Seo Yoast Plugin
-
In Yoast seo plugin, under the general settings is Sitewide
meta
settings,under which there is an option to either check or leave unchecked Noindex subpages of archives which says: If you want to prevent /page/2/ and further of any archive to show up in the search results, enable this.I am very confuse if to check or not. What is the best seo practice? Most of our posts are in categories which have 2-4 pages.
-
You want to add your XML Sitemap. To Google Webmaster Tools
& the html Sitemap to the websites footer
see
https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/site-navigation-for-seo/
Tom
-
This is really helpful info! The issue with th sitemap is actually strange because webmaster tools does index it but it seems to vary, sometimes it says 'no sitemap submitted' and sometimes it is fully indexed, I had this for one of the many quirky characteristics of WT, I hope including a link in the footer will solve this.
The only part I am not fully certain about is to set paginated pages to no index, since the theme uses the archive template for custom post types, wouldn't this mean that all posts on page 2 - 3 , etc would no longer be indexed?
Thank you so much for your valuable time!
-
1.) Your sitemap isn't indexed by google (I cant find it in the search results) site:http://villasdiani.com/sitemap_index.xml
-
Include a link to your sitemap on your home page footer (preferably site wide)
-
Submit your sitemap to Google in Webmaster tools to confirm its been indexed.
2.) Come to think of it, because your archive template pages target the same keywords, perhaps you can actually check that option to no-index paginated pages as there is no need to index them. (all paginated pages target the same keywords creating whats called "cannibalization" which essentially means your pages are competing with each other)
While your at it though, be sure to also update the title tags for these archive pages.
IE: "Beach Villas" could be "Kenya Luxury Beach Villa's"
When you edit the page, you should see the Yoast tool near the bottom with an option to include a Title Tag.
Good luck!
Greg
-
-
Thanks a lot for all this helpful information, this certainly clears things up for me.
Our sitemap is generated by the Yoast SEO plugin and is located on http://villasdiani.com/sitemap_index.xml, is this a good practice? I have noticed lots of web analysis not finding this sitemap, should there be a link to it from the homepage or footer?
Yes I think the title tags on rentals pages must be generated automatically (I think it creates an H2 tag for each title) but I have no idea to prevent it from doing so or setting the main descriptive keyword, any pointer in the right direction to get this done would be highly appreciated
Many thanks again!,
-
The examples you gave aren't duplicates so don't worry about enabling that option.
All the "rentals" pages are using the archive template. Essentially its just a template like any other template you have set up. Usually archives list historical articles and posts and are generally no-indexed but your archive template is set up differently.
2 things i noticed.
You don't have a sitemap on your home page and nothing here: http://villasdiani.com/sitemap.xml
Your archive title tags im guessing are generated automatically, you might want to change the title tags on all "rentals" pages and only include the main descriptive keyword.
I hope this helps.
Greg
-
Thank you very much for your reply. This is category posts with villas(which I do not understand why they are as archives) http://villasdiani.com/rentals/beach-villas/ We have as well http://villasdiani.com/rentals/boutique-hotels/ (which also shows as a archives and I don't know why) and this is category with posts(which doesn't show as archives) http://villasdiani.com/category/kenya-news/
-
The reason for this option is to avoid duplicate content from being indexed.
Could you give an example of one of your category pages?
Greg
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
-
When should a variant be a variant and when should it be a separate product from an SEO POV?
Hi all, We are looking at changing our current e-commerce store to a new platform and in doing so thinking of making some changes to how we list products in sub-categories. We have seen related questions asking about splitting a single product into multiple products to rank for different terms, but we are wondering about combining multiple products into a single product page? The examples we have seen have been about fashion items with variants of colour and size. However, the products we sell have variances that change the appearance, dimensions and technical specification, so we would like to ask the MOZ community if combining products with these variances would still be deemed good practice? We sell wood burning stoves and a good example of a product that we are considering combining is the Scan 85 stove, which is available in eight different configurations: 85-1, 85-2, 85-3 etc. Scan themselves refer to each version as a separate product and they are bought, stocked and sold as separate products. Wood burning stoves like this typically have a firebox in the centre and then design options that can change the top, side, base, door, colour and fuel. In this example, the firebox is the Scan 85 and the variation is the last number, each of which corresponds to a different design option changing both the appearance and dimensions (see attached image). We have them listed as eight different products on our current site, one for each version. Primarily because each option has its own name (albeit 1-digit difference) which when we created the pages we thought that more pages would present us with more ranking opportunity. However, we have since learnt that because these eight pages are all so similar and it is difficult to write unique content about each product (with the 85-1 and 85-2 the only difference between the models are the black trim on the 85-1 and the silver trim on 85-2). Especially as when talking about the firebox itself, how well the fire burns, how controllable it is etc, will be the same for all versions. Likewise, earning backlinks to eight separate pages is also very difficult. Exploring this lead, us to the question, when is a variant a variant and when is it a separate product? Are there hard and fast rules for what defines variants and products? Or does it simply vary from industry to industry product to product, and if so should we be looking at it from a UX or SEO POV, when making that decision? Our hope is that if we combine these eight products into a single high-quality page, it will present us with a greater ranking opportunity for that one page over eight individual pages. We also hope that in doing so will allow us to create a more intuitive UX on a single page with a unique description, more reviews focused on one page and an explanation of the options available, all of which should lead to more conversions. Finally, by creating a better UX and unique detailed description we hope that there is a higher chance of us earning product level backlinks then we do with eight lower quality pages. One of the issues in creating a single product page for all the variants is the sub-category/results pages, as we would be removing eight simple products and replacing them with one complex product. We have questions over how this would work from a filter/facet level whereby when you apply a filter there is an expectation that the image shown will match the criteria, so if we filter for stoves with a silver trim for example, there is an expectation to only see stoves that have a silver trim in the results. When you have separate product pages you have separate listings which makes this easier to only bring back the models matching the criteria. However, when you have a single page this is more complex as you will need a default image for non-filtered results and then the ability to assign an image to lots of different attributes so that the correct image is always shown that matches the criteria selected. All of which we have been assured is do-able but adds an extra level of complexity to the process from an admin side. The alternative to doing this would be to create eight simple/child products and link them to one configurable/parent product. We could them list the simple products into the results pages and have them all linking back to the main configurable product which could load with the options of the simple product that was selected. From an SEO POV this brings in some more work, redirecting each page to the parent, but ultimately this could provide a better UX and might be the better solution. Has anyone got any experience in doing either of these options before? Both options above with affect the number of products we have available, so does the number of products in a sub-category effect the ability for that category page to rank? We currently have around 500 products in our wood burning stoves category, with perhaps an additional 300 to add. If we go down the combining into a single product page route this will reduce the number of products by around a third. If we keep all the simple/child products, then this will stay around the same. So, have we missed something obvious? Is there a glaring issue that we have overlooked from an SEO point of view as well as from the customer experience? We would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks, Reece scan85-1.jpg
Technical SEO | | fireproductsuk0 -
Technical SEO - Where to begin?
