Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I would look at your Wordpress install first Jack. There is no way this sort of number of pages should be getting generated. Sort that out and you have sorted a huge problem out.

-Andy

This depends - do you mean dynamically generated content (like search results), or a dynamic design?

-Andy

Honestly, I wouldn't use just one because they are all going to give you slightly different information.

Use Moz, use Google and then try SEMrush, Ubersuggest, Keyword Tool.io and Wordstream.

The idea is to try and get as much information as you can, so use multiple sources for anything like this to increase your chances. Collate all of the data, remove duplicates and see what you have.

-Andy

DA depends on so many different factors but as for the site to be indexed, it's a little difficult to assess without seeing the site.

So when you perform a site:, the site doesn't appear in Google at all?

-Andy

Seo's that take risks with their customers websites have a number of lessons yet to learn. It's like taking your car to the garage and have someone say "let's see what happens when we try a lesser quality petrol into something that is supposed to take premium" Seo's that are successful are those that can deliver measurable results without putting their customers in danger. It's called good business practice.

Hi Anirban,

There is no way to guess how long this can take I'm afraid. I am sure not even Google could tell you this.

The only thing you can do really is keep an eye on your site traffic and position in the SERPs. I am sure that if Google ranked you in the past, that you will get there again.

-Andy

I agree with you that this isn’t the only way you should be linkbuilding

No, it just should not even be figured into any linkbuilding. At best footer / sitewide links will do nothing (or very little) - at worst, if you are seen to gain too many, you could bring down a penalty.

Google specifically says that they don't want to see these sorts of links.

Create content, make it amazing and share it. Create interesting infographics or get creative and make people get interested.

Footer / Sitewide links isn't something I would ever advise anyone try to use as an effective tactic.

-Andy

Hi Bob,

Gaston is absolutely correct - Links will only be updated as MOZ finds the links as it trawls the web.

I did have a quick look on Ahrefs for you and it shows 35 referring domains and 70 backlinks, so it does indeed look like you are growing links steadily.

-Andy

Trying to prove someone has bought the right to guest blog is awkward and even if they have, unless you have concrete proof of this or they advertise the fact.

I would honestly not spend too much time worrying about what they are doing and concentrate your efforts on your site otherwise they are going to continue with this lead they have.

Andy

Hi,

Just to answer your question, you will still see links in webmaster tools, even after a disavow. They are still shown as inbound links, but Google essentially adds their own invisible nofollow tag.

-Andy

This is despite the fact that we launched a mobile site before the update. What gives?

The mobile algorithm would have nothing to do with desktop results, unless you are referring to mobile SERPs?

-Andy

That is a big question as there are some amazing tools out there, but here are a few that I use on a regular basis... Depends what I am doing really.

• MOZ / OSE
• SEMrush
• OnCrawl
• DeepCrawl
• URL Profiler
• Ahrefs
• Search Console
• Screaming Frog
• Sistrix
• Rankpage Redirect Check
• Raven SEO Auditor
• Dynomapper Visual Site View
• Greenlane Indexation Tester
• Google Page Speed Insights
• GTMetrix
• Webpage Test
• Pingdom
• Wayback Machine
• Buzzsumo
• Hemmingway
• Copyscape
• Siteliner
• Check Dog
• uClassify
• Google SERP Preview
• Portent Title Maker
• Google Preview Tool
• Geo IP Facts

-Andy

There are 3 industries I wont work in. Insurance, finance and automotive, purely because of the amount of dirty tactics that go on. I have found that a lot will undertake tiered link building, networks and other unsavoury tactics in place of being white hat, because they feel they have no option.

In terms of making sure you have something that people really want to link to, you need to create some link-assets. These can be anything that will make people want to link back and can be a study, white-paper, research, tool, informative post or something heavily news-worthy. You then need to look to doing some outreach and contacting sites, journalists, industry bodies, etc, and informing them of what you have to offer (link assets).

Look to the sites you want links from, and then decide the route that is likely to gain you positive attention and links.

-Andy

Both come with their own unique problems, and each target different areas. Neither is particularly easy to fix, but because Panda covers so much more than just backlinks, that it can take a long time to track down what has caused a hit.

I have worked with companies that have been in Panda and then back out within a few weeks - others, many months.

There are some great articles that can help you track down Panda and Penguin issues, so have listed them below.

