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Is Password Protected Content Indexable by Search Engines?

  • June 13, 2011
  • by Gradiva Couzin

Q: I am optimizing a site that has content filled with search terms but a lot of the content is in a wordpress document that is password protected for the user.  Is that content still searchable?

A:  Pages that are password-protected will not be accessible to the search engines. Search engine robots typically can’t log in to crawl pages, so content behind a login will not make it into the search index.

When possible, we recommend creating teaser pages for password-protected materials.  On the teaser page, the site owner can include a title and brief description of the content that will be accessed behind the password.  This teaser content will be accessible by search engines, allowing them to index this limited version of your content.  We also believe that teaser content is helpful for the user experience.

There is one available workaround: A prominent example of hidden content is when news organizations, such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, require a login in order to see their articles.  These organizations have set up a “first click free” agreement with Google, which allows people to click on a search engine listing and view a single article without logging in.  Click to read more on Google’s First Click Free program.

 

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5 COMMENTS
  • tanya ortlepp
    August 27, 2011 at 10:46 pm

    we are busy upgrading our website and have been told that pdf documents will not allow search engines to pick up keywords. some pdf’s are password protected others are not and u can highlight the text – does this make a difference?

    1. Gradiva Couzin
      September 10, 2011 at 8:00 am

      Hi Tanya, Thanks for the question. PDF content can be very well-indexed by search engines. However, these pages often do not serve as good landing pages for a searcher. For example, if you search on Google for “document storage whitepaper” you’ll see that several of the results are PDFs (these are marked by [PDF] in Google’s results). Try clicking on one of these and instead of going to the website you’ll be provided with a download of the document. So… as a website owner, you should think about whether that is the goal of how you want users to interact with your content. If that sounds great to you, then I’d say by all means use the PDF format. If that is not appealing to you, then I would recommend placing the content on an HTML page. Or, you might try a hybrid approach in which excerpts of the PDFs are included in a user-friendly way on your site, thus allowing users to browse the materials a bit before choosing to download.

      Regarding whether password-protected PDFs are indexable, that would depend on what you mean by password-protected. If the documents can’t be downloaded without a password, then search engines will not be able to index them. If what you mean is that the documents can’t be edited, cut-and-pasted, or printed without a password, then that is not a problem for search engine indexing.

  • JL
    July 29, 2012 at 5:47 pm

    What about videos or images on a password-protected pages? Text I can see because it’s not also uploaded to your server but what about these externally linked files?

    1. Gradiva Couzin
      July 31, 2012 at 3:39 pm

      Hi JL,
      Video or images that are linked to from password-protected pages may still be indexable if the video or image files are stored in a different location and haven’t been explicitly password-protected themselves. If this is a concern, be sure that the locations where video and image files are stored are also protected.
      Gradiva

  • Thomas
    September 21, 2016 at 10:57 am

    I am curious if password protected sites will effect the overall ranking of a sites greater domain? That is, if users spend a lot of time in the p-p parts of your website, which is part of a domain (call it site.net), will it effect the greater site.net domain’s rankings in any way vs. if the p-p and main site have different domains?

    Thanks!

Comments are closed.

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Gravity Search Marketing was formed in 2006 as a partnership between Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin. Gravity’s clients include Fortune 500 companies, global entertainment brands, niche B2Bs, large and small retailers, and non-profits.
As SEO industry veterans, Couzin and Grappone co-wrote Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (Wiley, 2006, 2008, 2011) and Five Stars: Putting Online Reviews to Work for Your Business (Wiley, 2014), and enjoy sharing their expertise in speaking engagements and press interviews. 
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