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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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  • tidybooks


    Hi, We use Magento v.1.7 for our store. We have recently had an SEO audit and we have uncovered 2 major issues which can be pinpointed to our layered navigation. We use the MANAdev layered navigation module. There are numerous options available to help with SEO. All our filtered urls seem to be fine ie. https://www.tidy-books.co.uk/childrens-bookcases-shelves/colour/natural-finish-with-letters/letters/lowercase have canonical url correctly setup and the meta tags as noindex, follow  but Magento is churning out tons of 404 error pages like this https://www.tidy-books.co.uk/childrens-bookcases-shelves/show/12/l/colour:24-4-9/letters:6-7 which google  is indexing I'm at lost at how to solve this any help would be great. Thank you **This is from our SEO audit report ** The faceted navigation isn’t handled correctly and causes two major issues:● One of the faceted navigation filters causes 404 error. This means that the error isappended each sequence of the navigation options, multiplying the faulty URLs.● The pages created by the faceted nav are all accessible to the search engines. Thismeans that there are hundreds of duplicated category pages created by one of theparameters. The duplication issues can seriously hinder the organic visibility.The amount of 404 errors and the duplicated pages created by faceted navigation makes italmost impossible for a search engine crawler to finish the crawl. This means that the sitemight not be fully indexed and the newly introduced product pages or content won’t bediscovered for a very long time.

    Technical SEO | | tidybooks
    0
  • SushiUK


    I am running a WordPress/WooCommerce site for a client, and Moz is picking up some issues with URL's generated from WooCommerce product attribute filters. For example: ..co.uk/womens-prescription-glasses/?filter_gender=mens&filter_style=full-rim&filter_shape=oval How do I get Google to ignore these filters?
    I am running Yoast Premium, but not sure if this can solve the issue? Product categories are canonicalised to the root category URL. Any suggestions very gratefully appreciated. Thanks Bob

    Technical SEO | | SushiUK
    0
  • O2C


    Hi All, We have recently discovered a site was linking to our site but it was linking to an incorrect url, resulting in a 404 error. We had only found this by pure chance and wondered if there was a tool out there that will tell us when a site is linking to an incorrect url on our site? Thanks 🙂

    Technical SEO | | O2C
    0
  • EPPD


    Hello, Is adding meta keywords still worth doing nowadays? I have been reading and hearing some different opinions about it.  For a ' beginner ' in this field it is hard to find a definite answer to this questions.. Thank you for reading(and answering) my question!

    Algorithm Updates | | EPPD
    0
  • AliMac26


    I apologize in advance, but I am an SEO novice and my understanding of code is very limited. Moz has issued a lot (several hundred) of duplicate content and 404 error flags on the ecommerce site my company takes care of. For the duplicate content, some of the pages it says are duplicates don't even seem similar to me. additionally, a lot of them are static pages we embed images of size charts that we use as popups on item pages. it says these issues are high priority but how bad is this? Is this just an issue because if a page has similar content the engine spider won't know which one to index? also, what is the best way to handle these urls bringing back 404 errors? I should probably have a developer look at these issues but I wanted to ask the extremely knowledgeable Moz community before I do 🙂

    Technical SEO | | AliMac26
    0
  • jomosi


    Hi!  We have a pdf of a white paper on our site that ranks #1 for a niche term.  We are now exploring the idea of building a landing page for this paper with an overview (2-3 paragraphs) and a registration form for interested parties to fill out in order to access the paper. Do you think there'd be any hope of ensuring the new landing page would rank almost as well eventually (top 3)? I'm thinking a key consideration would be preserving the link juice from the existing links that are coming into the pdf, and that 301 redirecting the pdf URL to the new landing page URL could help with that.  Am I right?  Or would it be better to try to reach out to the linking sites and ask them to update their links (seems daunting). Any advice/opinions on this situation would be appreciated.  (If folks think that there would be a significant risk of permanently dropping out of the top 5 by attempting this, we would likely choose to leave the pdf ungated as is.)  Thanks!! -John

    Link Building | | jomosi
    0
  • maxcarnage


    Hi, So, I have a client who wants to host two websites (which you could refer to as sister sites) on the same hosting account. For some reason, I was under the impression that doing as much may be detrimental (for SEO purposes). Am I correct in thinking this? Can I get some back-up documentation or comments here? I look forward to hearing what you all have to say. Thanks for reading!