Hi all, I'm looking to learn more about technical SEO. My background was digital marketing/PR where I learned the importance of links, of anchor text, of page speed, of improving UX signals, of SSL, utilising things like Google My Business etc. However, I find I am chasing my tail when it comes to things like understanding JS/CSS/log file analysis etc. I've tried reading so many articles on the subjects and I just find it so damn confusing. AnugalarJS/BackboneJS. Fetching & rendering, URL parameters...etc. I know from my own experiments that JS pages struggle to rank and I've created two very similar pages, one without JS, one with JS (which had far more links) and the non-JS page ranked far higher. So, I suppose I'm asking for some help with how to begin learning this stuff. I find the articles on Moz, Search Engine Land etc to be a bit confusing...maybe I'm not technically minded enough! Cheers, Rhys
Technical SEO | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
Ajax, SEO and Angular
Hi all! We have a platform which includes a housing area which is created by ajax and angular. You can see a sample here:
Technical SEO | | Eurasmus.com
eurasmus.com/en/erasmus-antwerp/student-room-accommodation It has a static version under which shows the first 18 rooms, the rest are generated by angular.
Also this static version has a dynamic text with around 400 characters. Is this the right procedure?
How would you suggest to do it?0 -
Geographic location of hosting affect SEO
Can anyone confirm if its the geographic location of the web hosting or the domain hosting that can affect seo ? I have a client who has their domain hosting and Website hosting in Australia however their they have a .co.nz and their target market is in New Zealand. thank you
Technical SEO | | summer3000 -
Language Selection Splash Page- Impact on SEO
Hi, Our site has a page for new visitors to select their language to view our website So if you type our brand adress (http://www.bdc.ca) you should be redirected to this "splash" page (http://www.bdc.ca/pages/splashpage.aspx). What is the SEO impact of doing this and is there a better way for users to choose their languages, SEO-wise (and UX wise) ? You'll also see that after the visitor select its language, he's redirected to the actual home page using a two 302 redirects ( one to bdc.ca/en/ and then another one to the actual home page). I am aware of this and I know this is really bad. Please share what you think would be the best way to manage this language selection in respect to SEO, but with respect to UX too. Thanks ! Jean-François Monfette
Technical SEO | | jfmonfette0 -
SEO url best practices
We're revamping our site architecture and making several services pages that are accessible from one overarching service page. An example would be as follows: Services Student Services Essay editing Essay revision Author Services Book editing Manuscript critique We'll also be putting breadcrumbs throughout the site for easy navigation, however, is it imperative that we build the URLs that deep? For example, could we simply have www.site.com/essay-editing rather than www.site.com/services/students/essay-editing? I prefer the simplicity of the former, but I feel the latter may be more "search robot friendly" and better for SEO. Any advice on this is much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Kibin0 -
SEO Tomfoolery
Oh Hai, I recently changed the permalink structure on my Wordpress based site, southwestbreaks.co.uk from the standard ?p=123 to a more SEO chummy /%postname%/. As a result, my site has completely dropped off the board for all my previously well ranked search phrases. Having since gotten into SEOmoz a bit more, I can see there are WP plugins available that apparently would've done this a lot more smoothly. I'd be most grateful if someone could explain if this drop off is just temporary, or have I somehow entered Google's shun book? The site has been like this for about 48 hours. Thanks, Tim
Technical SEO | | Southwesttim0 -
Can local SEO harm national rankings?
Today I met with a firm called Localeze that provides local directory submissions. I understand the importance of this service if your site is competing locally, however I'm not sure the effects of local SEO for a national brand. Our firm gets most of our traffic from across the country, not just one location, and our business is scattered (which is a good thing). We rank for service related keywords that are not tied to a location. We do not show up for local results so our business in our immediate location is weak. We would like to increase our local presence in search engines but I want to make sure that this will not take away from our national presence. Will optimizing a site for local search negatively affect general rankings? Thanks
Technical SEO | | KevinBloom1