Long title problem
-
I'm getting an incredible number of 4xx errors and long titles from a small website (northstarpad.com); over 13k 4xx errors and almost 20k "title element is too long". The number keeps climbing, but the site shouldn't have more than a couple hundred pages. When I look at the 4xx errors they are clearly being generated by some program since they have multiple and repeating keywords.
Here's an example:
I looked at the ftp files and plugins and couldn't see anything that could cause it, but I'm a beginner so no surprise there. Any suggestions where to look or how to fix this?
-
Thanks!
-
I can point you towards the best places online to find wordpress developers;
- https://clarity.fm/browse/technology/wordpress
- https://www.odesk.com/o/profiles/browse/skill/wordpress/
- http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/find-wordpress-developer-designer/
Try those!
-
Hello Dan,
I've sent your message to a few web developers who apparently don't have a clue. Any suggestions on someone who could fix this?
Thanks!
-
Thanks a bunch Dan! I'm still clearly a neophyte, but am learning as I go so I appreciate your detailed responses. I'll get someone to work on the URLs right away.
It's also good to know Screaming Frog's limitations for the freebie.
-
I just wanted to clarify that the SEO plugin has nothing to do with this, and also turning all in one on/off will probably not fix anything.
Either you may have the free version of Screaming Frog which limits to 500 URLs, or you may need to adjust crawl settings - my crawl definitely was heading towards the 57k
-
The root of your issue is that there are links that are coded incorrectly
--> http://screencast.com/t/ndeKw3PL
which is resulting in infinite crawling of pages that do not really exist, and thus the same duplicate/long title tags.
For example this page is a good URL: http://northstarpad.com/category/business-portrait-metro-detroit/
But as shown in my screenshot the "Pet Photography" image links to: http://northstarpad.com/category/business-portrait-metro-detroit/pet-photography// which is a bad URL and NOT http://northstarpad.com/pet-photography/ which is where it should link.
Essentially your links should be "absolute" URLs (which show the full file path) not "relative"
--> http://screencast.com/t/koL5QX9B
You'll need to pass this to a web dev who knows how to edit your WordPress theme files.
-
I crawled the site with Screaming Frog and it only showed 475 pages instead of the 57k+ from Moz, and none of them had 404 errors. Is it possible that Moz is crawling our WordPress pages? I looked in our settings for a way to exclude that URL, but couldn't see where to do it.
We'll also try deleting/reinstalling the All in One SEO pack to see if that helps.
-
Thanks a bunch Nakul! I'll let you know if any of your suggestions help me find the problem.
-
Looks like a problem with Wordpress. Are you using any SEO Plugins like Yoast or something ? I'd suggest reaching out to your Wordpress Guy and have them look into it. It's clearly an issue, and needs to be fixed. You can also download Screaming Frog SEO Spider and crawl your website with it to see where Google is finding these links from. It could also be an issue with your Theme or Permalinks. These are the only areas I can think of. You are using the latest version of Wordpress, so you are good from that point of view. So has to be a Plugin, Theme or your Permalinks settings.
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
-
Which is better Title length vs. keywords?
We run a jobboard. The title tag on a page for a job is often over 70 characters. An example of one would be: " Supplier Quality Inspector (Electrical Manufacturing) Job in Orlando, FL 32809 at Pro Image Solutions | Orlando Jobs!" The company name 'Orlando Jobs!" comes at the end but is also a really good keyword e.g. 'Orlando' and 'Jobs' I am interested in suggestions as to how to make these titles better. For example take off the company name when we go over 70 characters? Move the company name to the front of the title because the company name is also good keywords? I am looking for the best way to handle the issue is all. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | JobBiz0 -
Why does google show two different titles for my rankings?
I have two keywords I am ranked for but google is showing two different title tags. One is the more updated version while the other is the older version. In all in one seo pack it shows the updated title tag but google still shows the old Why is this?
Technical SEO | | junkcars0 -
Title tag code
Hi, I have a couple of websites where I can't define the title tag (CMS does not support it) on a few default pages. On these pages "the system" just uses the primary/main title tag (from the frontpage) and my programming skills (as if I have any...!) have not been able to make a html code or something to override the main title tag on these specific pages. Does this make sense at all and can anyone give me a hint, a code to try out or something? Problem is that I now have 3 pages with the same title tag which in terms of SEO isn't too good, so to say... Thanks in advance. Jan
Technical SEO | | Wello12340 -
Duplicate Page Title with Pretashop
We have our main website and blog in Wordpress under www.enasport.com and our shop with Prestashop under www.enasport.com/productos so all our products have for example www.enasport.com/productos/56-creatina-monohidrato.html I wonder if this is the problem with Duplicate Page Title as seems we have more than 200 of this issue. Is there any way to solve this?
Technical SEO | | ENASports0 -
Should I add my brand name to every page title
Currently for every page I automatically add my brand name Ie: poduct xxx - brand name product yyy - brand name. is this considered good or bad practice?
Technical SEO | | AsafY0 -
SEO problem if homepage is 2 folders deep?
We are currently looking at a site for a client, where instead of featuring standard file structure, every folder is being buried two folders deep by the CMS. So the homepage is: www.domain.com.au/folder/folder And a subpage is: www.domain.com.au/folder/folder/subpage Is this necessarily and SEO problem? Will it be positive for rankings to pull out the two redundant folders? Any insights are appreciated! Cheers
Technical SEO | | MarketingResults0 -
Why crawl error "title missing or empty" when there is already "title and meta desciption" in place?
I've been getting 73 "title missing or empty" warnings from SEOMOZ crawl diagnostic. This is weird as I've installed yoast wordpress seo plugin and all posts do have title and meta description. But why the results here.. can anyone explain what's happening? Thanks!! Here are some of the links that are listed with "title missing, empty". Almost all our blog posts were listed there. http://www.gan4hire.com/blog/2011/are-you-here-for-good/ http://www.gan4hire.com/blog/2011/are-you-socially-awkward/
Technical SEO | | JasonDGreatMaeM3.png TLcD8.png
0 -
How long does it take for Google to de-index urls?
Added the noindex meta tag to some pages on my site and I am wondering if anyone has any idea how long it will take to deindex the urls?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0