We recently fixed a Meta Refresh that was affecting our home page - But something still seems wrong. Any suggestions?
-
We recently fixed a meta refresh issue on our home page. Our store URL:
http://www.ccisolutions.com had a meta refresh on it that was going to:
www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/IAFDispatcher?iafAction=showMain
The meta refresh is now gone, however there still seem to be some problems:
- Our IT Director has not been successful in trying to make www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/IAFDispatcher?iafAction=showMain 301 redirect to http://www.ccisolutions.com - so I believe we now have a duplicate content issue
- If you look at both of these URLs in OSE, you will see that www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/IAFDispatcher?iafAction=showMain is getting credit for almost all of the Internal Followed Links, while http://www.ccisolutions.com is getting all the credit for External Followed links. Why doesn't http://www.ccisolutions.com show the same number of Internal Followed Links?
I realize this is more of a developer/webmaster question and would be very appreciative of any suggestions or advice. Thanks!
-
Thanks again Keri. It feels so good to finally have this particular issue resolved. The company has been struggling with it for more than 5 years, but until I came along (lucky them, lol!) - they had no idea what was wrong or where to even begin fixing it. I do have a follow up question I am going to post regarding how Google views this sudden massic increase in links....
-
Don't forget to add processing time. The data from this latest update is from crawls of mid-September to mid-October, then it takes another bit of time to process.
...but in any case, so glad to hear the good news!
-
Hah! Funny coincidence Well, nonetheless, the problem seems to be resolved. Here's what's interesting Keri. The meta refresh was actually fixed on September 23rd, before last month's linkscape/OSE update. If the meta refresh was the only problem, our link profile would have shown correctly back then. This mean it was either our canonical tags, the breadcrumbs, or both that were contributing to the problem.
I'm just happy it's fixed! Yay!
-
Dana, just a quick note that it wasn't an instant recalculation on DA and PA. You happened to check right as we rolled out the new OSE index today (see the main blog for a post about that).
-
Well, you just aren't going to believe it. It all had to do with our breadcrumbs. The breadcrumb for the homepage was still using the old homepage URL (the one in use when we had a meta refresh happening). I had my IT director update it and check out what happened to our link profile in one day:
Total External Links: Before - 2,757 After - **4,311 **Total Internal Links: Befpre - 125 After - 3,221
Total Links: Before - 2,882 After - 7,532Our Domain Authority and Page Authority also both went up by 3 points instantly. I want to thank you for hanging in with me and helping me get to the root of what was wrong. People like you are what makes SEOMoz such a great forum!
Dana
-
Hi Streamline - Thanks for answering
Yes, here is a link to what I am seeing in OSE. It includes the old homepage URL, the new homepage URL, and several interior pages for reference. Be patient, it takes a bit to load (I had to refresh it because it hung when I tried just now)
See how the old homepage URL is showing 3,174 internal links, while the new one is only showing 125? We fixed the meta refresh on September 23, in addition to correcting all canonical tags and making them absolute. I can't figure out why the new home page URL isn't getting credited with those 3,174 internal links. What do you think?
-
Hmm... I just looked up the site in OSE and I see that ccisolutions.com is being credited with the most internal links and I don't see the other URL anywhere in the top pages. http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?page=1&site=www.ccisolutions.com&sort=page_authority&filter=&source=internal&target=page&group=0
Are you seeing the same thing? If not, can you let me know what you are seeing and where you are seeing it?
I see that you do have the rel=canonical tag set up correctly so even if you left the breadcrumb link to the old URL, eventually it shouldn't matter. However, if you're able to, I would recommend changing that breadcrumb link to point to the correct URL just to keep everything consistent.
-
Hi Streamline. The issue persists. I did discover (completely by accident) that the breadcrumb URL in our source code is the old home page URL. I've attached a screenshot. Could this be the reason we are not seeing those internal links being credited to the new homepage URL?
-
It will take some time before OSE updates its index. Let me know if you don't notice any changes once OSE has been updated.
