Empty pages in a hierarchy of pages: good or not good for SEO?

[gshub]

While preparing the launch of a brand new casino reviews based website, a SEO specialist created a page hierarchy, some of the pages had content delivered by writers, some others without main content (meaning we only had the main meta tags, + the website header/menu and footer visible when you arrived on such page).
All these pages where in the sitemap and all were indexable.

That person advised to do so, although I found it very counterintuitive, as I thought it was not so good practice to let Google index empty pages (or almost empty)

But I'm no SEO expert, I could certainly be completely wrong about my assumption. When I mentioned that concern, that person argued we will add the missing content over time and that it was better to let Google know something is coming there (by publishing these empty pages with their Metas) rather than not publishing them at all, especially when you start and launch a website with only a few (~20) pages at first.

I remain very confused about this and would like to know what to make of this, what to think of this approach? Pros and cons?
On the long run would have we been better off waiting for good content instead of publishing empty pages? I can't make up my mind on this one...

Thanks for your insights!

[universal4]

In theory google indexes pages that have value reading for visitors.

Empty pages have nothing for the reader and therefore offer no value to the visitors. Why should google index them?

IMO, an seo specialist wannabe is clearly not that for recommending using a hierarchy full of empty pages.

Rick
Universal4

[chaumi]

Any available evidence (and common sense, if you have some inkling/strong theory about how search engines work) says that building pages with nothing on is not a good idea and is an approach to avoid if at all possible.

I guess it may also depend on how good the pages that do have something are, but theoretically, if an SE crawls a blank page, they'll immediately mark it as useless/unhelpful content. They may not punish the site..but it could be a long long time till they ever go back to those pages, and potentially never.

If the populated pages aren't strong enough, then it's very possible the site will just get consigned to nowhere.

And, with the changes that are happening now and nearish future, there may never be a way to recover.

[edgarf76]

That is the opposite of the way I learned about silos.

[Former Member 14]

That is the opposite of the way I learned about silos.

Keyword stuffing once worked, in fact, it kicked b#tt when it was done effectively. Things change YET some folks don't...

[NoDepositCasinos]

I don't think it's beneficial for SEO, and I don't quite understand the concept of "letting Google know that something is coming there." Google identifies what is currently present, and I doubt it would predict that something will be included there in the future. Even if it did, I don't believe it would reward you with better rankings than sites that already have the content available.

I was in a similar position a few years ago when I wanted to publish a new website with only a few pages. The advice I received was to wait. Do you have a deadline in mind? Are you determined to publish it no matter what? While you don't need hundreds of pages (the number will depend on your niche), it's better to cover the basics and provide a good user experience for your readers.

In my opinion, publishing empty pages could do more harm than good. It could decrease the value of your website overall, waste your crawl budget, and even lead to potential penalties from search engines.

[wonderpunter]

I always look at it like this.. does it bring value to the reader? the answer will let you know what to do

[dannyx]

I generally agree.

However, in addition to my main site, I did some one pagers and submitted to GSC for indexing. Mainly like some cool domain I had.

The goal was to see the trend. If such a site after a month of two appeared on 10+ page for strange search terms then I deleted that page and installation.

On the other hand, if it appeared in the search results for some interesting keywords on the 3rd-5th page then I leave such a site for development in the future perhaps.

[Former Member 14]

I did some one pagers and submitted to GSC for indexing.

Seems like your trying too hard not to fail, again. Don't know how long you've been working your 'new' site but give that 100% attention is my advice. Always have the mindset Quality over Quantity. 10,000 affiliate WP cookie cutter sites, with similar dribble, wont cut the mustard, and that outdated mindset is only going to be more of hindrance as time goes by.

I see you posting a shite ton of advice here but maybe spend less time here posting, and more time establishing your site, could be the magic-recipe to this 'new' site's success, and not failing like the last one...

Only calling it like I'm seeing it

[dannyx]

Seems like your trying too hard not to fail, again. Don't know how long you've been working your 'new' site but give that 100% attention is my advice. Always have the mindset Quality over Quantity. 10,000 affiliate WP cookie cutter sites, with similar dribble, wont cut the mustard, and that outdated mindset is only going to be more of hindrance as time goes by.

