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It's not so much the writing of spammy markup Richard - it's the incorrect use of it. You wouldn't use Markup to help classify a page full of businesses in a specific location in this manner. This goes against the uses that are suggested as they are not specific items.
It's a little difficult to imagine the exact setup of the site and pages without seeing them, but I would be hard pushed to say this would be a recommended technique as it goes against the uses that Google suggests.
-Andy
Hi Laura,
Does the site have anything to do with Mexico? Is there any mention of Mexico anywhere? Do they have a product / service that sells in to Mexico?
It is very possible to rank in Mexico with a site from anywhere in the World, but you might have to put more work into achieving this. Google is also likely to rank other Local sites above yourself, but it depends a lot on what it is you are selling.
-Andy
To be honest, with your 'tone' through here, telling people they are not experts and general manner, I would be surprised if anyone else would want to chip in. If they do, please try to keep this in mind.
Remember, that everyone in here does it for their love of SEO and the MOZ community. Noone (other than MOZ employees) are paid to be on here, so perhaps don't call levels of proficiency in to question, because anyone answering is trying to help.
-Andy
Hi Marina,
Approach this with caution. Google is penalising sites that abuse / over optimise their schema markups. What you are suggesting sounds like you could cause your site harm:
Review and rating markup should be used to provide review and/or rating information about a specific item, not about a category or a list of items. For example, "hotels in Madrid", "summer dresses", or "cake recipes" are not specific items. See also our structured data policies for multiple entities on the same page. Read more here
Tread very carefully and I would advise testing with a small control group first of all if you want to do this. Remember that Google is targeting spammy use of markup, so just don't fall into this category. You are wanting to markup other locations that are not directly related to yourself.
My gut feeling is don't do this if you think what you have planned falls into this e.g "business in LA" or "restaurants in London".
-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 Chris,
I am in agreement that taking the route of canonical would not be as beneficial as 301. Remember that a canonical is just a suggestion to Google and they can still opt to ignore this if they wish.
I would avoid any possible complications here and 301. It is understood that a rel=canonical passes page rank in the same way that a 301 does, with a minor loss, but as far as I am aware, there is no actual testing to show which passes more / less.
-Andy
Hi Sohail,
Unlike Moosa, I have not seen a client lose positions just by having their IP changed - perhaps if this were location related traffic and you were based in London but the IP showed China I might see it happening, but it all depends on what is being implemented.
That said, I also think you should find out a little more about how this works. If someone requests your site www.sitename.com and that then forwards you through an unknown route until it reaches the destination server, then this additional hop might seem unnatural.
Is your site particularly slow? If you are based on Wordpress, then you can use Cache plugins to help speed things up. Even if you are not on Wordpress, you can help matters by employing some browser caching in your .htaccess file. Have you run your site through the Google Page Speed Insights to see what your score is? What recommendations does Google come back with?
-Andy
No probs Patrick. Sometimes it's unavoidable and would depend a lot more on the overall quality / trust of the site in general. When you say devalued, in this case the duplicate content would likely just be ignored - is this what you mean?
That's not to say that everyone should go out and duplicate chunks of content - continue to focus heavily on making the content as good as it can possibly be.
-Andy
Hi,
I just want to clear something up about duplicate content - Google doesn't penalise for it...
John Mueller - Google
John clearly states “We don’t have a duplicate content penalty. It’s not that we would demote a site for having a lot of duplicate content.” and “You don’t get penalized for having this kind of duplicate content” in which he was talking about very similar pages. John says to “provide… real unique value” on your pages.
What this means is that if you have little chunks of text as you mention, this won't be an issue. You won't get penalised or demoted for it and I have a lot of clients who are testament to this. If this content helps the user experience, then it will be fine.
Of course, the better the content, the more chance you have to rank well - try to make every page as unique and useful as possible.
You can see more and watch the video with John here.
-Andy
The only think I can see that is missing, is a self rel=canonical to the home page. I would have this as a matter of course.
I also can't do a quick crawl on the site as I am getting a 403 Denied error.
-Andy
It does make sense Stephen, but this bit bothers me:
The URL mappings must be used to redirect any link to a deleted page to an existent page.
