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Category: Technical SEO

Discuss site health, structure, and other technical SEO strategies.


  • Is using outbrains legal in Googles eyes? I have been using outbrains and drive 1K traffic each day for 50$ is this something good? Is using outbrains legal in Googles eyes?

    | AlexisWithers
    0

  • Hi. I'm wondering if anyone knows of an equivalent to Yoast for Drupal sites? Is there such a thing? I've been asked whether I could optimize a Drupal site and am wondering if the guiding principles and techniques I use for HTML and Wordpress sites can be easily transferred to a Drupal implementation, or whether I might be setting myself (and the client!) up for failure. Any observations or advice would be appreciated.

    | DonnaDuncan
    0

  • Error Code 803: Incomplete HTTP Response Received How can I fix this error?

    | netprodjb
    0

  • Hi I've just done my usual Monday morning review of clients Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools) dashboard and disturbed to see that for 1 client the Site Map section is reporting 95 pages submitted yet only 2 indexed (last time i looked last week it was reporting an expected level of indexed pages) here. It says the sitemap was submitted on the 10th March and processed yesterday. However in the 'Index Status' its showing a graph of growing indexed pages up to & including yesterday where they numbered 112 (so looks like all pages are indexed after all). Also the 'Crawl Stats' section is showing 186 pages crawled on the 26th. Then its listing sub site-maps all of which are non HTTPS (http) which seems very strange since the site is HTTPS and has been for a few months now and the main sitemap index url is an HTTPS: https://www.domain.com/sitemap_index.xml The sub sitemaps are:http://www.domain.com/marketing-sitemap.xmlhttp://www.domain.com/page-sitemap.xmlhttp://www.domain.com/post-sitemap.xmlThere are no 'Sitemap Errors' reported but there are 'Index Error' warnings for the above post-sitemap, copied below:_"When we tested a sample of the URLs from your Sitemap, we found that some of the URLs were unreachable. Please check your webserver for possible misconfiguration, as these errors may be caused by a server error (such as a 5xx error) or a network error between Googlebot and your server. All reachable URLs will still be submitted." _ 
    Also for the below site map URL's: "Some URLs listed in this Sitemap have a high response time. This may indicate a problem with your server or with the content of the page" for:http://domain.com/en/post-sitemap.xmlANDhttps://www.domain.com/page-sitemap.xmlAND https://www.domain.com/post-sitemap.xmlI take it from all the above that the HTTPS sitemap is mainly fine and despite the reported 0 pages indexed in GSC sitemap section that they are in fact indexed as per the main 'Index Status' graph and that somehow some HTTP sitemap elements have been accidentally attached to the main HTTPS sitemap and the are causing these problems.What's best way forward to clean up this mess ? Resubmitting the HTTPS site map sounds like right option but seeing as the master url indexed is an https url cant see it making any difference until the http aspects are deleted/removed but how do you do that or even check that's what's needed ?  Or should Google just sort this out eventually ? I see the graph in 'Crawl > Sitemaps >  WebPages' is showing a consistent blue line of submitted pages but the red line of indexed pages drops to 0 for 3 - 5 days every 5 days or so. So fully indexed pages being reported for 5 day stretches then zero for a few days then indexed for another 5 days and so on ! ? Many ThanksDan

    | Dan-Lawrence
    0

  • Can anyone please check if our app is indexed or not? Also check if deep linking done is correct or not rel="alternate" href="android-app://in.instafresh.app/http/www.instafrsh.com/" /> Website - http://instafrsh.com/ App - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.instafresh.app

    | Obbserv
    0

  • Hi guys, I have noticed loads of errors in webmaster, page not found.. /label/..... what i need to do is to a 301 redirect to /tags/... can some one tell me the redirect code to help fix this issue Regards T

    | Taiger
    0

  • Hi everyone, My website is http://brownquarterhorse.com I was wondering if it would be possible to optimize my homepage anymore. I just feel like it's lacking SEO. The page grader has rated it an 'A', but im not sure if the page grader is a good reflection ?

