Important Website Pages

Not all pages of your website are created equal. 

Google's software assigns points to certain pages of websites.  For instance you can delete any one of the pages of you website and still have a chance to rank in Google.  But if you delete the home page then the website is pretty much dead in the water.  This is because Google feels that the home page of your website is the single most important part of the website (which also explains why the home page comes up for most websites more often than any other pages when you do a search in Google).

What other pages are important?

Google's software looks to see if the following pages appear on your website and if they don't Google can lower your websites rankings.

• Contact Us
• About Us
• FAQ
• Privacy
• Disclaimer

For most people it makes sense that a website without a contact page should rank lower than a website that allows you to contact the website owner.  And it probably makes sense that a website where you can read information about the owners of the website is a good idea too. 

But where many people building a website make a mistake is when they ask their website person to remove the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page from the website because it "creates clutter".  What they don't realize is that Google actually feels that the FAQ page is so important that if there isn't one on a website Google will reduce that websites point score used to rank the website by 15%.

The privacy and disclaimer pages are important too because Google wants to avoid sending people to websites that may contain harmful software (Concerns about reputation, news stories and lawsuits) without that person having an opportunity to read a notice stating that "The Screaming Willy Fish Screen Saver you are about to download contains software that will fill your computer with millions of popup advertisements".  It's not important to Google that you read the notice.  Just that it be somewhere on the site.  So even if you are a reputable business if you do not have a privacy notice of some kind and a disclaimer Google will lower your odds of ranking in the number one position for your keywords.

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