If I am reading that correctly then are they saying that 404's can't exist, just 302's? You don't always want to direct someone to a page, especially if it isn't applicable. In many cases, a 404 would be the right thing to do if a page is just being removed.
Of course, if there is somewhere to redirect someone to, then you would do so with a 301 (permanent redirect) rather than a 302 (temporary redirect).
I don't really understand their system, so might be missing something in translation.
-Andy
Hi Stephen,
What are you using to see 302 of them? I didn't get anything like that number when I looked. There is the off-site 302, but we're talking just a few.
-Andy
Hi,
the 302's mostly appear to be PDF documents. Does this sound right to you? Has this only just come to your attention, or have you recently uploaded lots of documents?
For example:
http://www.thephysiocompany.com/s/Clinic-Info-Patricks-Quay-Spec.pdf --> http://static1.squarespace.com/static/537b0649e4b0f6c6b6877a35/t/542be1d5e4b005bb34fa0cfb/1412162005901/Clinic+Info+-+Patricks+Quay-+Spec.pdf
-Andy
Hi Cornelius,
Are you referring to remarketing with regards Google Adwords? If so, this is what it is and where you can read more:
Remarketing lets you show ads to people who have visited your website or used your mobile app before. When people leave your website without buying anything, for example, remarketing helps you reconnect with them by showing relevant ads as they browse the web, as they use mobile apps, or as they search on Google.
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453998?hl=en-GB
I would also suggest having a read here:
http://www.google.co.uk/ads/innovations/remarketing.html
If this isn't what you thought it was, or not what it refers to, please let me know.
-Andy
Hi,
2. Disavow links and domain. Does disavowing a domain = all the links from the same domain are disavow?
Yes, I would be disavowing at a domain level (not even subdomain) with a view to blocking everything you find.
How have you been gathering link data? Webmaster Tools? Ahrefs? Majestic? OSE?
Ideally you need to create one master list of everything you can find and start from there. It isn't going to be a quick fix though because if you have been caught by Penguin, you wont get out of any penalty until it is re-run again. All you can do is prepare for when that run happens.
If you haven't yet been caught by Penguin, then you would be saving yourself a lot of worry by getting this resolved before the next refresh happens.
-Andy
Hi Derek,
I noticed most sites if not all in the linking domains section have a link to there own site. How do i do this?
This won't help with what you are trying to do. DA (Domain Authority) will build over time as you start work on your SEO. I suggest you read their Beginners Guide to SEO as this will give you a good understanding of what you should be doing on your site.
You will find that every site has Internal Links to their own pages. This is gained through Menus or Inline Links where you reference another page on your site. This is used to help Google understand which of your pages are more important and is useful when you are crafting your site structure.
A big part of your SEO strategy, should be External Links. These will help further boost your DA, but there is a very definite art in doing this and I suggest you read these references before even starting.
I would also have some sort of content strategy in place as this will help you establish trust with Google and get some great content written for your blog (if you are running with one).
I hope this helps a little.
-Andy
Hi,
Text > HTML ratio isn't actually a ranking factor and there is no penalty based on this. What you can do with it, is use it as an indicator on how big your pages are and identify those that might be slowing do the loading.
There is no test or correlation that would suggest that reducing this text > HTML ratio will do anything for your rankings.
You need to also try and get away from the thought process that SEO is just about search positions - you need to think about customer acquisitions and page usability as well. For example, if I look at your home page and you were to just add a block of text at the top, then this would reduce the effectiveness of the big messages and search availability at the top. it would push down the main search box and offer nothing of use that anyone would really want to read.
So no, don't add text to the top of the page as this isn't needed. If this were just one big picture with nothing at all there, then it might be a different discussion.
Are your search positions dropping at the moment, or is there a reason that this came about?
I have clients whose Text > HTML ratio is 6-8% and in 1st position for very highly sought after terms. There is a lot more at play.
-Andy
Hi,
It sounds like something may be getting blocked or not crawled correctly, possibly because of the move from http --> https. I assume this is handled by the .htaccess file?
