Need help with my "ghost" blog...
-
...when I fired my original web designer, did they sabotage coding? I have never checked my Alexa/Google Analytics, or any blog ranking until last night. Subsequently, I have spent the last 24 hours googling away, and finally joining MOZ b/c I'm desperate to find out WHY I'm not ranking. I've googled and found many answers to a problem directly opposite of mine: (How to increase traffic with a high ranking), but I already have quite a bit of traffic (via Wordpress Stats), but can not be found on any ranking system. So, fiddled with some NoFollow/NoIndex boxes in Genesis SEO settings thinking maybe when my domain name changed it messed everything up? Most the boxes HAD been checked, so I unchecked them all. Anyhow, basically signed up for the monthly service so i could ask this question on the forum. My site is hellowhitney.com
**it's so weird---i have a LOT of organic direct hits coming directly to my blog (for instance a celebrity re-posted a post which gained a lot of traffic from Twitter to the page), but Google nor another ranking is seeing it. IN FACT, it stops any and all ranking data back to FEBRUARY 2016 when I changed my domain name from Myscriptedreality.com to HelloWhitney.com
Ignorance is NOT bliss in this case--would appreciate any help! #ForeverGrateful
-
When I go to "myscriptedreality.com", it doesn't redirect to your new site. (No login credentials needed to see that.) Also, social traffic is generally not a ranking signal... so getting traffic from Facebook is great, but it's not going to have a direct impact on how well you rank with search engines. (But it's a great argument in favor of diversifying your traffic sources!)
Here's what I would do first:
- Stop fiddling with boxes in the WP admin if you're not sure what they do. For instance, I can tell you for certain that NOODP and NOYDIR will have zero impact on ranking since they're rather obscure meta description directives that you probably do actually want to keep checked, and which have no impact on Google ranking. But you didn't know that, and some of those other options can affect site indexing. You don't know what you don't know, and that worries me a bit.
- **If you don't still own the old domain, repurchase it immediately. This is absolutely imperative. **
- Apply a 301 redirect** from each page of your old domain to the most relevant page on the new one. You'll probably need to hire someone to do this for you. It may require some time and research to reconstruct the old site enough to pull a complete list of its URLs, which is really what needs to be done. Hard to say how much work that will be without really digging into it.
- It seems like you're getting overwhelmed by a lot of technical details without a good understanding of SEO's most basic concepts. So while your hired gun is working on the 301 issue, read the Beginner's Guide to SEO.
I wouldn't expect this to be a miracle resurrection, but it would be a solid start, and you're about to learn a lot about how this all works. Good luck, and keep us posted.
**In layman's terms, a 301 is basically a signpost that says "the page you're looking for is over here, and now I'm going to take you there." It's the technical name for what happens when you type one URL and it takes you to a different one. A 301 redirect is not just for users, but also for search engines. My guess is that when you moved your site, because the 301 redirects were never set up, it's basically like you left no forwarding address. You didn't get to take any of your backlinks or domain authority with you, and all of that is hugely important for maintaining rankings after a site move.
-
Hello--not sure how to assign your credentials vs giving you my administrative credentials...make sense?
-
I think I would need to look at the backend to help you further. Do you mind sending me your WP credentials to hello@solvid.co.uk?
-
Thank you so much for your in depth explanation. I wanted to further expand on some of your points with some links to social media. AGAIN--I appreciate so much you taking the time to look deeper into my site set up: (let me know if I should post this as a new thread, OR contact MOZ or SEO professional for paid service explanation.
these are all things I did LAST night from the Genesis SEO settings:
1.SITEWIDE SETTINGS: Section Headlines - checked "use semantic HTML5", Document Title-checked "add site name to <title>"</p> <p>2. HOMEPAGE SETTINGS: <strong>Document Title - </strong>field blank, but checked "add site description (tagline)...<strong>Meta Description, Meta Keywords = </strong>nothing. <strong>Robot MetaTags</strong> - I UNCHECKED no-index,no-follow, no-archive (all 3 WERE checked from previous designer set up)</p> <p>3. DOCUMENT HEAD SETTINGS: left <strong>Relationship</strong>, <strong>Windows Live</strong>, and <strong>Shortlink</strong> blank</p> <p>**4. ROBOTS META SETTINGS: <strong>Indexing</strong> were all checked, I CHECKED no index to TAG ARCHIVES per your advice, <strong>Archiving</strong> <strong>all </strong>unchecked, **<strong>DIRECTORIES</strong> were ALL CHECKED, but i unchecked both <em>noodp</em> and <em>noydir </em></p> <p><em>-just set up Google Analytics last night. Not sure why it stopped completely in February, before my site traffic picked up and I was never optimized or changed settings like i just did per your advice. </em></p> <p><em>-What ar H1 and 301? </em>again, sorry for my lack of knowledge, but my blog manager left me high and dry after setting everything up. Hence, me signing up on site, paying, and hoping to get some answers on whats wrong...I've included a screenshot of my WP stats so you can see real time organic traffic. </p> <p>Here's my FB page that shows all the views on posts. I can't attach the image of WP stats, but i have over 5,000 unique visitors thus far in April. Not great, but surely enough to put me on map. Unless sabotage from back end of WP site SEO settings. </p> <p>https://www.facebook.com/hellowhitney1/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel</p> <p> </p></title>
-
Hi,
I did a quick check, your website is indexed by Google and you don't seem to have nofollow/noindex issues nor robots.txt issue with your Home Page. However, I can see that you are using noindex tags on some other pages like life, style and health. This may be the cause.