Panda

• https://econsultancy.com/blog/8583-how-to-identify-and-fix-google-panda
• http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
• http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2069358/Google-Ask-Yourself-These-23-Questions-if-Panda-Impacted-Your-Website

Penguin

• http://moz.com/blog/whiteboard-on-googles-penguin-update
• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/an-seos-ultimate-post-penguin-checklist-infographic/48228/
• http://moz.com/ugc/a-theory-for-preventing-recovering-from-a-google-penguin-penalty

All of these are excellent guides that will give you information on how you can best approach these subjects. It is too large an issue to generally tackle here. I have written audits that run into dozens of pages!

Hopefully these will give you a wide range of points to look at

-Andy

I haven't actually seen his issue before. It looks like your searches are producing an element in your RSS feed and I suspect this is being done to try and gain backlinks from you or is referrer spam.

Add the following to your robots.txt. It can do no harm.

disallow: /iseecars.com

Someone else might pop along with a little more advice on this but I suspect it is something automated.

-Andy

Avoid them like the plague. Concentrate on building some good linkable assets on your own site and go for niche sites yourself. Keep it clean and you will be the one with the longevity.

-Andy

Hi,

In the longterm, moving to a platform like Wordpress will be a much better solution. This powers millions of sites, is hugely customisable and very good for SEO, with a lot of control, thanks to the Yoast plugin - and it's free!

-Andy

Hi,

How many scrolling pages are you suggesting?

I would start by having a read of this resource on infinite scrolling over at Google and then this example from John Mueller.

What you are suggesting with pagination makes sense and here is what Google say about it:

Infinite scroll page is made “search-friendly” when converted to a paginated series -- each component page has a similar <title>with rel=next/prev values declared in the <head>.</em></strong></p> <p>I hope this helps,</p> <p>-Andy</p></title>

Hi,

Do people still visit the forum? If so, you can take it down, remove everything but the index and then just have a polite notice advising that the feature has been removed, and that you will be automatically redirected to the homepage in 10 seconds - that kind of thing.

However, I wouldn't advise to just 301 with there being so many pages that don't match anything else - If there is no chance it will ever be used again, I would just take it down and ensure you have a decent 404 in place. Google doesn't mind 404's where pages are no longer in use.

You don't want to 301 a forum to a site homepage where there is no forum.

-Andy

Hi,

**Will infinite scroll affect ranking when there is an text below? **

I highly doubt that this alone will be enough to impact any search results. With Infinite Scroll, Google want to see it done properly first and I would check this out. You don't want to be blocking elements of the page if you can avoid it.

John Mueller gave a great example of how an infinite scroll should work along with pagination. This ticks all the boxes required.

Of course, the better your page(s), the better the chances of being well ranked, but much more at play than just a bit of text below products.

-Andy

We are wondering if google can see this as a black hat tactic and therefore penalize our website

Absolutely - steer well clear of this practice and find other ways in. If Google get wind of it, you will have some tidying up to do.

-Andy

Hi Rob,

The general rule of thumb is don't worry (too much) about no-follow links, although there are times to also ignore this as well.

Key factors that will be making a difference, are the content and the do-follow links. You can't just look at the back-links as the reason why you aren't ranking well.

Without seeing them, I would be tempted to just not worry about the no-followed links, and concentrate on:

1. Making sure the do-follow links are of good quality and don't fall into the spammy category, and
2. Look at your content and how good it is - does it match up to the competition?

It never hurts to do some competition analysis to see how your competitors are beating you.

-Andy

Hi,

...but I'm convinced that by modifying the URL structure, SEO will improve. I am correct in thinking this?

Not necessarily. I tend to look at the site and product as a whole first and see which URL makes the most sense.

Imagine you are a new visitor - does the category / subcategory make sense and explain the product / service more readily than just the category / page.

It could very well be that removing the subcategory is the right thing to do, but you aren't going to be guaranteed a ranking increase if this is amended.

-Andy

I have seen this before where it was trackbacks causing issues and injecting spammy keywords in to them. I have also seen RSS feeds carrying spammy backlinks.

It is also worth remembering that lots of the bad links like these will now be dead / removed / changed.

Have you done a disavow of these spam sites yet?

-Andy

That's a lot you have going on there Alex.

