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Category: White Hat / Black Hat SEO

Dig into white hat and black hat SEO trends.

  • brightvessel


    Hello, I manage a company that owns a bunch of schools (20) websites. They would like to create on each website a page which shows their schools in all the locations. Will this be ok as far as white hat practices and inbound linking?

    | brightvessel
    0
  • Jeanne_FBG


    We moved to Adobe BC CMS and added an SSL cert.  The way BC sets their SSLs up, the certificate hostnames don't match the site hostnames as the alternative names are in fact businesscatalyst.com and worldsecuresystems.com. My IT department thinks this will cause SEO issues.  Any one know anything about this?  I would think that the protocol change to https is what they are keying in on even if they don't admit it. IT found this site, SSLlabs.com that states after an SSL server test that the certificate is not trusted due to this configuration. Help!!

    | Jeanne_FBG
    0
  • vtmoz


    Hi all, We are making some changes in our website content at some paragraphs and tags with our main keywords. I'm just wondering if this is going to make us de indexed from Google? Because we recently dropped in rankings when we added some new content; so I am worried whether there are any chances it will turn more risky when we try to make anymore changes like changing the content. There are actually many reasons a website gets de indexed from Google but we don't employ any such black hat techniques. Our website got a reputation with thousands of direct traffic and organic search. However I am curious to know what are the chances of getting de indexed as per the new trends at Google? Thanks

    | vtmoz
    0
  • Shanaki


    Hello there, Basically, if you put non-natural star ratings on the category page, like in the attached images, you will get manual ban from google right? 
    (i know it for sure, cause I had clients with this situation) The real question is: 
    If I put a form that allows users to write a review about the category products on the category page, for REAL, will google still ban? Any advice? Any example? With respect, 
    Andrei Irh0O kto4o

    | Shanaki
    0
  • christmaslaserlights


    My company has many websites having similar content . They are into the retail business and sell manufactured homes.  Since they sell different manufacturer homes products having different specification in different states that's why they have created many websites. Will duplicate design and similar content on some of the pages across multiple website will cause issues in Google ranking.

    | christmaslaserlights
    0
  • BobAnderson


    how much value doesn't having an address a phone numbe an https rather than http i appreciate any help.

    | BobAnderson
    0
  • vtmoz


    Hi all, One of our partners have embedded our webpage in their website using iframe such a way that anybody can browse to any page of our website from their website. It's said that content in iframes will not get indexed. But when I Google for h1 tag of our embedded webpage, I can see their website in SERP but not ours which is original. How it's been indexed? Is this hurting us in rankings? Thanks

    | vtmoz
    0
  • Four-Peaks-SEO


    Hello everyone! Hope you are all doing well. Long story short, I'm currently in the 30-day trial period for Moz Pro and I'm taking advantage of running a campaign for my (currently) one-man SEO/Digital Marketing company. Recently built my site using Divi. Filled out all the SEO information through the Yoast SEO plugin, tied Google Analytics, etc... Seeking feedback on the visuals of the website and whether you have any feedback on link-building in order to bring in more traffic to the site. http://fourpeaksseo.com Thanks!

    | Four-Peaks-SEO
    0
  • jeremyskillings


    Someone that reaches out to me on occasion for help but is mostly an SEO DIYer recently had his site copied completely and his traffic dropped significantly immediately after.  I have never had a  client experience this in the past. Does anyone have suggestions or expertise on this?  See his question and what he has done below. Jeremy This site scraped my credit site. Its appearance coincides with a dramatic sitewide decrease in Google traffic.I submitted a takedown request by paying this company $200. No results yet. My hosting company also placed blocks on the site HTML which pings my server for CSS and picture files. My Google Webmaster tools account shows inbound links coming from the copycat. Is there something more I should be doing? Copy Site: http://masqueros.com/Real Site: https://www.savvyoncredit.com/

    | jeremyskillings
    0
  • imjonny123


    One section of our website is built as a single page application and serves dynamic content based on geographical location. Before I got here, we had used prerender.io so google can see the page, but now that prerender.io is gone, is google able to render & index geographical dynamic content? I'm assuming no. If no is the answer, what are some solutions other than converting everything to html (would be a huge overhaul)?