Also, I can see that your website isn't really optimised, that includes page titles (they are too short and don't target specific keywords), some pages have very short meta descriptions and is missing on some pages, you have multiple H1 on some pages, etc.
Also, I can't see Google Analytics set-up on this new website. Did you or your developer put 301 redirect from the old site to the new one?
I would advise you to remove noindex tags, configure your GA, optimise your site internally and you should be good to go.
Please read Moz's beginners guide to SEO
I hope this helps!
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
-
"Display" referrals on google analytics
We have just had 200+ visits on the 'Display' channel within 5 minutes - these referrals are from all over the world and this is very out the ordinary for our business - should we be concerned? 9cHllwW
Reporting & Analytics | | RayflexGroup0 -
Possible penalty question - need expert help
hallo everyone, I am posting this question to the MOZ community, because I could not find any useful information or proper advice so far, even after consulting a few local SEO experts. I noticed from the end of september a steady and consistent decrease in visits (please see attached pdf) for my website https://bastabollette.it I lost so far almost 40%. Please consider that I have not changed my habits in blog posting lately, both in quantity and quality. I have not made any subtantial change on the website lately. I did a general audit of the site asking to an expert but apart from some generic suggestions (like: "work on increasing PR, add more quality backliks, use more no-follow links, fix broken links" - things I am currently going to fix anyway) I don't really understand the reason of the drop. Please also note the strange drop of 11/22/15 (see search console screenshot). Can you please help me? thank you. Selezione_018.jpg Selezione_019.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | micvitale0 -
What's the new "Value" column in GWT about?
I was checking out our GWT this morning and noticed a new column on the far right that was labeled "Value". Currently, there isn't anything of value (no pun intended) listed just $Nan. Anyone else see this or know what it might be? 014pThY
Reporting & Analytics | | Shawn_Huber0 -
Does GWT "Fetch as Google Bot" feature affect crawl rate?
Hello Mozians, I have noticed many people saying using GWT fetch as GoogleBot can affect your crawl rate in future, if used regularly. Though, i am not very sure if this is true or just another stale SEO myth. As currently GWT provides a limit of 500 URLs to fetch every month. I hope my doubts will be cleared by the Moz community experts. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | pushkar630 -
Can't seem to rank for keyword "home care grand rapids" - need some advice
I am trying to rank for "home care grand rapids" and am having a really difficult time. My site: http://healthcareassociates.net has better backlinks, keywords and other seo markers than my competitors but I still can't seem to rank. The keyword and associated keywords (home care grand rapids michigan, home health care grand rapids, etc.) are only 31-33% difficulty and my site/page rank is better than the leading sites. What gives? Todd
Reporting & Analytics | | t1kuslik0 -
Blog Post Analytics
Does anyone know of a Wordpress plugin that has similar functionality to the post analytics SEOmoz blog posts include?
Reporting & Analytics | | David_ODonnell0 -
Figuring Out the Source of "direct traffic" by looking at landing page parameters
I have a client who runs an e-commerce website, and I noticed that 40% of his traffic and 25% of his sales are all attributable to Direct Traffic. At first, I tried to solve this problem by tagging all of the previously untagged links in his e-newsletter, which I expect to be very helpful. However, then I looked at the landing pages for his direct traffic, and I see that it is almost entirely filled with thousands of unique URLs that begin with a question mark followed by the name of his e-newsletter or shopping cart vendor. It would be the equivalent of having a url like the following: "www.willmarlow.com/?constantcontact=keya;sldkfjsdlfkjdf;sldkjf" If we have this amount of information in the link, shouldn't there be a way to add additional parameters to the URL to move this traffic out of the Direct column? Has anyone encountered this before? Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | williammarlow0 -
Google Analytics "Undetermined" Keyword
Google analytics is suddenly showing a new keyword "undetermined". Traffic Sources > Sources > All Traffic with the primary dimension set to Keyword. It's currently our 13th keyword and it is displayed without parentheses around that you see with (not provided) or (not set). Anyone have any idea what this is? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Morris770