Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Issa,

There are actually very few reasons to noindex / nofollow pages these days as most issues can be handed though 301 or canonical, so if there is an option that allows this, do it.

From what you are saying, and as long as I am understanding correctly, this is just like an e-commerce site that has page 1, page 2, page 3, etc of the same product, and they all rel=canonical back to Page 1 - which is the right thing to do.

This tells Google that you know there is duplications and not to pay any attention to them, so while they are open for Google to see, it means that you won't get penalised.

So you have Job 1, Job 2, Job 3, etc, with a rel=canonical back to Job 1.

Here is a little extra reading from Google:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en

I hope that helps?

-Andy

If you change signals, Google will pick them up. They much prefer to see change than content being incorrectly handled.

-Andy

Hi Jaro,

Head into search console and use the Temporary Remove URL tool - this should work pretty quickly. The next time Google comes around to that page, they should see the NOINDEX flag and not re-index it.

-Andy

Hi Jay,

Anyone know if Panda may target this type of approach even if the quality and uniqueness is appropriate?

No, this doesn't sound to me like Panda at all.

You mention they have microsites and blogs in operation - presumably this has been done to try and rank for additional phrases? I can't see many other reasons why this would be done.

My opinion here is to pull both the microsites and blogs back in and just create a blog on their own site (if they don't already have one). I wouldn't bother 301ing any external sites / posts back to those they might want to re-published on their current site either. You need to be advising them to start from scratch and ditch the chaff. If these external sites have all had a part to play in their current problems, then I would just distance yourself from them altogether.

...they all feature content that's of the same industry and broad topic

When looking at their own site, you need to also be advising them not to create blogs posts for the sake of it. Rather than creating 4-5 articles a week, tell them to create just 1 or two really high quality (and longer) articles weekly.

I hope this helps.

-Andy

Hi Eric,

There isn't a framework as such for internal linking but a silo structure would make the most sense as Justen has already said.

It is important to know what you want to do first of all though - don't just have a site with lots of blogs and randomly add links through to other internal pages. Understand what you want to do - use something like MindMup to help you visualise what you are trying to achieve.

You can check out your Search Console account to have a look at how your site is currently linked - Under Search Traffic, choose Internal Links.

-Andy

Hi Ankit,

All is not lost, but it all depends on the time you have to put in to correcting it.

Have you ever tried to fix the issues with Panda? There is a wealth of information available out there - here are a couple of Google ones to read:

• eConsultancy
• Moz

Remember that Panda focuses on thin and duplicate content, which translates to low quality, so if you think that you have ways to correct this, there is no reason you can't pull the traffic back.

-Andy

It sounds like there were some big changes on the site, so I would guess that the sudden jump and then subsequent loss might be Google deciding where it should be indexed. Has it been removed from the SERPs altogether or just dropped down to a lower position?

It wouldn't strike me as being anything else, but things to check...

• Use Screaming Frog to do a crawl of your site and see if there are any glaring errors.
• Use DeepCrawl to do the same and see if there are any additional issues found
• Check all redirects are correctly implemented
• Check to make sure there is no page duplication / keyword cannibalisation going on
• Are all canonical elements in place?
• Has anything been blocked in Robots.txt?
• Does the .htaccess file contain code that doesn't resolve redirections correctly?

-Andy

Hi Isabelle,

The general rule of thumb here, is that if a page has moved, you should always 301 it to it's new alternative, but only if there is one - don't try and match pages unless they are very similar, or as in your case, just moved to a different URL.

If you have internal links to the old URL, this should be updated to reflect the new page. A rebuilt sitemap should be given to Google once this has all been done.

With regards what to do with pages that get no traffic, that it a bit of a different question. My feeling on dead pages is to try and make them better than remove them to get traffic. No need to get rid of a page if there is a chance to use it.

-Andy

Hi,

This is quite common for sites that are hacked and you then end up with these really strange spam links pointing to you.