OK, so first of all, if you have one sitemap pointing to the German pages and another to the English, this is absolutely fine. No harm will come of this. HREFLANG will take care of helping Google understand which pages are for which country.

However, this is going to cause you issues:

So the root www.site.com/ doesn't exist but has the most of the backlinks.

Because you have most links here, and the root doesn't exist, as soon as someone arrives, they are being sent off via a 302 to a new page. Any link juice coming to the homepage is going to be diluted as soon as it is redirected. And a 302 is understood to dilute this a lot more than a 301 would.

I would also look to be doing some internal linking (if this hasn't been done) as well because this can help Google understand more about the structure of your site.

I hope this helps a little.

-Andy

This is always a good one Bob

http://www.cssdesignawards.com/

-Andy

Don't forget that Google does give you a way to request re-inclusion - but there is no guarantee they will allow it - for a number of reasons.

You also have to think about what others think about the site and if it has a bad name in your particular marketplace - as Baptiste said, this could take you some time, but like a restaurant that has a new chef after the poor one left, you can get this back again.

Just tread carefully.

Regards,

Andy

Hi Virginia,

You would be fine if there is a canonical in place. it exists for just this sort of occurrence. You also have the canonical example correct

This will also be much more preferable than writing very similar content.

-Andy

You have no control over what is in a places review. If you feel it has been done maliciously, then you could contact Google and explain this to them, but for the most part, offer a sparking service is about the only way to ensure perfection.

It might also be worth commenting on a poor review to accept it and give an assurance that this has been amended so as never to happen again. Sometimes this can be as good as a positive review - they look more natural as well.

Andy

Check your google web masters account for examples of why google doesn't worry too much about this. Under the significance' on my site, there are 4 occurrences of how the word Design has been found. They are Design, Designing, Designer and Designs. Whilst search traffic might show you one thing, google is smart enough to recognise the word Design is the same as Designs. Just write it so that it makes sense to the reader because the quality of the content is playing a big part now. Regards, Andy

I would go with option 3 Alex. If you want to have most of your visibility aimed at Germany, then it makes sense to have the primary content on here and then have a site.com/en for the rest of the world.

There is no reason to redirect everyone as soon as they get to you if you still have a primary audience.

-Andy

Hi,

I would say that is bad for both - the SEO would depend to what level it was done.

In terms of user experience, that is pretty confusing though - Watercraft and Boat on two different menus? Why? The same with Home and Condo. You need to cluster terms where you can, not pull them apart. It helps no-one doing that and you will lose traffic - or worse.

If they still insist they want to change them, tell them to talk to me and I will explain in more detail

-Andy

You do have to be careful of what you write and make sure it is of interest. If you just suddenly publish a load of articles (well, you would stage them anyway) that no-one really wants to read, as already said, you will get a high number of bounces and very little time spent on the pages / site.

Unique content that is applicable to your audience is the way to go

Andy

-- Oh, and steer clear of Link-Wheels. Old tricks that you will get nothing from any more. Google want to see content, content and more content

As you might be aware, Google is very clever when it comes to finding similar / same images around the web, but there is no penalty for using the same image in different sites at all. Just ensure that you have the correct permissions to use the images, as this is about the only stumbling block.

There will be no duplication penalty in doing this, but do try and make the ALT as descriptive and on-target as you can, and don't use any of these opportunities to spam keywords / phrases.

-Andy

You have to be careful setting up any kind of microsite because if Google catches on to it, you will get hit with a big stick!

I would never offer this as a solution to any client just because of what can happen if it all goes pear shaped, but if you really do want to make these sites, I will offer you the same information as I have given clients in the past:

• Never host all the sites on the same server
• Never add analytics to any of the sites
• Never add the sites to Webmaster Tools
• Don't bother with footer links
• Ensure links are formed as part of the content, and don't have links just through to your site
• Ensure the content on the sites is really good and unique

However, you would be much better off putting your time into writing some great content for your existing site. This is something that will never run the risk of being penalized.

Andy

This is a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' scanario with no quick and simple answer.

I understand fully where you are coming from and the way Keyword density / stuffing comes from is a total count of all words on that page, and seeing, as a percentage, how many times a particular word or phrase occurs.

I can only suggest that reviews are as close to the end of the page as possible, and place copy around there that explains these are reviews - perhaps append / prepend a name with the word 'review' or 'reviewer' etc. Might help alleviate the situation somewhat.