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maxcarnage
    0
  • Tormar


    Do you know any tool or methods for load time testing on mobile app? Like Google PageSpeed Tool for webpages. Thank you.

    Moz Pro | | Tormar
    0
  • isabelledylag


    Hi, Do naked link anchors such as "www.mysite.com/my-category" have the same SEO power as long tails anchors? What about the UX which such anchors? Lately a site published our back-to-school article with this horrible naked link anchor, it does not look friendly to me as a reader, but I am wondering whether I should bother, how important it is for google and for readers? Thank you in advance. Isabelle

    Link Building | | isabelledylag
    0
  • BeckyKey


    Hi I wondered what the view is on content below the fold? We have the H1, product listings & then some written content under the products - will Google just ignore this? I can't hide it under a tab or put a lot of content above products - so I'm not sure what the other option is? Thank you

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey
    0
  • fablau


    Hello everyone, I have a basic question for which I couldn't find a definitive answer for. Let's say I have my main website with URL: www.mywebsite.com And I have a related affiliates website with URL: affiliates.mywebsite.com Which includes completely different content from the main website. Also, both domains have two different IP addresses. Are those considered two completely separate domains by Google? Can bad links pointing to affiliates.mywebsite.com affect www.mywebsite.com in any way? Thanks in advance for any answer to my inquiry!

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau
    0
  • Myles92


    Hello all! So I know having a sitemap XML file is important to include in your robots.txt file.  I also know it is important to submit your XML sitemap to Google and Bing.  However, I am wondering if it is beneficial for your site's SEO value to have a sitemap page displayed on your website? Or is this just a redundant action if you have already done the above two actions with your XML sitemap? Thanks in advance!

    Web Design | | Myles92
    0
  • Caro-O


    My client is trying to achieve a global presence in select countries, and then track traffic from their international pages in Google Analytics. The content for the international pages is pretty much the same as for USA pages, but the form and a few other details are different due to how product licensing has to be set up. I don’t want to risk losing ranking for existing USA pages due to issues like duplicate content etc. What is the best way to approach this? This is my first foray into this and I’ve been scanning the MOZ topics but a number of the conversations are going over my head,so suggestions will need to be pretty simple 🙂 Is it a case of adding hreflang code to each page and creating different URLs for tracking. For example:
    URL for USA: https://company.com/en-US/products/product-name/
    URL for Canada: https://company.com/en-ca/products/product-name /
    URL for German Language Content: https://company.com/de/products/product-name /
    URL for rest of the world: https://company.com/en/products/product-name /

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caro-O
    1
  • cceebar


    It has come to my attention with one of my clients (WordPress website) that for some time they have within their Landing Page report (of GA - Google Analytics) URLs that should all be pointing to the one page, example: domain.com/about-us, also has a listing in GA as domain.com/about-us/index.htm Is this some kind of indication of a subdirectory issue? Has anyone had experience with this in such wordpress plugins as Yoast SEO, or other SEO plugin? My thoughts here are to simply redirect any of these non-existent files with a redirect in .htaccess - but what I'm using isn't working. I will insert the redirect here - - and any help would be greatly appreciated. RewriteEngine onRewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html?
    RewriteRule ^(.)index.html?$ http://www.dupontservicecenter.com/$1 [R=301,L] and this rewrite doesn't work: RewriteEngine on
    RewriteRule ^(.+).htm$ http://dupontservicecenter.com/$1.php [R,NC] _Cindy

