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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A suggestion to SEOs that cold call potential clients
Learn some basic salesmanship. Do you realize that business owners are getting 3-4 phone calls and emails a day from other SEOs claiming to be the best? Be polite, ask questions, and don't insult me or yourself through ignorance. Ask questions. You might just discover that we could work together. When you tell me that I'm not ranking for "competitive keywords" it tells me that you don't know what I'm trying to rank for. When you tell me you can get me to the top of Google in 3 months or less, you're still telling me that you don't know my business and what I want from my website. Who said I wanted national ranking anyway? Oh right, not me because you never asked. And if I answer the question "Do you want more business/leads?" with "No." Then politely end the conversation and move on. The rare time that I do get asked about my current efforts, don't insult me by calling me an amateur. I may be one, but talking down to me, or trying to make SEO sound like you're turning lead into gold will get a quick hang up from me. If you want a contract with me, learn to negotiate based on my needs, not your process that you feel married to. There are a lot of business owners out there that would be willing to work with you if you treated you leads with respect rather than iteration 23 of your cold call script. And in response to the person this morning that sent a "free report" of basic SEO fixes for my website, make sure you put that report together using **my website. ** I know you're working from a template, so it should be really easy to remove the info from the wedding company and the lawyer's webpages before you email it to me.
Industry News | | wreevesc0 -
Inurl:login.aspx + "register" "retrieve password" + intext:employment
Someone came to my website with this keyword a few times, I was just wondering if anyone knows what that is? inurl:login.aspx + "register" "retrieve password" + intext:employment
Reporting & Analytics | | Rubix0 -
Https redirect when certificate expired
Hi, How do we 301 an https version of a domain to a page on another website when the security certificate has run out? We have 301 redirected the http version but IT stuck on how to do the expired https. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Houses0 -
Organic Traffic from irrelevant keywords in GA?
Hi, I am doing SEO for a website that deals in 4-wheeler tyres. While reviewing the organic traffic in Google Analytics, i noticed some keywords that are completely irrelevant to the theme of the website. Some are porn related terms while some are like google, yahoo, laptops, youtube etc. It seems someone is doing negative SEO for my website, as a result of which a decent number of searches are coming from these irrelevant terms. What should i do to block traffic from such terms as this may harm my website's performance in search engines. Please suggest a solution as soon as possible.
Branding | | PFX1110 -
Google changes my title in search results randomly, any idea why?
hi all, i recently noticed google changing the title tag of one of my pages in search results for certain keywords... I've done a bit of a search and see its not uncommon, however from what i can tell they usually change the title if it is too long, or they seem to change the branding location etc... In my case they are litterally adding key words to it... Example - See Image 1 - This is my main keyword - the title displays correctly See Image 2 - Another keyword - see how google has added "irrelevant" keywords to the title Any ideas why this happens? fr0PIK7.jpg sv6zWOu.jpg
Keyword Research | | isntworkdull0 -
Pointers for an Interview with a Large (3000+ employee) Company?
Hi All, I'm interviewing with the director of SEO of a large enterprise company tomorrow afternoon and would love some pointers. It's a relatively large company with about 3,000+ employees. There are currently 2 people doing SEO exclusively in the company and they are looking to expand the team significantly. As I understand it, my role will be to help out with link building initiatives. I currently work freelance as a content marketer for startups. While I do some onsite optimization and some keyword research, I consider building domain authority by creating quality content that gets links to be my main focus. But link building for a large enterprise may be a little less hands-on than I'm used to. I imagine I'll be working with different departments, namely these ones: Biz Dev Team PR Team SEM Team I imagine there will be some questions about how I would work with these departments to help build links. Any suggestions for working with these other teams? What other questions should I be prepared for? Oh, and here's my resume for those interested...I imagine there will be some questions about my background too: http://bit.ly/KenjisResume Thanks, Kenji
Jobs and Opportunities | | KenjiCrosland0 -
Trading Backlinks a good idea?
New to the "backlinking" party. Wondering if its 'good practice' to trade links with other websites within a like-industry. We've been receiving a lot of emails from other websites asking us to trade links. Is this a good link building practice anymore? Thanks!
Link Building | | asa-php0 -
Would using javascript onclick functions to override href target be ok?
