff. If it gets into the Google index before you put a password on there, guess what? It's still in the Google index. So what happens to your question? What happens if, once a page gets into Google, how can you take it out? You can do that, okay, and this is similar to like a thank you page, so you fill out a contact form. A lot of times you go to a thank you page. You don't want to have that page indexed, right? And what happens? You create the page.

Speaker 1: 10:24

You're probably going to have to go back later and remove it or ask Google to remove it from the index, and they do always do that. They're very good about that. So you use Google search console for that. They're very good about that. So you use Google Search Console for that. You log in and right on the left-hand side navigation, there is something called removals. Click on that, you request a new removal, and that page is usually removed from the Google index in like a week or two weeks, I would say, and they are really good about it. However, it is a temporary removal. It only lasts six months.

Speaker 2: 10:54

Oh really.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Yes, they will take it out, but then in six months later they're going to decide if they're going to index it again Interesting. So if you take this route yes and you have the page that gets indexed and you take it out of the Google index, then you'd have to go back and make sure that you have that no index directive on there.

Speaker 2: 11:13

So every.

Speaker 1: 11:14

Because, no, in six months Google will come back and visit and if there is not a no index directive, it's just going to go right back into the index. So you've got to make sure you have instructions for Google to not put it in the index At that point I would think they would usually follow those instructions. If you've had it removed and then you put instructions to not put it back into Google, they would probably not do that.

Speaker 2: 11:37

And there's a place to check or select.

Speaker 1: 11:40

There is. I have a very short demo below another one where I go through how to find out if a page has been indexed in Google. It's very easy. I actually did it for your thank you page. Oh, thank you. So I showed how to take out a thank you page, although it's the same for any page, so I did it for a thank you page in the demo. It can be any page you want, or it can be an entire website, if you want, or an entire subdomain.

Speaker 2: 12:06

Interesting.

Speaker 1: 12:07

But it works for anything.

Speaker 2: 12:08

Can you put an entire website non-indexed? Do people?

Speaker 1: 12:11

people have to do that Is that the black market. No, I mean. A lot of times you have a website, you know it's for internal use. Companies have like websites. They have entire platforms where it's just for its internal. They run their business online essentially.

Speaker 2: 12:26

Did not know that.

Speaker 1: 12:27

Yeah, and you obviously don't want that on Google.

Speaker 2: 12:30

I know.

Speaker 1: 12:31

Or you better put a password, yeah.