I see you posting a shite ton of advice here but maybe spend less time here posting, and more time establishing your site, could be the magic-recipe to this 'new' site's success, and not failing like the last one...

Only calling it like I'm seeing it

In total, I have been reading GPWA and making gambling sites for over 10 years
I've been doing the current site for a year and this is the longest period I've persevered with one project.
Before that, I was making sites for fun, wanted to reinvent the wheel and kept changing projects.

And I realize that it's important to focus on one site, as you say.
The few pages I'm talking about are single pages that I made in 2 hours and uploaded to GSC. Just to get an idea of the trend. So it doesn't take up my time, especially since so far I'm not developing a single one of them.

Especially since the site I've been doing for a year has 200-400 organic hits from Google and no FTD for strong keywords with no bonuses or anything free.
So slowly this site is also becoming a failure, because with this traffic for these passwords there should be registrations.

For this reason I'm making some small sites to have an alternative as there will still be no registrations on the current site, even though the traffic is growing.

But thanks for the advice! I know I have a problem focusing on one thing and it's more of a personality/psychological trait but I'm trying

[universal4]

Seems logical that the 200-400 organic hits for strong keywords and no conversions that something is missing or that one place to look closer at least is on the calls to action.

If it doesn't look like the traffic is clicking through to the operators in a manner that you think it should, try changing or improving the calls to action.

If the click through rate is satisfactory, try changing to other operators. (obviously actual operator reviews this is less logical)

Rick
Universal4

[Former Member 14]

Seems logical that the 200-400 organic hits for strong keywords and no conversions that something is missing

The problem is (and no disrespect to affiliates which this may concern) but seems there's a large % who are not savvy in identifying what are legit site visitors, and what are nefarious bots, script kiddies, brute force hackers and the rest of the shite, which does hit WP sites on a minute per minute basis.

What may seem like legit visitors coming from one's SERP's, are not.

Wordfence and plugin alike ONLY stop so much. Given plugins are accessible by everyone. I don't doubt they're downloaded and reverse engineered to find their weakness, and then manipulated by those seeking, for example, to hack your site etc., etc.

A quick peruse of one's raw log file(s) will display the extent of these BOGUS visitors. Fake Google/Bing bots. Cloud servers access the site instead of actually ISP visitors, and reiterating a whole lot of unwanted garbage that is up to no-good.

However, least from my experience on advising affiliates to look into their raw log files, I'm actually surprised at how many have no idea where to get a raw log file from, much less how to actually view these files, and what they should be looking for.

Some folks seems to take umbrage over my suggestions to learn some basics, such as:

• How to FTP
• Basic HTML
• mySQL skills
• SEO basics - knowing these sets your site's foundation
• Some basic htaccess knowledge
• Image manipulation, editing and optimisation
• Even some rudimentary php is very useful

Being a successful affiliate isn't just about knowing how to setup a WP theme.

Knowing how to do the above, are feathers in one's hat which will certainly aid in your success.

[Cash Bonus]

Being a successful affiliate isn't just about knowing how to setup a WP theme.

Knowing how to do the above, are feathers in one's hat which will certainly aid in your success.

That's really well said, Dave. A fantastic post and it's well detailed. You're absolutely right and it’s essential to do all of those steps. They’re the building blocks and the foundation.

[dannyx]

Seems logical that the 200-400 organic hits for strong keywords and no conversions that something is missing or that one place to look closer at least is on the calls to action.

If it doesn't look like the traffic is clicking through to the operators in a manner that you think it should, try changing or improving the calls to action.

If the click through rate is satisfactory, try changing to other operators. (obviously actual operator reviews this is less logical)

Rick
Universal4

This is the first month with such organic traffic.

Before that, it was like this:
February - 20
March - 40
April -80
May - 170
June - about 315

Before June there were a few registrations, about 7 however all registrations without deposit, 2 players did KYC, but also without deposit.
However, it is always something.

