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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.

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  • VMLYRDiscoverability


    We've got a client building a site using node.js (http://nodejs.org/) I'm not at all familiar with this and of course need to know how nodejs impacts SEO?   Are you familiar with it?  Any sites you know of using it?  But as I said, bottom line - how will it impact the SEO on the site?

    Industry News | | VMLYRDiscoverability
    1
  • AWCthreads


    Does Google interpret Affiliate links as paid links? If so, can Affiliate links harm your rank if they are not properly tagged with a no-follow? Thanks.

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads
    0
  • Lobtec


    For some of our site we use Wordpress, which we really like working with. The question I have is for the categories and authors pages (and similiar pages), i.e. the one looking: http://www.domain.com/authors/. Should you or should you not use follow, noindex for meta-robots? We have a lot of categories/tags/authors which generates a lot of pages. I'm a bit worried that google won't like this and leaning towards adding the follow, noindex. But the more I read about it, the more I see people disagree. What does the community of Seomoz think?

    On-Page Optimization | | Lobtec
    0
  • CeCeBar


    If someone has set: the default url in Google Analytics to a non-www address (http://mysite.com) then placed the UA tracking script from that GA account within the CMS framework of the website... ... and then set the permanent 301 redirect in the htaccess file to redirect to the www address (http://www.mysite.com). How less accurrate will my GA analytics measurements be considering the default url within GA is non-www and the permanent 301 redirect in htacess is to the www-address? Anyone know how reliable GA reports are until the default url in GA analytics is changed to match what is the redirected url in htaccess file? _Cindy

    Reporting & Analytics | | CeCeBar
    0
  • nsauser


    I'm not finding a clear solution to getting 100 results in the Google SERP. I'm currently using Firefox as I use Chrome for being logged into Google (Gmail, Docs, etc.) I tried the Grease Monkey script, no luck. I tried appending the url with &num=100 (looks like that may have been killed in 2010 which may explain why the GM script isn't working). And it doesn't look like any toolbar, SEOMoz included has that functionality, any ideas or places to look? In addition, does anyone have a good SERP numbering tool? If I do a search and the first page, including Local & Organic has 15 results, when I click over to the 2nd page it starts back at #11, kind of defeats the purpose of using a numbering tool 😉 Any help would be appreciated. Thanks much!

    Moz Pro | | nsauser
    0
  • yacpro13


    Hi everyone, I'm new here - always loved SEOMoz and glad to be part of the Pro community now. I have 2 questions regarding the Canonical URL tag. Some background info: We used to run an OsCommerce store, and recently migrated to Magento. In doing so, we right away created 301 redirects of the old category pages (OsCommerce) to the new category pages (Magento) via the Magento admin. Example: www.example.com/old-widget-category.html
    301 redicrected to
    www.example.com/new-widget-category.html In Magento admin, we have enabled the Canonical tag for all product and category pages. Here's how Magento sets up the Canonical tag: The URL of interest which we want to rank is:
    www.example.com/new-widget-category.html However Magento sets up the canonical tag on this page to point to:
    www.example.com/old-widget-category.html When using the SEOMoz On Page Report Card, it pick this up as an error because the Canonical tag is pointing to a different URL. However, if we dig a little deeper, we see that the URL being pointed to
    www.example.com/old-widget-category.html
    has a 301 redirect to
    www.example.com/new-widget-category.html
    which is the URL we wan to rank. So because we set up a 301 redirect of the old-page to the new-page, on the new-page the canonical tag points to the old-page. Question 1)
    What are you opinions on this? Do you think this method of setting up the Canonical tag is acceptable? Second question... We use pagination for category pages, so if we have 50 products in one category, we would have 5 pages of 10 products. The URL's would be: www.example.com/new-widget-category.html (which is the SAME as ?p=1)
    www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=1
    www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=2
    www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=3
    www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=4
    www.example.com/new-widget-category.html?p=5 Now ALL the URLs above have the canonical tag set as:
    <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/new-widget-category" /> However, the content of each page (page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) is different because different products are displayed. So far most what I read regarding the Canonical tag is that it is used for pages that have the same content but different URLs. I would hope that Google would combine the content of all 5 pages and view the result as a single URL www.example.com/new-widget-category Question 2) Is using the canonical tag appropriate in the case described above? Thanks !

