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This is quite a common one Yasser. Google is looking at which keywords are used around the site the most.
Where do these keywords appear? Are they on every page? Do you fancy sending me a private message with your site URL (or paste it here) and I will take a look?
-Andy
This definitely looks like it is being guided by Markup. However, don't underestimate Google's ability to find a structure it likes and deliver that in the SERP results.
Without investigating fully, it is a little difficult to say exactly what is driving this.
-Andy
**They are purely for links. So do i directly disavow them? **
Yes, if there is no way to do anything about it, just disavow.
Should i go ahead and disavow the bad links? Or let it be?
Yes, these sorts of links will be doing you no favours at all. OK, Google might just be ignoring them, but much better to err on the side of caution. If Google was just ignoring them but then changes their stance at a later stage, you know you are covered.
-Andy
From what I understand Richard, Marina is wishing to Markup a page that relates to multiple different businesses that are not related. I'm not even sure what Markup you would use in this instance.
Local Markup relates to businesses, not pages that are more like a directory.
If I have misunderstood the page concept, then I could have this wrong, but I don't think I have.
-Andy
Hi Ash,
There are a few things you could do here, but you don't need to look at redirecting to fix this.
If you don't really need Google to index the category page, you could always 'noindex / follow' it and then concentrate on the more targeted inner pages. SEO these for longer tail key-phrases if you find the they are not ranking too well at the moment, but don't keep changing these too often as this will send the wrong signals to Google.
-Andy
So it is a fairly new site?
Perhaps you need to be doing some link building to help give it some 'oomph'. Without looking in detail at the sort of links you have, it's hard to make a judgement call.
If you don't already, create some good blog posts (couldn't see a blog link) and try to create an active social folowing on the likes of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Each will allow you to showcase your products. Make it easy for people to do this.
The truth is, there are so many unknowns that it could be something simple or a combination of issues.
-Andy
Rather than go into duplicate details here, Dr Pete did a post on just this a little while back.
Read it in all its glory here 
-Andy
Hi Anna,
It would be worth checking out Search Console and head into Search Traffic > Search Analytics.
You can then look at the Queries and see which terms are driving the most traffic - and those that are driving the least! Lots of other interesting information in there too.
-Andy
And this is absolutely correct for a business, but from what I understand, it is the page that all of these businesses sit on that Marina was referring to.
If I have this wrong and Marina is only looking to markup each business on a page, then this is what you would do and there is absolutely no issues with that.
-Andy
Hi Deborah,
I would be tempted to steer clear of option 2 and do what makes sense to Google (and visitors) and set the canonical tag to the city pages. You would only get the same amount of link juice passing for a canonical as you would for a 301, but this probably wouldn't make an awful lot of difference.
Option 1 is the logical implementation.
-Andy
Hi Becky,
It is very unlikely it will affect your rankings as I see many sites that offer this sort of thing on page load. However, I would make sure that it isn't one of these annoying ones that pops up on every page and ruins the user experience. If you drive people away, that is then a problem.
-Andy
Hi,
I haven't had to do this myself, but this guide in Google might help you outwith the Apple stuff?
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6095881?hl=en-GB
-Andy
No need to apologise Richard - We need Marina to confirm the structure
-Andy
Hi Kylie,
i can can understand your frustration here. A have had lots of clients in the same boat. Negative SEO seems to be quite prevalent.
i would just go through the disavow process and get rid of unnatural or problematic links. Google said they are pretty good at spotting when it's a target attack, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
-Andy
Hi,
I heard RSS Feed helps in ranking.
No, this is not a ranking factor. I have never heard of or seen any research about this either. Think about all the sites that rank exceptional wall without one.
Use it if you seed your content around, but don't think it will do anything for your SEO.
-Andy
It is frustrating as Google haven't told us what this is yet, which makes me think it's a change to the main ranking algorithm. All we do know, it is definitely isn't Penguin.
Some are saying search quality, others are saying it's local, but it is all just speculation right now, and we might never know for sure.
Have a read of this for a little more info: http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-algorithm-updates
If you look at your analytics, do you notice the same fluctuations there?
-Andy
Erwan is correct and this is probably how it is being done. Mechanical Turk, you can get almost anything done.
Very grey / black hat area, so walk away.
-Andy
Hi Marina,
Im afraid you cant do this. There is no page level markup for a page like this. You can add schema to the listings on the page though.
-Andy
Hi Amelia,
No, no need to do this. As long as you have a new sitemap in place, then just have Google index this one. If they are still indexing the old one, highlight and delete it and then point them to the new one.