    | imjonny123
    1
  • iepl2004


    Hello, Is website in capital letters affect SEO ?? or we can apply with it ??  please help thnx in advance..!!

    | iepl2004
    0
  • TaylorRHawkins


    Just saw this: https://imgur.com/a/KQ0Hf This is the first time I have ever seen a meta description that long. Ever. I haven't seen any other sites covering this. That's a 275-character-length description that is not being truncated. Thoughts? I'm freakin' out.

    | TaylorRHawkins
    1
  • marketingdepartment.ch


    This process was recommended to us and I am having trouble understanding exactly how it works. Does this type of link building directly benefit your site or is it an indirect process? Also, can you be penalized for republishing someone's content on your feed?

    | marketingdepartment.ch
    0
  • seounicorn


    My business site has been very successful organically for many years. Just recently we got hit with a spam hack and it was resolved within 3 days. However now my rankings are plummeting and I am so stressed out! So here is some timeline information any info would help: Sept. 4th hack first detected on Google Sept. 7th site completely clean, reconsideration accepted, spam content and links removed. Manual actions cleared. Rankings at this time have not been affected. Sept. 11th disavowed a few incoming links that were completely spam. (In hindsight I know this could have been the beginning of the end using this tool) Sept. 21st start to notice first significant drop in rankings and I went into GWT and downloaded latest 1000 links, I realized ALL of these were either hacked sites as well with spam content linking to our now delete spam content or inappropriate adult content. Sept. 22 Disavowed the 1000 domains (there are still probably 1000-2000 more) As of today rankings have SIGNIFICANTLY dropped, I have resubmitted sitemaps, image sitemaps, fetch and rendered as google. I'm stressing out incredibly and feel like I have made an error and that my site will never recover. I've worked using ALL white hat seo and the site used to rank very well top of page one for almost all my keywords. I feel lost and don't know what else I can do - and I know many say wait but it feels like forever. Is it possible that I didn't make a mistake using the disavow and that Google just took a while to penalize for the hack? Please any advice or experiences I would love to hear and appreciate so much anyone who takes the time to respond.

    | seounicorn
    0
  • imjonny


    Hey everyone, I have another question regarding duplicate content. We are planning on launching a new sector in our industry to satisfy a niche. Our main site works as a directory with listings with NAP. The new sector that we are launching will be taking all of the content on the main site and duplicating it on a subdomain for the new sector. We still want the subdomain to rank organically, but I'm having struggles between putting a rel=canonical back to main site, or doing a self-referencing canonical, but now I have duplicates. The other idea is to rewrite the content on each listing so that the menu items are still the same, but the listing description is different. Do you think this would be enough differentiating content that it won't be seen as a duplicate? Obviously make this to be part of the main site is the best option, but we can't do that unfortunately. Last question, what are the advantages or disadvantages of doing a subdomain?

    | imjonny
    0
  • catbur


    There's a DR 51 domain we'd like to buy, with a quality backlink profile. We'd like to 301 redirect this domain to our DR 46 domain, and possibly setup something to make the user experience smooth for people expecting the old domain. Is this still a white hat strategy? How would you calculate the value/what kind of offer to make?

    | catbur
    0
  • gray_jedi


    Is there any way we can control the image that is selected next to the mobile serps? What google selects for the mobile serp thumbnail on a few of our serps is not conducive to high CTR.