The good news is, this won't do any harm to you. The bad news is, it's virtually impossible to stop someone else linking to you - especially so if it's a hacked site.

I would advise just keeping an eye on them and if you think it's a problem, just disavow the sites that are linking to you.

-Andy

Hi Shalu,

If Google is adding your brand name to the end of a page title, that is probably because it is something that they suggest. As a general rule of thumb, I tend to follow this format for page titles:

• Homepage: Brand Name | Title Description
• All other pages: Title Description | Brand Name

Brand is important to Google, but might be worth having a read though their best practices on page titles here.

However, if it is more than that, then I would suggest looking at what is being changes and why this might be - it could be that what you have written isn't descriptive enough for the page and Google is trying to make it better.

-Andy

Hi,

One way to do this is to decide which site is going to be the main site (site A) sat on C and copy this data over. If you are bringing in site B, then this can sit at another structure level - you will end up with this...

Site A --> Site C, main pages
Site B --> Site C, product pages

That then brings in everything from both sites to the new domain.

You then want to redirect both of the old sites to the new one, but don't redirect everything to the root. That isn't a good use of 301 mapping. You need to be mapping on a page level so that you will see...

www.sitea.com/about us -301- www.sitec.com/aboutus
www.siteb.com/newproducts/hammers -301- www.sitec.com/newproducts/hammers

There can be differences in the URL's - you don't need to stick with the same structure as the other sites if it doesn't make sense, but always map pages to something very similar.

Page level is the only way to go if you want to maintain a seamless transition for users as well.

Also, don't expect to hit a switch and do this all at once. You can do this over a period of time because to the user, they will just be redirected to the new pages. You will retain more link juice like this.

This is quite a lengthy process and I am sure I have missed the in-between bits, but this is the basis of what you want to be doing.

Others might chip in with other suggestions for you.

-Andy

I've read every blog on the planet and now maybe too much info

You would be surprised how easy it is to actually fall into that trap. Because there are so many 'experts', everyone has an opinion on how best to SEO a website. It is actually easier that you might realise if you pull yourself back to basics and follow some best practice guidelines on both SEO and user experience (something often overlooked).

The reason you need to consider user experience (UX) is because what is the point in getting traffic to your site if all it does it bounce back off again? There are often reasons for this that include:

• Lack of descriptive page title
• Lack of descriptive Meta Description
• Primary information buried away in too much content
• Call to action not clear
• Uninteresting pages filled with 'waffle'
• Content not broken up into usable paragraphs on pertinent information
• Badly written content

The list goes on...

Remember, you are aiming to get the right traffic to your page - not just any traffic...

For the keyword research, that is a very important aspect because it allows you to not only focus on primary keywords, but also look at alternative related words and phrases that will support the page. For this, Google's keyword planner is pretty basic.

Remember that with content, you are competing amongst billions of other pages for a decent rank, so you have to make sure your content is as good as it can be. Look at what is winning for your desired phrases and see if you can spot why Google is giving this more prominence and then aim to make yours even better - but remember not to copy. Plagiarism will be dealt with by a slap from Google.

I hope this helps a little.

-Andy

Hi,

Is the .net still live? You should have advised Google in GWT of the change of address and then setup 301's to redirect pages. Do you know if any of this has been done?

There is a very useful Google article on the process here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

-Andy

Then Google has clearly approved of what you have and ranked accordingly. As 'activity super' said, spend a little time enhancing the product page. Do a little sharing on Google+ and make sure that everything is as good as it possibly can be within the page. See if you can get some backlinks to that page as well.

Andy

Hi,

There is no problem running more than 1 business from the same address. Look at all the thousands of office complexes around the World that house multiple businesses.

The only time I would be concerned would be if the same products are being offered from both, or duplication of pages.

-Andy

Google uses the IP of the server hosting the site as one way of delivering that content to the correct target areas. So in short, yes, this is a problem and one that you need to resolve.