-Andy
H Ryosuke,
No, Google wouldn't see this is duplication. Information like this is seen as supplementary, but necessary to the user experience. I have a number of clients with exactly the same, and none of them have ever had any issues.
Some sites like to have this information on each page, others like to add it as a pop-up / modal window or on a single page linked from the product pages. All are perfectly reasonable. I am sure if I searched around that I would find Google saying the same thing - they will understand what it is, and just essentially ignore it.
-Andy
Like we are coming up for the wrong search terms or something?
That is very strange Clojo. It there were no change, I wouldn't be bothered, but what you mention about the wrong search terms, you have me wondering if you are being seen for more, but perhaps the wrong phrases?
Have you looked in analytics at where people are dropping off the site? If you do a comparison of dates, you might be able to narrow it down a bit more.
-Andy
Hi Mark,
Can I ask if it is the domain name that is causing problems, or the content? Unless there is a real need to rebrand, I would look to explore other possibilities before jumping into a new domain - unless a rebrand is what you really want.
Edit- I forgot to add that there is no problem having a second site in Google either. I have 8 in total, because I use a single page design, and have no issues at all.
-Andy
Hi,
I just searched for the phrase "I Love Diamonds", and you were the 1st result that I saw. Are you referring to seeing something different?
-Andy
Hi John,
That is a big drop off!
The first question really, is if there have been any changes to the site recently? Any development, new pages, SEO work, content, link building, etc.?
Edit-- Sorry, just seen that you said no major changes to the site - but does this mean that there have been changes?
You mentioned that you have disavowed some links - if this was Penguin related, it could take a little while before you see any changes.
-Andy
Hi,
Well, the page is indexed by Google (just do a cache: before your URL) but useful indexing can take any amount of time. How old is the site / page?
I would also check your site in Open Site Explorer because it does show a rather high spam score and you might want to focus on building some links to your site as well.
There could be many other things going on, but I am guessing that having a low PA / DA is going to be a big factor for you.
-Andy
See how it goes in the next few days Clojo and if it doesn't settle down, perhaps start taking a look at the site in a little more detail. Perhaps the recent update pushed a button on your site for Google and they are reindexing?
Hard to tell at this stage sadly.
-Andy
Hi Miriam,
It's the one that was on the phone. Does everything I need
-Andy
Would a canonical tag be suitable for this?
Hi Liam,
Yes, you would use a canonical tag here to prevent the pages from competing with each other. This wont (shouldn't!) prevent them both appearing in the Google map results.
I hope this helps
-Andy
Hi Branden,
You are fine using images hosted elsewhere - this is a well-used way to speed up page load times. You will get no penalty for going this and it won't impact on-site SEO either.
-Andy
This is hugely dependent upon what you want to do. There is certainly no outright SEO benefit to doing this.
Personally, I don't like naked domains and much prefer the www. version.
Have a read of this to see if you can gain any additional information.
-Andy
Hi,
I just did a site:crocozino.io and I can see your homepage is actually indexed.
-Andy
Would it be suggested to create another elder law website to target the potential clients in this second location.
I wouldn't do this Donald. The way Google views this sort of thing is 'why produce it on a second website, when the first website would do just fine'. If there was a huge separation in industries, then yes, it would be advisable, but for this, I would keep it all within the same site.
-Andy
When a site doesn't rank for their brand, but has done previously, this can often be attributed to a penalty of some kind. I searched for "Smartpress" and didn't find them in the first 2 pages. However, this can also happen if they are a new site.
Other times this can happen, are when they brand themselves based on an already well-used industry terms that others are already ranking for. Imagine me calling myself "SEO Company" and hoping that would appear first because it was my brand? It wouldn't work this way.
Looking at the penalty possibility first, do you know if there have been any manual or algorithmic actions taken against the site? Does Google Analytics show you anything like this? Has their traffic dropped?
-Andy
Hi,
Do you mean that when you do cache:www.site.com that it shows no cache? Sorry, I don't quite understand.
-Andy
Hi,
For ease of use, I always try to advise that any link is updated if it is clear that it has been redirected, but unless the subject has changed, it really shouldn't make any difference.
If you have a link from your site to an article about breeding caterpillars and the target site then change this to something about feeding habits of polar bears, this is a link I would change.
Top and bottom line, if the link makes sense, you will be fine.
-Andy
My apologies, I didn't notice that there were 2 sites already in place. If I were starting from scratch, I would have kept everything under one site.
So lets ignore office 1 and concentrate on the second. I would not go adding additional pages to office 1 because you don't want to run into difficulties where you are trying to compete against yourself for the same terms. No harm in mentioning it, but don't try and compete.
