You're welcome. Good luck and you know where to find me if you have any additional questions
-Andy
Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
You're welcome. Good luck and you know where to find me if you have any additional questions
-Andy
You're very welcome
-Andy
Hi Scott,
Just a little tip for you - set a Google Alert for your brand name, URL or title that others will use to link to you, and then when they appear, you will get an e-mail from Google - this is normally a much faster way to approach discovery.
But as Donna said, no one place will report everything linking to you as they have limited resources to go off and crawl the web. The best thing to do is gather resources from different locations and collate them (MOZ, Search Console, Ahrefs & Majestic).
-Andy
There - you can see how often I have worked on IIS servers
No, you need to redirect all URLs...
Have a read of this on using the change of address tool in Google.
-Andy
Hi Rob,
Always worthwhile - from an SEO perspective, it might only be a small benefit, but lots of small benefits do add up.
It also helps if someone clicks on a link and is taken to the page that is indicated rather than being redirected somewhere else.
-Andy
The change of address in GWT only handles domain to domain moves and wouldn't understand how to handle this. If Product.com was moving to Brand.com, then you would be correct to use this then.
What you are doing using the 301's is correct.
-Andy
Hi Christopher,
If all you are talking about is a few thousand pages, I wouldn't worry about it. Google handles enormous sites that have hundreds of thousands of pages added and removed with huge frequency. I can't think of any reason why this would be a negative hit if all you are doing is correcting your content.
-Andy
Hi Justen,
It wouldn't make a huge difference in terms of what it will do for you. Irrespective of language, Google will look at where a link comes from and it might do something for you (but it might not as well), but I really wouldn't worry.
If these links are being earned as opposed to you going out after them, then sit back and watch them roll in. If you are going after links yourself, then as long as some (most?) of the sites make sense to your audience, then again, you are good.
-Andy
I tend to follow the rule of thumb that states, if you have a close match to a page being removed, then setup a 301 there. If not, it is better to remove it altogether and give it a 410 (Gone) rather than a 404 (Not Found).
I hope that helps a little.
-Andy
Hi Becky,
If the links are justified, don't worry. I have clients with 3-400 and no problems with their positions in Google.
That doesn't mean to say it will be the same case for everyone though - each site is different and sometimes you can have too many, but just think it through and if you come to the conclusion that most of the links aren't needed and are stuffing keywords in, then look to make changes.
But on the whole, it doesn't sound like an issue to me - there are no hard and fast rules around this.
-Andy
Hi Niall,
I don't do much detoxing anymore and wouldn't like to comment on which are good/bad tools. However, I have Tweeted this question out to Marie Haynes and I am sure she will chip in if she can offer any help on this one.
-Andy
Hi Jack,
I used Screaming Frog Spider to run the report, which is still going and up to about 9k pages so far.
-Andy
Hi Susan,
First of all, I would want to know what is causing the duplication before I would advise on how best to handle it.
Is it that you have pages that are both www and non-www?
For example, do you have http://newgreenair.com/website/blog/ and http://www.newgreenair.com/website/blog/?
-Andy
Yep the latter makes perfect sense, but so many sites are scared of offering post opportunities because of what is going on with Google, that there are not many that will do it. Those that do are unlikely to be offering do-follow links.
I would try things like Help a Reporter Out and getting in with Journalists to get good inclusion. This is more like PR than it is link building.
Andy
Great stuff. Hop back if you are still having problems
-Andy
Hi Rich,
Don't nofollow for the sake of it. If a link is paid for, then yes, you should nofollow this, but that is probably one of the very few occasions i would suggest you do it.
Perhaps if you have written a blog post and then were asked to inject a link into it, then I would be tempted to nofollow that, but I wouldn't do it to try and retain link juice - that isn't really a tactic these days.
Google wants to see you link to sites externally, as long as it is called for - this will help show your authority as well.
-Andy
Hi Simon,
When was the ad placed? If it was recently, it might just not be picked up by anything as yet.
What are you using to look for back-link data? If it is OSE or similar, remember that they don't have every site and page in their own database, so might just not be crawled as yet.
-Andy
Well, as I said, open the forum up to Google, but no-one can give a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no impact to the main from Google. It's unlikely to cause issues, but that is as much of a guarantee as I could give.
-Andy
Hi,
Is there anything going on in Google that might lead you to think that there is a problem in this respect?
