Client Wants Zero Links off home page - what about spiders I ask???

Ok, here is a tough one. I have a client who offers financial services. He is requested that the only link on the home page call a script which activates a session variable which then redirects to a page where the full gamut of links are located. How will this site get spidered? Is having the one link on the page <a href="scripts/agree.asp?agree=yes">I AGREE</a> enough to get the site spidered?

The link is http://tmh.netdbs.com/apsg/default.asp

Why do your clients meddle in your work? Or if they do, why would you be responsible for the results?

Anyway. The link probably WILL get spidered, and if not, you can get the inner pages a couple of inbounds from directories or whatever. But still. I don't get it...

Sorry for not elaborating a bit more. He deals in financial planning of some sort. He is required by the securities commision that anyone entering his site agrees to have read a disclosure. He doesn't want anyone entering the site from any page without having read and accepted the disclosure. I have set the site up so the only link off the home page is a button that reads "Agree & Enter Site". When clicked, it goes to a script which in turn sets a session variable, thus "activating" all other pages in the site. If someone goes to one of those internal pages prior to accepting, it will detect the absence of the session variable and redirect to the default page where they will need to accept. Do you think I would be better off taking out this redirect process?

what about putting a hidden link on the page somewhere leading to the other pages?

Yeh, but you don't want these pages to appear on the serps, so every one should have an "noindex,follow" meta tag. Unless of course you're into cloaking ( ) and would have the bot index all these pages, but redirect humans to the disclaimer/homepage.

That's not uncommon, but I wouldn't like it one bit. Apart from that being a blackhat trick, whenever I click on a deep link I expect to go there. Automatic redirects to home pages always cause me to zap away, whatever the reason...

So I guess you only have that one page to optimise, which is good of course (less work ) Good luck with that.

Good point -


What about a few 'fluff pages' that dont fall under regulations but could help with seo?

Ah, that's a good tip I must agree. I hadn't thought of that yet...