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.
Latest Questions
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Using PO Box/Virtual Address for local citations, but not GMB?
Hello. So, I am aware that it is in violation of Google My Bussiness's terms of service to use register a PO box/virtual address with GMB, but is it problematic to use such addresses for general link building with local citations, such as local directories and resource pages? Would the cons outweigh the pros (more backlinks)? And what about using one of these kinds of addresses on my website, but not GMB? Is it all so interrelated nowadays that I should steer clear of publishing a virtual address anywhere? That just seems hard to wrap my head around as PO Boxes have served a valuable function for small businesses for some 150 years. Thank you, Jon
Local Listings | | custardextract0 -
Keywords problems
Hello,
Keyword Research | | Gabijaurbs
I am having a problem while I am searching for keywords - it just says "Getting serp analysis failed. Please retry your search or refresh this page" on all browsers I try it on. Hard reloaded too and still not working. Could you help me with this?
Best regards, Gabija0 -
Favicon not showing in google serps
Hi, I have a website where the favicon is not showing in the google mobile serps. It's appearing the default icon instead (world icon). This is the tag I have place in the head section of the website: <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" /> The size of the favicon is 48x48 and it's appearing correctly in the browser tag. I've checked that the google robot can crawl it and in the server logs I can see requests from the "Google Favicon" user-agent. Has anyone had this same problem? Any advice?
Technical SEO | | dMaLasp0 -
Why are there less backlink domains in Moz vs. Semrush?
For our domain studyville.com, Semrush is reporting 46 linking domains, and Moz is reporting 7. Does anyone know where there is such a large discrepancy?
Link Building | | shelbythomas0 -
Sitemap.xml strategy for site with thousands of pages
I have a client that has a HUGE website with thousands of product pages. We don't currently have a sitemap.xml because it would take so much power to map the sitemap. I have thought about creating a sitemap for the key pages on the website - but didn't want to hurt the SEO on the thousands of product pages. If you have a sitemap.xml that only has some of the pages on your site - will it negatively impact the other pages, that Google has indexed - but are not listed on the sitemap.xml.
Technical SEO | | jerrico10 -
What happens to crawled URLs subsequently blocked by robots.txt?
We have a very large store with 278,146 individual product pages. Since these are all various sizes and packaging quantities of less than 200 product categories my feeling is that Google would be better off making sure our category pages are indexed. I would like to block all product pages via robots.txt until we are sure all category pages are indexed, then unblock them. Our product pages rarely change, no ratings or product reviews so there is little reason for a search engine to revisit a product page. The sales team is afraid blocking a previously indexed product page will result in in it being removed from the Google index and would prefer to submit the categories by hand, 10 per day via requested crawling. Which is the better practice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AspenFasteners1 -
Website ranking declined after connecting to CDN
Hi! We are trying to rank https://windowmart.ca for various local search terms. Our head office is in Edmonton where we try to rank https://windowmart.ca/edmonton-windows-doors/ for such terms as "windows Edmonton", "replacement windows Edmonton", "windows and doors Edmonton" as well as others. The website was the leader in its niche for around 2 years. Then we've got some server related issues, moved to a new server and connected CDN Nitropack that really improved our google speed test results. Recently we noticed that our rankings started to drop. Do you know if Nitropack can negatively effect local SEO rankings? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | vaskrupp0 -
Page Optimization Error
Hi, I am trying to track a page optimization feature for one of my project, https://shinaweb.com but i keep getting this below error: "PAGE OPTIMIZATION ERROR
On-Page Optimization | | shinawebnavid
There was a problem loading this page. Please make sure the page is loading properly and that our user-agent, rogerbot, is not blocked from accessing this page." I checked robots.txt file, it all looks fine. Not sure what is the problem? Is it a problem with Moz or the website?0 -
Google Listing Doesn't Appeare on 3Pack anymore
Hi, One of my GMB listing suddenly stopped ranking in the 3Pack Results. It used to always rank in 1st or 2nd position in the 3Pack results, Suddenly since 24th May it completely Flatlined, I don't know why but It doesn't show up in the results, or when I click see more. It completely vanished for that term locally. My Listing is based in Brisbane, QLD, Australia and it doesn't show up for that term in The Brisbane area. But when the Location info is Australia and not Brisbane, Australia it shows up again. I don't know what is the problem in this case... Any Suggestions will be much appreciated.
Local Listings | | Moxoms10 -
Almost zero traffic outside Finland
Hello, rankings.jpg I am becoming a bit clueless with our business website. Our site is doing really well in Finland and with Finnish language. Even though our business is fairly new, we have been able to pass many of our competitors in the search only after about year of operating. What confuses and worries me though is the fact that our English content is not ranking at all. The aim for the English content is to be general and reaching audiences worldwide. But as you can see in the image attached, we are doing really bad for example in UK, which is one of our main markets. I've been doing active keyword research, built high quality and natural links and writing long and keyword rich content on our blog but still our rankings don't seem to change outside Finland. I would be interested in knowing, what I am doing wrong and what would be the right steps to start improving the situation?
