On Page Optimization and Page Grader in Moz Needs Some Fixes

[Multiverse-Media-Group]

Okay, so I've brought this up a couple times to your team and have always been met with resistance and confusion, but I really feel like the fundamental design of your on page grader (the auto one) needs some changes in order to be really useful.

Let's start with the basics. An on page grader is supposed to be a tool where you can enter your keyword or keywords and have it scan the URL to see how well the keyword has been implemented on the page. It checks for heading use, anchor text, alt tags, frequency of use, etc. We all should get this if we are here.

Now, your manual page grader does just that and does a great job of it. I find it very useful for checking newly created pages, landing pages, competitor pages and the like.

However, your auto version found in the Search > On-Page Optimizations is the culprit here.

So, according to several staff at Moz, this tool scans your site every week when the rest of your site scan is done. It then takes the rankings of pages for ranked and tracked keywords and assigns a grade for that page.

Here's the major problem.... in almost all of my accounts, it very rarely gets the association with keyword and URL correct. Thus, it returns a low page grade even though the grade of the URL would be an A or B for the correct keyword.

What seems to be happening is I'm tracking multiple keywords, sometime close variations. This grade tool in a lot of cases is grading a page more than once for several keywords it's ranking for. All the variants it gets a low grade for because the exact keywords isn't in the title, headings, etc. The second thing that seems to be happening is some pages are not being graded using the primary keyword, but instead a variation. In this case it only shows low grades for the page.

On one occurrence of trying to discuss this issue with you, I got scoffed at for saying the tool was "guessing at which keyword to use for the grade". Your staff was very adamant in saying "it's not a guess!" My counter point was, call it what you want, it's in accurate to the intended keyword to be optimized for.

Now, when one first gets to this tool, all of the above doesn't seem like that big of a deal because there's an "add & manage page grade" section. This section allows you to add and manage page grades. So, one would think that you could go to this tool, add an page grades for keywords that the tool didn't automatically associate and delete ones that it added with an incorrect association and that would be the end of it.

However, that's NOT quite the end of it. At your own admission, the tool doesn't function like that. Each week when a new scan is completed, these pages grades essentially reset. So any page grade that you deleted will simply show right back up again.

Now, before I go any further, let me explain why this is such an issue for me.

First, on page optimization is something my company does and sells as a service and we are pretty good at it. Not saying we're the best, but we're better than most.

That said, one of my reasons for choosing Moz was because according to the verbiage on the pages, one can create branded reports to include on page optimization. However, when the tool doesn't get the right keyword to landing page AND there's no way to manually override it, then basically all of my reports make it look like my pages grades suck, when in face they don't.

Now, if in my campaigns I only added the exact keyword for each page and didn't do any variations of, then this tools becomes much more accurate. However, I want to track multiple variations.

Bottom line is this:

I need a page grading and reporting tool I can count on and actually use.

Thus far, you solution is riddled with problems and every time I bring it up, you fight me on it saying it's working as it's supposed to. What I'm saying here is "as it's supposed to" is fundamentally wrong.

I'd like to discuss this with someone at this point, and preferably someone a bit higher up than a first tier support person because frankly, I'm not getting anywhere.

Overall I love your service, but it's things like this that have me questioning wether or not Moz is right. I'm giving you opportunity after opportunity to prove to me that it is. Help me work this out so we can continue that trend.

Thanks,

Micha

[miorcec-new]

Same same!

The "automatic" grader makes a mess of an otherwise useful tool!!!

Two options: you either allow us to remove once for all all the auto-rubish gradded pages once for all

OR

you allow us to filter said grades based upon the same filter we can use for tracking KWs...

The reason is extremely simple! On all the pages that I push, I use a main KW and several, long tail / semantically close ones! Your stupid tool gets ALL the pages and create long lists of pages THAT I KNOW are not optimised for SEO YET ONES THAT STILL RANK as they are targeting long tail KWs!

Hence a rather large mess!

Beyond me why this issue that is experienced by quite a few of us CAN'T BE SIMPLY SORTED! Almost a full year now since first post...

Not impressed...

Cdlt,

G.

[jwanner]

This is definitely an area that needs to be updated.  Or, if there was a separate tab where you could simply track only pages you want graded for the keywords tracked by your tool, that would be wonderful.  There are many of us that feel the exact same way.

It has been 6 months since the last post on this and yet it still isn't be addressed.  Does MOZ plan on updating this section?  Interesting data does little for an SEO trying to show progress to customers/employers.

