Seo for dynamic page with different content each time

I am setting up a dynamic website where almost all of the main page is going to be different every time - it is a directory site which opens with a list of about 30 entries, picked at random each time.

What is google going to think about a page that is different every time it is visited? Is it going to cause a problem?

Any advice please.

Having a real problem getting my head around this…

Say, first time google sees it he decides it’s all about big country houses so I start showing up for that in search results.

Next time he sees it, no reference to big country houses. Do i then get un-indexed for ‘big country houses’ ?

There should be no problem at all. Look at the high traffic sites like Digg or DZone as they also have different contents at each page load and still ranks good.

If the content is no longer on the page then yes that page will most likely not rank for it (the backlinks and anchor text pointing to the page could have an affect though) any longer. If you want to continue to have a chance to rank for the terms then you need to have a permanent page with the content, not a dynamic page that changes each time someone sees it.

Treacle, you say the main page is different every time. That’s not really relevant. The “main page” (I assume you mean the home page) is not the one that will attract your audience.

It’s the pages that contain your actual content that people will be searching for, and which will show up in search engines. It is those pages that you need to worry about, from an SEO point of view. A home page that shows random entries each time might be useful for casual browsers, but it’s not relevant for SEO.

By the way, rather than showing random entries, have you considered having the main page show the most recent content, or perhaps the most popular? That might be something your regular visitors will appreciate (but, again, it’s got nothing to do with SEO).

Mike

Thanks for your replies.

Makes perfect sense - it’s the ‘content’ pages people will be looking for, and they won’t change. Most sites I’ve done, it’s been all about the home page - I just have to think differently about this one.