Remember that MOZ is going to report things for you to take a look at and much prefers to report this than gloss over it. This doesn't actually mean that there is a problem, just something you need to be aware of.
I have clients who have sites with lots of uses of the same word which can sound spammy if they are all close together, but if they are spread out and make sense to be there, then it won't be classed as stuffing. If your Title, H1 and content need this word in because it is needed to explain the page and product, then don't try and find ways to miss it out because chances are, you won't be penalised for it.
A little tip I have for content, is to have a text-->voice reader read it back to me. OK it is in a synthesized voice, but you can pick with your ears, what your eyes miss. It is a great aid to help you listen to how it really sounds.
-Andy
It's hard to say Simon. That is something only Moz could answer for you.
What data is your marketing department after? If it's click-throughs, then you will be better setting it up as a click event to be tracked in Google Analytics.
-Andy
Copyscape throws the same up as you have there - your YouTube page.
Perhaps consider a revision of this on YouTube?
-Andy
Well looking at that page Simon, I see lots of scrolling adverts, but if you want some page data, head over to SEMrush and enter that URL.
Any more questions, just ask
-Andy
First of all, a subdomain structure has no negative effect on the SEO or that page, or a complete site, but it has to be done right. However, there are many factors that could come into play here, such as "what would Google think if they did a manual review of the site and subdomains?"
If your feeling is that they look like very obvious attempts at SEO, then yes, do something about it, but using subdomains is sometimes necessary. I use about 8 subdomains for my site, but that is because I use a single page design so I am limited in my options.
That said, I have some great rankings for these, with many 1st page and top 3-4. This is because I can create a site (subdomain) that is very highly targeted.
Not many will take this route for SEO though - there generally isn't the need. You can normally do just as good a job with a normal site structure.
-Andy
Hi Gary,
Usually, if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is - and this is why no-one else really recommends or uses these sorts of services. If anyone gets wind of what is going on, you are the ones who will suffer.
You are also having to entrust your brand to someone who doesn't know about you as a butcher - it can be a dangerous game... be very careul how you play it.
My advise, walk away.
Regards,
Andy
Have a look around many other sites, and they all do the same. Do a search for something in Google and then change the case of anything after the domain. Microsoft is the same. I am sure that there are examples that will 404 these requests, and that will then be a server side setting.
I really wouldn't worry about that though. MOZ is the same as well. Upper or lower case will give you the same page. in the last 15 years of SEO, I have never come across this as an issue
-Andy
Yes, I would create separate accounts if you have different brands and services to allow people to distinguish between your offerings.
Hi Paul,
For anything like this, I would always suggest that you nofollow the image links simple because they are not 'earned'.
I couldn't tell you what others are doing or if not nofollowing has had any impact, but from a safety point of view, nofollow is the way to go here.
Would google have a problem if not? Hard to say because they might recognise what is going on, but I tend to err on the side of caution here.
-Andy
I wouldn't have done it quite like that. This is how it shows on one of my sites.
rel="publisher" href="https://plus.google.com/105905172195613766757/"/>
Does your authorship work when you test it in the structured data testing tool?
-Andy
I dont use Addthis, but do you not have an admin area to track clicks?
Try and always keep Social up high where possible, unless it isn't feasible
It's hard to say with any certainty because you need to have a look and test, but these normally occur due to a malformed rewrite of some sort.
Sorry for being a bit vague but it's one of those things that is hard to address fully.
-Andy
Getting the publisher markup to work is much more important than HTML validation. One is going to have a bearing on many factors, whereas the other will make no difference at all.
-Andy
Hey James,
From what I can gather from Google on this, a business page can be set as the rel publisher from the homepage only, and subsequent pages assigned to an individual for authorship.
However, I wouldn't worry about transferring social accounts over as you can, if you wish, just add these as links which will show in the G+ business page About, including a link to your website.
As long as Google can see the 'circle-of-trust' from your site, to your G+ account and back again, then all is good.
Perhaps I haven't been watching or taking notice, but I cant see I have ever seen a brand picked up as an author for anything.
Hope this helps,
Andy
Hi Edward,
It all depends on the microdata added and how quickly Google picks it up but as long as there are no issues, you should find Google returning results with additional information in the SERPs or with a better understanding of your site and pages. Timescale is always an unknown though.
-Andy
I love doing audits as they allow you to see the things that don't work, and the things that need work.