    | gray_jedi
    1
  • imjonny


    we have a lot of pages that we want to create crawlable paths to. How many links are able to be crawled on 1 page for sitemap.html

    | imjonny
    0
  • vanGoGh-creative


    Hi everyone, I'm trying to optimize this page https://goo.gl/PYKAJL for the keyword "sedie design" in Google It (italy). I was gaining positions the month of july. After july I've lost 15 positions and I don't know why. Can someone help me and give me any suggestions? Thank you

    | vanGoGh-creative
    0
  • newwaves


    On Agust 2 or 3.. I'm not sure about the exact date... 
    The main URL of my website https://new-waves.net/ had been completely removed from Google search results! without getting any messages or Manual Actions on search console ?? but I'm still can find some of my site subpages in search results and on Google local maps results when I tried to check it on google 
    info:new-waves.net >> no results
    site:new-waves.net >> only now I can see the main URL in results because I had submitted it again and again to google but it might be deleted again today or tomorrow as that happen before last few days
    100% of all ranked keywords >> my site URL new-waves.net had been completely removed from all results! but I'm still can see it on maps on some results I never get any penalties to my site on Google search console. I noticed some drops on some keywords before that happens (in June and July) but it all of it was related to web design keywords for local Qatar, but all other keywords that related to SEO and digital marketing were not have any changes and been on top My site was ranked number 1 on google search results for "digital marketing qatar" and some other keywords, but the main URL had been removed from 100% of all search results. but you can still see it on the map only. I just tried to submit it again to Google and to index it through google search console tool but still not get any results, Recently, based on google console, I found some new links but I have no idea how it been added to links of my website:
    essay-writing-hub.com - 9,710
    tiverton-market.co.uk - 252
    facianohaircare.com - 48
    prothemes.biz - 44
    worldone.pw - 2
    slashdot.org - 1
    onwebmarketing.com - 1 the problem is that all my high PR real links deleted from google console as well although it still have my site link and it could be recognized by MOZ and other sites! Can any one help to know what is the reason?? and how can I solve this issue without losing my previous ranked keywords? Can I submit a direct message to google support or customer service to know the reason or get help on this issue? Thanks & Regards

    | newwaves
    0
  • imjonny


    We have a directory site with multiple listings. Currently, our page structure is fragmented for each of the tabs (about, products, reviews, etc) with canonicals going back to the main listing page. This includes the reviews as well. Review aggregate is marked up and the stars are rendering in the SERPs. We are planning to break out reviews to /reviews and including a paginated series, then all of the tabs (about, products, NOT reviews) will be javascript loading content so no more fragmented URLs. Right now, I suspect that the stars are rendering on the main listing page because the review page that is currently fragmented has a canonical back to the main listing page. The main listing page also is marked up with the review aggregate. if we break out /reviews, all of the reviews will live on /reviews. If we break out /reviews to it's own URL, will we have to have a small amount of reviews on the main listing page to have the stars render in the SERPs for the main listing page?

    | imjonny
    0
  • sufanfeiyan


    Hello everyone, i have a question regarding my homepage issue. My homepage is not showing up in google search result for all the keywords except brand name. I have checked the following things to make sure my homepage is working properly. 1.The page is indexed. 2.No canonical issues 3.No robots.txt issues. 4.Ahrefs UR45 DR55 while my competitors ranking in 2nd and 3rd page have lower UR and DR Have tens of thousands of backlinks but i think most of them are legit I suspect the problem might be the hoempage has more than 70 Anchor text (Internal links) working as directory, and many of them contain the keywords we are targeting. Will that be the reason my homepage is not ranking at all? Since the google might consider it as keyword stuffing and penalize my homepage for that. What are your thoughts on this? Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated!

    | sufanfeiyan
    0
  • TeamPandoraBeauty


    Friend asked me to look at her website. Ran it through screaming frog and BAM, instead of 4 pages i was expecting it returned HUNDREDS. 99.9% of them are for cheap viagra and pharmaceuticals. I asked her if she was selling viagra, which is fine, I don't judge. But she swears she isn't. http://janeflahertyesq.com I ran it through google site:janeflahertyesq.com and sure enough, if you click on some of those, they take you to canadien pharmacys selling half priced blue pills. a) is this cloaking? if not, what is going on? b) more importantly, how do I we get rid of those hundreds of pages / de-indexed She's stumped and scared. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance and for the work you do.