    Reporting & Analytics | | cceebar
    0
  • bendyman


    Hi, My client has a new WordPress site http://www.londonavsolutions.co.uk/ and they have installed the Yoast Premium SEO plug-in. They are having issues with getting the lights to go green and the main problem is that on most pages Yoast does not see any words/content – although there are plenty of words on the pages. Other tools can see the words, however Yoast is struggling to find any and gives the following message:- Bad SEO score. The text contains 0 words. This is far below the recommended minimum of 300 words. Add more content that is relevant for the topic. Readability - You have far too little content. Please add some content to enable a good analysis. They have contacted the website developer who says that there is nothing wrong, but they are frustrated that they cannot use the Yoast tools themselves because of this issue, plus Yoast are offering no support with the issue. I hope that one of you guys has seen this problem before, or can spot a problem with the way the site has been built and can perhaps shed some light on the problem. I didn't build the site myself so won't be offended if you spot problems with it. Thanks in advance, Ben

    Technical SEO | | bendyman
    0
  • Victoria_


    Hi Moz Fans, We are looking at our blog and improving the content as much as we can for SEO purposes, but we have hit a bit of a blank in terms of lazy loading implications and issues with crawl depths. We introduced lazy loading onto the blog home page to increase site speed initially and it works well with infinite scroll, but we were wondering whether this would cause any issues regarding SEO. A lot of the resources online seem to be conflicting and some are very outdated, so some clarification on what is best in terms of lazy loading and crawl depths for blogs, would be fantastic! I hope someone can help and give us some up to date insights - If you need anymore information, I'll reply ASAP

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Victoria_
    0
  • soapmed


    So, every time I press log in on the Mozbar, it takes me to the Moz home page which I'm already logged in to but there is no change on the status of the Mozbar? What should I do to remedy this? Thanks!

    Moz Bar | | soapmed
    7
  • fablau


    Hello everyone. I was reading this article on semrush.com, published the last year, and I'd like to know your thoughts about it: https://www.semrush.com/blog/does-google-crawl-relnofollow-at-all/ Is that really the case? I thought that Google crawls and "follows" nofollowed tagged links even though doesn't pass any PR to the destination link. If instead Google really doesn't crawl internal links tagged as "nofollow", can that really help with crawl budget?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau
    0
  • Rebrandly


    Hi, I'm looking for an example/use case of someone whose site has been linked to from another using a Bitly, or other generic URL shortener link. I'm specifically interested in proving/disproving the value of the backlink in terms of boost in SEO rankings. Ideally you somehow got a juicy backlink from a reputable site, but they accidentally linked to you using a Bitly or something, yet you saw a noticeable increase in your pages search rankings, thus proving the value of a Bitly link still passing all SEO value. Or alternatively, you got that juicy backlink and noticed nothing at all, or not much, and are frustrated that they used a BItly. I'm launching a study on this soon to identify the possible value behind short links as backlinks. Yes, I know that Matt Cutts says all short links are 301 redirects which passes something like 99.9% of link juice. I'd just like to see some use cases on this. Thanks!

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rebrandly
    0
  • IlluminousGwen


    This morning my client contacted me that another business is using their address as their own! They received a Google verification postcard with pin number on it, but luckily had the foresight to not give it to the person when they called. After some research, we also found out that they are using our address on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. The kicker is: this business is another SEO firm! You would think they would know that using our address would cause NAP issues for their own business. Has anyone dealt with another business trying to hijack their address for local rankings? Any advice on steps to take to report this abuse would be appreciated. Since this person is obviously unscrupulous, we don't want to provoke them into taking any other negative action online that could affect our business.

    Local Listings | | IlluminousGwen
    0
  • HectorCortes


    Hello Guys, Thanks in advance for all who can help me with this I am helping a dinnerware company with their SEO. I told them to change their ambiguous  title tags for more specific ones. However, they opted to create some title tags with 2 or three keywords separated by commas. I have attached an excel image illustrating their new title tags.. My question is, will this format be a problem with Google--penalties? The questionable title tags are highlighted in light orange. Thanks! lHH92

    On-Page Optimization | | HectorCortes
    0
  • ThomasHarvey


    I'm asking this for a guy over at SEOchat: http://forums.seochat.com/new-user-seo-questions-answers-123/unusual-change-domain-authority-486962.html Here's what his post says: Exclamation Unusual Change in Domain authority
    Guys and Girls, I'm having a weird issue in one of my sites , thing is the site had DA 11 in July and however when check on September Site is having 26 without me doing any type of link building and there are no new posts for this month as well. When checked using open site explorer there are no backlinks indexed in their Mozcape index as well. Site: http://www.beijingtravelchannel.com/ Can you give me any plausible reasons for this to happen, so that i can check them out. Thanks in Advance.