International SEO | | tuomashaapala0 -
Can I create forum backlinks for a "digital marketing agency" website?
I am working on a "digital marketing service" website. I want to create forum backlinks. Can I create forum backlinks for this type of website? If yes, then what is the possible strategy.
Link Building | | jamesfin123
Looking for an expert guide.0 -
Multiple H1s and Header Tags in Hero/Banner Images
I work on education websites, and our sites are being flagged by SEO and accessibility checkers for having multiple H1s. The home pages have the site name as an h3 in the hero image, and an aspirational headline (think: Be Like Mike) as an H1. The sub-pages have two H1s: one on the site name in the banner image, and the other on the page title. Note that the site name is very keyword-rich. If we were to remove the H1 and H3 tags from the hero/banner images, would it do any SEO harm? At the same time, we’d rewrite the H1 on the home page to be more keyword-focused. Any other options? I also read that it’s OK to have multiple H1s as long as it’s clear which H1 belongs to the heading area and which one belongs to the body area of the page. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | UWPCE0 -
Are Wildcard Subdomain Hurting my SEO?
I have some sites with a lot of categories (category, sub-category, sub-subcategory) and locations (country, state/territory, city). To avoid listing pages really deep in my hierarchy I used wildcard subdomains for the locations, but lately I have been told that might be hurting my overall SEO efforts. I have a lot of URLs like https://city-state-country.example.com on one side of the domain and example.com/category/subcategory/subsubcategory on the other. In the middle you see stuff like city-state-country.example.com/category/subcategory/subsubcategory and everything in between. Would I be better off moving the locations to the right side of the domain name? Then you might find stuff like example.com/country/state/city/category/subcategory/subsubcategory and everything in between. I think I could do the new rewrite rules fairly easily since every country slug is just two characters long.
On-Page Optimization | | PostAlmostAnything0 -
Is NitroPack plugin Black Hat SEO for speed optimization
We are getting ready to launch our redesigned WP site and were considering using NitroPack performance optimization plugin, until some of our developers started ringing the alarm. Here is what some in the SEO community are saying about the tool. The rendering of the website made with the NitroPack plugin in the Page Metric Test Tools is based entirely on the inline CSS and JS in the HTML file without taking into account additional numerous CSS or JS files loaded on the page. As a result, the final metric score does not include CSS and JavaScript files evaluation and parsing. So what they are saying is that a lot of websites with the NitroPack plugin never become interactive in the Page Metric Tools because all interactivity is derived from JavaScript and CSS execution. So, their "Time to Interactive" and "Speed Index" should be reported as equal to infinity. Would Google consider this Black Hat SEO and start serving manual actions to sites using NitroPack? We are not ready to lose our hard-earned Google ranking. Please, let me know your thoughts on the plugin. Is it simply JS and CSS "lazy loading" that magically offers the first real-world implementation that works magic and yields fantastic results, or is it truly a Black Hat attempt at cheating Google PageSpeed Insights numbers? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | opiates0 -
Is using a subheading to introduce a section before the main heading bad for SEO?
I have noticed a popular trend in web design which involves sections of content being started with what looks to be smaller sub heading something like <h3>, <h4> or <h5> and then followed by a bigger heading <h2>. My question is, what is the best way to deal with this visual structure and will having a structure like this hurt your SEO? <h5>Contact Us</h5> <h2>Get started with your next project in minutes!<h2> <p>Some text here ...</p> Here are some examples where the header structure is similar to above (smaller before bigger): https://www.snappr.com/ https://form.taxi/ https://fluz.app/ If that structure is bad for SEO, then it seems like a simple solution is to make it purely visual, mimicking a sub header with styling on a span or paragraph like these sites do: https://www.andrejilderda.nl/ https://nightwatch.io/ https://www.swingvy.com/ https://www.figma.com/ My only concern with that approach is because your section sub heading is no longer an actual header you will miss out on ranking important and relevant keyword information for that section. Is this correct something to be worried about? There is one last solution I stumbled upon that involves using headings for both but in reverse hierarchy so a <h3> is first but styled to be smaller, followed by a visually bigger <h4> which provides the addition context. https://avocode.com/ Anyone have thoughts, expertise or resources on the matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | si.analytics0 -
Internal Links is reporting "0" value
Open Site Explorer is reporting "0" value under "Total Internal Links" as well as "Internal Links" metrics for my website. I have a good interlinking of pages throughout the site.
Link Explorer | | anupjain
Is there an issue with OSE (Open Site Explorer) crawler ? OR There are some crawling problems with our Website's structure ?
Can anybody please give an idea or recommendations on this ?