It is an SEO tactic that is used if you are country specific and want to target other locations.

Regards,

Andy

Hi peeps,

I am just interested in this from a usability POV and to see what you would prefer to see when you are met with a page that has multiple options. Lets say that the page looks like a list of services, each clearly marked out in its own segment, but there are 50-60 options that match your requirements.

Do you like to keep scrolling, or would you prefer to take what is there and then move on if you feel you want to dig deeper? Would you like to see a long list, of have the options loaded in as you get to them?

-Andy

With a budget like that, you could write so much great content - and this is what it's all about at the end of the day.

Start with having buckets of content written for the site, for articles, blog posts, etc., and then move on to sharing and then link-building. With so much great content, you will be able to show potential sites this content that they can link to.

Share it all around the social platforms as well - perhaps look at getting a video or two created as well.

As long as they don't have problems such as Panda or Penguin to deal with, then just employ some marginal on-page techniques for the site itself - Meta, Titles, internal links, etc.

Andy

Egol has pretty much hit the nail on the head.

You have a big old mess there and you don't want to end up doing more damage than good - it is easily done!

Now the content is different enough that Google doesn't seem to notice that its the SAME FREEKIN THING on each domain, but I am very concerned. The company has their main multi-page domain which has other links and sources of traffic, but in essence the previous owner created a micro link web.

That there is a big problem - link networks, as that is what this basically is, are a huge headache and I can only assume it is because it is poor quality, that Google hasn't found it yet. However, they probably will at some point so you want to back out of that as soon as possible.

Am I right in thinking that we have to build a bridge before we burn a bridge?

Yes... And no. If you get this bit wrong and suddenly Google becomes aware of what is going on in the background, you will bring them down on you quicker than you can take the sites offline. I am guessing that 99.9% of these sites have no reason to be there? If that is the case, I would be looking at a structured takedown / decommission.

Is it worth fixing up some of those other domains to have original content to try and bolster what we already have?

Probably not. If the content is how you describe it, Google has probably already made their mind up about the site and trying to fix a site of poor quality, can sometimes be an uphill battle because you are starting at a negative score. That said, it is difficult to advise exactly on this. You want to get out of this whole link network though.

Would it be better to combine everything into one website, or try and have different domains represent different things. For example Envato.com is an umbrella website with 8 separate websites operating under the same roof using different domains.?

Trying to combine the 'fluff' content of 1000 sites into a primary domain could seal your fate. I would advise heavily against doing this. Perhaps there are some sites with decent content on them that could be used to make up a blog post, but you would have to be careful about checking to see if was indexed before placing it elsewhere.

Where do I begin? I feel like I have started this project numerous times. I know the keywords, I know where the duplicate content is, I know the structure of the main domain, I am getting the structure of the entire link web.

I wouldn't want to advise incorrectly on this, but I would guess you need to look to start a structured takedown of the network, but you must handle this carefully. Either that or distancing the main site by removing links from the network to the primary domain.

I hope this helps a little.

-Andy

Whoever you choose, it is important to ask how much of the work they do will be outreach. Ask how they do it and hopefully they will say they sometimes pick up the phone to talk to the person responsible.

They should also be advising on why someone will want to link to you. Do you have genuine benefits you can offer to someone? If not yet, get them written / added.

As Egol said, steer well clear of anyone who you even think outsources their work. This will spell the end before you even start, and insist on updates weekly if they are not in the office.

There are some good link builders out there - finding them can be a little more awkward.

-Andy

Just about every site when starting out gets an initial boost - I have seen this dozens of times. You appear quite highly ranked for a while and then suddenly drop.

This is nothing more than Google putting the site where it really belongs. I wouldn't worry about it at all, but this is quite common. If you think about it, Google placing a site first page in just a few short months is pretty much unheard of.

I can't imagine that the addition of links at this early stage would be responsible for the drop as the site is still young.