In June, although it beats the rest by traffic combined nothing happens.
As for the calls to action I think they are ok. I even have different color layouts depending on the language, in one language they are a little more subdued in another less.

Of those 315, let's say about 250 are for words related to reviewing a particular bookmaker, registration, etc.

As for the change of operators you mentioned, unfortunately it is not possible, because it is a narrow niche and operators are really few.
I can only increase/decrease visibility based on results.

I analyzed the locations of the visitors and mostly those countries are accepted. Anyway, in the review and table I have the information about country restrictions.

Hopefully it's June and even though it's the first time there's this kind of traffic there's just no sports and the site is related to sports not casino. With traffic especially in countries like UK, HK, Spain, Portugal where soccer is popular, which has already mostly finished seasons.
Only then why do people come in to read the review?

[chaumi]

Hopefully it's June and even though it's the first time there's this kind of traffic there's just no sports and the site is related to sports not casino. With traffic especially in countries like UK, HK, Spain, Portugal where soccer is popular, which has already mostly finished seasons.
Only then why do people come in to read the review?

If this is the niche I think it is, then it's very specific and may not work the same as more 'standard' sports betting related sites. If you haven't already, it may be worth looking at some long-running competitors (if there are any) to see how they present their CTAs.

[gshub]

I don't think it's beneficial for SEO, and I don't quite understand the concept of "letting Google know that something is coming there." Google identifies what is currently present, and I doubt it would predict that something will be included there in the future. Even if it did, I don't believe it would reward you with better rankings than sites that already have the content available.

I was in a similar position a few years ago when I wanted to publish a new website with only a few pages. The advice I received was to wait. Do you have a deadline in mind? Are you determined to publish it no matter what? While you don't need hundreds of pages (the number will depend on your niche), it's better to cover the basics and provide a good user experience for your readers.

In my opinion, publishing empty pages could do more harm than good. It could decrease the value of your website overall, waste your crawl budget, and even lead to potential penalties from search engines.

Thanks all for the extensive replies!
So, looks like my first intuition was good, I knew it was common sense, but, well. Anyways, what's done is done.
To answer your question about deadline @NoDepositCasinos, unfortunately several sites were published with these zero-value pages in it. I now spend my time trying to fix all this

[xecutable]

Dave has pinpoint the issue. If you have a program that shows the IPs of the visitors, you can whois them, and I see a lot of company IPs that get registered as hits.

Things is if you have targeted traffic, the layout doesn't matter that much. Sure one will convert better than the other, but it won't be 0% vs 35%. Years ago around 2013, there was a guy around here, his site was full black with white text, and stretched pixelated black and white images (yes they were).

His pages were stuffed with keywords, the text made no sense, it looked like a school project that was abandoned in the early 2000s. He had the traffic however and was generating hundreds of players. Because his terms were for free bets, most were bonus hunters, but my point is, no matter how awful that site was, how terrible his layout and ctas were he was converting because his traffic was very targeted.

If two salesman enter a room, one with a powerpoint presentation about selling meat, the other with a message pen written on his hand saying "selling vegetables", in a room full of vegans, you don't have to guess despite the lack of presentation who's going to convert.

[TheOddsCalculator]

It is never recommended to leave a page empty, although I understand that this would be category pages, in that case I would use an Archive page where you display the content of the subcategories for that Archive. You can mark them as non-index but it is good for SILO structure

[gshub]

If two salesman enter a room, one with a powerpoint presentation about selling meat, the other with a message pen written on his hand saying "selling vegetables", in a room full of vegans, you don't have to guess despite the lack of presentation who's going to convert.

Excellent

[universal4]

If two salesman enter a room, one with a powerpoint presentation about selling meat, the other with a message pen written on his hand saying "selling vegetables", in a room full of vegans, you don't have to guess despite the lack of presentation who's going to convert.

Well is the hand with the written message on dirty?

If so, it could be the farmer that grew the vegetables and with a lower marketing budget, they might also have better prices, offer better products without govt sanctioned additives and be more healthy.

I may at least want to talk to the farmer.

Rick
Universal4