Domain: https://www.traveltoindia.org/0 -
In writing the url, it is better to use the language used by the people of my country or English?
We speak Persian and all people search in Persian on Google. But I read in some sources that the url should be in English. Please tell me which language to use for url writing?
Technical SEO | | ghesta
For example, I brought down two models: 1fb0e134-10dc-4737-904f-bfdf07143a98-image.png https://ghesta.ir/blog/how-to-become-rich/
2)https://ghesta.ir/blog/چگونه-پولدار-شویم/0 -
Any crawl issues with TLS 1.3?
Not a techie here...maybe this is to be expected, but ever since one of my client sites has switched to TLS 1.3, I've had a couple of crawl issues and other hiccups. First, I noticed that I can't use HTTPSTATUS.io any more...it renders an error message for URLs on the site in question. I wrote to their support desk and they said they haven't updated to 1.3 yet. Bummer, because I loved httpstatus.io's functionality, esp. getting bulk reports. Also, my Moz campaign crawls were failing. We are setting up a robots.txt directive to allow rogerbot (and the other bot), and will see if that works. These fails are consistent with the date we switched to 1.3, and some testing confirmed it. Anyone else seeing these types of issues, and can suggest any workarounds, solves, hacks to make my life easier? (including an alternative to httpstatus.io...I have and use screaming frog...not as slick, I'm afraid!) Do you think there was a configuration error with the client's TLS 1.3 upgrade, or maybe they're using a problematic/older version of 1.3?? Thanks -
Technical SEO | | TimDickey0 -
Page disappears from Google search results
Hi, I recently encountered a very strange problem.
Technical SEO | | JoelssonMedia
One of the pages I published in my website ranked very well for a couple of days on top 5, then after a couple of days, the page completely vanished, no matter how direct I search for it, does not appear on the results, I check GSC, everything seems to be normal, but when checking Google analytics, I find it strange that there is no data on the page since it disappeared and it also does not show up on the 'active pages' section no matter how many different computers i keep it open. I have checked to page 9, and used a couple of keyword tools and it appears nowhere! It didn't have any back links, but it was unique and high quality. I have checked on the page does still exist and it is still readable. Has this ´happened to anyone before? Any thoughts would be gratefully received.0 -
How Many Backlinks does I need to rank?
A keyword Olehana private label cosmetic company that also my competitor have 4k ref domain for this keyword. So Do I need more than 4k ref domain with anchortext "olehana" Please help me. Thanks.
Link Building | | arainbadami0 -
Long tail keyword research
Hi guys, what is the best practice to find the long tail keywords, like Google Instant Suggestion, people also search, or moz keyword explorer I have experienced a lot in MOZ pro Keyword Planner, but now I want to know easiest way to find long tail keywords for my website olehana Makeup, still I'm using just 3 keyword that I already ranked in Google SERP top 3 positions now I also want that some long tail keywords also gets ranked.
Keyword Research | | daimon670 -
Robots.txt allows wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Hello, Mozzers!
Technical SEO | | AndyKubrin
I noticed something peculiar in the robots.txt used by one of my clients: Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php What would be the purpose of allowing a search engine to crawl this file?
Is it OK? Should I do something about it?
Everything else on /wp-admin/ is disallowed.
Thanks in advance for your help.
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Solved How To Find Low Difficult Keywords own Topic Related.
how to find own topic related keywords like my topic is bbq related stuff... so how i find low difficult keywords.?
Keyword Research | | BBQVILLA0 -
My Site DA did not increase Even My DR is 33
HI Moz Community, I have a little issue about my site DA. My site has more than 100 strong backlinks but still my Domain authority is less than 20 But on the other hand Ahrefs show my site Domain rating is 30+. So i have a question is how can I increase my site Domain authority?
Link Building | | Jiouereniou0 -
Getting Keyword List failed?
Hi support team, Whenever I want to use Keyword explorer but when I put a keyword in input box, then it shows me Getting Keyword List failed..... what is the issue behind this?
Keyword Explorer | | younus_51119 -
Does Exact Match Domain really works?
Hey!
Keyword Research | | ayofztk
I heard that exact match domain is helpful in ranking over popular keywords. I have two websites Tech Crunch SmallSEOTools My question is, will it be helpful to rank over Tech Crunch and SmallSEOTools, respectively?0 -
Backlinks Indexed?
my question is that in Moz what is speed of Backlinks indexed, while ahref show indexed backlink after 2 or 3 days, but still Moz does not show that backlinks index or not Ahref has already increased site DR, while Moz still not increase Domain Authority or PA, I want to know the procedure how DA increase while I have high authority backlinks for my site [https://www.sipotek.net] Homepage
Link Explorer | | younus_51110 -
Website DA Decreased Issue
Hi Team, I Have A website named pescobill.pk Today DA of my website decreased what could be the reason Please help me what about issue? Thanks in Advance!
Link Building | | MarkJerry0
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