    | BenDuncombe
    0

  • I need to de-index certain pages as fast as possible. These pages are already indexed. What is the fastest way to do this? I have added the noindex meta tag and run a few of the pages through Search Console/Webmaster tools (fetch as google) earlier today, however nothing has changed yet. The 'fetch as google' services do see the noindex tag, but it haven't changed the SERPs yet. I now I should be patient, but if there is a faster way to get Google to de-index these pages, I want to try that. I am considering the removal tool also, but I'm unsure if that is risky to do. And even if it's not, I can understand it's not a permanent solution anyway. What to do?

    | WebGain
    0

  • I made new website meko.lv. I put many work to it, to make page SEO friendly, sprites, reduced requests added SSL, got google page speed insights score 100/100, but in 2. october all pages in google webmasters disappeared from index. Could you please look at website and say whats wrong with it? They are all search results present in google but for how long. it is so annoying, you put so many work but in result get high spam score. It is obvious that new pages can not get good links in one month https://meko.lv/ google webmasters google page speed score: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmeko.lv%2F&tab=mobile q1LDHTn

    | Mekounko
    0

  • In the Directives tab within Screaming Frog, can anyone tell me what the difference between "canonicalised", "canonical", and "no canonical" means? They're found in the filter box. I see the data but am not sure how to interpret them. Which one of these would I check to find canonical issues within a website? Are there any other easy ways to identify canonical issues?

    | Flock.Media
    0

  • Schema seems to be properly set up according to Google Webmaster Tools and the Structured Data Testing Tool... https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/?url=http://www.myessentia.com/mattresses/classic-8 Are dates for reviews necessary to getting the star ratings to appear in the SERPS?

    | schmeetz
    0

  • Hi guys, I am managing a real estate website, and obviously we have a LOT of pages detailing each property. As those properties get sold and removed from the website, I'm wondering how best to handle this - I know 404, 410 and 301's are all valid ways to go, but I want to provide the best UX combined with the best SEO effect. My thinking is to customise a 410 page to show the page has been permanently removed, and has a relevant message (rather than a generic 404 message) and shows a search box - possibly pre-populated according to the page they were looking for.
    I think this gives a good UX and helps Google to understand the importance of the 000's of pages on our website.
    I'd also like to clear property detail 404's as quick as possible to make it easier to see if we have problems elsewhere on the site. Having explained this to our development/SEO agency, they are strongly pushing for 301 redirects or leave as 404.
    I think 301's would be the worst for UX, and as explained earlier, the volume of 404's is massive and makes it difficult to see real errors. They seem to think this is a better UX and better for SEO. Just wondering what you guys would recommend?

    | LoonyToons
    0

  • Hi Guy's, In Wordpress we've got the plugin "WP Rocket". It's possible to optimize CSS, JS, HTML and Google Fonts. If i optimize (minify) CSS and JS the website will load faster and the pagespeed will be reduced. So i guess that's always better for SEO results en SERPS... But what will happen if i optimize my HTML code? It will be much shorter but less organized. Will this also affect SEO results and rankings? I'm awear that less code will increase my text ratio, but don't know if Google will punish the website for having a code that's not very good organized. Thanks!

    | Happy-SEO
    1

  • Hi, I have two URL both talking about keyword phrase 'counting aggregated cells' The first URL has canonical link pointing to the second URL, but if one searches for 'counting aggregated cells' both URLs are shown in the results. The first URL is the pdf, and i need only second URL (the landing page) to be shown in the search results. The canonical links should tell Google which URL to index, i don't understand why both URLs are present in search results? Is 'noindex' for the first URL only solution? I am using Yoast SEO for my website. Thank you for the answers.

    | Chemometec
    0

  • We have a website full of introduction video's that are viewable in youtube on the website. Is that good for my SEO rankings? Or should i consider placing my video direct on the website without using youtube? Thanks!

