Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hey Jason,

Are the domains you register brand new? Because if they are, it wouldn't make a difference if you redirect them to the second domain or not. In this case, they wouldn't have any back links to get the link juice from.

The only reason for registering a new domain would be from the strategic perspective. You would prevent the competition to register it sooner and also you might want to run a new business on those domains. Regarding SEO, it wouldn't make a difference.

Anyway, if you want to rank high for your clients, I'd recommend to read this thread from Q&A.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Sorry for the late reply. For some reason, I don't receive email updates, even if it's ticked.

Anyway, you're right that search engines will pass the link juice to the new domain. Regarding the old domains, Google Search Console will show you all the link as long as the domains are still being set up there. Therefore, I'd recommend to keep all the domains in GSC for the future.

Regarding the strategy, the best way would be the 1:1 permanent redirects 301. This means that you redirect every unique page from the old domain to another unique page from the new domain. You can create Google Spreadsheet where the first column would represent the old URLs and the second column the new URLs. In this case, you have higher chance not to miss anything.

Hope this is the answer you're looking for. Otherwise, feel free to shoot some other questions.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Saad,

There's no major SEO impact, however, there are some reasons why you want to have the favicon on your site.

In this thread, one of the answers was that "most browsers automatically look for a file called favicon.ico in the root folder of a website - if the file doesn't exist a 404 Not Found error is returned - so it makes sense to have a small or blank file rather than nothing to prevent that extra server hog. (answered by Alex)".

Cheers, Martin

Hey Jason,

Yes, it could be definitely one of the reasons.

Let's assume you haven't conducted any other changes, only this one. The problem could be here with non-existing pages since you deleted them. Make sure you've redirected the .com/en version to the similar (or same) page on the .com version.

Google doesn't like links pointing to 404s so that could be the reason you rankings are dropping.

Also, if you have any backlinks from other websites, you could contact the webmasters to update the URLs as well.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Yes, contacting the providers would be the best available option.

Have you considered redesigning the domain Two or Three instead of the domain One? I think it could possibly save you some time and link juice since you wouldn't need to contact the providers and change the current links.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Those "Cons" you named are basically your options. Either add rel canonical or create unique content. Technically, you can delete the page as well, but I guess it's not the option you're considering.

It's true that it takes time and effort so this would be probably your decisive factor. Just decide what take less time and is more convenient. I vote for adding the canonical tag.

Regarding the _low search volume, _every visitor is valuable as long as he/she converts. It might be 1 visit a day through that KW but (depending on your conversion rate and the price of what you're selling) I think it's worth it.

If you add "noindex" to your page, Google will still be able to crawl your page and see the duplicate content. So I'd choose one of the two options mentioned above.

Hope it helps.
Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I wouldn't redirect the homepage to the keyword page if it doesn't represent the same intent. If the _page _is just one fraction of the whole site, optimize it for your desired KW and get some quality back links to boost the rankings. Also you might add some CTA on the homepage to show visitors where to go next in connection with your KW / intent.

If you'll make some other products with different KWs in the future, it would be much harder to show Google which page is actually the one if you always keep redirecting it. From UX side, it wouldn't make much sense for the visitor.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Your issue is very well explained in this thread.

The only difference is that the other questioner has more pages in GWT that in "site:" search. But it shouldn't effect relevancy for your question.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

The short answer is Yes.

However, if the pages are not alike, the tag shouldn't be used then. But anyway, it's not the case here.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Kate,

It's great that you've started thinking about optimizing your content for Christmas now in summer. It really takes time.

Regarding your question, I'd prepare a separate page for "C_hristmas gifts for Mum" w_ith optimized content. Then I would start a link building campaign for that page through relevant anchor texts including the "Christmas KWs". This should boost the rankings for your page.

I wouldn't be worried about relevancy too much. As said, it takes time and Google will see that you're prepared. You'll have time to get some stats for your page as well.

Looking forward to some other opinions in the discussion.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Judd,

In my opinion, there're too many links pointing to the articles in the feed.

