Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Negative Keywords for SEO
-
Hi Mozzers,
I have a client that has a totally legit retail business and they are getting lots of traffic organically that is adult in nature and totally off subject. The reason for this is their domain name contains keywords which while work well for their brand, when reordered and couple with a another keyword (such as picture or image) they get traffic for searches that have nothing to do with them and are pretty awful in nature.
If this was Adwords I'd add a negative in of course but how can I stop bad traffic coming to the site organically?
Any ideas?
Cheers
B
-
Hi Egol,
Thanks for your input. The term is actually quite bad as in not your main stream type of adult content so I'm not sure how nice the people are but I get you drift
Thanks for your help and input!
b
-
Thanks Patrick - yes I think the meta data is the answer - I won't mention the search term they rank for here but it's bad - they rank for some great stuff too though - many thanks
-
Every site has these types of visitors.  I am sure that many of them are nice people.Â
What's the difference between these types of visitors and paying for a billboard along a highway where you advertise to random people passing buy?
Your website will be relevant for some of these visitors and if you get enough of them guaranteed that you will get some sales.
I don't think that the Pope would mind if these visitors were dropping into his site. He still gets to show them his message. Â
-
Hi there
Short of changing the name of the business and domain, this is unfortunately the way it goes and may have to stay what it is. You can't change word associations or negative connotations of what people use words for.
I would echo Logan's comments of qualifying traffic through titles and meta descriptions. But what I would also do is make sure that your content marketing, site structure / URLs, business listings, etc., are all very explicit in the relevant and related topics that your client is trying to rank for. I would also take a look at competitors to see what keywords they are ranking for and where they are getting backlinks from so that search engines over time will see your client is specific to an industry or topic that is NOT adult natured.
Does this make sense? What I am getting at is making sure you are more and more explicit to search engines that your client's site is related to an industry / topic that is not adult natured.
Let me know if this makes sense or if you have any more questions! Good luck!
Patrick -
That's the only method I know of deter unqualified clicks, interested to see if anyone else chimes in with some useful nuggets of info on this topic!
-
Thanks Logan,
The meta data is very clear on what the site is about (both title and description). The issue is it's showing up in the SERPs and users are just clicking without reading anything.
-
Hi,
Have you tried qualifying clicks through meta description and title tag copy? I've had pretty good success using this tactic for local businesses to deter clicks outside of their service area - because a similar problems exists where you can't add negative geographies for where organic results will show.
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
-
Avoid Keyword in New Domain Name?
We are looking to rebrand our domain name. Our existing domain is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. We own www.metro-manhattan.com and were hoping to use this domain. The company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc. Is the fact that the new domain contains "Manhattan" a negative? I know that the fact that it has a hyphen is weak. Manhattan is part of such keywords as "Manhattan office space". Regarding the company name, is the fact that it contains the target phrase "Manhattan office space" bad? Our company name may sound like exact match anchor text and I am not sure what to do about this if anything. I would really prefer to keep our name but it is necessary to change it to improve SEO we will do so. Would it be better to change to a new name like "Integrity Real Estate" which does not contain target phrases or keywords ("real estate" is not a major target phrase as it is to generic) ? Or how something like www.mmos.com for the domain and leave the company name alone? How would I go about finding a  company that would assist is in creating an SEO friendly domain name and perhaps a new corporate name if necessary? Thanks, Alan
Branding | | Kingalan10 -
Should your homepage target your most important keyword?
I was looking at the title tags/keywords of the top ranking sites for my most important keyword phrase, and I noticed all the pages that were beating us were homepages. Our homepage is not optimized at all. It's very generic, because 1, my boss wanted it that way, (but she's not married to it) and 2, I built out landing pages for all our keywords. For the really, really competitive keywords, I can't get my landing pages high enough. My homepage however, according to OSE, is on par with the other sites, especially the page. I included the screenshots of it, just in case, my analysis was way off. But, those are the top 4 sites and I'm on page 3. Here's my questions: Should I optimize my homepage for the keyword phrase, if it's our most important one? If I do that, what should I do with the landing pages? Lastly, if you look at the screenshots, is my analysis correct that we aren't woefully behind all four of these people (we're kempruge.com)? I know I'm asking on a lot on this one, but it's a pretty big decision for us. I could really use the help making sure it's the right one. Your time is much appreciated, Ruben voVxURN fwoVUBE aKWJQ4E
Branding | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Is .com.sg or .sg a better for SEO?
Hi all, Is .com.sg or .sg a better option?
Branding | | chanel27
And also which can have a better advantage in terms of SEO ranking?0 -
Rebranding & Minimizing SEO impact
Hello everyone, One of my clients is undergoing a major rebrand, which will require some substantial changes to their domain / URL structure. Primarily, we're going to: Move from a high-ish DA site to a low DA site Change the subdomain URL structure (more on that below) Update the content (copy, design, structure) on www. site to match the new brand The content on the subdomains should remain the same 301 redirect all pages from old site to new site where applicable The current site architecture makes great use of subdomains, which are also going to be changing in terms of name. So, we're moving from oldsubdomain.olddomain.com to newsubdomain.newdomain.com (and not oldsubdomian.olddomain.com to oldsubdomain.olddomain.com). The content / structure of these pages is going to change minimally. We understand that we're going to take an SEO hit overall, but are there things we can do to minimize this hit? Anyway we can 'estimate' the hit? Anyway we can educate our client to as to what to expect beyond (it is going to be bad…). Please let me know. Thanks!
Branding | | 10SL0 -
Do Dashes in Domain names hurt SEO ranking?
I have found conflicting reports online whether or not dashes in domain names hurt/help ranking. Â Example yourbrandonline.com vs your-brand-online.com? I found Rand's write up on how to select a domain and he suggests staying away from hyphens but mainly because its hard to remember or people my enter it in wrong. Â Here's his comment. "Reject Hyphens and Numbers
Branding | | JoshKimber
Both hyphens and numbers make it hard to give your domain name verbally and falls down on being easy to remember or type. I'd suggest not using spelled-out or roman numerals in domains, as both can be confusing and mistaken for the other." Aside from people possibly struggling to get there directly because of the domain name, are they OK to use?  Or, are domains with hyphens considered spammy? Thanks in advance.1 -
Google auto-correct affecting one of my keywords
Hi there, I have a keyword "finao montreal" that used to rank 8 or 9 in Google serp. All of a sudden it dropped under the top 50 results, I was wondering why and I found out that Google now auto-corrects "finao montreal" to "final montreal". Finao is a well know brand of custom high-end photo albums and I find it strange that Google corrects it. Anyone has an idea on what to do with this situation? Is there a way to provide Google some feedback about the autocorrect?
Branding | | valadas0 -
Social Sharing Buttons: SEO friendly ?
Any recommendations for an SEO friendly social sharing button company? Or ones that provide a good service and also actually helps your brand name in SEO? I think it is important for others to be able to share my pages with colleagues and others. Thank you, UtahTiger
Branding | | Boodreaux0