    Moz Pro | | yacpro13
    0
  • FashionLux


    Hi all, I work for a large retail brand and we have lots of counterfeit sites ranking for our products. Our legal team seizes the websites from the owners who then setup more counterfeit sites and so forth. As soon as we seize control of a website, the site content is deleted and subsequently it falls out of the SERPs to be immediately replaced by the next lot of counterfeit sites. I need to be able to download a copy of the site before it is seized, so that once I have control of it I can put the content back and hopefully quickly regain the SERPs (with an additional 'counterfeit site' notice superimposed on that page in JS). Does anyone know or can recommend good software to be able to download an entire website, so that it can be easily rehosted? Thanks FashionLux (Edited title to reflect only wanting to download html, CSS and images of site. I don't want the sites to actually be functional - only appear the same to Google)

    Moz Pro | | FashionLux
    0
  • Tug-Agency


    Hi guys, If I'm creating a video sitemap do I need to use both: video:content_locandvideo:player_loc</video:player_loc></video:content_loc> Or could I just use video:content_loc?</video:content_loc> Thanks

    Technical SEO | | Tug-Agency
    0
  • k3nn3dy3


    Are there any tools (online preferably) which will take a sitemap.xml file and generate a visual site map? Seems like an obvious thing to do, but can't find any simple tools for this?

    Technical SEO | | k3nn3dy3
    0
  • ConversionChamp


    I would like to know how SEOMoz community members approach adult SEO. How do you approach a project when you get one (if you do it that is). If you dont do adult SEO, why do you not do it? Is it because it's much more difficult than normal SEO or do you not want to associate yourself with that industry?

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ConversionChamp
    0
  • MirandaP


    Anyone seen these before? Small stars representing 'votes'? What's all this about?

    Algorithm Updates | | MirandaP
    0
  • jonesjitter


    I'm running a site with a member area and some public accessible pages. The member area obviously requires users to authenticate, while the public pages are indexable by search engines. Our global navigation includes links to the restricted pages. At the moment, when a user isn't logged in and accesses a restricted page, we're 302-redirecting them to a login page. We have a lot of external links pointing to restricted pages (eg. profile pages), and since we're 302-redirecting the juice from these links are lost. I've been thinking about changing the redirect from 302 to 301. How would this look from a search engines view? The pages aren't per se permanently moved - the current user just isn't authenticated to view the content of the page at the moment. Would it be a problem that navigation contains multiple internal links that all 301 redirect to the same login page? Any suggestions? Thanks.

    Technical SEO | | jonesjitter
    0
  • DentalPlanSEO


    A site of mine is showing as example.com instead of www.example.com in Bing and Yahoo. I know where to set the preferred domain  to www in Google Webmaster Tools, but I can't seem to find that function in Bing Webmaster Tools. Can someone please point me in the right direction?

    Reporting & Analytics | | DentalPlanSEO
    0
  • RyanKent


    I am working with a client who apparently has been penalized by Bing. The site has been around for many years and they are an industry leader in their field. The site was previously indexed and received a substantial amount of traffic from Bing. Last week the site disappeared from Bing's index. A site: and url: search both show no results. Does anyone have a significant amount of knowledge or experience related to Bing penalties? Here is what I have done so far: http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2009/03/19/getting-out-of-the-penalty-box.aspx This 2009 article states Bing's Summary Tool offers a "Site Status" section with a "Blocked" indicator which informs webmasters if a site is penalized. I have seen it before a long time ago, but apparently the field no longer exists. Is there a definitive means of determining if Bing has manually penalized a site besides a response from their Content Inclusion Request? Danny Sullivan wrote a great article about how Bing removed some sites for thin content last month. It seems two of the sites which were a focus of the article have been re-included in Bing's index. Bing claims an algorithm change where Danny seems skeptical. Either way this could be the same issue. http://searchengineland.com/bing-bans-holiday-deals-sites-102856 there are two recent complaints on Bing's forums about a similar issue where various webmasters shared their sites have been removed. There are no responses to these posts from Bing: http://www.bing.com/community/webmaster/f/12252/p/670360/9665163.aspx#9665163 and http://www.bing.com/community/webmaster/f/12252/t/670550.aspx?PageIndex=1 (the comments are relevant but not the initial post). Any ideas or suggestions would be helpful.

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RyanKent
    0
  • AndreB


    I have several blog posts that I want to publish (40 or so). For freshness is it better to stagger their publication over several months or is it fine to publish them all at the same time. The comments are closed.