I'd reduce the amount of articles on homepage by half which means to hide the second row for each category. Because now, the feed takes more than a half of the page. Try to add more static optimized text which will be unique.

As long as it's the discussion, I'm really excited about some other's opinions.

Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Rather than taking care of indexing your back links, focus on creating high quality content with great potential to get links naturally.

Regarding the back links, the rule is quality over quantity. Especially now, when Google sees primarily the amount of domains and doesn't care about how many other back links are pointing from each of them.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey Michael,

I've found some other threads about the same issue. You can check them, maybe it could help:
https://moz.com/community/q/how-long-will-404-errors-show-in-webmaster-tools-search-console https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/hupstYVfBzo

Best, Martin

Hey Nikki,

That's really weird. We've also noticed drop in rankings in May, however, not so huge.

Last Google update was the "Fred" in March, so I don't think that's the issue.

Maybe this article could help:
https://moz.com/blog/ranking-fluctuations

Make sure, there're no new 404s or any new toxic links. If the content is still of the same quality, it could probably be some tech or linking issue. Let me know if anything helped.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Martin,

The best way would be like this:

_UK = www.example.com/gb/ _
_Ireland = www.example.com/ie/ _
France – www.example.com/fr/

If you will create sub domains, Google will see them as different domains. The Domain Authority would be split which could negatively impact your rankings.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Regarding the tools, I've checked one particular keyword in MOZ, SEMrush, Ahrefs and Searchmetrics - all tools are in the full paid subscription.

The tools show results as follows:
MOZ: 11.5k - 30.3k
SEMrush: 22.2K
Ahrefs: 14K
Searchmetrics: 24,295

So in this case, the last result from Searchmetrics seems to be the most accurate one. However, data from MOZ cover all the range. In my opinion, the best way would be to count the average of the search volumes from all the tools (which could be a bit time consuming, I know).

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Sure, you can. You'll give this page higher importance.

For example, look at the homepage of MOZ. On the homepage, there are three links to the Product page - in the main navigation, in the body and in the footer.

You can do the same.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey Nikki,

Yes, those are correct.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Nikki,

It depends how the file was created. If you exported it manually it won't change by itself. Especially, if you changed URL structure, added some redirects and some new pages.

I'd recommend to resubmit new Sitemap.xml to Google Search Console because the new one will probably differ quite a bit.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey Matt,

I've had a quick look at the source code and you can probably work on your ALT texts a bit to help Google with the indexation.

For example, for this image you have set "Photo Credit: eyeliam" as ALT text, which doesn't contain any relevant keywords. Google might think this image is not important for the website/topic and, therefore, decides not to index it.

Also make sure that all the pages containing images are linked between each other.

Finally, you can create Sitemap.xml for images and upload it to GWT as well.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I wouldn't be worried about PA too much in general (unless you're hesitating from which page you should get the back link). The one metric which matters is the Domain Authority.

Regarding the best practices of the domain form, the best way you can have is https://diveidc.com. In my opinion, it's not worth changing to the version with www only because of PA.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Becky,

Those pages will be found by Google if you have links pointing to them somewhere on your site. In terms of crawl budget, the more page depth the more time does Google need to spend on crawling your site.

However, with proper internal linking you should be able to significantly lower the amount of clicks. So the next step would be adding some links through relevant anchor texts. After you do this, watch the analytics and let me know if it had any impact.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

If you haven't finished your slider yet, just stop working now. There's no such thing as "SEO techniques for sliders".

Sliders are generally not good for SEO and UX, as you can read in all the articles related to this topic, i.e.
https://yoast.com/opinion-on-sliders/
http://searchengineland.com/homepage-sliders-are-bad-for-seo-usability-163496

But if you still want to have one, just make static picture which will change with every page load. I think this should be the golden mean.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Just to make the terminology clearer, you can transfer the link juice (well, majority of it), not the back links. The back links stay the same pointing on the previous domain. However, I'd recommend to change the links to the new domain from the previous pages so, basically, no redirection would be needed in terms of driving the traffic.