    | TeamPandoraBeauty
    0
  • yohayg


    Hi, I started to investigate googlebot crawl log of our website, and it appears that there is no 1:1 correlation between a crawled URL with escaped_fragment and without it.
    My expectation is that each time that google crawls a URL, a minute or so after, it suppose to crawl the same URL using an escaped_fragment For example:
    Googlebot crawl log for https://my_web_site/some_slug Results:
    Googlebot crawled this URL 17 times in July: http://i.imgur.com/sA141O0.jpg Googlebot crawled this URL additional 3 crawls using the escaped_fragment: http://i.imgur.com/sOQjyPU.jpg Do you have any idea if this behavior is normal? Thanks, Yohay sOQjyPU.jpg sA141O0.jpg

    | yohayg
    0
  • AliMac26


    Hi, We're having an issue with a client not wanting the H1 tag to display on their site and using an image of their logo instead. We made the H1 tag white (did not deliberately hide with CSS) and i just read an article where this is considered black hat SEO. https://www.websitemagazine.com/blog/16-faqs-of-seo The only reason we want to hide it is because it looks redundant appearing there along with the brand name logo. Does anyone have any suggestions? Would putting the brand logo image inside of an H1 tag be ok? Thanks for the help

    | AliMac26
    1
  • tlorenzi


    dankstop.com Almost all of their links come from mainly the same few sites, and some of their links have a really high spam score.

    | tlorenzi
    0
  • denakalami


    Hi guys, I'm seo newbie and really want to find websites that hurt  seo ranking to avoid get link. Which tools or trick can help me to find those site?

    | denakalami
    0
  • JMSCC


    Hi Everyone, Would there be a negative SEO effect from deleting pages with 301 redirects in your CMS? Does anyone know of an average time of authority transfer from a redirect? Thanks,
    Jon

    | JMSCC
    0
  • Infruition


    Hi guys, We have a .com domain and we've got geoIP on it, so UK goes to .co.uk and USA goes to .com/us We're just migrating over to another platform so we're thinking of keeping a "dummy" server just to do this geoIP pointing for us. Essentially .com will just point over to the right place and hold a specific .com/abc (which is generic for everyone worldwide) Current Scenario:
    .com (Magento + geoIP)
    .com/us (US Magento)
    .co.uk (UK - geoIP redirect to Shopify)
    .com/abc (sits on Magento server) Wanted Scenario:
    .com - used for GEOIP and a specific .com/abc (for all users)
    .co.uk (UK) - Shopify eCom
    .com/us -> migration to us.xx.com (USA) - Shopify eCom I just wanted to know if this will affect our rankings on google? Also, any advice as to the best practises here would be great. Thanks! Nitesh

    | Infruition
    0
  • seoaustin


    Hello All A client's site recently got hit with links from an XXX neighborhood.  My clients site is on the periphery of adult entertainment, think Maxim Magazine, but not in the porn space.  These links could be natural, or pushed by a competitor, we definitely did not solicit them. Regardless, dozens of links were established and then found by Google starting in February and a few very important keyword rankings disappeared about 2 months later (after Google found more and more XXX links). The linked to page is the only one that was really hit and it's not a manual action - seems completely algorithmic. We have disavowed all that we can put our finger on but I'm trying to provide guidance as to how long it has taken others to see some type of recovery...?

    | seoaustin
    0
  • Tintanus


    I've heard from some SEO's that H1 and Meta Title shouldn't be exactly the same, why ? Both of them describe what is ON the page right ? Why is it Spammy? Is it ?

    | Tintanus
    2
  • muzzmoz


    I just had a client say they were advised by a friend to use 'a bunch of unlisted (hidden) pages'. Isn't this seriously black hat?