    Content Development | | AndreB
    0
  • rosstaylor


    Hi Mozzers, Seeing some wacky stuff going on on some sites I manage. In more than a few, the ranking on bing has dropped basically overnight from page one spots to not being found on the first 100 positions. Anyone else seeing similar results? Some of the sites are fairly new, some have been around for ages, some are wordpress, some are not. I've been searching for some news of a big change on bing, but keep reading about bing dropping the thin sites during black friday. In one example, I had the site set up in BWT for a while, and had a look at the data. The reports show that the pages are crawled, the index summary shows pages indexed, and there seems to be no crawl errors, but rankings are absolutely gone. Also, I can't see the sites in bing if I search "site:example.com" in bing. Here's 2 examples, the first would make sense since it's pretty thin as I havent added much content yet: http://homewindowtint.org but this one doesn't make sense to me. Sure there's a few errors, but to be dropped like a rock seems weird http://www.ahmedandsukaram.com

    Technical SEO | | rosstaylor
    0
  • Evo


    Hi Guys After adhering to the On Page optimisation suggestions given by SEOmoz, we redirected some of old urls to new ones.  We set 301 redirects from the old pages to new on a page by page basis but our search engine ranking subsequently fell off the radar and lost PR. We confirmed redirection with fiddler and it shows 301 permanent redirect on every page as expected. To manage redirection using a common code logic we executed following: In Http module, using “rewrite path” we route “all old page requests” to a page called “redirect.aspx? oldpagename =[oldpagename]”.  This happens at server side. In redirect.aspx we are redirecting from old page to new page using 301 permanent redirect. In the browser, when old page is requested, it will 301 redirect to new page. In hope we and others can learn from our mistakes - what did we do wrong ?!? Thanks in advance. Dave - www.paysubsonline.com

    Technical SEO | | Evo
    0
  • SarahGoliger


    I got a great question from a franchise owner today regarding Google Places for his business. His businesses are all in malls. With Google Places there is an emphasis on using consistency and full contact details, as we well know. The issue is his locations are in a mall and don't have a physical address to receive mail or verify their address. Is there a way to leverage Google Places in this kind of situation, or do you just use the general mall address?

    Image & Video Optimization | | SarahGoliger
    0
  • CodyWheeler


    I'm in the process of creating new product specific URLs for my company. Some of our products have decimals in them for their names as a unit of measurement. For example - .The URL for a 050" widget would be something like: http://www.example.com/product/category/.050-inch-widget My question is - Can I use a decimal in the URL without ticking off the search engines, and/or causing any other unexpected effects?

    Technical SEO | | CodyWheeler
    0
  • AWCthreads


    We're closing down one of our eCommerce sites. What is the best approach to do this? The site has a modest link profile (a young site). It does have a run of site link to the parent site. It also has a couple hundred email subscribers and established accounts. Is there a gradual way to do this? How do I treat the subscribers and account holders? The impact won't be great, but I want to minimize collateral damage as much as possible. Thanks.

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads
    0
  • Martin_S


    Hi Mozland, We are going to have a new Nav Bar for our site built from the horror that we currently have to up with. We want to make it a simple affair, similar to The Guardian two-tier Nav Bar - main menu which will drop down to the 2nd tier according to what you clicked on in tier one. Regular stuff, I think. Any suggestions, from your experience, about how best to implement this, what to include, what not to do, what can be included and done to make it as best it can be to get people to peruse our site as easily as possible? Thanks

    Web Design | | Martin_S
    0
  • Colage


    Our company runs a number of individual online shops, specialised in particular products but all in the same genre of goods overall, with a specific and relevant domain name for each shop. At the moment the sites are separate, and not interlinked, i.e. Completely separate brands. An analogy could be something like clothing accessories (we are not in the clothing business): scarves.com, and silkties.com (our field is more niche than this) We are about to launch a related site, (e.g. handbags.com), in the same field again but without precisely overlapping products. We will produce this site on a newer, more flexible e-commerce platform, so now is a good time to consider whether we want to place all our sites together with one e-commerce system on the backend. Essentially, we need to know what the pros and cons would be of the various options facing us and how the SEO ranking is affected by the three possibilities. Option 1: continue with separate sites each with its own domains. Option 2: have multiple sites, each on their own domain, but on the same ecommerce system and visible linked together for the customer (with unified checkout) – on the top of each site could be a menu bar linking to each site: [Scarves.com] – [SilkTies.com] – [Handbags.com] The main question here is whether the multiple domains are mutually beneficial, particularly considerding how close to target keywords the individual domains are. If mutually benefitial, how does it compare to option 3: Option 3: Having recently acquired a domain name (e.g. accessories.com) which would cover the whole category together, we are presented with a third option: making one site selling all of these products in different categories. Our main concern here would be losing the ability to specifically target marketing, and losing the benefit of the domains with the key words in for what people are more likely to be searching for (e.g. 'silk tie') rather than 'accessories.' Is it worth taking the hit on losing these specific targeted domain names for the advantage of increased combined inbound links?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Colage
    0
  • NextGenEDU


    Does anyone have any insight on exactly how on-site 301s are reported in Google Analytics?  My direct traffic seems to climb at the same rate as my organic with absolutely no off-line promotion.  I have a suspicion that the 301s that I have built to re-coupe traffic being sent to old pages are being reported as direct.  Any validity to this?

    Reporting & Analytics | | NextGenEDU
    0

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