    | Happy-SEO
    1

  • Hi, How would you retain the organic search traffic for your old brand after a full rebrand? Website redesign, new company name, new domain name etc If we change from blahservices.com to fooservices.com and do all the things you would for a regular domain migration, will Google still return pages from the new brand fooservices.com when a user searches for old brand "blah services keyword"? We will be doing the following to try and not lose organic search traffic for our old brand: Keep PPC running on our old brand name keywords
    Mention our old brand on the new website in the footer i.e. "Copyright blah services trading as foo services"
    Publish a press release about the rebrand on our blog
    Say something like "blah services has rebranded as foo services" in meta descriptions for a while
    Put old and new brands in meta title for a while
    Keep 301 redirects from old domain in place forever Is there anything else you would add to that? Thanks, K

    | SeenDigital.co.uk
    0

  • Hi There This must be a common scenario but there's very little help on it.  Right now I have: www.domain.com hosted on a Windows dedicated server. I have blog.domain.com hosted on a separate hosted Wordpress server and I use an A Record at the DNS level to make sure the sub domain works.  Easy peasy! However we want to move our blog so its at www.domain.com/blog as we're definitely seeing an issue with the sub domain hosting of the blog in terms of SEO. My problem is that I cannot install WP onto the windows server, its' just not feasible as too much is going on with it, so i can;t simply redirect my blog.subdomain.com to www.domain.com/blog as it won't exist. How do I do this and maintain the SEO/link juice? Any help much appreciated!

    | Raptor-crew
    0

  • Hello, I'm working with a client that is creating a new site. They currently are using the following URL structure: http://clientname.com/products/furry-cat-muffins/ But the landing page for the directory /products/ does not actually have any content. They have a similar issue for the /about/ directory where the menu actually sends you to /about/our-story/ instead of /about/. Does it hurt SEO to have the URL structure set up in this way and also does it make sense to create 301 redirects from /about/ to /about/our-story/?

    | Alder
    0

  • Many of our pages have the textual content stuffed at the bottom of the page because the manager doesn't think anybody reads it and it is an eyesore to have at the top: http://www.stevinsontoyotawest.com/schedule-service For some light reading here is Google’s official blog talking about content quality:
    http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html This references Ads vs Content showing above the fold. However, in our case it has to do with images vs ads and stuffing text at the bottom of pages. Here is a bit of heavier reading. You can do a quick search for "Fold" to see their interpretation. 
    http://macedynamics.com/research/content-quality-score/ I understand that images are still content, however hardly any of the images have Alt text and they are not even named with keywords so Google really can't distinguish what the page is about through images alone. I'm not about to go through the entire site and add Alt text and rename images because I have much more to do on my plate. So, the questions is: Is stuffing content at the bottom of the page, below all images/inventory/widgets ok to do or should we stick with the eyesore content at the top of the page? Thoughts?

    | MEllsworth
    0

  • I see some old date Jan 21 2013 showing up for some categories in Google search results. These are category pages and I do not see the date in view source. This is not a wordpress site or a blog page. We keep changing this page by removing/adding items so it is not outdated.

    | rbai
    0

  • How can i make Google to consider my News pages as News and place them in the Google News section? Is there some syntax i need to mention in all my news pages?

    | AlexisWithers
    0

  • My SEO friend says my website is not being indexed by Google considering the keywords he has placed in the page and URL what does that mean? We have added some text in the pages with keywords thats related the page

    | AlexisWithers
    0

  • Can ALT tags for a Gallery be identical for all images with just the no changes? Will that create any issues?

    | AlexisWithers
    1

  • Hey all -- ever seen a client with URLs that keep repeating the domain? Something like: client.com/client.com/client.com/subfolder-name. Any idea what glitch could cause that?

    | TDC_SEO
    0

  • Hey folks, We run different ccTLD's for revolveclothing.com (revolveclothing.es, revolveclothing.com.br, etc. etc.) and they all have their own WMT/Google Console with their own href lang tags etc. The problem is this. https://www.google.fr/#q=revolve+clothing When you look at the sitelinks, you'll see that one of them (sales page) happens to be in Portuguese on the French site. Can anyone investigate and see why?

