Data highlighter in WMT displays old version of page
-
I want to mark up a business address for Google Local, so I thought I would use the data highlighter in WMT. However I only just added the address to the the bottom of the home page and when using data highlighter iit is giving me the old version of page to mark up without the address on.
Rather frustrating, does any body have any experience on the time frame until Google updates the page in the data highlighter?
According to this thread it's not even related to the page re caching: Data Highlighter: Start link is pulling an old version of page
-
OK I just checked it and it is now updated to the correct preview.
So it took up to approx 19 hours to change. Although bear in mind I wasn't checking it all the time, could be faster. Also note, if you have started highlighting the old version, when you go back into the saved one it will still have the old preview, so you need to start over again.
I can also confirm the preview in the data highlighter is not connected to Google's cache of the page in the index, as the old version of the page is still cached.
-
Thanks for the tips Thomas. I had considered doing it 'manually' but wanted to experiment with the data highlighter tool.
I'll keep on eye on it and report back the time it took Google to update to the correct preview.
-
The only thing I can think of is Google is showing you what it last indexed and that does sound strange. However there is a other way to put your address on schema properly and quickly so you'll get the local search results you want.
Use this tool http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/address/
it's 100% free and has a lot of extra tools connected that are great
You can also utilize
If you prefer to use micro data which is almost the same thing as schema you can use this tool.
http://www.microdatagenerator.com/
However I have been told not to mix the two causes some issues with search engines. So take schema or micro data is what I have recently been told I have been trying to get a solid confirmation so I think it's a possibility that it would make sense but don't want to tell you something that is not true.
My $.02 use the 1st tool and it will do the job just fine.
It is in the form of a Word press plug-in but also gives you the ability to create schema correctly right on the site and paste it into your code.
The nice thing about it is there's a little box to the right that gives you a exact match of what it's going to look like on your site.
If you don't want it to look like it formatted anything I would use the 1st tool. However both of them are excellent.
One last thing if you're using WordPress consider Yoast Local SEO it seems expensive but does a fantastic job
More great sources of information
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-use-schema-markup-for-local-seo/
http://searchengineland.com/13-semantic-markup-tips-for-2013-a-local-seo-checklist-143708
Sincerely,
Thomas
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
-
Structured Data Questions
I am showing 2 items with errors. These products have both been removed from the site, and will trigger a 404 Page Not Found. I am still seeing the page URLs in Webmaster Central > Search Appearance > Structured Data. They are shown as items with errors, the errors being that they are missing price too. Should I 301 redirect these on an htaccess file, or should I remove the page url in some other way from Google? Also, I have a site with over 50,000 products and 2,000 category level pages. In Structured Data, there are only 2,848 items. Does it seem like Google is collecting very little data compared to how many urls I have on my site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djlittman0 -
Should i redirect this page?
Hi I have the following 2 pages: http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning.aspx http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning/Funeral-Plans.aspx My dilema is that google sees the words "funeral planning" & "funeral plans" as the same thing, which might explain why the "funeral plan" page is not ranked v well. My issue is that the "funeral planning" page is at category level and introduces the wider subject of funeral planning, which isnt just funeral plans, so if i 301 my "funeral plan" page i will have no where to talk about funeral plans. My question is, Is the "funeral plan" page not ranked v well because of this or do i just need better optimisation of the funeral plan page so google is clear which is the key focus for each page? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Merge content pages together to get one deep high quality content page - good or not !?
Hi, I manage the SEO of a brand poker website that provide ongoing very good content around specific poker tournaments, but all this content is split into dozens of pages in different sections of the website (blog section, news sections, tournament section, promotion section). It seems like today having one deep piece of content in one page has better chance to get mention / social signals / links and therefore get a higher authority / ranking / traffic than if this content was split into dozens of pages. But the poker website I work for and also many other website do generate naturally good content targeting long tail keywords around a specific topic into different section of the website on an ongoing basis. Do you we need once a while to merge those content pages into one page ? If yes, what technical implementation would you advice ? (copy and readjust/restructure all content into one page + 301 the URL into one). Thanks Jeremy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tit0 -
SERPS showing wrong page
I have optimised a homepage for two keywords. I optimised this a few weeks ago and the page has been crawled by Google, also before this it was already reasonably well optimised for these terms. However, the homepage is not appearing in Google for these terms. Instead two other random pages on the site are appearing for these terms that have not been optimised for these keywords and have few mentions of the keywords on the pages!?? These pages have a lower DA and lower inbound links than the homepage. The homepage is showing for other lower competition keywords. Could anyone offer me some insight into this? The homepage content has been posted on other websites by a former SEO consultant - to a business directory for one? Could duplicate content be causing this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | absolutely170 -
Rel Canonical on Home Page
I have a client who says they can't implement a 301 on their home page. They have tow different urls for their home page that are live and do not redirect. I know that the best solution would be to redirect one to the main URL but they say this isn't possible. So they implemented the rel canonical instead. Is this the second best solution for them if they can't redirect? Will the link juice be passed through the rel canonical? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0 -
Should pages of old news articles be indexed?
My website published about 3 news articles a day and is set up so that old news articles can be accessed through a "back" button with articles going to page 2 then page 3 then page 4, etc... as new articles push them down. The pages include a link to the article and a short snippet. I was thinking I would want Google to index the first 3 pages of articles, but after that the pages are not worthwhile. Could these pages harm me and should they be noindexed and/or added as a canonical URL to the main news page - or is leaving them as is fine because they are so deep into the site that Google won't see them, but I also won't be penalized for having week content? Thanks for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter0 -
Category pages in forums
I would like to hear feedback on the best SEO practice for forum category pages. An example would be a forum about cars. You can have a Chervorlet category which contains forums for every chevy model. Often this category page is simply a list of all the forums. If I noindex, follow the page then am I missing an opportunity? I am thinking of Google sitemaps for example where this page can be used for a category link. If I noindex the page, there probably isn't another great place for a sitemap to link to. I could fill out the page with wiki-like generic chevy information. Please share any thoughts or best practices.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RyanKent0