Best to put blog on the homepage?

[TeDWooD]

At the moment i have a problem with a new website i am making. The blog page looks exactly like my homepage. I was looking through other competitors in the niche and found they do have seperate content on their homepage and not on their blog. Are there any benefits to this?

 

[djbaxter]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that the home page is not part of your blog but is attached to it? Or are you looking at a static home page for your blog? Or are you looking at a blog with a home page listing excerpts for recent posts with links to those posts?

 

[TeDWooD]

Sorry it wasn't phrased very well. Its just i have a "Home" button and a "Blog" button, when clicked they are exactly the same as i have the blog on my homepage. It would be exactly the same as clicking on the "Home" and "Blog" buttons on this forum at the top...with both of them being the same.

 

[djbaxter]

Ok, I see. There's no rule at all. I would say that for most blogs, the Home page is the most recent blog (or excerpts for 3-6 of the most recent blogs). In that case, it's primary function is that if people browse earlier posts or arrive at your blog on an older post page (e.g., from a search engine), Home will take them to the most recent post(s) for browsing the site. That's the way I have mine set up.

On the other hand, my son's photography blog has a separate (and static) home page where he describes tyhe content and intent of the site, along with a Table of Contents and a row of thumbnails to take the visitor deeper into the site.

It's really a matter of preference and the type of site. If it makes sense to have a static Home page, by all means go for it. I would say that for most people the latest post as the home page makes more sense in terms of keeping visitors on the site.

 

[Niche48]

Ted, It seems that you have installed your blog in the root of your domain. At least that's the impression I get from your question. If you want a static homepage and the blog to be in another oart of the website e,g, blog, then you should install your blog [I am presuming your are using wordpress] in a folder called blog. So that to access your home oage people type in your domain and to access your blog they type in yourdomain.com/blog

I hope that helps

PS Some of us actually host our blogs on a separate domain and server from our 'money pages' but that's a whole other discussion

 

[webdelux]

If you are looking to capitalize on targeted SEO in one or 2 search terms, without building a gazillion links, then make your home page static. You see a static page isnt ever changing and can sustain results a bit easier. Plus if your using say wordpress your dynamic data isnt as easy to crawl as the static version.

 

[djbaxter]

If you are looking to capitalize on targeted SEO in one or 2 search terms, without building a gazillion links, then make your home page static. You see a static page isnt ever changing and can sustain results a bit easier. Plus if your using say wordpress your dynamic data isnt as easy to crawl as the static version.

That really hasn't been true for several years. Dynamic pages (e.g., .asp or .php pages) are just as crawlable and rankable as staic pages.

 

[webdelux]

Where do you base your data from. I can get better results for a static site over a dynamic site that is built on WP framework or Joomla/Drupal framework. The weight of the dynamic page makes it harder to crawl. Thats just simple math. Less weight less time and effort to crawl. Now if you are talking about PHP hiphop then maybe you have a valid point. PHP is much too slow to be crawled as easily as a static page. The take a look at the structure of WP or JOOmla with multiple files being called. I mean we are not just calling for a header and footer here. There are multiple CSS, JS, and PHP modules components, etc called to each page.

 

[djbaxter]

I'll leave the math to you.

However, what you are saying about static vs. dynamic pages has not been true for some time now. And if anything, the experience of many webmasters is that WordPress and Blogger pages get crawled and indexed faster than most static sites. The same can be said of many forums, including this one, where a post created now will often show up in the search engines in a matter of an hour or less.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html
Google Facts & Fiction

Fiction: Sites are not included in Google's index if they use ASP (or some other non-html file-type.)

Fact: We're able to index most types of pages and files with very few exceptions. A sampling of the file extensions we're able to index includes: pdf, asp, jsp, html, shtml, xml, doc, xls, ppt, rtf, wks, lwp, wri, swf, cfm, and php.

Update to our webmaster guidelines
By Vanessa Fox
Wed, Oct 25 2006

As the web continues to change and evolve, our algorithms change right along with it. Recently, as a result of one of those algorithmic changes, we've modified our webmaster guidelines. Previously, these stated:

Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your URLs, as we don't include these pages in our index.

However, we've recently removed that technical guideline, and now index URLs that contain that parameter. So if your site uses a dynamic structure that generates it, don't worry about rewriting it -- we'll accept it just fine as is. Keep in mind, however, that dynamic URLs with a large number of parameters may be problematic for search engine crawlers in general, so rewriting dynamic URLs into user-friendly versions is always a good practice when that option is available to you. If you can, keeping the number of URL parameters to one or two may make it more likely that search engines will crawl your dynamic urls.

What’s Important to Search Engines and What’s Not
Jill Whalen

static pages are easier for search engines to crawl and rank properly.

'Fraid not. Dynamic pages are just as easy to crawl and rank as static pages. Most websites today are dynamic because they're simply easier to maintain. The search engines have figured out how to crawl and rank them just fine for many, many years now. It's true that there are specific things you need to watch out for when creating a dynamic site, but most developers are aware of the worst of the issues. You certainly should consult with an SEO if you're changing content management systems, or if you're having problems getting your dynamic URLs spidered and indexed. But there's no reason to have only static pages on your site because you're worried about the search engines being able to index dynamic pages.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs

Which can Googlebot read better, static or dynamic URLs?
We've come across many webmasters who, like our friend, believed that static or static-looking URLs were an advantage for indexing and ranking their sites. This is based on the presumption that search engines have issues with crawling and analyzing URLs that include session IDs or source trackers. However, as a matter of fact, we at Google have made some progress in both areas. While static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates because users can easily read the urls, the decision to use</SPAN> database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking. Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.