    | ggpaul562
    0

  • Hi Guys, I am working on a client's website and the developer has built multiple pages using Widgets for Content.  When using Yoast on a Page level it is not recognising the keyword focus or the content for review. Is there something I am missing or does anyone have any recommendations?

    | musthavemarketing
    0

  • About two months ago, we deleted some unnecessary pages on our website that were no longer relevant. However, MOZ is still saying that these deleted pages are returning 404 errors when a crawl test is done. The page is no longer there, at least that I can see. What is the best solution for this? I have a page that similar to the older page, so is it a good choice to just redirect the bad page to my good page? If so, what's the best way to do this. I found some useful information searching but none of it truly pertained to me. I went around my site to make sure there were no old links that directed traffic to the non existent page, and there are none.

    | Meier
    0

  • I have a competitor that is ranking higher for a keyword in Google. But when I look at the MOZ On-Page Grader I get an 'A' for the keyword and they get an 'F'. Then when I look at OSE and Compare Link Metrics, I rank significantly higher on every single metric except google +1's. Any idea as to why or where I should be looking as to why I'm ranking lower in actual search results? Keyword: Tiny House Trailers
    My page: http://www.tinyhomebuilders.com/tiny-house-trailers
    Competitor Page: [Removed] Thanks Dan

    | dlouche
    0

  • Hi, On one website, the "real" content is loaded via AJAX when the visitor clicks on a tile (I'll call a page with some such tiles a tile-page here). A parameter is added to the URL at the that point and the content of that tile is displayed. That content is available via an URL of its own ... which is  actually never called. What I want to achieve is a canonicalised tile-page that gets all of the tiles' content and is indexed by google - if possible with also recognising that the single-URLs of a tile are only fallback-solutions and the "tile-page" should be displayed instead. The current tile-page leads to duplicate meta-tags, titles etc and minimal differences between what google considers a page of its own (i.e. the same page with different tiles' contents). Does anybody have an idea on what one can do here?

    | netzkern_AG
    0

  • On our webshop we've added some URL-parameters. We've set URL's like min_price, filter_cat, filter_color etc. on "don't Crawl" in our Google Search console. We see that some parameters have 100.000+ URL's and some have 10.000+ Is it better to add these parameters in the robots.txt file? And if that's better, how can we write it down so the URL's will not be crawled. Our robotos.txt files shows now: # Added by SEO Ultimate's Link Mask Generator module User-agent: * Disallow: /go/ # End Link Mask Generator output User-agent: * Disallow: /wp-admin/

    | Happy-SEO
    1

  • Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization? Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization?

    | SalSantaCruz
    0

  • Hello, Short question: I got a link on a good ranking page but the code says: class="uslinks">www.eppinga.nl You can not click on the link so will it count as a link? Thank you in advance! Tymen

    | Tymen
    0

  • I am getting high priority issue for our xxx.com and xxx.com/home as reporting both duplicate pages and duplicate page titles on crawl results, I can't seem to find anything that needs to be corrected, what am I be missing?  Has anyone else had a similar issue, how was it corrected?

    | tgwebmaster
    0

  • Default format of my url ending with ".html" , I know it's not a problem .. But both links with ".html" and without are working , Is that critical problem or not ? and how to solve it ?

    | Mohamed_Samer
    0

  • Hi guys,I received this warning in my webmaster console: "Google detected a significant increase in the number of URLs we were blocked from crawling due to authorization permission errors." So i went to "Crawl Errors" section and i found such errors under "Access denied" status: ?page_name=Cheap+Viagra+Gold+Online&id=471 ?page_name=Cheapest+Viagra+Us+Licensed+Pharmacies&id=1603 and many happy URLs like these. Does anybody know what this is and where it comes from? Thanks in advance!

    | odmsoft
    0

  • Hi there, Moz has highlighted that my 404 page is returning a 404... Looking at webmaster tools within crawl errors, it's the same story. The only big change on the website is that we recently moved to https for the entire site, so all pages have a 301 to the corresponding https page, including the old 404 http page. I don't know if that makes any difference? Any help or advice on how I reasolve this will be much appreciated. Thanks, Stuart

    | Stuart26
    0

  • A Wordpress site has a footer widget for facebook with some images, all of which are served within an iframe.  The FB CDN robots is blocking the images from being crawled so Webmaster Tools rendering tool is reporting these 8 or so images as blocked.  Should I be concerned?