-
Thanks so much for your comments and suggestions. I just checked and it looks like the canonical tag you suggested is in place. Still, OSE is showing our linking structure split between these two URLs. Is this just an idiosyncracy of OSE that I shouldn't worry about, or is Googlebot going to see the same thing and credit nearly all of our Internal Links to one URL and all of External links to the other? Isn't this eroding the potential Page Authority of both pages?
Because our homepage URL was this:
http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/IAFDispatcher?iafAction=showMain
for a very long time. I am very concerned about that old URL not passing page authority ("link juice" - I hate that term, but just trying to be clear) to www.ccisolutions.com If I understand correctly, a 301-redirect will pass most of the page authority, but a canonical tag will not pass any.
Here is what OSE is seeing when comparing all possible versions of our homepage URL:
I thought fixing the meta refresh would fix the problem and show all the links credited to our desired URL www.ccisolutions.com ...but that doesn't appear to be what's happening.
Thoughts?
-
Hi Dana,
If all you are doing is adding the canonical tag, then it may take some time before Google picks up on it. Probably looking at a few days or maybe a week or so, but you should definitely notice an improvement (if you have in fact seen a negative impact in your rankings/organic traffic due to the meta refresh/duplicate content issue). My suggestion is to simply add the canonical tag and keep an eye on Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to see if you notice any changes. I'll keep an eye on this thread in case you have any more issues or questions.
-
I never thought about the TTL being an issue, but I suppose it could be? It's certainly a bone of contention between marketing and IT, I'd love to have a solid reason to get away from our whole "24-hour wait to see what you messed up" model.
I thought about your post when I put up this question. I even looked for "Webmaster" in the categories in hopes SEOMoz had added it. This is definitely a Webmaster issue. Thanks PolarKing!
-
Dana
I hope Seomoz adds the Webmaster catagory soon like you posted on my question a few days ago
Does the TTL have anything to do with it not working yet? I had a big issue with TTL and do not want you to have to go through what I did.
Have a great day otherwise
-
Thanks Streamline - I am going to have him try your suggestion. Since our site does not update immediately, we won't start seeing the redirect work until tomorrow morning. Is this something where we should see the effects right away, or will it take time for Google to recognize the change?
-
1. I'm betting you are having infinite loop issues when you are trying to add the redirect, am I right? If so, that's because both versions of the URL are both hitting the same page. Anyways, to fix this, simply add "<rel="canonical" href="<a href=" http:="" www.ccisolutions.com="" "="">http://www.ccisolutions.com/" /> to the head of both URLs to tell the search engines to only count that version of the URL in its index so you won't have a problem with duplicate content.</rel="canonical">
2. The canonical tag should fix this issue as well.
Hope that helps!
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
-
Site moved. Unable to index page : Noindex detected in robots meta tag?!
Hope someone can shed some light on this: We moved our smaller site (into the main site ( different domains) . The smaller site that was moved ( https://www.bluegreenrentals.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bgvsiteadmin
Directory where the site was moved (https://www.bluegreenvacations.com/rentals) Each page from the old site was 301 redirected to the appropriate page under .com/rentals. But we are seeing a significant drop in rankings and traffic., as I am unable to request a change of address in Google search console (a separate issue that I can elaborate on). Lots of (301 redirect) new destination pages are not indexed. When Inspected, I got a message : Indexing allowed? No: 'index' detected in 'robots' meta tagAll pages are set as Index/follow and there are no restrictions in robots.txtHere is an example URL :https://www.bluegreenvacations.com/rentals/resorts/colorado/innsbruck-aspen/Can someone take a look and share an opinion on this issue?Thank you!0 -
Least Text for Home Page
We are rebranding our web site and intend to create more visual pages with less text on the assumption that no one want to read anymore. What is the least amount of text that we can include in a home page without damaging out ability to rank on Google? Google recently increased the permitted amount of text on description tags. Can we shift text to the description tax and place more on ALT tags that are not immediately visible to visitors. Any thoughts, comments, advice?? I am adding image of the old home page and new home page (text to be written, 3 columns of dummy text) so the change in the amount of text is visible. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan GkvnNR8 UH9ptbh0 -
Google indexing only 1 page out of 2 similar pages made for different cities