    Link Explorer | | ThomasHarvey
    0
  • Shawn124


    Hi Ya'll. I'm transitioning our http version website to https.  Important question: Do images have to have 301 redirects? If so, how and where? Please send me a link or explain best practices. Best, Shawn

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn124
    1
  • Stew222


    Hello To Those Who Are Wiser Than I, I am wondering if the href link "title" tag is needed, or serves any purpose, on mobile websites?  Also, does it effect SEO in any way? I ask because generally the href link title tag provides more information to the user when they scroll their mouse over the link - but this action does not happen on mobile!  Users have no mouse and thus no extra information would be displayed. I'm really wondering if it still matters for SEO purposes on mobile though. -The UnEnlightened

    Web Design | | Stew222
    0
  • viatrading1


    Hi, We are redesigning our website the following way: Before: Page A with Content A, Page B with Content B, Page C with Content C, etc
    e.g. one page for each Customer Returns, Overstocks, Master Case, etc
    Now: Page D with content A + B + C etc.
    e.g. one long page containing all Product Conditions, one after the other So we are merging multiples pages into one.
    What is the best way to do so, so we don't lose traffic? (or we lose the minimum possible) e.g. should we 301 Redirect A/B/C to D...?
    Is it likely that we lose significant traffic with this change? Thank you,

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading1
    0
  • lgrozeva


    Hey, guys, We are using the pro-sitemaps.com tool to automate our sitemaps on our properties, but some of them give this error "This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location" for all the urls. Strange thing is that not all of them are with the error and most have all the urls indexed already. Do you have any experience with the tool and what is your opinion? Thanks

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lgrozeva
    0
  • DebashishB


    Hi Mozzers, I went through many Q&As in the community this morning. I found a solution where I could just remove the referral site in analytics>admin>property>tracking info>referral exclusion list. So I removed paypal.com which was the main referral traffic. I thought the problem is solved. Later today I got another order, now the referral traffic is from eway.com, now what? Yes I know I will add this to the exclusion list but there will be many more referral sites. My main concern is I am not able to track the actual traffic source. How do I do that? 1. Do I need to use google url tracking for all my pages?
    2. Do I need to add tracking code in each page of the site?
    3. Is there a way to track the actual source of this traffic, now that the transaction is already made but reflects as referral traffic in Google Analytics? jZjTN

    Technical SEO | | DebashishB
    0
  • CalicoKitty2000


    I noticed that my Google Local page does not show in any search results anymore.  Looking at Moz Local, it appears that I had 250 views on August 30th and 0 after that.  It just dropped overnight.  I looked at Google My Business and I noticed that I had a duplicate listing (no idea where it came from).  It wasn't verified though.  I deleted that.  I also noticed that my address has been changed to Drive instead Dr.  I was very careful in making it the same everywhere, but it changed without me changing it.  Perhaps someone so kindly "suggested an edit" and I didn't see that happen. Anyone have any ideas.  My organic search ranking is still strong.  #3 for most search terms.  And we have a very strong Google Local reviews.  I mean, it even shows business that have been permanently closed over me!!!  And we have photos, great reviews, and regularly post to Google+. I seriously need some help.  I am a small business owner that does all of my own SEO because I can't afford a good SEO. 😞

    Local Listings | | CalicoKitty2000
    0
  • Clojobobo


    Hi there Just had a quick question about links on Reference.com or Ask.com. I have been looking at my competitors link profiles to get ideas of who and where I should/could be linking from. One of my main competitors seems to have links on Reference.com and Ask.com which are being listed in there profile. Reference.com are dofollow. Our site is also appearing on these sites, but the links are being listed under our profile. We have been up and running for more that 3 years now. The obviously have high DR and I think must be a contributing factor to their rank, having looked at other links in their profile. It seems strange because I thought these sites are effectively search engines and therefore wouldn't count towards your backlink profile? Can anyone explain? Would be most grateful if someone can. Many thanks in advance. Clojo

    Link Building | | Clojobobo
    3

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