    | MickEdwards
    0

  • I am working with a site that wants to temporarily show a promotional landing page instead of their homepage. Theoretically you could do a 302, but what are the SEO implications of doing such a thing? I would appreciate any first hand experience or feedback on the idea. Ultimately it will not be my decision, but I do have influence. As a side note, there homepage is a mess (visually displeasing) and they really need a new website. This is one of the reasons that they are leaning this way. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

    | JerrodDavid
    0

  • I'm working on a website where all the blog content is listed as separate pages from the homepage, eg: www.domain.com/first-blog-post
    www.domain.com/second-blog-post However, it would make my life easier if all blog content was listed under /blog/ so that I could analyse it better in Google Analytics. Eg I'd like it to be: www.domain.com/blog/first-blog-post
    www.domain.com/blog/second-blog-post The developer is not keen because it would create extra work for him, and he's also said it's a bad idea from an SEO point of view. But is this the case? Presumably with 301s in place it wouldn't make a difference? Thanks for your help!

    | MillyShaw
    0

  • Hi Guy's A few weeks ago i posted a question: 
    https://moz.com/community/q/index-problems After some good advice, we changed a few things: www.domain.com <<< NL version www.domain.com/fr/ <<<< French version (domain.com/nl/ 301 redirect to domain.com). So the SERPS for keyword ‘shutters’ went from #32 to #8...... for 2 day's.... and gone.... and not comming back anymore.... Did we missed something? Help is much appreciated, thanks 🙂

    | Happy-SEO
    3

  • HI There, Hoping someone can help me - before i damage my desk banging my head. Getting notifications from ahrefs and Moz for duplicate content. I have no idea where these weird urls have came from , but they do take us to the correct page (but it seems a duplicate of this page). correct url http://www.acsilver.co.uk/shop/pc/Antique-Vintage-Rings-c152.htm Incorrect url http://www.acsilver.co.uk/shop/pc/vintage-Vintage-Rings- c152.htm This is showing for most of our store categories 😞 Desperate for help as to what could be causing these issues. I have a technical member of the ecommerce software go through the large sitemap files and they assured me it wasn't linked to the sitemap files. Gemma

    | acsilver
    0

  • Hey Mozzers, Im having a go at making our site mobile friendly without enlisting the help of developers and incorporating additional costs. I am ok with most of it as its just CSS work bar the odd occasion when i need to reposition some elements within the code. However, i have found myself wanting to use display:none {} on many elements that are just not practical on a mobile site. Some pages may have to hide substantial content. Would this be considered an issue or will google just see it as me hiding impractical elements for a different sized screen. I have googled this question for the past hour and there is a whole bunch of conflicting advice. As always, Many thanks

    | ATP
    0

  • Hi, I know there are several good answers regarding duplicate content issues on this website already, however I have a question that involves the best way to avoid negative SEO impacts if I change the urls for an ecommerce site. Basically a new client has the following website http://www.gardenbeauty.co.uk and I notice that it suffers from duplicate content due to the http://www version and the non www version of the pages - this seems quite easy to fix using the guidance on this website. However I notice that the product page urls are far from ideal in that they have several issues including:- (a) they are mostly too long (b) don't include the keyword terms (in terms of best practice) (c) they don't use Static URLS An example of one these product urls would be http://www.gardenbeauty.co.uk/plant-details.php?name=Autumn Glory&p_genus=Hebe&code=heagl&category=hebe I'd like to address these issues, but the pages rank highly for the products themselves, therefore my question is what would you recommend I do to fix the urls without risking the high positions that many of these product pages have? thanks, Ben

    | bendyman
    0

  • Hey Mozzers, I have several pages on my website that are for user search purposes only. They sort some products by range and answer some direct search queries users type into the site. They are basically just product collections that are else ware grouped in different ways. As such I didn't wants SERPS getting their hands on them so blocked them in robots so I could add then worry free. However, they automatically get pulled into the sitemap by Magento. This has made Webmaster tools give me a warning that 21 urls in the sitemaps are blocked by robots. Is this terrible SEO wise? Should I have opted to NOINDEX these URLS instead? I was concerned about thin content so really didnt want google crawling them.

