Software assisted meta data
-
I was recently contacted by an SEO firm that did a search on my site and said it had a low index. Out of 5,000+ pages only 800 keywords was ranking. They said there is much improvement for adjusting my meta data for indexing. They said there is a software that does this for you. Does anyone have any experience with this? Does this sound true what they are explaining? What is this software and how much does it cost? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-
I run an e-commerce site which is why I have so many pages. Each product acts as its own page. Each product has a title (product name) and each has its own URL as well as short description, long description and meta description. Maybe I need to go further into the description and add more content and double check that they are in fact being crawled by google as you mention.
-
First rule of hiring an SEO firm, don't hire a firm that reaches out to you randomly and tells you that you have something broken and they can fix it. FYI, I also know a prince in Nigeria who needs access to your bank account and would be happy to pay you for it.
That said, the whole pages on site vs pages ranking in Google is a valid measure. If most of the pages of your site are not ranked in Google, then that may be an indicator that you have a lot of low quality pages and this could be an issue. This type of metric is a good one for check in the health of your site.
That said, your have to figure out if this matters to your site or not and it is pretty easy to do. Various ways to look at this.
Log into Search Console and if you have a sitemap submitted on your main dashboard for sitemaps you will see URLs submitted vs URLs indexed. At a basic level, how many pages did you show to Google and then how many pages did Google say, yes, these are good enough to be indexed.
Use ScreamingFrog or the MozCrawl, see how many URLs are found by crawling your website. How does this total compare to what you show in your sitemap? Do you have a bunch of pages that are just tag cloud pages or a page that is just a resorted or printer friendly version (aka duplicate) of another page? You probably need to block access to those (and make sure they are not in your sitemap).
ScreamingFrog has a API to connect to your GA data. You can then also pull what type of search traffic do these pages get. This gets back to your ranking question. If you have a page that Google is ranking for something, it should get some search traffic to it. Depending on how much traffic you get overall to your site, you may need to look at a 3 to 6 month time period. You can now say, out of all of the URLs on your site, if there is a group of URLs that is not getting any traffic from Google for the past 6 months, they are probably not ranking for any key words. Why is that? Look at those pages. Are they crappy pages with very little or duplicate content? Updating a meta tag will not do anything if you have a crappy page to start with. Maybe you need to noindex them or 404 them and get them off your site. Maybe you need to add content, write more, include some graphics etc. Maybe you have duplicate or similar pages you need to combine into one super page and redirect the other page to it.
Good luck!
-
Hi Nicholas,
OK, then I wouldn't worry about their comments on your meta data, it's far better to create good descriptions and titles manually than to use automated ones- I'd only ever recommend that as an interim solution, or where you have too much data to ever invest in manual changes.
There's always improvements that can be made to SERPs, but I don't think they have the solution for you- I'd invest in the different areas of SEO, e.g. ensuring your pages are well optimised, checking technical points, and working on usability and great content. You could do this with an agency/SEO consultant, or yourself/a staff member. The Moz beginner guide to SEO is a great place to start!
Hope this helps,
Zoe -
I am using Magento. I have done a decent job adding proper descriptions and meta data. I was just outreached by a company called Grouphigh who says I am missing the boat somewhere. The rep mentioned my SERP is growing but has so much more potential. He said he used a tool to track the amount of keywords that I am currently showing up in organic searches and that it was very low in comparison to the amount of pages I have. Does this statement hold water? Is there something that I should be doing differently to increase this?
-
Hi Nicholas,
I'd avoid any automated programmes like this- did they explain how it works? Does it just pull the first line of your page text or product description or something similar to be your meta description? Lots of software can do this, but it's not necessarily the best way- your meta descriptions should be compelling for users who see them in search, and they don't directly impact your ranking anyway. Your meta titles can also be generated automatically, most CMS systems will do this for you automatically unless you override the description, or you'll be able to change your settings or add a module/plugin to do this (e.g. so that a product title is the meta title, followed by your brand name). What is your website built on? E.g. Wordpress, Magento, PrestaShop?
I wouldn't trust this company though, as you'll be able to make such improvements yourself, and worst case scenario they might hurt your rankings.
Hope this helps!
