New website showing old domain titles in search
-
Hello Moz,
We have recently built a new website http://www.hegroup.org.uk/
The new site has the domain for one of the clients old sites pointing to it - heartofmersey.org.uk.
When we check the SEO index (site:hegroup.org.uk) for the new site, most of of the indexed items are using the old 'Heart of Mersey' title in the index although these do redirect to the new site. See below.
Heart of Mersey
<cite class="_Rm">www.hegroup.org.uk/</cite>Jessica Bell · Andrew Bennett · Nicola Calder · Matt Donnelly · Alexandra Holt · Robin Ireland · Magdalena Kolka · Alison Gradwell · Matthew Philpott · Trustees.
Not sure how to resolve this issue. Any suggestions
Thanks
Ian
-
I saw a new page cached on Google, so it seems like Google was able to find some, if not all, new content, sitemap or not. What concerned me though, was the cached page had old meta data in it. That's what made me think that Google might have been able to find a sitemap on the website server, but the sitemap could have been pointing to the test (versus production) domain.
I've seen that happen before.
So it's good you submitted a new sitemap via Search Console. I'd also take a look a see if there might be conflicting sitemaps on the server.
-
Sure thing. As Donna mentioned, the sitemap is definitely a good place to start.
-
Hi Donna,
Just checked GWT and the client hasn't submitted a site map.
Just submitted one for them.
Will see if that makes a difference.
Thank you for the response.
Ian
-
Hi Erika,
The site was launched approx 8-9 months ago. The client was supposed to submit a sitemap - but didn't. I have just submitted a sitemap for the site, so will hopefully see some changes over the next few days.
We may be doing some SEO work on the site shortly so need to get this resolved.
It look like Google was appending every title with the old 'Heart of Mersey' site.
May try amending menu page title or using shf404 if the sitemap submission doesn't work.
Thank you for the response.
Much appreciated
Ian
-
When did you implement these changes? When I viewed the cached version of the following page:
www.hegroup.org.uk/accessibilty
I see that the snapshot was from Dec 23, 2015. If your changes were after this date, it appears Google hasn’t crawled the new/updated pages yet.
-
Hello Ian Molyneux,
I don't have the answer but did notice that the cached version of the page uses your old title and meta description tags. Check your sitemap. It's a place to start. Is it perhaps pointing to your test region?
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
-
Should I change my website urls?
We're translating our website in a few languages (FR / DE / JP) using subdirectories. So our website will have the following urls www.brand.com/en
On-Page Optimization | | dcalexandra
www.brand.com/fr
www.brand.com/de
www.brand.com/jp I would like to change the url structure of a few pages from www.brand.com/section/feature-name to www.brand.com/feature-name Is it a good idea to do this now since we're adding the subfolders and these are anyway new urls in google's eyes?0 -
Duplicate Page Titles
It seems as though we are being flagged for duplicate page titles when really they are slightly different. Is it better to remove the "dart board" or "dart board backboard" from all the product titles? We were doing this for optimal SEO - to rank for the search of "dart board" - but is it really hurting us? for example, our product titles are: Obama dart board backboard, Texas dart board backboard, Oklahoma dart board backboard, etc. Yet they are being flagged as duplicate titles.
On-Page Optimization | | DartsDecor0 -
Search Console shows structure keywords more significant over content keywords. What is wrong?
Search Console shows non content related - website structure keywords as:
On-Page Optimization | | Yaz-
"categories, account, facebook,..." as top significant keywords. And after those comes the website's content keywords.
These words come from the header as I can notice. Am I repeating the content keywords less? Is there a way to adjust this? I am sure this affects my Adsense targeting.
What am I doing wrong? Any suggestions?0 -
How to rank in Google during domain name search?
We have received one requirement for this website. http://www.coldcasebeer.com/ We would like to rank in Google during domain name search. If we are going to search following search terms in Google then We are not able to see this domain on first page of Google search result. cold case beer coldcasebeer We have done quick research on this issue. And, We have decided to implement following tasks to make it happen.But, We are quite excited to read certain inputs on this question from experts! 1. Upload default Robots.txt file 2. Verify website on Google webmaster tools 3. Set up USA region on Google webmaster tools 4. Submit Google crawl request on Google webmaster tools 5. Title tag and Meta description optimization for all pages (There are 5 pages only on website) 6. Audit Google local listing 7. Develop quality links with domain name
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
Redirects for new site new urls?
If redoing a site and updating some of the url's for SEO should you do permanent redirects for the old sites url's ? Using WordPress. I saw that the Yoast Pro plugin allows you to do this inside WordPress , is this the best way? Suggestions.? I know there are old articles written out on the web pointing back to the what will be soon old url's so just wondering what's the best way to go about this. Thanks Scott
On-Page Optimization | | scott3150 -
Title Tag Not Relaying In Google Search
Our title tag is "<title>HCG</span> Diet - HCG Drops - Example Weight Loss - HCG Diet Weight Loss</title>" But in google it is only displaying "HCG diet" Reasons? What can I do to fix this? I'm trying to get this fixed asap, as it is our homepage that is being effected by it.
On-Page Optimization | | HCGDiet0 -
Best title tag structure?
Hi, In the below example, which one do you think would work best if any. The website is called greatshoes.co.uk (fictitious) The category is 'work shoes' and a page under this cat is lets say 'Size 9 work shoes' I tend to build my title tags like this: size 9 work shoes, cheap size 9 work shoes | greatshoes.co.uk BUT I have read on here it should be more like this: size 9 work shoes < work shoes | greatshoes.co.uk Does anyone think it would make a difference when targeting for the term 'size 9 work shoes' which title tag I use. Cheers
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
Purchased domain
We purchased the existing domain www.LancasterPA.com two years ago to promote local businesses. While individual pages within the site are ranking well, we can't get the home page to rank at all in Google. Would there be anything in the history of the domain that could be standing in the way? Or, what else could we check? Our other regional websites are ranking really well. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | GordyH0