    | ATP
    0

  • Hello mozzers, I have an unusual question. I've created a page that I am fully aware that it is near 100% duplicate content. It quotes the law, so it's not changeable. The page is very linkable in my niche. Is there a way I can build quality links to it that benefit my overall websites DA (i'm not bothered about the linkable page being ranked) without risking panda/dupe content issues? Thanks, Peter

    | peterm2
    1

  • Hi, We just wrapped up a website redesign about a month ago. The content stayed primarily the same. Once we launched the new site all of our rankings in Google stayed the same but we lost rank for all competitive keywords on Bing. I looked in Bing Webmaster tools and it doesn't show any penalties but it does show that we have too many H1 tags. I don't think the H1 tag thing is the issue but maybe. Do you know what could be causing this?

    | BT2009
    0

  • My client has a site that we are trying to optimise. However the code is really pretty bad. There are 205 errors showing when W3C validating. The >title>, , <keywords> tags are appearing twice. There is truly excessive javascript. And everything has been put in tables.</keywords> How much do you think this is really impacting the opportunity to rank? There has been quite a bit of discussion recently along the lines of is on-page SEO impacting anymore. I just want to be sure before I recommend a whole heap of code changes that could cost her a lot - especially if the impact/return could be miniscule. Should it all be cleaned up? Many thanks

    | Chammy
    0

  • Hello Community, I have been reading and researching about image search and trying to find patterns within the results but unfortunately I could not get to a conclusion on 2 matters. Hopefully this community would have the answers I am searching for. 1) Watermarked Images (To remove or not to remove watermark from photos) I see a lot of confusion on this subject and am pretty much confused myself. Although it might be true that watermarked photos do not cause a punishment, it sure does not seem to help. At least in my industry and on a bunch of different random queries I have made, watermarked images are hard to come by on Google's images results. Usually the first results do not have any watermarks. I have read online that Google takes into account user behavior and most users prefer images with no watermark. But again, it is something "I have read online" so I don't have any proof.  I would love to have further clarification and, if possible, a definite guide on how to improve my image results. 2)  Multiple nested folders (Folder depth) Due to speed concerns our tech guys are using 1 image per folder and created a convoluted folder structure where the photos are actually 9 levels deep. Most of our competition and many small Wordpress blogs outrank us on Google images and on ALL INSTANCES I have checked, their photos are 3, 4 or 5 levels deep. Never inside 9 nested folders.  
    So... A) Should I consider removing the watermark - which is not that intrusive but is visible?
    B) Should I try to simplify the folder structure for my photos? Thank you

    | Koki.Mourao
    0

  • Hi, Im creating some listings for a client on a relevant b2b directory (a good quality directory) I asked if the links are 'followed' or no 'followed' and they said they are 'server side redirects' so no direct links. Does anyone know how these are likely to be perceived by Google ? All BEst Dan

    | Dan-Lawrence
    1

  • “The website http://www.vaneyckshutters.com/nl/ does not show in the index of Google (site:vaneyckshutters.com/nl/). This must be the homepage in the Netherlands. Previously, the page www.vaneyckshutters.com was redirected to /nl/. This page is accessible now with a canonical tag to http://www.vaneyckshutters.com/nl/ in the hope to let /nl/ be indexed. When we look at the SERPS for keyword ‘shutters’, the page http://www.vaneyckshutters.com/ is shown in Google.nl on #32 and in Belgium #3. Problem & question: Why is it that /nl/ has not been indexed properly and why is it that we rank with http://www.vaneyckshutters.com on ‘shutters’ instead the/nl/ page?”

    | Happy-SEO
    1

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