[jon.white]

Thanks Micha. Email sent.

[Multiverse-Media-Group]

Jon,

Honestly, at this point, I'm just glad someone from Moz has acknowledged this issue as an issue. That said, I would like to discuss things further with you though I don't use Skype. Phone works best for me. Couple additional notes based on your response.

Random Page Grades

I realize this may be how you intended, but this is the wrong place for this. I need, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, a page grade tools that reports on the pages and keyword combos I want and only what I want. Again, it wouldn't be that bad if this could be overridden, but it can't. They just show up the next week making this a pointless tool... that is unless you're only concerned with "interesting data". Not only is it overwhelming to see multiple keywords per page yet only one of them gets a good grade, it's fundamentally just wrong. Every other page grade tools either grade a single page for one keyword, or grades a single page for a set of keywords. Your tool grade the same page over and over again for every keyword it see ranked in a search engine, which for most of my sites, is a lot! All this does is show me that "I'm failing at on page" to my clients if I were to show this to them. This forces me to created my own reports (which take entirely too much time) to prove to them I am doing what I promised.

Delete and ‘Add and Manage’

Yes, your tools does need a lot of work. The part that really annoys me is that I left Moz months ago and expressed my concerns with this tool to Aaron (don't remember last name). He contacted me a few months after that telling me that this tool had some major done on it. then I sign back up and realize that is does basically the same thing. Very disappointing indeed.

Timeline for turn fixing

I also understand that your company should only focus on a few things at once. I get this. However, it just really bothers me that this tool doesn't do and can't really accomplish what it advertises that it does. One could argue that it does, but as soon as I showed this counter argument, I'm sure most would side with me on this one.

This hasn't been the only issue of false advertisement I've seen with you guys either. There have been a number of things that I've brought up, most of which were just removed from your front end web copy after I mentioned them. I just want the tools to do what it's supposed to do.

As to the overhaul, you're right, it needs one. When doing it, keep in mind that WE should have control over what is scanned and the keyword associations for those pages. Just like a "remembered" version of the manual one. That's all it needs to do. Honestly, you could make it even cooler by adding a checkbox on the manual one to "add to on page grader". Additionally, you could consider leaving the auto scanning that it does now. However, there needs to be a way to defeat it. This has to happen!! I simple "on/off" would be just fine. Or, you could do the add/manage page grades in which one could delete a page grade, but unlike what it does now, it needs to stay removed! If I wanted to see it regraded for the same keyword/landing page combo, I'd just wait until next week when the next scan was complete. Basically, the current delete button here is one of the most pointless things I've ever seen.

Anyways, again, I do appreciate your time and concern here, but I would like to chat more. Can you email me to my registered email, then I can provide a phone to call me?

Thanks,

Micha

[jon.white]

Hello Micha,

Thank you for your post - I am sorry you are so frustrated with the tool.  Let me address each of your points in turn, and then perhaps you can let me know if I have answered your questions?

Random Page Grades

The tool will grade any combination of URL and keyword for which we discover a ranking. I realize if you are looking to grade a specific keyword against a page (for example your use case around using the On Page Grader tool) this is not ideal.  We feel that for some use cases though, this is interesting data as you are able to see at a glance which pages are ranking for which KW and which have the biggest opportunity for improvement.  I do agree with you though that sometimes this list can become overwhelming, especially with multiple keywords ranking for the same page - example the homepage of a site.

Delete and ‘Add and Manage’

I hear you here - our management interface on this needs work. To your above point, it can be really confusing to see new keyword/page combinations appear that were previously deleted.  I think you are right - Moz Analytics can do a better job in the management interface of this particular feature.  To be completely transparent with you though, this is not a tool section we have on our roadmap to update in the next couple of months.  As Moz Analytics has a bunch of different features and sections to maintain, we tackle only a few things at a time. We have learned that doing a larger number of things on a single area makes our customers much happier than doing a smaller number of things spread across a larger set of features.  That said this will likely get looked at soon, but perhaps as an overhaul of the feature.  Sorry this is probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but I must be honest about our current priorities.

Anyway - hopefully this goes some way toward answering your concerns.  If you want to discuss this more I am happy to jump on a Skype call with you to get more feedback? We really appreciate passionate feedback from our customers - no matter how positive / negative it is.

Let me know if I can help further!

Thanks,

Jon

[Multiverse-Media-Group]

Any response from Moz?

[ShawnW]

This is absolutely in line with my experience.