 

[webdelux]

What you are saying is not true. Has never been. Well unless you are talking about long tailed urls and individual posts with dates attached. If we are talking home page, faster is not true at all. Show me one wordpress website that can get results in 2 weeks to the home page for a targeted keyword phrase. This can be done easily with static pages.

 

[webdelux]

I mean what are we talking about here. You offer no resolve to the poster. How can you get ranked in SERP's for sure using a dynamic site? What you are saying is that it is by chance? Can you offer instructions on how to get ranked in SERps with a dynamic site on the index page in 2 weeks or whatever fast is to you.

 

[djbaxter]

I see. So you are right and I, all those people I cited above, and most of the rest of the SEO community is wrong?

I provided backup for my claims. Can you do the same?

 

[djbaxter]

I mean what are we talking about here. You offer no resolve to the poster. How can you get ranked in SERP's for sure using a dynamic site? What you are saying is that it is by chance? Can you offer instructions on how to get ranked in SERps with a dynamic site on the index page in 2 weeks or whatever fast is to you.

Getting ranked in 2 weeks or whatever other time frame you wish to consider simply has nothing to do with whether the site is static or dynamic.

It has to do with how well the site is optimized for the specific search term and how many incoming links point to that page using that specific search term or a close facsimile.

Note: Do not get confused hetween "static vs. dynamic pages" and "static vs. dynamic URLs". Not the same thing at all.

 

[webdelux]

No you are right, just not for the home page. Google is defiantly changing. Like I said before this is all relative to the term he is trying to get results in. If he wants alot of different results for all of his posts then static is not the way to go. If what he wants is targeted results for say a niche service then static is the best. We are comparing apples to oranges. You still have brought no resolve. Just post and it will come. There is a math equation involved. It is called an algorithm. This one even has a name "Caffeine". My point being is that your method works. Static is more precise as to where you have post after post cvhanging your data. There are pages that have results for 10 years without changing there data at all. Yet there are twitter posts now that get results. What I am speaking of in not diluting your results over a broad base of several articles. If your use a static approach you can focus your efforts to target one specific term quite effectively. I do this for a living and have a 100% success ratio for all of my clients. Static sites required less linking still to this day than dynamic for this reason. Again it is all relative to the term you want results in. So while you ask me if all these people are wrong they are not. But it is not what the poster wants to know. What you posted from the webmaster guide has no proof either way. The points are right but they do not disprove what I am saying either. That very same article also speaks of the architecture of how the dynamic site is organized as well.

I will tell you what lets pick a term and get 2 urls one for me and the other for you. Lets see whos gets ranked first

Navigating through wordpress to create a website that has data on the front page that doenst change is not necessary and too much work. Why put up all the effort as well?

But the ultimate point that makes you wrong is page load speed. The page poad speed of a WP framework will never compare to a static site. Side by side this factor will get the results for the static page over the dynamic.

By the way thanks for the healthy argument it was fun. There is a lot of if's to both sides but I had fun debating. Good night.

 

[djbaxter]

1. Caffeine is not an algortihm. It's an architecture for indexing sites. That has nothing to do with what is being indexed, although it does favor up-to-the-mnute new content.

2. I think you are confused about the issue of page content vs. whether the content is generated from a static page or a dynamic page. The type of page doesn't matter. The uniformity of the content does matter for ranking for a specific search term.

WordPress can be set up to display one post per page or several. It's up to you. The software used to produce the content on the page is irrelevant, as long as it has basic SEO friendliness (which is certainly the case for WordPress). Furthermore, you can configure WordPress to default to a hime page with unchanging content if you wish, but that doesn't alter the fact that the pages are generated by PHP scripts (i.e., they are dynamic pages).

 

[djbaxter]

But the ultimate point that makes you wrong is page load speed. The page poad speed of a WP framework will never compare to a static site. Side by side this factor will get the results for the static page over the dynamic.

There are options and plugins that can dramatically speed up the basic WordPress platform. Again, how quickly a page loads is not software dependent - the major factor is probably the server on which the pages reside. If you want fast loading pages, put them on a server with fast processors and lots of resources.

 

[djbaxter]

By the way, the top results for this search are dynamic pages: Google Search

 

[JR Davis]

Good info on how things work, thanks.

 

[bbdirect]

Think what is your website's true purpose. If it is a website for your business, you can put other content on your home page and on the blog your can put the list of your posts.

 

[billgratton]

Sorry it wasn't phrased very well. Its just i have a "Home" button and a "Blog" button, when clicked they are exactly the same as i have the blog on my homepage. It would be exactly the same as clicking on the "Home" and "Blog" buttons on this forum at the top...with both of them being the same.

It really depends on your need. Even they look the same, it is OK.

The good thing about Blog is that you can post things regularly & easily.

Some people even use Blog system to create their website.

And it is such a convenient Content Management System. (if compare to Joomla, blog is more user-friendly)