Required Disclaimer That's Dup Content Options

[J3ff]

I'm working on a buddy's financial planning website and his compliance department requires a disclaimer page that appears as his index page. Rather than having this disclaimer page as his actual index page, is there a search engine friendly way of having this as a floating image that appears over his index page. Can't imagine using a pop up, but is there an alternative?

[OldWelshGuy]

Yes you can do that using layers. But WHY? Sorry but I think his compliance dept are going over the top. I have worked with a few financial sites, and have never had a problem with compliance. If you are in the UK, then certain disclaimers must appear on every page. having this 'thing' on every page will kill your site dead in a couple of pages, probably no more than 3 or 4 I would say.

I would also explain to you buddy's compliance dept that most traffic will NOT be joining the site at the homepage (common mistake made by people). Many think that because you have a home page, then everyone MUST start at your site at that point. Explain to them that having the disclaimer on just the home page is insufficient, and that having it on all pages is out of the question, then tell them to tone it down, and add it to the overall footer.

[Jill]

Usually you can put that sort of thing on the bottom of the page. You could put it in an image there as well, if you wanted.

[qwerty]

I don't know how long the disclaimer is, but if you put it in an image be sure to put the entire text in the image's alt attribute. If it's a legal requirement that users see it, it's bound to be a legal requirement for people using screen readers too.

[J3ff]

Good ideas. I agree that his compliance department is going over the top, but they call the shots. They won't even allow any of their agents to have blogs. They don't require the disclaimer on every page, only as an entrance page where they click "Yes, I agree that I live in this state." If I do place the disclaimer on every page, and use an image to avoid dup content, will I be penalized for having the same dup content in an alt tag? The disclaimer's only about 100 words.

[lyn]

You shouldn't have to worry about duplicate content. There is no "penalty" per se -- the SEs simply filter out duplicate results from the SERPs. If the pages have original content on them, the SEs will report it.

L.

[qwerty]

There's really no duplicate content penalty. Having the same text on a number of pages really just means that if someone is searching for that particular text, the search engine will make a decision as to which page they return and ignore the others.

If this is something you have to have on every page, then you have to have it on every page, and you shouldn't worry about how the engines will treat it. And finally, if you have an image of text, its alt attribute really needs to be that text -- not for the search engines, not to avoid a penalty, but to make sure that this important information is accessible to all of your users.

[J3ff]

I'm having to revisit this topic. I initially added the disclaimer to the footer of each page of the site, but the compliance department that oversees this site has told me it is insufficient. They insist that the index page must provide the disclaimer and that the visitor is giving the choice of "Yes, I live in this state" or "No, I don't live in this state."

I've never used layers before, but upon researching it, there seems to be alot of ties to layers and hidden text. What I would like is a floating page/image that would render the site unusable until they click on "Yes, I live in this state" without risking an penalties for hidden text. Also, is it possible to have this image appear on whatever page turns out to be the entry page, and then does not show up on other pages after the user clicks "yes?"

Thanks!

[Randy]

If I understand what you have in mind, you're probably going to end up using some sort of Javascript routine to do the test, then set a cookie on their machine if/when they answer Yes.

Then on each page of the site simply check to see if the cookie exists and/or has the correct value. Thinking aloud, I think I'd do it as a Is The Cookie Set Or Not rather than a value in the cookie. Assuming you don't need the cookie for anything else.

The only downside being that those few users (like Search Engine Spiders (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink1.gif) ) are going to simply see the content because the JS routine would never fire for them. You might want to run that part by your compliance folks first to make sure they're okay with it. Because if they're not you'll need to be a bit more brutish about forcing everyone through the confirmation routine, only give a pass to search engine spiders specifically.

[chrishirst]

What I would like is a floating page/image that would render the site unusable until they click on "Yes, I live in this state" without risking an penalties for hidden text.

That gives me an idea to play with (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Watch this space.

[chrishirst]

Didn't take too long (several brews and some food included)

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk/articles/code...w-a-disclaimer/

All the code in one page is at
http://www.candsdesign.co.uk/articles/code...r/show-code.asp

[J3ff]

Chrishirst,
You're the man.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/clapping.gif)

[mcanerin]

This is also an issue for sites that have adult content. For them to put a bunch of porn on a page then put a little disclaimer at the bottom is obviously insufficient, so there are also some methods and scripts used in that industry (look for age verification check or something like that) if Chris's script doesn't do it for your compliance department, though frankly it looks fine to me - simple, easy, effective and clear - in the best tradition of a true "hack".

Ian