Office 2 should have it's own set of skills, keywords, location and Google My Business page. My only concern is if Google sees two websites for one business like this. It shouldn't be a problem, but there is always an element of unknown with Google and if you tie these in together through Google My Business, you might draw additional attention.
-Andy
Absolutely 100% white - no shades of grey at all
All of my customer sites are SEO'd to match the Google guidelines and don't go close to anything that be classed as remotely grey (or black).
The things I find make the biggest difference, outside of ensuring the site is up to scratch, is the content. Being a copywriter, I often write entire knowledge bases for customer sites so they have a lot of unique content to share with their customers, via social media sites, to have mentioned in articles, for other sites to link to... the list goes on.
Part of this is down to the fact it is not written for the search engines, but very strong written words for visitors.
Many wont understand just what a difference this can make - coupled with a well put together site = good results.
Regards,
Andy
What Dave said.
/index.php, .html, .htm, .asp, et al, are all pretty much outdated now. Not in the way that the pages wont get spidered and indexed, but URL's are certainly much cleaner when they are like this page, for example:
http://moz.com/community/q/which-is-better-section-or-section-index-php
Looks much better than http://moz.com/community/q/which-is-better-section-or-section-index-php/index.php
-Andy
Hi Vic,
Where is this occurring when you see it? Is Google perhaps re-writing?
-Andy
Hi,
Occasionally you might see Google does this where they will return a URL and as part of the description, show a hashed anchor - but they won't show just an anchor as a result in its own right. It will always form part of the page that Google returns.
Worth doing if you think it might help usability but it wouldn't fit for every page and circumstance. Have seen it used to good effect, but am seeing less and less of these.
-Andy
**...this "might" cause our locations to get de-listed **
As I started reading, that was my exact thought.
Overlaps are going to happen from time to time with some listings, but you would have to try and keep it as clean as humanly possible, and where you think an overlap might happen, you could consider removing it to avoid issues. Losing one listing by your own hand, is better than losing the lot to Google.
I haven't had to deal with something quite as large as this in the past, but there are similarities with other clients that spring to mind.
Someone else might pop along with additional ideas or examples for you.
-Andy
Hi Andi,
If you think about it, external links are normally outside of your control, so Google is unlikely to penalise for this. There are more than 3,000 links to one of my customers and so many are the same phrase, but never has there been any problem in 10 years. However, variety is good wherever possible.
With your institutional site, is it hosted on the same server? Is the server your own or is it a shared resource?
If you are noticing what is known as "Google Dance" (yo-yo of positions), then this often happens until Google has decided where to place you.
Regards,
Andy
Google said some time ago that sites with hyphens in are more of a spam signal to them - more so with .com's
That said, your URL will have no impact on SEO at all. If you were a brand, then there are benefits to doing this then. I would also drop the -nv at the end (unless that isn't available).
-Andy
I am making use of subdomains more and more and the thing I love, is that they start to rank much more quickly.
There has been a lot of discussion on this recently, and one very similar to this whereby there was a requirement to create a branded experience, but something that wasn't wholly in-keeping with the rest of the site.
The result was that subdomains were build to great effect. Because of the way they work, you can gain a lot of leverage from the primary site and people recognise that they haven't been shifted off somewhere else.
There is less of an argument to go with sub folders today.
-Andy
Another vote for noindexing tags.
They serve very little (no real) benefit for SEO and cause more headaches than anything else. I never really want to see tags indexing and competing with primary internal pages that actually carry the information I want people to find.
Use them, but just don't index them.
-Andy
Hi Chad,
Option 'C' would be the wrong way of doing this, as would 'B'
You need to build the site and then have a page per location. Make the pages very specific about the location and add things in there about travel, directions from different places, landmarks, etc., as well as address and other contact details. The more specific and targeted the page, the better for your client and SEO.
-Andy
So here's a silly thought... Why not build all sites with White hat content and techniques that we know work, and then see who wins?
Look, at the end of the day, there are those that are successful (very) following all guidelines to a tee, have nothing but a string of successes without ever having to tread on territory that comes even close to unethical.
There simply is no need. I am not going to deny that there are black hat techniques that work and might not get found, but why would you take that chance when there is a White hat way of achieving the same results? Results that are going to continue to pay long term.
I haven't actually done this myself, but I suspect that pattern matching is your solution here.
However, what you want to be able to do is disallow the whole pattern and then allow just the first page:
Allow: /?p=1
Disallow: /?p=*
The thing I don't have the answer to, is if this will work by first allowing the page 1, and then blocking all others. I don't have a method for this in blocking via robots as this is normally handed with other solutions you mention.
You can try it though through Webmaster tools:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156449?hl=en
-Andy