We have created two category pages, in which we are showing products which could be delivered in separate cities. Both pages are related to cake delivery in that city. But out of these two category pages only 1 got indexed in google and other has not. Its been around 1 month but still only Bangalore category page got indexed. We have submitted sitemap and google is not giving any crawl error. We have also submitted for indexing from "Fetch as google" option in webmasters. www.winni.in/c/4/cakes (Indexed - Bangalore page - http://www.winni.in/sitemap/sitemap_blr_cakes.xml) 2. http://www.winni.in/hyderabad/cakes/c/4 (Not indexed - Hyderabad page - http://www.winni.in/sitemap/sitemap_hyd_cakes.xml) I tried searching for "hyderabad site:www.winni.in" in google but there also http://www.winni.in/hyderabad/cakes/c/4 this link is not coming, instead of this only www.winni.in/c/4/cakes is coming. Can anyone please let me know what could be the possible issue with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | abhihan0 -
SEO strategy for conversion-optimised home page
I'm working on a very conventional-type site with a home page (why come to us), methods we use, pricing, reviews, FAQs and contact us. After reading the Moz case study at (http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/seomoz-case-study/), I have been working on a conversion-optimised home page that consolidates much of content in all these pages. At the bottom of the home page, I then plan to add a list of blog posts "Want to read more? We have a lot of useful information on our blog. Here are the most popular articles:" with articles that explain more about the methods we use for example (content that was formerly on our methods page). Obviously this new blog will also have more interesting information (but a lot that could actually be converted into pages) This radically changes the site into just a home page full of selling points and calls-to-action and a blog. I have some questions about this strategy: How do we keep our search engine ranking for keywords such as "[our service] prices" or "[a particular method] London". We rank quite well on Google for these and it goes straight to the relevant page. Shall we keep the pages active somewhere even though the information is also on the home page? Is a blog actually necessary here (SEO wise)? The things I'm planning to write could easily be made into more pages. Am I going about this completely wrong by trying using the CRO guide? Should this sort of page be reserved for landing pages? The reason why I'm considering making a conversion-generating home page is because we only sell one service pretty much (although there are differences in how we do it on children vs. adults) and because we are quite niche so most of our traffic comes from organic sources. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LondonAli0 -
Home page not being indexed
Hi Moz crew. I have two sites (one is a client's and one is mine). They are both Wordpress sites and both are hosted on WP Engine. They have both been set up for a long time, and are "on-page" optimized. Pages from each site are indexed, but Google is not indexing the homepage for either site. Just to be clear - I can set up and work on a Wordpress site, but am not a programmer. Both seem to be fine according to my Moz dashboard. I have Webmaster tools set up for each - and as far as I can tell (definitely not an exper in webmaster tools) they are okay. I have done the obvious and checked that the the box preventing Google from crawling is not checked, and I believe I have set up the proper re-directs and canonicals.Thanks in advance! Brent
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EchelonSEO0 -
Our website scores A but on google we are still on 7th page
Hi all, I have run on page keyword optimizations with exact terminology used to find our company service or our competition on google. We have ranked A, with almost all points complete. I did the same for our main competitor and they ranked F. Then i did page positioning on Google and they get on page 1 fifth line and we get page 7. We have plenty of unique content and extensive website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EMGCSR
Could there be any other reason than reason for this other than backlinks? Many thanks for your help.0 -
Why is my XML sitemap ranking on the first page of google for 100s of key words versus the actual relevant page?
I still need this question answerd and I know it's something I must have changed. But google is ranking my sitemap for 100s of key terms versus the actual page. It's great to be on the first page but not my site map...... Geeeez.....
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ursalesguru0 -
404'd pages still in index
I recently launched a site and shortly after performed a URL rewrite (not the greatest idea, i know). The developer 404'd the old pages instead of a permanent 301 redirect. This caused a mess in the index. I have tried to use Google's removal tool to remove these URL's from the index. These pages were being removed but now I am finding them in the index as just URL's to the 404'd page (i.e. no title tag or meta description). Should I wait this out or now go back and 301 redirect the old URL's (that are 404'd now) to the new URL's? I am sure this is the reason for my lack of ranking as the rest of my site is pretty well optimized and I have some quality links.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mj7750