Strange Keywords Google Webmaster Tools
-
Hey, I have a website about "coffee machines". Since a few months I added a vBulletin forum with vbSEO installed. The keywords Google found before I added the forum where highly related to the topic of my website (e.g. "coffee", "machine" etc), which I checked through the webmaster tools.
However, I recently checked again and noticed that Google finds mostly keywords like "post", "forum", "thread", "share" etc. with high significance. Those "keywords" only appear on the forum.
Now I'm a bit worried since Google states "These should reflect the subject matter of your site."
Any advice how to solve that issue?
Thanks!
-
But still it's kinda confusing if Google sees keywords like "digg", "share" etc. as more significant as the actual topic ("coffee"). Also vBulletin is a well known forum software. I checked the vBSEO settings again and here is everything fine as well.
-
With the addition of the forum Google is telling you that you're still a site about "coffee machines" but you're also a "forum" about "coffee machines". Still to reinforce the strength of your core content try linking back to pages on your original site from your forum. Also check for categorization issues in the sitemap and structure of the forum. You can also do goofy stuff like changing a thumbs up system to a "roasted beans" "raw beans" system. Things along those lines.
The main thing is that you're not seeing a reduction in rank like Dejan asked. If you're worried about advertisers missing out on your site being about coffee machines you can address this via the DoubleClick AdPlanner Publisher Center.
-
Most of the posts are already in the index. I also added a sitemap and all posts are accessible by all users. You only have to be a logged in when viewing a user profile or submitting a post. There are only a few 404 errors because of threads which have been deleted. Besided that there are no crawl errors stated.
-
At 1200 posts it should have equalized already. I would check to see that Google can crawl forum content properly - what if it cannot due to technical issue or perhaps need to login to see posts and replies?
-
Hey, I think as the forum fills up with content, these words will be less and less important and as Dejan SEO mentions, these are likely to be noise words and ignored to some extent.
Concentrate on stimulating active, on topic discussion in the forum and you should be okay.
Cheers
Marcus -
The rankings remained the same since then... I just checked Webmaster Tools again and the keyword with the highest significance is "post"... Rreally really strange.
-
Are you seeing any considerable changes in your rankings since forum went live?
-
Hey Dejan, thanks for your reply. I'm thinking the same, but somehow Google doesn't. The forum is quite new but we have around 1200 posts which are all about the same "coffee machine" topic.
I really don't get why Google takes those "keywords" under consideration. The forum is installed under a subfolder "/forum". -
I see what you're saying I would be concerned too. Google is pretty good at figuring out what's a forum and what's main site content and will separate those two for different types of searches (though occasionally blending them). What I am saying is that your normal pages will rank for usual terms and your forum content for different type of search query. One thing strikes me though... is your forum empty? If not, then its topic should reflect the topic of the website - right? So that should not be a problem.
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
-
Can Google read this code?
I'm working on some basic on-page SEO content for a website within my company and I need some guidance as far as 1. whether Google can read the small amount of existing text (not optimized) and if it isn't spiderable, then 2. what code should be there instead. Here is the site: https://www.le-velgear.com/store/catalog The text I'm referring to is toward the bottom of the page (isn't it always?) and says this: Designed for a Thriving Lifestyle The Le-Vel Gear store is an extension of the LV Life, the Thrive product line, and the world's largest health and wellness Movement, which you helped create. Living a life you deserve includes looking good while showing the world your pride in being a Thriver...Check out all the new and incredible gear and tools and take your Thriving lifestyle to the next level!!! When I "View Source," I cannot see the text, however, the text is highlight-able with my cursor and I can see it when I "Inspect Element" in a container that says Thanks in advance for any help!
On-Page Optimization | | lizzyr0 -
Keyword Stuffing and Product Reviews
Hello Fellow Mozzers! I am pretty new the SEO world and have been tasked with improving our companies SEO with no prior knowledge of anything to do with SEO as of about 5 months ago. So far, I have been fairly successful (May be luck). There is a product page on our website that has moved from Rank 8-9 all the way up to Rank 3, on a high volume keyword, which increased our traffic to that URL by 500%! I was very proud of this accomplishment until tragedy struck... We suddenly dropped to Rank 6. It doesn't look like we've lost any Backlinks to this URL. My suspicion is that we got penalized for Keyword Stuffing since we recently changed from have multiple pages for a specific product's reviews to having them all on one page (To decrease the number of URLs our Site has). Many of these product reviews have the Keyword in them making us have over 30 of this specific keyword on our page. Could this be a valid suspicion? Should we go back to having different URLs for reviews and Disallow them for Robots?
On-Page Optimization | | LaceyVapeWild0 -
Meta tag keywords with the same words in them.
I'm updating some older pages and was wondering about potential penalties from having keywords that start with the same phrase. It's a geographic area so there is the "full name" and the abbreviated name. I'd like to have keywords for both. For example: virginia beach, va beach, virginia beach attraction, virginia beach things to do, va beach attraction, va beach things to do, virginia beach dolphins tour, va beach dolphins tour Is that spammy? I understand they don't have the same weight as they used to but I'd like to optimize for them anyway since I'm redoing some things. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | recoil0 -
Google news rejection
Google News is always rejecting my application. I feel as if my site strongly fits the requirements yet they reject it all the time. My url is hiddentriforce.com Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | Atomicx0 -
New google serps page design
hi i know title length displayed is now based on pixels rather than character but still thought safe to have titles up to 70 characters long before they are truncated i see that on the new G serps designed pages titles that were showing in full on old design (without truncation) are now being truncated. As in same title shows fine (displays in full) on old design serps but truncated on new designed page Anyone else notice this ? Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
Plagiarism or duplicate checker tool?
Do you know a plagiarism or duplicate checker tool where I can receive an email alert if someone copies my content? I know there's a tool like this (similar to http://www.tynt.com/ though people can still remove the link from the original source) but I forgot the name or site. It's like a source code that you must insert in each of your webpage. Thanks in advanced!
On-Page Optimization | | esiow20131 -
KeyWord Density?
What is an acceptable density for a keyword? It's wise to push it as close to spam without sacrificing user experience, correct? I read an article on SeoMoz (outdated I think) that mentioned 6%. If it's a keyword phrase, do you have to make sure you don't go over the density level of a particular word in the phrase. If it's a three word phrase, do you have to not use any one word more than X% or just monitor the exact keyword.
On-Page Optimization | | JML11791 -
Keyword stuffing ?
howdy people, I had a quick question about keyword stuffing. I am creating a page on my website and on the page i am going to have multiple links, around 15 or so. they all have the word "pickup line" which will be hyperlinked to the respected page. this page is going to serve as a sort of directory to all the various pick up lines, "cheesy", "funny", "dirty" etc. I have written some content on this page as well. I wanted to know that since the keyword "pickup" line will be showing up a lot ( in hyper link form) will this be considered keyword stuffing? for this page
On-Page Optimization | | david3050