Just keep concentrating on good (non reciprocal) links from trusted sites and keep the content flowing.

Regards,

Andy

Hi Toby,

I can't see any problem with that then.

In terms of the external links, just make sure they are not keyword heavy. It is much more beneficial if the link is not going to fall into the trap of over optimised.

Here are some examples for you:

• Brand name/Brand-keyword hybrid
• Partial and broad match
• Non-descriptive
• URLs
• Other (completely different from the targeted keyword)

-Andy

By buckets of content, I'm not referring to $5 pieces penned by would-be copywriters - Sorry, never thought to clarify that

However, putting all your eggs in one basket is something of a no-no. Would I ever recommend a client spend thousands on one article? There comes a point of diminishing returns and that will get hit. However, have a couple of hundred amazing articles written and cast your net out to catch as many fish as possible.

Also worth remembering that Google has cottoned on to infographics and you don't get the same from them now. Too many have been created to the point of saturation.

However, videos are great and I have seen many SERP increases just by placing a video on a page.

No, it still wouldn't change anything for me, but remember, there are no rules around this, only etiquette.

Re-tweeting her Tweets is one of the points I mentioned above

I would keep it subtle and not rush to try and gain her attention. She isn't going to unfollow you because you didn't say welcome, but I would start to engage with her.

Andy

Pretty much everything William said.

If you do notice your rankings fluctuating, this is just the Google Dance - every new site sees it and you will appear higher to start with and drop when Google figures where you should be placed.

I would suggest using the webmaster tools, get a sitemap in there and get it submitted. I know there are always going to be horror stories and coincidences and people will start worrying, but if you do everything right, you really have no need to

Andy

No, that's not correct. Think about the way link juice flows as well. Remember that it is the professionals who say neither of these practices are good. If you want a good strong SEO position, you need to avoid these practices.

Just to add my 2c in

I remember a while back that Google said they don't like page titles that change, and I would be tempted to not change these to something seasonal that you then have to change back again.

There is absolutely no harm in creating new pages though (as Tim said). Write new pages that focus on seasonal products and then link these internally as they will help you create strong 'hub' pages. Have a read of this fantastic article from eConsultancy.

-Andy

Hi,

First of all, it isn't imperative to have any keywords in a URL to appear 1st, or indeed, anywhere in the URL. There are circumstances it will help, but it isn't imperative. How well your site matches the content of the pages is going to be key for you. Google is always going to be looking for a site that is going to be seen as an authority on the subject.

To answer your question, if you just buy a domain and then forward it, the domain that is just forwarded will not appear in Google at all. The only time there will be a forward, is when someone types the domain in exactly.

it sounds like they have a good domain that is old and will have lots of history attached to it. I would start to look at penalties, what has happened at specific dates and see if you can come up with a correlation. There is always a reason, and there is no reason why they cannot rank again.

-Andy

Hi Carlos,

The best measure of how well a site is doing, is when you look at the positions in the SERPs and how much traffic they are getting.

As far as I am aware, if a site is penalised, MOZ has no way to tell this, so it is not going to be reflected in their own stats (someone correct me if I am wrong here).

-Andy

Google is very hot on content and usability, and reading only the first page, I would approach a good copywriter and have them re-write what you have there. This will give it a fresh feel and correct grammar problems - this will be causing you problems without a doubt.

Don't worry about trying to correct or even look at other potential on-page issues until this has been fixed. It would be a pretty pointless exercise.

-Andy

Hi Rickus,

As long as you remember the https --> http redirects and changing any canonicals, you really shouldn't see any issues. There is no advantage or disadvantage to one over the other either way. Check out this MOZ post on best practice redirection for hints.

That said, do remember that Google will treat this like a completely new site and with it, you might see some bouncing around of positions in the SERPs while everything is settling down again. That might be completely unavoidable.

-Andy

Just one piece of advise is very hard to give, because there are so many aspects to look at. It really isn't as simple as "do this to win".