Andy

If Google is seeing an old page that isn't used any longer, why not 301 it to the desired page? A canonical tag will help give Google more of a signal as to your intentions, but it isn't a guarantee in the way a 301 redirect is.

-Andy

Hi Stacey,

When I inspect the page, I can see that there is something in your header that seems to be injecting this. It appears to be at the end here:

• R&R Business Consultants Inc./  Latest News  /  R&R Business  /  R&R Business Consultants on the rise of Glassdoor and how companies are coping****

If I were you, I would check out the header file first to see if you can see the 'void' bit. It isn't supposed to be there so might be something that has been left there unintentionally.

-Andy

Reply edited-

Yes, I would also use this if possible:

Disallow: /*?rid

Hi Victoria,

I answered a similar question last week, so have added my last answer below:

========================

There is no problem with international SEO and duplicate content, as long as you follow the rules around this. Start by reading this checklist from MOZ as it will give you a great grounding.

I would also read this article from Google as this will walk you through what you need to do.

HREFLANG will be used to explain to Google about international pages with duplicate content.

I hope this helps.

-Andy

Hi Blenny,

What you have to think abut is that Google say never lead someone to a page, only for them to be redirected to somewhere they don't expect. Never try to bypass that.

However, there is no reason not to add some annotation to the post and link this to your current site, or even to a better blog post. Perhaps move away from links and just use co-citations and mentions.

-Andy

I would suspect that unless something has been done differently, that Google can read what is there, but as Jimmy said, check the page cache to see what Google can see.

You can also do a search for a snippet of text from the page and see if Google has it indexed.

-Andy

Hi Brian,

I have a client working on correcting this issue with his site at the moment. They run a big media site that allows access once paid, but so may of these sites suffer with the same issue and because they allow Google to index the whole text, but only show a portion of it, this means that if you just look at the cached version, you can read it without paying.

In terms of correcting it, I would first have a read on how Google handles subscription sites. You can find that info here. Google prefers the "First click free" model.

There is additional reading on this subject over at Search Engine Land. First Click Free (FCF) is what you want to be looking into in more detail.

I hope this helps a little.

-Andy

The first problem is going to be mass duplications of content. This can cause a major headache.

Have a read of what Google say on this matter here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en

There is a bit right at the bottom which talks about this exact problem.

Andy

Without seeing the exact scenario, that sounds correct

-Andy

Google looks for sites with two types of content: Fresh or Evergreen. Fresh would be something you would expect on a news site or blog, while Evergreen is for something that doesn't change, or changes very infrequently.

If you provide content that is in an industry where specifications / news can change regularly, then it could be of benefit. If not, then don't do this just for the sake of it.

However, as Egol said, if you can improve on what is already there, then this could prove a positive move.

-Andy

Hi Pete,

Just a very quick observation, you might be running into pages that are quite similar:

1. http://www.bestathire.co.uk/branches/bristol-tool-hire-shop
2. http://www.bestathire.co.uk/garden-tools-bristol

Then you also have...

3. http://www.bestathire.co.uk/garden-tools

Pages 2 & 3 appear to be exactly the same, but with a different title, heading, etc. Google won't thank you for that.

I would spend some time thinking about the phrases you wish to rank for and making sure your pages are all suitably different in content and offerings.

-Andy

I see this daily - the struggle is real!

You have one department arguing that SEO and content is where the good money is spent, and then the UX and designers screaming at them to please change the placement of the CTA button.

The fact of the matter is, both are equally important and I tend to find the best way to resolve these conflicts, is to A/B test and let the numbers speak for themselves. At that point, someone has to concede and should do so gracefully, because they should all be focusing on what is best for the company.

Failing all else, a boxing ring and last man standing gets the budget.

-Andy

Be very careful about trying to get any sneaky redirects in to a page. If this is found out, Google will come down on you. It is only similar to what Wiki do in the sense that Bourne Supremacy is also known as Bourne 2. What you are trying to do is trick Google into ranking you for more keywords.

The best way to do this is make a site / page about these restaurants, and make it as good as you possibly can. Make it a real user experience so that people want to come come back. Add those extra keywords in there, but do it sparingly, so it doesn't look like it has been written for the search engines.

-Andy