SEO Overly-Dynamic URL Website with thousands of URLs

[MikePatch]

Hello,

I have a new client who has a Diablo 3 database. They have created a very interesting site in which every "build" is it's own URL. Every page is a list of weapons and gear for the gamer. The reader may love this but it's nightmare for SEO. I have pushed for a blog to help generate inbound links and traffic but overall I feel the main feature of their site is a headache to optimize.

They have thousands of pages index in google but none are really their own page. There is no strong content, H-Tags, or any real substance at all.

With a lack of definition for each page, Google see's this as a huge ball of mess, with duplicate Page Titles and too many onpage links.

The first thing I did was tell them to add a canonical link which seemed to drop the errors down 12K leaving only 2400 left...which is a nice start, but the remaining errors is still a challenge.

I'm thinking about seeing if I can either find a way to make each page it's own blurb, H Tag or simple have the Nav bar and all the links in the database Noindex. That way the site is left with only a handful of URLs + the Blog and Forum

Thought?

[CleverPhD]

Wow!  Yep you gotta lock this one down.  This needs heavy automation support.  Have you looked at using the content from each build can be pulled into the title tag etc automatically?  That can help diversify how the tags look.  If the users love all the builds, then is there a way to use automation to help Google see this.

If you work it right, you can have an awesome opportunity for long tail search. I worked on a site that had a yellow pages type setup.  We had all the pages with title tags and descriptions that pulled in city state zip location address and name of location automatically.  Even changed up the order on how it was presented and had different options for filler / connective words.

Worked pretty well to show off the unique content on each page as best we could automatically.  We then paid an intern to go in and optimize page by page from there starting with the most viewed pages.

It may not be that each page is not strong enough as you mention, but you also said that users love the pages so I wanted to toss that out there.

[MikePatch]

Hey CleverphD,

They're isn't a strong amount of traffic to sway any decision one direction to another at this point, but I'm sure this is the bread and butter of the site. Their programmer is going to hate me, but I agree there needs to be a way to optimize and like you say maximize the long tailed details.

So you think I pulling the title is the best route? maybe add a little content...I'm not overly confident that this guy knows how to create pretty SEO-friendly URLs using the data provided, but I'll try to explain why it's important.

thx

[CleverPhD]

You bet.  Just to be clear, I was talking about pulling the content from the page in some automated fashion into the title.  Finding elements from each page that should be in variables and then inserting them into the title, description and H1 in a way that you can make each page unique.

You would need to make a final call on if you think the content is unique enough.  We had 5000 locations that we used data in the database to make 5000 unique pages as each location has the name of the business, city, state, zip, address phone number etc.

We are now working to have user generated content/comments/reviews on each page so that each one page becomes more unique and more useful over time.

Having a IT guy who appreciates SEO is key for this and for the URLs.  I would talk first about how he organizes the data in his system and then how this translates into the URL.  You can then then just have him rename the URL using the same logic.

Show him some data on click thru rates on more readable URLs and how Google prefers not to spider them.  I work to educate the IT guys as much as I can without making it sound like I know it all.