Hi all, I am currently working on a new search facility for me ecommerce site... it has very quickly dawned on me that this new facility is far better than my standard product pages - from a user point of view - i.e lots of product attributes for customers to find what they need faster, ability to compare products etc... All in all just better. BUT NO SEO VALUE!!! i want to use this search facility instead of my category/product pages... however as they are search pages i have "robots noindex them" and dont think its wise to change that... I have spoken to the developers of this software and they suggested i could use some javascript in the navigation to change the onlclick function to take the user to the search equivelant of the page... They said this way my normal pages are the ones that are still indexed by google etc, but the user has the benefit of using the improved search pages... This sounds perfect, however it also sounds a little deceptive... and i know google has loads of rules about these kinds of things, the last thing i want is to get any kind of penalty or any negative reaction from an SEO point of view... I am only considering this as it will improve the user experience on my website... Can any one advise if this is OK, or a "no no"... P.s for those wondering i use an "off the shelf" cart system and it would cost me an arm and a leg to have these features built into my actual category / product pages.
Technical SEO | | isntworkdull0 -
How can I find all the outbound links from a website domain?
I want to find all the outbound links (basically whatever comes in <a>tag) from a domain (say www.abc.com) as well as all the subdomains under it (say abc.com/a etc). Open Site Explorer provides the inbound links from a website but does not provide any functionality to get all the outbound links from a website. Is it possible to do?</a> <a>Thanks in advance. Deepak Jain</a>
Link Building | | Deepak_Jain0 -
URLs and folder structure for an E-commerce
Hi there !-) I´m helping a friend who has a e-commerce about nail polish in Brazil. I´m a little in doubt about the urls and folder structure. Two questions: 1. There are 10 products per category and 50 categories. Should I put them all in the root folder or creat 2 major categories ( 25 sub-categories each one)? 2. Whats the better product page url ( the store has around 500) nailpolish.com/IMPORT/BRAND/NAME-OF-THE-PRODUCT OR nailpolish.com/COMPLETE-NAME-OF-THE-PRODUCT Whats the best recomandation?
On-Page Optimization | | SeoMartin10 -
Artist Bios on Multiple Pages: Duplicate Content or not?
I am currently working on an eComm site for a company that sells art prints. On each print's page, there is a bio about the artist followed by a couple of paragraphs about the print. My concern is that some artists have hundreds of prints on this site, and the bio is reprinted on every page,which makes sense from a usability standpoint, but I am concerned that it will trigger a duplicate content penalty from Google. Some people are trying to convince me that Google won't penalize for this content, since the intent is not to game the SERPs. However, I'm not confident that this isn't being penalized already, or that it won't be in the near future. Because it is just a section of text that is duplicated, but the rest of the text on each page is original, I can't use the rel=canonical tag. I've thought about putting each artist bio into a graphic, but that is a huge undertaking, and not the most elegant solution. Could I put the bio on a separate page with only the artist's info and then place that data on each print page using an <iframe>and then put a noindex,nofollow in the robots.txt file?</p> <p>Is there a better solution? Is this effort even necessary?</p> <p>Thoughts?</p></iframe>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbaylor0 -
Will an XML sitemap override a robots.txt
I have a client that has a robots.txt file that is blocking an entire subdomain, entirely by accident. Their original solution, not realizing the robots.txt error, was to submit an xml sitemap to get their pages indexed. I did not think this tactic would work, as the robots.txt would take precedent over the xmls sitemap. But it worked... I have no explanation as to how or why. Does anyone have an answer to this? or any experience with a website that has had a clear Disallow: / for months , that somehow has pages in the index?
Technical SEO | | KCBackofen0 -
Using Google Analytics to See What Time of Day Visitors View My Site
Hi folks, My company has Google Analytics setup for all of our websites, but I am a bit stumped on something. Now, this may not be possible, but am I able to see what time of day visitors most frequently view my blog? I would like to optimize blog post publishing for when I know we have in influx of visitors, yet I cannot find this information on GA. Any input would be much appreciated. Regards,
Search Behavior | | Instabill
Meghan0 -
Negative Keywords
This will end up being a two part question: We have been running a search marketing campaign for about 45 days. It seems no matter how many negative keywords we add (over 300 right now), we still are receiving borderline relevant traffic to the broad match ad group. We are in the printing industry and I think this in itself presents a challenge since there are thousands of competitors in our market, national & local. People also search for a variety of items, most of which end up having nothing to do with our business (i.e. animal prints, zebra prints etc.) We are running several different ad groups: one exact match, one broad and one phrase match. Does anyone have a resource or links they are willing to share that has general negative terms they use before creating any new campaign? I have ones I have found, but wondering if there is a very good master resource out there. How many key phrases do you typically add to an 'Exact Match' ad group? Thank you!