Read the link that Dirk has given you, but also have a look at these resources.

• Information from analysing 1-million articles
• How to get more shares to your content
• How long should a blog post be

You need to make sure your content is something more than those others out there. There is no point in writing an article that is 500 words on the economics of a country, and then wonder why it wont rank if it carries nothing more than any other article.

That said, there are many situations where short content can be just as popular. For example, if you had found a cure for Alzheimers, then I am sure that would be shared and ranked very high and very quickly without it needed to be thousands of words. Links would flow to it and shares would be through the roof! It's all about being fresh, being different or offering something more that hasn't been said before, or if it has, then enhanced upon that so that people have a reason to read and share it.

Just keep in mind, you never want to write for Google - keep it 100% user-orientated, and you should do well.

-Andy

Hi Bruce,

This is the first place to start your reading: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo. One of the most comprehensive beginners guides you will find.

With your link building, read the section in the guide on this before going out to try and acquire them.

-Andy

Just hold fire - it normally takes 2- 3 weeks but I have known it to take a bit longer. If it takes more than another 2-3 weeks,you can always request another to be sent in case it's been lost.

-Andy

This is correct. There is more and more use of subdomains and I make great use of these myself. I use just a single page design for my site, so have 8 other subdomains, each with a unique site and content on them. I find that I am able to get the sites ranked well within about a week to 10 days.

Look at www.inetseo.co.uk and then at linkbuilding.inetseo.co.uk.

Google certainly don't treat a subdomain like a new site any more.

-Andy

Hi Kelly,

Fist of all, there is always going to be a drop off of some sort when you 301 one site to another, but I don't know how OSE will report this. I would also suspect that the DA will update when Moz gets around to crawling your site again - but I don't know how long this will take.

-Andy

I just want to add a word of caution for you here Zora.

Google doesn't like it if you use one site to pull traffic, only to try and push it elsewhere. Each site needs to sit on its own merits.

However, if you want to take content from newsite.com so it is more usable as a tool for visitors to oldsite.com, then either a subdomain or oldsite.com/newsite will both work. I would probably favour the latter myself so you are not seen to be taking traffic from one place to try and move it to another.

Just remember to 301 pages from newsite.com to oldsite.com/newsite or newsite.oldsite.com so there is no duplicate content left anywhere.

I think I have that right

Andy

Hi Sophie,

There are no definitive guidelines on this, but many follow a rule that there should be at least 200 words of quality copy (as a minimum) per page, but I certainly wouldn't be looking to go lower than this.

As for strategies, what is it you are trying to achieve? Higher positions in Google? Improving the readability? To gain conversions?

-Andy

Hi Monica,

It is horrible when that happens - just to check, have you secured the site now to prevent unauthorised access?

With regards the external anchor texts, these are going to be picked up by what the MOZ crawler finds, but it won't be an instant change. The crawler will have to revisit all of these sites to see links that have changed.

Don't worry about these still being shown in MOZ - it will take time, but if you still find external links to you, just build a disavow list.

Have you noticed any drop in the SERPs?

-Andy

Hi James,

I have done this for a few clients now and noticed no change for them. You certainly shouldn't be dropped just for a change of address (even updating on directories) - they handle this sort of thing all the time with businesses moving.

-Andy

I just ran a very quick scan of your site and you have thousands of blog and category pages.

There is a chance because of this that you are seeing a penalty - This is just one of the pages: http://www.calibersi.com/category/Vehicle-Graphics?page=1904

I would start by having a quick look at how the site / blog is setup and seeing if there is anything glaringly obvious there.

-Andy

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I would stay clear of sub-domains if you can Zora. As far as I am aware, Google still views these as a separate entity, so keep everything under the same umbrella which is oldsite.com

Andy

Hi Tom,

Internal linking is hugely powerful when done correctly. I would most certainly look at this as a way to guide Google to key pages, but it doesn't mean that every page must have a link to another internal page, as this can also work against you.