I would also check to see if there are https page issues on the site. If it's bit, you may have to do some digging around, but you can see this by using Google Chrome --> right click on the page --> inspect element --> console. This will show you the errors on the page.
-Andy
Hi,
Have you followed the guide to getting yourself included? Have a read of this:
https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40787?hl=en-GB
This will tell you everything you need to do to get yourself included.
I hope this helps.
-Andy
You are looking at links from the wrong way now.
Have a read of this article in MOZ as it is a great starter resource.
-Andy
Hi Lewis,
Am I right in assuming that you have templates within your ecommerce system? If so, you could identify which one powers these pages, and as long as no others are affected, then you could just add it to this one.
You can disallow via the robots.txt, but this isn't the same as a noindex. If you were to disallow access to a URL that was already indexed and then changed this to a noindex, you would find Google can't access the page to honour the noindex. Messy business!
I'm not even sure you can achieve this via the .htacess file as it might catch more than you require.
-Andy
An interesting question 
Mine have taken a huge turn towards usability and content, but I still cover off all best practices such as the titles etc. I also focus more heavily on brand strength and user metrics (data from Crazy Egg for eggsample).
Backlinks also feature more prominently now than they used to.
SEO is about so much more than just where you appear in the SERPs now.
-Andy
"Spin - Free Blogs - Bookmarking - Directories - Article Sites - 30-50 articles per month..."
...do i still have a chance of get hit by Spam actions of Google?
There is absolutely no doubt about this. Everything you have said there is absolutely what should should NOT do when link building.
Link building needs to be handled carefully. You need to think about how you can invite links to your site, or produce content so good, that outreach will be met by authors who are happy to run with a link through to what you have produced.
Think about what you have to offer as a linkable asset. If you have nothing, then you must create something.
Amazing links will come from amazing content.
say a 500 word content for link building & spinning it 3 times & then using it for link building on social bookmarking sites, directory sites, etc. Will this be a good idea?
Absolutely not.
-Andy
Hi Lewis,
As this new URL contains some of the same products/content as www.example.com/double-beds, where do we stand from an SEO/duplicate content point of view? Are we at risk of a duplicate content slap?
This is very possible. At any point if duplicate content is seen, there is a chance of it counting towards a penalty.
However, I am assuming that the long search results are not intended for the search engines? You could happily noindex,nofollow all of these and remove the issue altogether.
-Andy
Hi,
Here is a little info I have shared with others on international SEO.
In order to rule out issues with your own sites, start by reading this checklist from MOZ as it will give you a great grounding and allow you to quickly identify and remedy any problems.
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.
Any idea why other countries would rank above our site?
I would also like to know how you are determining these facts. If you are just searching from your own machine, there could be all kinds of personalisation getting in the way. If this is the case, use something like MOZ or Positionly, etc., to track SERP positions accurately.
If you are seeing these results from within a tracking app, then refer back to my first points above and check that everything is in order with your sites. You might stumble across an easy fix.
-Andy
Without seeing the exact scenario, that sounds correct
-Andy
Hi Patrick,
Will this hurt your SEO? Maybe, but not in the more traditional way. For example, there is no direct penalty that this would fall under, but what it could do is confuse the user experience. Just keep in mind that SEO isn't just about your SERP positions.
As a user on any site, you want to see consistency. If you change theme part way through, then this can devalue the level of trust in the site as it no longer looks like the original site.
I would stick with one theme and if you aren't happy with the current look and feel, change your whole site to match this.
From Google's perspective, no, this wouldn't cause a devalued ranking by installing an additional theme (unless SEO issues arise from the installation), but there are a whole host of reason why you shouldn't do it.
-Andy
Hi,
What does your Google Analytics tell you? Is Google seeing a drop in traffic, rather than Moz?
-Andy
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,
What you have there will work absolutely fine with a little tweak. And no need to leave spaces between lines.
Disallow: /numberOfStars=0
However, no need to add the wildcard at the end if there is nothing more after that.
The best way to test what works, is before you go and add it to live, use the Robots.txt test tool in Search Console (Webmaster Tools), add in the lines above and then check to make sure none of your other pages are blocked. They won't be, but it's a great way to test before going live.
