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.
SEO Location Pages - ALT Image Tag Question
-
Hello Guru's,
I have a Hire Website whereby you can rent products online.
I have created different Location pages for these which are in essence the same pages page but with different location specific urls, title tags , on page content etc etc. This helps me to rank for local search.
These location pages also display 20 products per page.
My question is Should I make the ALT IMAGE TEXT location specific for each of the 20 products . Example - Steam Cleaner Rental in "location" or should I only amend a few of the Atl Image Texts to be location specific.
I don't want to come accross as spammy in google eyes but I also don't want to be seen as having duplicate content , images etc etc
What do you think ?
thanks
Sarah.
-
I have approx. 1500 products which can be hired from 80
locations so what I have done it first split the products up into approximately 20
categories and then 8 to 10 subcategories per category and then have 80 location pages for each Category and sub category.Each location page also have a Google Business Local listing
as well.So , yes there is some degree of duplication as I have 20
categories x 80 cities and then least 8 Sub Categories per category x 80 citiesI have written unique content for the more popular cities on the category and sub category landing pages etc but as you can see, it would take me
years to write complete unique content everywhere… My site is currently 50K plus pages.I can’t see any other way of doing it ?
-
If you have several duplicate pages (with the exception of location), I do think you run the risk of being penalised for duplicate content.
Does each local area actually have a branch or is it all run from one location, with all the additioanl pages being written to garner the local belief that the service exists as a 'local service'? I've seen businesses do this and it doesn;t feel right to me. I agree with the previous poster that you'd be better building a national brand that services different parts of the country rather than making it look like you are a network of branches.
If your client does have several branches/franchises, I'd be tempted to make every page unique and about that local service. Use images specific to each location and title and alt tag accordingly.
-
if you need a real expert to write your content and you do to pull this off my recommendation would be somebody like James Agate he is a content genius and here's his website & information.
http://linkbuilding.tv/linkbuilding/james-agate-garrett-french-talk-link-prospecting/
-
Hello Sarah,
I honestly think MS you made that content 100% original and very different from any of the words used to describe the exact same product you are describing prior Google may come down hard on you.
Alt image text is anchor text for images think of it like that. There is probably even know you used different words to describe the same products a lot of similar words which Google's algorithm is able to pick up hopefully you did not just spend the content.
What you really want to do today is create a brand and have that brand rank all over the United States. I know it sounds a huge task and believe me it is but you're using location specific URLs on top of selling the same product, not trying to scare you I'm trying to get you to focus on one domain for these things.
If you do have the exact same image and you put the same anchor text and it or even Medea data yes they could be construed as duplicate content or the fact is if you posted these sites on the same hosting company or hosting account you most likely could share an IP block you needed a new C block IP address for each website or you will be caught by Google very quickly.
I think there's nothing really wrong with what you did unless you spun the content.
advice to you is billed one website and try these as well but focus on that one site that has great on page SEO using lots schemas and list the places where you work naturally in the content and that would mean creating a lot of content. I think if you go for strong site that will keep up with the national index you will fare the best. As Google places is extremely strong 90% of search in certain cases Dependent on what you are selling.
I am going to speak with a friend of mine regarding this and if they can convince me different which I don't believe they can I will let you know but seriously think of one good site for it the entire United States and Google likes Brands with the work you're putting in rewriting all these you can do a lot more with one website.
I hope I have been of help and I really hope I did not rain on your parade.
Respectfully,
Thomas Von Zickell
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
-
SEO Implications of using Images for Article Titles
Hi guys! New to Moz Pro. I just recently completed an online course with Moz... I have a client who is writing some new content for their site, and we are approaching it with SEO in mind. I was wondering about using an image with text on it as the article title, instead of an actual "text on the page" title. Wondering if that's going to "cost" us anything, SEO wise. I guess we could use alt-text/title/description fields to make sure the keywords are crawlable for our article title but do they have less "weight" than a standard title? How does that work? Hope my question makes sense. Article header attached mB0PXsA.jpg
On-Page Optimization | | JakeWarren1 -
Tags - Good or bad for SEO
We are getting Moz errors for duplicate content because tag pages share the same blog posts. Is there any way to fix this? Are these errors bad for SEO, or can I simply disregard these and ignore them? We are also getting Moz errors for missing descriptions on tag pages. I am unsure how to fix these errors, as we do not actually have pages for these on our WordPress site where we are able to put in a description. I have heard that having tags can be good for SEO? (We don't mind having several links that show up when searching for us on google...) As far as the SEO goes, I am not sure what to do. Does anyone know the best strategy?