Hope it helps a bit. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Have you tried uploading the URL's to the Google Search Console and "S_ubmitting to Index_"? 
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url?continue=/addurl

Also, upload the Sitemap.xml and make sure you have proper internal linking so all the pages are easy to get found and crawled.

Try this and let me know if it works. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

the reason for ranking in different countries for the same keyword could be fact that it's very similar in all the affected languages. I don't know which KW's and languages do you exactly mean but let's say for example _"tennis, casino, mobile, video, dinosaur, coffee, tea,..." _are very similar throughout the countries.

Also, the reason for higher rankings of the log-in page could be poor optimization of the internal linking. Maybe you have more links to the log-in page, maybe the links have more relevant anchor texts or maybe your homepage has bad UX metrics compared to the log-in page (people usually go to this page to complete the action which means very low bounce rate).

More information regarding the KW's and countries would be appreciated. Cheers, Martin

Just for sure, try to use other tools as well. Register for the free trial and try if they find any additional links. But I think Moz should do a great job. But if you have redirected the 20 links, it should be alright. The important thing is that they all don't point to homepage. That'd be unnatural.

Hey there,

As you've said - the content is not built just for SEO reasons.

The content is just the opportunity to write more KW's but it has to look natural in the end. The main purpose of your website is to sell so adjust the content according to UX with an appealing CTA. The more content is not always better as far as it could drive attention the wrong direction.

If you look at the articles here at MOZ, most of them are about 1.200 words which wouldn't make much sense for an e-commerce site. Just look at Amazon and do the same in the better way.

This article might also help you.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Christopher,

I'd suggest 2) page by page. It'll take you more time but it's worth it. If you would redirect all pages to homepage, it might look unnatural to Google.

However, it depends how many pages are on the site. If there are thousands of pages, just redirect the categories. I believe there's value in dividing the redirects in "smaller pieces".

If you have no time, just redirect the site to the most relevant page of your web. It doesn't need to be necessarily the homepage.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

1. This list is divided in terms of pagerank:
   http://freelinksubmissionsiteslists.blogspot.com.mt/2016/12/Infographic.html

2. This list is divided in terms of free / paid:
   http://www.coolinfographics.com/links/

3. This list is "just another list":
   http://www.99signals.com/infographic-submission-sites/

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I don't think the .global TLD has any major implications in SEO directly. However, people who are not familiar with those new TLD types might get confused. This can cause higher bounce rate and consequently lower rankings. Also, the URLs will be longer compared to .com which might have some UX implications as well.

For more information, see this article where the issue is covered in more detail:

https://www.hover.com/blog/do-new-top-level-domains-affect-seo/

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I've found this article full of alternatives for sliders. I hope this might help you.

https://managewp.com/slider-alternatives

Cheers, Martin

Thanks for the answer, Logan. Now it's much clearer.

Hey there,

absolutely, let's have less than 10% duplicated.

If the products are similar (just different color, size...), use the canonical tag. If the products are different, there shouldn't be a problem to write original content for each of them.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hi Logan,

but what about the loading speed and UX? The 301 redirect is still one step more and takes time to load. This could lead for example to higher bounce rate and thus lower rankings. Do you think it's worth reaching the site owners because of this if not because of the link juice? I'm just curious

Thanks for the answer. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I'd suggest keeping the primary keyword in your page title. Moreover, put it in front of the brand name. Like this: _"primary keyword & brand name" _or even better "primary keyword & secondary keyword - brand name".

It's gonna help for SEO as well as for CTR. If the user sees the same keyword in your title, he/she is more likely to click on that result.

Hope it helps, Martin

Hey there,

in my opinion, the answer is both: try to build as much diverse back link profile as you can.

One link from the old article, one from the new article to keep the naturalness. However, I'd start with the old ones with some DA to boost your site and then continue with the new ones since you have already the link juice.