I hope this helps
-Andy
so,... with this situation, I think the only solution is to create a different content for the website and for the portals.
I was thinking that maybe, If we create the content first in the new website, send it to the index, and wait for google to index it, and then send the content to the portals, maybe we would have more opportunites to not be ommited by Google in search results.
I think the principal here is sound. However, you might also find part of the issue is down to site age / trust within Google. If these portals have been around for some time and are widely used, just doing this might not be enough. Sadly trust comes with time and work.
Of course, duplicate content is never good, no matter who has it indexed first. Would you be able to create something amazing for your own site and then something more generic for the portals? Not knowing the scope of the issue, it's a little difficult to try and envisage what is happening exactly.
-Andy
You could always use the Fetch As Google function in Search Console. This might speed things up for you, but the fact of the matter is, there is no really quick way to get Google to index your pages. It's never as fast as we would like.
Make sure that if the site has been overhauled, that any old pages are 301'd to their new counterpart. This also means that you might need to check that every http page redirects to the https one.
-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
Get the low down from 90 experts here
https://blog.ahrefs.com/white-hat-link-building-expert-roundup/
-Andy
Hi Ade,
This isn't something I would advise splitting across domains. Choose the domain you wish to use and then sub-cats for the different types of dentistry. If you have two similar sites at the same address, it will make Google wonder why it was done (SEO purposes) and you could have issues on your hand.
-Andy
Well it isn't Googlebot and it isn't one I have come across before. Don't forget that any user agent can be spoofed very easily so I wouldn't worry about blocking it.
**Should I assume that the drop in reported indexed pages is a result of blocking the teracent-feed-processing user agent? **
I really don't think that this is Google. The only one they have is Googlebot, and tell you this is the one to add if you wish to block them.
Just a thought, can you share your robots.txt file just to make sure pages aren't being unintentionally blocked?
-Andy
It sounds like your typical spammy site so I would suggest just blocking them. Add the following to the top of your robots.txt file:
**User-agent: teracent-feed-processing**
**Disallow: /**
However, before you go live with this, use the webmaster tools Robots.txt tester to make sure everything else still gets crawled.
-Andy
Ah sorry, I misunderstood Louis - skim reading too quickly!
No, don't bother if it is a nofollow link as this is essentially what Google does to a dofollow one.
Apologies for the confusion.
-Andy
Hi Lewis,
The important thing to remember here is that if you just overwrite your disavow file, you lose what is already in there.
Download the file that is in place and add those links to the new file so everything is included for the new upload.
-Andy
Hi Joss,
It's difficult to know how often the doorway algorithm runs, but I suspect that when they get round to it, there will be a penalty.
-Andy
What you have there is a perfect example of a doorway page and absolutely against Google TOS. Give it time and Google will do something about it.
I would strongly advise against this practice.
-Andy
Hi Lewis,
The actual fact is, noone other than Google knows exactly what a link will do do you, but based on the fact that there is no guarantee the next Penguin refresh will be incorporated into the main algorithm, and how long it can take between the current refreshed, I wouldn't want to get caught in Penguin. I would be looking to mitigate any possible damage and do what I can to clean my link profile and spend time building better quality ones.
Google only want to see worthwhile links, but you will find a very high percentage of spammy links will just be discounted. I would tend to look for those with over-optimised anchor texts that are do-follow and then disavow them.
Marie has a great post here that will help you understand what you need to be doing.
-Andy
Hi Ben,
How is the redirect being managed? .htaccess or page?
I would also check that the site nameservers haven't been pointed towards something like a domain holding / auction site. I think Sedo do something like this.
-Andy
Hi Steven,
As Miriam said, there are so many possible reasons at play here, but one point I would like to make:
Remember, that DA is a MOZ score and has absolutely no impact on where Google sees you or why someone someone else ranks higher than you.
Have you checked that all 301's and redirects are in place correctly? I am assuming this was a new site design on the existing domain?
-Andy
That isn't an 'SEO' drop as such, this is related to your sitemap errors. Doing a site: wont show the same numbers as you see as being shown on the sitemap itself.
Rebuild your sitemap, correct the errors and then see what state it is in.
-Andy