Google and random javascript redirect as page loads

[pauljc]

Hi,

Please can someone tell me if it is likely that by using a bit of JavaScript on my sites landing page that forwards the user to a random pick of 1 of 3 other pages whether this will cause a drop in google rankings.

I think it must do as my site was no1 for ages for my keywords and this is the only change I have made to the site.

Unless google made some big changes to its index this month.

Thanks you


Paul

[Robert Charlton]

Hi pauljc, and welcome to WebmasterWorld.

I think you've put your finger on the problem. Google doesn't like searchers to be redirected away from the pages that actually rank in the serps. It looks like something deceptive is going on. In Google's Webmaster Help, the label Google would most likely use to describe this would be...

Sneaky JavaScript redirects
[google.com...]

Conceivably, your landing page is also being seen as a doorway page, something this Webmaster Help page also discusses.

If the landing page is no longer directly linking to relevant pages that users visit, that is something that Google might also be considering algorithmically... either directly or indirectly... in the current algorithm. A redirect, particularly a random redirect, most likely makes user satisfaction signals very fuzzy.

I kind of curious what you had in mind when you decided to do the random redirects.

[pauljc]

Thanks Robert. The reason I wanted to achieve the random page redirect was we have 3 office branches, each with its own featured products / offers on the branches homepage. So it was a away of sharing out the traffic between the three branches.

I guess I will need to ask our html guy to re write the one homepage and for the featured branch offers to rotate within that one page thus avoiding the need to load another page.