Paid Search Marketing | | SEOSponge0 -
Mat Release SEO Impact
How do Mat Releases affect SEO? Does google recognize that your are syndicating duplicate content even if the content is being syndicated across top media outlets? Do these back links still carry any authority or can we even be penalized for the duplicate content? I came across mat releases here: http://matrelease.com/ An example of article syndication outlets: Guaranteed Placement on 800+ Media Sites. Generate guaranteed article placement on more than 800 respected online media outlets. Our digital distribution network includes: The LA Times; The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (JS Online); Las Vegas Review Journal; Hearst media sites for the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and Connecticut Post and others; local TV news affiliate sites from ABC, CBS, FOX and others; and hundreds more trusted sites.
Link Building | | bloomnation0 -
Remove html file extension and 301 redirects
Hi Recently I ask for some work done on my website from a company, but I am not sure what they've done is right.
Technical SEO | | ulefos
What I wanted was html file extensions to be removed like
/ash-logs.html to /ash-logs
also the index.html to www.timports.co.uk
I have done a crawl diagnostics and have duplicate page content and 32 page title duplicates. This is so doing my head in please help This is what is in the .htaccess file <ifmodule pagespeed_module="">ModPagespeed on
ModPagespeedEnableFilters extend_cache,combine_css, collapse_whitespace,move_css_to_head, remove_comments</ifmodule> <ifmodule mod_headers.c="">Header set Connection keep-alive</ifmodule> <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews</ifmodule> DirectoryIndex index.html RewriteEngine On
# Rewrite valid requests on .html files RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f RewriteRule ^ %{REQUEST_URI}.html?rw=1 [L,QSA]
# Return 404 on direct requests against .html files RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .html$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !rw=1 [NC]
RewriteRule ^ - [R=404] AddCharset UTF-8 .html # <filesmatch “.(js|css|html|htm|php|xml|swf|flv|ashx)$”="">#SetOutputFilter DEFLATE #</filesmatch> <ifmodule mod_expires.c="">ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 years"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 years"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 years"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 years"
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 years"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 years"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 years"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access 1 years"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 years"</ifmodule> <files 403.shtml="">order allow,deny allow from all</files> redirect 301 /PRODUCTS http://www.timports.co.uk/kiln-dried-logs
redirect 301 /kindling_firewood.html http://www.timports.co.uk/kindling-firewood.html
redirect 301 /about_us.html http://www.timports.co.uk/about-us.html
redirect 301 /log_delivery.html http://www.timports.co.uk/log-delivery.html redirect 301 /oak_boards_delivery.html http://www.timports.co.uk/oak-boards-delivery.html
redirect 301 /un_edged_oak_boards.html http://www.timports.co.uk/un-edged-oak-boards.html
redirect 301 /wholesale_logs.html http://www.timports.co.uk/wholesale-logs.html redirect 301 /privacy_policy.html http://www.timports.co.uk/privacy-policy.html redirect 301 /payment_failed.html http://www.timports.co.uk/payment-failed.html redirect 301 /payment_info.html http://www.timports.co.uk/payment-info.html1 -
Does Google index a content in iframe?
Hello guys, I´ve done a infografic and i want to share it with some bloggers. But, i want to share an iframe, not an image (beacuse there is some links on it). My question: Can Google consider the links inside an iframe (for link building)? Thank you 🙂
Link Building | | seomobly0 -
Disavow Tool - WWW or Not?