When an audit is completed, you end up with a very clear roadmap of what you need to do in order to correct issues. Jane and Donna have both covered pretty much all of the points.
What I particularly like, is finding those areas that might otherwise go unchecked and only performing an audit will reveal them. I end up with a long list of checks, and as I go through them, they pass or fail. If they fail, how can they be corrected.
OK, they can end up very long, but I still see them as one of the most comprehensive studies any site owner can have completed.
-Andy
I think that most would see this as a spammy way to communicate. I have seen these before and all I do is delete them.
You may get a small amount of success, but it's the same as the Twitter invites - they get looked on as spam by just about everyone who receives them.
Andy
Hi Fabrizio,
Yes, and no.
I have seen this work in the past and I have also seen it make no difference. My feeling these days is that no-indexing doesn't solve the issue, even while being worked on, as I have seen more occurrences of it not working.
How big a problem are you trying to deal with? I did help a company with 37k pages recover from Panda a while ago, but we have to do some pretty hefty trimming of the site in order to get it back into good shape again. There issue was that thousands of pages all had big pieces of the same content on many similar pages, so we cut out a lot of the problem areas and pulled the site into something that resembled a bit more sense.
-Andy
It's a little awkward to tell as there is no URL to look at, but if Google is finding their way around your site, you can guess they probably have no issues.
Remember that Google is good at finding their way around Javascript menus, so these day, pretty much anything goes.
Just keep links natural, easy to follow and descriptive. You don't want to be trying anything spammy at this level.
-Andy
Unless there is an actual address associated with the business, then Google will remove it. It won't even get as far as being accepted I'm afraid. They also don't let you use a PO Box.
However, you could think about renting an address? Some business complexes have this facility available.
Andy
Confirmation from Google here to limit the links on a page to 3000
https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/news/google-webmaster-hangout-notes-friday-8th-july-2016/
I would consider that to be a lot though
-Andy
Hi Dylan,
When you upload a sitemap, you get the option to state which one, and the location. If you were to upload your own and then point to it, this should be fine. Just remember to either remove the auto-generated one and never add it.
Are you able to add to the robots file? If so, you can point to your site map in there too. However, if this is already in, don't add your own otherwise Google will see two and inconsistencies will occur.
Are they unwilling to turn this off for you?
-Andy
Time and effort is really about it Mihaly.
You said you are adding content and building links slowly, so carry on doing this.
Something I would suggest (if you don't already) is to get yourself onto Google+ and start adding the content you are writing on there. To give you an example, I can have a blog article 1st page within 10 minutes - I love Google+
But there isn't really any quick solution to this. Keep writing great content, share it and build links carefully. It is also useful to do some competition analysis and see what those sites above you are doing.
Andy
I honestly wouldn't worry Becky. The page looks fine, the links look fine and it is certainly not what you would call spammy,
Link crafting was a 'thing' a number of years ago, but today Google pretty much ignores this, as has been shown many times in testing.
However, you can benefit from internal links, but that is a different discussion. Read this if you are interested.
If you are interested, there is a round-table discussion on eCommerce SEO hosted by SEMrush on Thursday and that could be useful to you? Myself and 2 others will be talking on a number of issues.
-Andy
Hi Dylan,
I haven't worked much with the technical side of Shopify, so wasn't aware of this. Very prohibitive though.
I hope you can get this sorted OK.
-Andy
Try and avoid doing this because at the point Google catches on to what is happening, penalties will be handed out.
Just concentrate on writing blog posts and building links the natural way. It can be time consuming, but think about the articles you write and try and make them something completely unique that people will want to link to.
Also have a read of this post and watch the video from Matt Cutts
http://www.inetseo.co.uk/seo/what-links-do-google-want-to-see/2012/10
Andy
Hi Dave,
I'm struggling to understand your scenario. So are you looking to have all searches result in landing on pages within one domain, or will they remain on their respective domains?
-Andy
Hi Paul,
There are many things this could mean to Ahrefs, so I can only really suggest contacting their own support to get the real meaning of what this is. I could make educated guesses, but they could still be wrong and would hate to misinform you.
-Andy
Not if you are trying to promote the blog post, which is what is sounds like you are trying to do. Remember, you don't want to be taking content and duplicating it anywhere.
Literally, just copy the URL, add a short but unique snippet to the post, and then paste the URL in and hit submit.
Andy