Basically the HP is also targeting these same keywords and I was wondering if this is affecting our rankings overall

Yes, this can cause issues. I would never suggest that any two pages duplicates, not just the homepage.

It can help to also get links to inner pages as this allows page rank to be topped up from a different point.

But be careful how keywords are used throughout the site. Pull all pages into a spreadsheet along with the page title so ou can see how this is used and if there are any that are very similar and if others need changing to be more targeted.

Have a read of this from Rand too...
https://moz.com/blog/keyword-targeting-density-and-cannibalization-whiteboard-friday

-Andy

Hi Max,

That's one helluva question!

OK, so breaking it up...

I was wondering how the seo for an e-commerce site might compare to the seo for a blog or information based site

SEO is SEO, no matter what type of site you have, and the key is sticking with best practice at every step of the way. Aside from the issues the e-commerce sites send to fall foul of (duplication, cannibalisation, et al), then it is really just a case of making sure every 'i' is dotted and 't' is crossed. Your content on the site looks to be pretty unique, so you have this going for you. I haven't run a crawl on the site, so not sure if there are issues lurking beneath the hood or not. Keep a close eye on use of canonicals to help avoid duplication.

Should you try and rank for similar terms, the same generic terms, or complelty unique terms for the best seo? Or should every page try and rank for different terms,

Every page on the site needs to target its own unique phrase to avoid keyword duplication / cannibilisation and to ensure you don't have different pages trying to compete for the same phrases.

And how many keywords or search terms should I try and rank a particular product page for?

Just one per page. Keep it descriptive but remember to tag it with your brand. This will indicate to Google that you are focussed clearly on that phrase for that page. In the page itself, don't spam that phrase though. Make use of synonyms, explanations and tech specs where needed. Go all out on content as this will be one of your biggest winners.

How do I find out what are my best, most highly converting, most profitable keywords overtime for Google?

You can use the Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to give you an idea on what you should target. There is a very good article here on MOZ that explains about undertaking Keyword Research and another here on Backlinko. Keyword Spy is another good one that is free with paid options, as is Keyword Eye.

My domain authority has decreased by 3 this week, this is the first time it has gone down since I started with Moz a few months back, can anyone explain why? And how this will affect the rankings ect, and how I can get it back up higher agian?

Start by reading how MOZ calculate these scores. But I suspect back-links are going to be the biggest factor here. Someone might chip in with more precise details on this.

**And for linking and brand mentions, what are the goals of this feature? Should I find my mentions and ask them to talk about us more and link to us properly? I'm not sure if this is right. **Should I be asking other websites to make links to our pages, or should it be organic?

Link building / Outreach / Link Acquisition - whatever you want to call it, it amounts to the same - getting a link from another site. The ideal solution here is look at your product and think who would be interested in this, then make contact with them.

Linkbuilding is a huge subject that I could write a small book on, but you need to keep it clean - don't beg for links and make sure a link has a good reason to be sat on another site, and never buy links - you will come unstuck.

And for the insights section, I am recieveing tons of issues a lot to do with duplicate content, will having the rel=carnocial tag fix these issues?

It should do, but without looking at the site myself, it's difficult to say with any certainty if this is all that is going on.

Hope this helps

-Andy

Unfortunately this is still in the 'Planned' stage. You can follow the request here:

https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/20199538-is-there-a-way-i-could-add-another-user-to-access-my-pro-account

Edit - Carlos beat me to it

-Andy

I have to say that for myself, I would never go anywhere close to black hat (or grey) with a website belonging to a customer. There is too much at stake, including my own reputation!

it is more than possible to achieve great results with the right know how - my largest customer has more than 80,000 pages - of these, about 90% of them are on the 1st page for their targeted keywords - of that 90%, about 70% are in the top 2-3.

Trust me, it is more than do-able

Regards,

Andy