Hi All, Just a quick question ... A shady domain linking to my website is indexed in Google for both example.com and www.example.com. If I wan't to disavow the entire domain, do I need to submit both: domain:www.example.com domain:example.com or just: domain:example.com Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carlos-R0 -
Google categories for local limousine service
I manage the Google places page for a SAB (local limousine company). The question is, should I add "taxi" and "airport shuttle service" as categories? I have listed only "limousine" and "car service' for now and I want to play it safe although those 2 are related to limo service. Sometimes people refer to limo service as "taxi service" or they are inquiring about prices for shuttle service to the airport and they end up booking the service quite often. Does Google look to our website to find these words in the content? Google Analytics show lots of people are finding us through those two keywords as well although you cannot find the word “taxi" on our website. The interesting thing is that when searching for "taxi + my zip code" the company shows up 4th on maps results and when searching for "shuttle service + my zip code”, the company shows up 2nd on local results and also 2nd in organic results. Is this enough to make me add these 2 categories? Second question is about the area served, does it make a difference (in rankings) if I choose “Distance from one location"over"List of areas served"? What happens is the red pin would be in a different location. If I choose "Distance from one location" the pin would be right in the center of the city (which I think it shouldn't matter anymore that much since the proximity to the centroid is not a ranking factor anymore). If “list of area” served is selected, (the city name will be chosen) then the pin would be about 5 miles West of the city center. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thank you!
Image & Video Optimization | | echo10 -
Problem crawling a website with age verification page.
Hy every1, Need your help very urgent. I need to crawl a website that first has a page where you need to put your age for verification and after that you are redirected to the website. My problem is that SEOmoz, crawls only that first page, not the whole website. How can I crawl the whole website?, do you need me to upload a link to the website? Thank you very much Catalin
Moz Pro | | catalinmoraru0 -
Best Place To Aggregate Customer Reviews?
There is a plethora of choice today for aggregating customer reviews. BBB wants to collect ratings from our customers; there a commercial options that put me in more control; yelp wants to rate me locally. Google... Given that I have some ability to steer customers toward my preferred review site, which one should I use? From an SEO perspective, have you noticed whether some these sites carry more weight or credibility than others? I realize it may depend on the type of business we are. In this case I represent a software company and their customers are USA/global, rather than local.
Algorithm Updates | | DarrenX0 -
Does SEOmoz have a tool to find mirror sites?
I heard from a company that is trying to get my clients SEO business that they discovered multiple sites mirroring our site's content. Does SEOmoz have a tool to find these websites? Or does Google?
Moz Pro | | thomas.wittine0 -
Duplicate Title and Meta Description Tags in Shopify with this App
Hello. I'm finding that by adding the Ultra SEO app in Shopify, I now have duplicates of the Title tags and Meta Descriptions. It looks like it's pulling title tags from the Shop info, the product or page titles as well as the Title tag I add in Ultra SEO. The website is 1bigcookie.com. The duplicate meta descriptions are from the text I entered in the meta description field in Ultra SEO. I entered the canonical url code shopify specifies to help with duplicate content, but what about duplicate title and meta description tags on the same page?
On-Page Optimization | | mymochamoney0 -
Link colour on page?
I always thought that the link colour has to be different from text colour? I have come across a site http://www.printandpackaging.co.uk/ and it has made me question this belief, they seem to only have bolded the link which would be very nice if this is fine.
Web Design | | BobAnderson0 -
Site dropped suddenly. Is it due to htaccess?
I had a new site that was ranking on the first page for 5 keywords. My site was hacked recently and I went through a lot of trouble to restore it. Last night, I discovered that my site was nowhere to be found but when i searched site: mysite.com, it was still ranking which means it was not penalized. I discovered the issue to be a .htaccess and it have been resolved. My question is now that the .htaccess issue is resolved , will my site be restored back to the first page? Is there additional things that i should do? I have notified google by submitting my site
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | semoney0 -
Should we move our documentation off subdomain?
Background: We have a popular open source e-commerce platform at http://spreecommerce.com. Right now the documentation is on http://guides.spreecommerce.com. We have "edge" documentation (for stuff that's not yet released) on http://edgeguides.spreecommerce.com but since it's largely duplicative we've told google not to index any of the edge stuff (via robots.txt). Question: Should we consider moving the guides under the main website under /docs or something like this? There's a ton of great content that people often read to learn more about the platform. Seems like we might be diluting our juice a bit to have it on a separate domain. WDYT?
Technical SEO | | schof0
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