Zoe -
Sounds bullshit.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Keyword ranking verse all other data
Hi there I have just joined Moz so I am not sure if i am doing a good job of analysing all the data, but from what i can see i have a few questions: 1. I seem to have a fairly high visibility compared to a few other competitors 2. All the other competitors i am looking at have a much lower domain authority 3. I win the link metrics in all categories compared to my competitors 4. I have a page optimisation score of 94 5. I dont have any crawl issues (except that i just changed to https and i believe there is a synching issue with Moz and cloud flare..) YET I barely rank for any of the main keyword in my industry.... Kitchen, New Kitchen, Kitchen Renovation etc. I also have a page optimisation score of 94 for related keywords. I feel like i am really missing a big point and was hoping I could get your expert thoughts on this 🙂 Thanks so much! PS my domain is www.bluetea.com.au
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bluetea0 -
Part of my site does not show the correct Meta title
Hi our website meta title on the directory section is showing the same title, it does not show the page title. We have tried turning off all plugins, reinstalling the theme, creating a new htacces file. installing Yoast, and testing with All in one seo but still the same thing happens. Tried different themes with the same results But when we test with Twenty Thirteen it is ok Completely lost and would love some help Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Taiger0 -
Some Tools Not Recognizing Meta Tags
I am analyzing a site which has several thousands of pages, checking the headers, meta tags, and other on page factors. I noticed that the spider tool on SEO Book (http://tools.seobook.com/general/spider-test) does not seem to recognize the meta tags for various pages. However, using other tools including Moz, it seems the meta tags are being recognized. I wouldn't be as concerned with why a tool is not picking up the tags. But, the site suffered a large traffic loss and we're still trying to figure out what remaining issues need to be addressed. Also, many of those pages once ranked in Google and now cannot be found unless you do a site:// search. Is it possible that there is something blocking where various tools or crawlers can easily read them, but other tools cannot. This would seem very strange to me, but the above is what I've witnessed recently. Your suggestions and feedback are appreciated, especially as this site continues to battle Panda.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ABK7170 -
Switched to HTTPS, now Google ALWAYS changes Page Title & Meta in SERPs
Wordpress website using Yoast. Website switched over from HTTP to HTTPS successfully about 6 months ago. Noticed after the fact that Google almost never displays the Page Title or Meta Description I've created in Yoast. Yoast is the only SEO plug-in enabled. Yoast is set to Force Rewrite the Page TItles. The Page titles & Meta Descriptions are always within the character limit. They also contain either an exact or partial match the queries in which Google shows a different Page Title & Meta Description. For some Queries, Google will display the URL as the Page Title for certain queries. Concrete example, search for: public administration jobs Screenshot of results attached. First time working with HTTPS. The redirects appear to be have done correctly. I'm not sure what the issue is. uOnFjNt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2uinc0 -
Google webmaster tools showing "no data available" for links to site, why?
In my google webmaster account I'm seeing all the data in other categories except links to my site. When I click links to my site I get a "no data available" message. Does anyone know why this is happening? And if so, what to do to fix it? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nicktaylor10 -
Should I use selected Keywords in Meta Title of non important pages
Hi All, I have identified 2 main keywords that I want a website to be found for 1: Alarm Systems 2: Security Systems I have two relevant landing pages set up and optimised for these terms and I have also optimised the home page for these terms I have countless other pages on the website that I don't really need to optimise such as Distributor Benefits or Supplier Benefits, About Us etc My question is should I use my selected keywords (alarm systems, security systems) in the Meta Title on these non important pages or should I just use them on the selected landing pages and home page? Historically I have used my primary keywords on all non important pages but not sure if Google looks down on this now. Thanks Robbie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daracreative0 -
Faceted navigation, Affiliate links, Meta descriptions - Oh My!
Hi, I have recently come across an issue with the faceted navigation / dynamic URLs for one of my client sites: From a top level category you can filter by product material, size, type and colour. The URLs which are generated go a little something like this: www.domainname.co.uk/category.aspx?finish=leather&colour=--+no+filter+-- When selected, a 'facet' 302 redirects from the main category URL (no canonical tags in place yet - working on it). The 'facets' are indexed (although when clicked on from SERPs actually go to a slightly different URL than by navigating there from the site) but they don't display the Meta description in SERPs (instead displaying a list of items from a drop down menu held within a table - probably as it's the first bit of copy the search engines see on the page). How can I get the Meta description to display in SERPs? Also, I tried to add a link to a 'facet' from my blog (just for testing purposes) and I got redirected to the page via their affiliate program. Ideally I want to 'link build' to these pages both internally and via the clients blog but it seems as though there'll be no value in it. Has anyone come across this before and if so, what can I do about it? FYI they are using IIS 6 with asp.net Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WalkerM0 -
Hacked - Lost Meta Data
Our website was hacked last night and all data lost. I've worked over night to replace the destroyed data which was essentially things like all of our prices, testimonials, etc, etc. Got that sorted but now notice that all our page meta data has disappeared, title, description, etc. I'm worried that if I dont' enter the correct data that corresponds to Google "records" that we will lose our page one ranking. I've gone into Webmaster Tools and also I've used SEOQuake but the pages found have their meta data stripped when I go into "source". Before I start re-entering what I think would be the correct data I wondered if anyone had any advice please? Thanks, Colin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NileCruises0