    | muzzmoz
    0
  • snowflake74


    Hi all, I'm restructuring a site that has been built with no real structure. It's moving over to HTTPS and having a full new development so it's a good time to tackle it all together. It's a snowboard site and at the moment the courses, camps ect are all just as pages like: examplesnowboarding.com/off-piste-backcountry/ I'm wanting to tighten the structure so it gives more meaning to the pages and so I can style them selectively and make it easier for the client to manage but I'm worried repeating the word snowboard too often will look spammy. I'm wanting to do the following: URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-courses/splitboard-backcountry-intro/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-camps/technical-performance/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-camps/girls-only/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-lessons/private/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-lessons/group/ The urls are clean and humanly descriptive but it does mean that the "snowboard" keyword is used a lot! The other 2 options I thought of were like so (including snowboard in the page name not path) URL - examplesnowboarding.com/courses/snowboard-splitboard-backcountry-intro/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/snowboard-technical-performance/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/snowboard-girls-only/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/private-snowboard/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/group-snowboard/ or simply removing "snowboard" as "snowboarding" is already in the main url URL - examplesnowboarding.com/courses/splitboard-backcountry-intro/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/technical-performance/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/girls-only/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/private/
    URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/group/ Any thoughts appreciated!

    | snowflake74
    1
  • iepl2001


    Hi there, I have Client Who dont want to show his content to publicly, So team decided to use toggle, So Google can also See Content, But i want bu sure. Does Google will really cache that Content?? Does it down my website Ranking?? Please any one can Help, I need urgent basis Thnx in advance Falguni

    | iepl2001
    0
  • iepl2001


    Hey there, I am Doing SEO For one of my client For mortgage Company. As i have Checked in Other mortgage sites, they used to have Same Content/Details, In all Websites, & my client site have also Some of them, So my Question is as per Google  If there Duplicate Content, it will be Got penalize, But as i see Ranking & traffic For competitor site, They have Duplication, then also Rank For 1st page,. what is Reason behind? so i also Implement/Execute our site With that same content?? or i'll Got penalize?? Thnx in advance

    | iepl2001
    0
  • igains


    Why some of shortened urls like bitly/owly/googl has PA>40? I tried everything to improve PA of my shortened urls like facebook shares, retweets and backlinks to them but still i have PA-1. Checkout this URL: https://moz.com/blog/state-of-links in MOZ OSE and you will many 301 links from shortners 
    I asked many seo experts about this but no one answered this question so today subscribed MOZ pro for the solution. Please give me the answer.

    | igains
    0
  • Akshayshr


    If a link gets deleted for few days and re-appears... Will Google treat it as a "new link" or give it the same old link-age.

    | Akshayshr
    0
  • DigiVital


    How to find trustful seo specialist if you don't know about SEO a lot?

    | DigiVital
    1
  • vtmoz


    Hi all, Let's say a company holds 100 customers and somehow getting a backlink from all of their websites. Usually we see "powered by xyz", etc. Is something wrong with this? Is this right backlinks strategy? Or violation of Google guidelines? Generally most of the customers's websites do not have good DA; will it beneficial getting a backlinks from such average below DA websites? Thanks

    | vtmoz
    0
  • momentum_technology_services


    So I came across this idea on YouTube: Indexing your backlinks. I understand its not enough to just have google crawl your pages - you want them indexed. So, if you create backlinks on say a blog or social profile, will it benefit you to have them submitted to other popular blogs, news / pr sites, video channels - of which may be unrelated - for the sole purpose of getting them not just crawled but indexed? There are SEO companies that I have seen that claim they do exactly that (publish your backlinks all over the web - making backlinks for backlinks) but in reality is this a good thing or a bad thing? Could this help rankings or hurt them?

    | momentum_technology_services
    0
  • vtmoz


    Hi all, Today I have gone through this "Silo" concept where we need to build 2nd hierarchy level pages and then lower hierarchy pages further to rank good for related terms of "keyword(s)". But I wonder, is it real? the so called Silo structure? Google may consider that we are trying trick if we create multiple pages (doorway pages) targeting same keyword. And one of my competitors is having too many 2nd hierarchy level pages against this Silo structure and even the homepage rank may dilute by contributing to the so many pages. But their web pages rank good for the keywords they chosen by creating multiple landing pages. These are contrary to each other. How it works in real? Thanks

