Does Members-Only or Gated Content Have SEO Value? - Search Engine Journal

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Today’s Ask an SEO question comes from Kyriakos in North Carolina. Kyriakos asks:

We have a B2B member only website. Some of the content on our site is available to guests/not logged in users, but most of our content is for members that are logged in to the site. Does the content that is member only (visible after log in) help the site’s SEO rankings?

Great question, and it’s one I get from clients all the time.

For the purposes of this question, we can forget about the B2B aspect – the answer is the same no matter what type of content your website is focused on.

There are a few nuances though, so let’s dive right in.

Is There SEO Value in Members-Only Content?

The short answer is: If it’s behind a login, it’s not really providing any value to you for SEO at all.

The reason for this is simple.

Googlebot isn’t one of your paying customers, so it isn’t able to log in to view your content.

There are plenty of technical ways around this though, and I will try to briefly mention some strategies for dealing with members-only content and provide some helpful links here.

It’s important to start by examining the need to gate or lock up content behind a login.

Does Your Content Need to be Gated?

I remember one client who wanted to do this with all of their...

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