Also try to think as Google - "Why would anyone suddenly add a new link to an old article? Does it seem natural?"

Hey there,

it depends mainly on the company's long-term strategy. If the company is going to have more products in the future (in addition to the mentioned 4), it wouldn't make no sense to make for each product special domain. Therefore, users could be a little bit confused and you would unnecessarily split the domain authority. Better to have everything under one roof.

In my opinion, it also depends a little bit on length of the domain name. If the domain of the new product is easy to remember, short and makes sense, then I wouldn't change it now. You risk the effort of the previous 6 months.

So from the view of long-term strategy, I would change - however, not to subdomain but to subfolder (domain.com/productname). Regarding the effort of the previous 6 months - I would review the amount of back links and how hard would it be to eventually manage them.

That's just my opinion, hope it helps a bit. Martin

Hi there,

The less 301's from external sources the better. The situation with 301's is like this: Page A links to page B but page B is redirected to page C (your page). If you reduce the second step (page B), you won't be losing as much link juice and you will make it easier for crawler as well. Reach out to the webmasters of websites which you have the back links from (pages A) try to convince them to link directly to the page C instead of page B.

Hope it helps. If you have any other questions, let me know. Cheers, Martin

Hi Mahendra,

The page authority could differ because of age of the post, amount of back links to the post, length of the post in comparison to the others, social shares etc. - but, in my opinion, don't bother with page authority too much.

Rather focus on the domain authority. This should give you an overall picture about the website and link building possibilities. Try to compare websites instead of particular pages of just one website.

Hope it helps, Martin

Hey there,

1. Create a segment for organic traffic only.
2. Go to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages
3. Set the desired time range for 6 months

Hope that's the answer to your question. Anything should be unclear, let me know. Cheers, Martin

Hi there,

well, with the redirects - you will lose some amount of the link juice but not really a lot (1 - 10%).

However, try to convince the admins of the sites to change URLs to the new ones. It's always better to avoid 301's if you can.

Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I don't think it's necessary to 301 redirect the article, otherwise you might lose rankings. Just insert some compelling CTA and internal links into the content to drive traffic to the conversion page.

When you are already #1 with the sub-page, there's is a big traffic potential and therefore you don't want to risk the rankings.

Hope it helps a bit. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I have actually very similar issue on my website. However, it is obviously quite normal (it takes Google some time to update the data) - check the following thread for some more information about this issue, especially the last answer.

https://moz.com/community/q/301s-being-indexed

Cheers, Martin

Hey,

make sure there's no caching problem, the homepage is being correctly indexed and the crawler can access the page (check robots.txt, upload sitemap.xml). Otherwise, it could be the internal linking and the keyword cannibalization, as mentioned above.

Hope it helps, Martin

Hey there,

the sooner you'll redirect HTTP to HTTPS the better. You are going to have more backlinks and rankings in time so it would be definitely harder in the future.

Also, try to convince the 6 websites which already point to HTTP to change their links to HTTPS.

And then, of course, redirect each page individually, as you said.

Hope it helps, Martin

Hey Nicola,

I'll share my thought about this issue. However, I'm sure there are many approaches to that.

I would suggest to do firstly the HTTP -> HTTPS migration as far as it's one of the ranking factors according to Google - see the official Google blog here: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html

You'll save the precious time, Google will see that you "upgraded" your website and that you keep pace with the trends. If you would start firstly with the platform migration, you would loose several months waiting for this to be done before starting HTTP -> HTTPS.

Hope you get my idea. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

there's nothing wrong with having more sitemaps than one. In some cases it's even better because it's easier for Google to crawl them. You can divide the sitemaps by categories, months, types of content etc.

However, as mentioned in the following thread, HTML sitemaps are supposed to help primarily people in navigating in the website, whereas XML sitemaps serves for helping the crawler. Therefore, I'd give priority to the XML sitemap in this case.

For more information, read this thread:
https://moz.com/community/q/sitemaps-html-and-or-xml

Cheers, Martin