On-Page Optimization | | Christinaa0 -
Less Tags better for SEO?
I am currently reviewing my strategy when it comes to categories and tags on my site. Having been no-indexed for some time, and having many tags with just one entry I am thinking that this is not optimal for SEO purposes. This is what I am planning: Categories - Change these to Index, but only after adding a hundred words or so by way of introduction (see this example - https://www.besthostnews.com/news/hosting/a-small-orange-news/). With the categories I am thinking of highlighting key articles as well to improve link juice distribution to older articles that are important. Tags - About half my tags have only 1 entry, with a few more just having 2 entries. I am thinking of deleting all tags with just one entry, and trying to merge those with just two or 3 entries where it makes sense to do so. I will keep these as no-index, but I think this will mean more optimal distribution of link juice within the site. I would appreciate your thoughts \ suggestions on the best practices here.
On-Page Optimization | | TheWebMastercom0 -
Can "window.location" javascript on homepage affect seo?
Hi! I need to add a splashpage to my wordpress site. I use "window.location" javascript on the homepage to redirect on the splashpage (controlled by cookie to redirect only for the first access). Can this technique affect the SEO on homepage? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | StudioCiteroni0 -
Address on Every page of the website for Local SEO? Good or Bad?
Is this good idea to add business address on every page of the website?, How Google see this? and This is Good or bad for ranking?
On-Page Optimization | | Dan_Brown10 -
301 redirects from several sub-pages to one sub-page
Hi! I have 14 sub-pages i deleted earlier today. But ofcourse Google can still find them, and gives everyone that gives them a go a 404 error. I have come to the understading that this wil hurt the rest of my site, at least as long as Google have them indexed. These sub-pages lies in 3 different folders, and i want to redirect them to a sub-page in a folder number 4. I have already an htaccess file, but i just simply cant get it to work! It is the same file as i use for redirecting trafic from mydomain.no to www.mydomain.no, and i have tried every kind of variation i can think of with the sub-pages. Has anyone perhaps had the same problem before, or for any other reason has the solution, and can help me with how to compose the htaccess file? 🙂 You have to excuse me if i'm using the wrong terms, missing something i should have seen under water while wearing a blindfold, or i am misspelling anything. I am neither very experienced with anything surrounding seo or anything else that has with internet to do, nor am i from an englishspeaking country. Hope someone here can light up my path 🙂 Thats at least something you can say in norwegian...
On-Page Optimization | | MarieA1 -
Avoiding "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" - Best Practices?
We have a website with a searchable database of recipes. You can search the database using an online form with dropdown options for: Course (starter, main, salad, etc)
On-Page Optimization | | smaavie
Cooking Method (fry, bake, boil, steam, etc)
Preparation Time (Under 30 min, 30min to 1 hour, Over 1 hour) Here are some examples of how URLs may look when searching for a recipe: find-a-recipe.php?course=starter
find-a-recipe.php?course=main&preperation-time=30min+to+1+hour
find-a-recipe.php?cooking-method=fry&preperation-time=over+1+hour There is also pagination of search results, so the URL could also have the variable "start", e.g. find-a-recipe.php?course=salad&start=30 There can be any combination of these variables, meaning there are hundreds of possible search results URL variations. This all works well on the site, however it gives multiple "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" errors when crawled by SEOmoz. I've seached online and found several possible solutions for this, such as: Setting canonical tag Adding these URL variables to Google Webmasters to tell Google to ignore them Change the Title tag in the head dynamically based on what URL variables are present However I am not sure which of these would be best. As far as I can tell the canonical tag should be used when you have the same page available at two seperate URLs, but this isn't the case here as the search results are always different. Adding these URL variables to Google webmasters won't fix the problem in other search engines, and will presumably continue to get these errors in our SEOmoz crawl reports. Changing the title tag each time can lead to very long title tags, and it doesn't address the problem of duplicate page content. I had hoped there would be a standard solution for problems like this, as I imagine others will have come across this before, but I cannot find the ideal solution. Any help would be much appreciated. Kind Regards5