    | vtmoz
    0
  • vtmoz


    Hi all, We have released our next version of product called like "software 11", which have thousands of searches every month. So we have just added this same keyword "software 11" as page title suffix to one of the top ranking pages. Obviously this is the page has been added suddenly with "software 11" at page title, multiple header tags and 1 mention in paragraph. Google ranked it for 2 days and suddenly stopped showing this page in entire results for the same keyword we optimised the page for. Why does it happened? Does Google think that we are overdoing with this page and ignoring it? Thanks

    | vtmoz
    0
  • vtmoz


    Hi all, I have gone through some articles where less pages are suggested and they claim that they will be favoured by Google. I'm not sure as with limited pages, we can only target limited keywords. There might be threat from Google in-terms of doorway pages for more pages. But one of our competitor has many pages like dedicated page for every keyword. And their website ranks high and good for all keywords. I can see three pages created with differnet phrases for same on keyword. If less pages are good, how come this works for our competitor? Thanks

    | vtmoz
    0
  • SwanseaMedicine


    Hi everyone, One of my pages has an optimisation score of 93, but ranks in 50+ place. What on earth can I do to address this? It's a course page so I've added the 'course' schema. I've added all the alt tags to say the keyword, UX signals aren't bad. Keyword is in the title tag. It has a meta description. Added an extra 7 internal, anchor-rich links pointing at the page this week. Nothing seems to address it. Any ideas? Cheers, Rhys

    | SwanseaMedicine
    1
  • BeckyKey


    Hi I wondered if there had been any other insights since March about the Fred update or any other Google update? I don't think we were hit by Fred but in March we dropped out for a lot of keyword rankings, I just cannot pinpoint why. We are an ecommerce site, so some of our product/category pages don't have a huge amount of written content. We might have a couple of extra backlinks to disavow, but nothing major. Does anyone else have any insights? Thanks!

    | BeckyKey
    1
  • vtmoz


    Hi all, There are some old images (non-existing now) from our website which have backlinks. We would like to redirect them to some live images to reclaim the backlinks. Is this Okay or sounds suspicious to Google? Thanks

    | vtmoz
    0
  • ShahzadAhmed


    Hello, Please help me. Our one of website is under attack by hacker once again. They have injected spammy URL and google is indexing, but we could not find these pages on our website. These all are 404 Pages. Our website is not secured. No HTTPS Our website is using wordpress CMS Thanks

    | ShahzadAhmed
    0
  • promodirect


    Following is a scenario where we plan to have a single database and different sites pulling product information from this. There will be a primary site with all the products listed and then there will be other category based website with the same products. All transactions will happen on respective website. The common factor will be products and its information. Our question is should we have different item numbers for the same product listed on two websites or they can be the same.?
    e.g.
    Website A: Product - Blue Shoes and item number '123'
    Product page url will be: websitea.com/blueshoes-123.html Website B: Product - Blue Shoes and item number '123' or should the item# should be unique e.g. 'B123'
    Product page url will be: websiteb.com/blueshoes-123.html
    or
    If item number is unique the product page url will be: websiteb.com/blueshoes-B123.html Please advise what is the best way forward.

    | promodirect
    0
  • thatkinson


    Apart from an article on Search Engine Roundtable, I haven’t been able to find anything out about the potential algorithm update that happened on Monday / Tuesday of this week. One of our sites (finance niche) saw drops in rankings for bad credit terms on Tuesday, followed by total collapse on Wednesday and Thursday. We had made some changes the previous week to the bad credit section of the site, but the curious thing here is that rankings for bad credit terms all over the site (not just the changed section) disappeared. Has anyone else seen the impact of this change, and are there any working theories on what caused it? I’m even wondering whether a specific change has been made for bad credit terms (i.e. the payday loan update)?

    | thatkinson
    0
  • marketingdepartment.ch


    I would like opinions on Brian Dean's training courses and his advice -- has anyone used it successfully? Is it worth the cost? And useful?

    | marketingdepartment.ch
    1

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