Questions created by Brett-S
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January 10, 2017 - Intrusive interstitials Google Update
Hi all, As everyone is most likely aware, Google have recently announced that if a site has intrusive intersitals that push the main content below the fold, will be downgraded in the SERP's from January 10th. At the moment we have a range of international sites, .ca, .com.au, .co.uk, .fr etc - if a user from a UK IP goes to a .ca site - a country switcher dialog will appear. I am aware that this may affect our sites performance in mobile search when the update comes out - however, if we block Google from seeing this - will they still pick it up? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | Brett-S0 -
Rich Snippets on Adult Content
Hi,I understand that rich snippets can't be used to promote adult-related content, however, what does Google specifically class as 'adult content'?We sale sex toys, lingerie and accessories, like lubes etc. I understand that sex toys may not be supported, however, I wouldn't see an issue with adding rich snippets/schema markup to the lingerie side of the site.After doing some research, it seems as if Amazon have rich snippets on adult related content, including cock ring products and lingerie. If we add schema markup - will Google simply not display the snippets, or will they penalise the site?Thanks!
Reviews and Ratings | | Brett-S0 -
Is it worth disavowing entire affiliate network?
Question for the pro's (all comments greatly appreciated) and it's doing my head in atmo. Recently, we received a temporary algorithmic penalty on one of our pages, which was originally ranking 12th, now 50+. We found out an affiliate put a site-wide link to our site, using the affiliate ID blablabla. I have taken a look at the exact link and checked the status codes on it, seems as if the link uses a 302 to our page. However, yes, you can argue that 302's d on't pass link juice, but I do believe that if a 302 remains in place for a while - Google will treat it as a 301. My question is: considering that affiliate links are causing us problems, is it worth disavowing the ENTIRE affiliate network? - we have over 100,00 links coming from them, all of which are targeting different pages and using different affiliate tracking ID's. What do you think - I don't want to disavow the site then realise it was actually some-what helping the site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Brett-S0 -
Link juice through URL parameters
Hi guys, hope you had a fantastic bank holiday weekend. Quick question re URL parameters, I understand that links which pass through an affiliate URL parameter aren't taken into consideration when passing link juice through one site to another. However, when a link contains a tracking URL parameter (let's say gclid=), does link juice get passed through? We have a number of external links pointing to our main site, however, they are linking directly to a unique tracking parameter. I'm just curious to know about this. Thanks, Brett
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
Migrating From Parameter-Driven URL's to 'SEO Friendly URL's (Slugs)
Hi all, hope you're all good and having a wonderful Friday morning. At the moment we have over 20,000+ live products on our ecomms site, however, all of the products are using non-seo friendly URL's (/product?p=1738 etc) and we're looking at deploying SEO friendly url's such as (/product/this-is-product-one) etc. As you could imagine, making such a change on a big ecomms site will be a difficult task and we will have to take on A LOT of content changes, href-lang changes, affiliate link tests and a big 301 task. I'm trying to get some analysis together to pitch the Tech guys, but it's difficult, I do understand that this change has it's benefits for SEO, usability and CTR - but I need some more info. Keywords in the slugs - what is it's actual SEO weight? Has anyone here recently converted from using parameter based URL's to keyword-based slugs and seen results? Also, what are the best ways of deploying this? Add a canonical and 301? All comments greatly appreciated! Brett
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
Disavowing 100k Affiliate Links
Hi all, hope you're all good. I am updating our disavow file, we've noticed a couple more spammy links which are pointing at or site. While I was at it, affiliate links came to my mind. At the moment we have over 100k+ affiliate links pointing to the root of our site and other categories/products, most of them are do-follow. However, taking a look at WMT, it's one of our 'Who links the most' and the affiliate network is pointing a total of 115,065 links to us. My question; bearing it mind this site generates over 2million hits a month, is it really worth disavowing the entire affiliate link network. This would result is all of those 100,000 links being disavowed over time. Do you think this would result in a positive? Let me know your thoughts.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
Ranking 1st for a keyword - but when 's' is added to the end we are ranking on the second page
Hi everyone - hope you are well. I can't get my head around why we are ranking 1st for a specific keyword, but then when 's' is added to the end of the keyword - we are ranking on the second page. What could be the cause of this? I thought that Google would class both of the keywords the same, in this case, let's say the keyword was 'button'. We would be ranking 1st for 'button', but 'buttons' we are ranking on the second page. Any ideas? - I appreciate every comment.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
How long for a Disavow file to take affect for a non-manual penalty?
Hi guys, hope you're all good, quick question in regards to a Disavow file. A page of ours recently crashed from page 2 all the way to page 7ish. It's weird that it happened considering it was ranking on the 2nd page for around a year, then all of a sudden it came crashing down. I identified an affiliate link which was placed in a sidebar, webmaster tools picked up 24,000+ links coming from the site so I have decided to disavow it. I disavowed the site around 3 days ago, and in the mean time we have managed to grab ourselves some very good do-follow links from very authoritative sites. At the moment the page has gone up 1 page, sitting at 4-5th page, but the rankings have been very inconsistent. Any ideas to when we may see an increase in ranking for this page? I am being very impatient, at the moment my workload has been dedicated to get this one page ranking again. All comments greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
Is this a good sitemap hierarchy for a big eCommerce site (50k+ pages).
Hi guys, hope you're all good. I am currently in the process of designing a new sitemap hierarchy to ensure that every page on the site gets indexed and is accessible via Google. It's important that our sitemap file is well structured, divided and organised into relevant sub-categories to improve indexing. I just wanted to make sure that it's all good before forwarding onto the development team for them to consider. At the moment the site has everything thrown into /sitemap.xml/ and it exceeds the 50k limit. Here is what I have came up with: A primary sitemap.xml referencing other sitemap files, each of the following areas will have their own sitemap of which is referenced by /sitemap.xml/. As an example, sitemap.xml will contain 6 links, all of which link to other sitemaps. Product pages; Blog posts; Categories and sub categories; Forum posts, pages etc; TV specific pages (we have a TV show); Other pages. Is this format correct? Once it has been implemented I can then go ahead and submit all 6 separate sitemaps to webmaster tools + add a sitemap link to the footer of the site. All comments are greatly appreciated - if you know of a site which has a good sitemap architecture, please send the link my way! Brett
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
Disavowing Affiliate Links - Domain or Actual Affiliate Link?
Hi everyone, Hope you're all having a great day, I have a question in regards to a site which I am about to disavow. Over the past 2 months a certain page of ours has dropped from the 2nd page, all the way to the 7th. I haven't been able to diagnose why, however, yesterday I discovered that a site has been using an Lafitte link on his sidebar, the link is a do-follow. Webmaster tools indicates that this site has linked to us over 24,000 times. I understand that this link could potentially ruin our rankings - however, in terms of disavowing, what is the best approach here? Do I disavow their domain, or do I disavow the actual affiliate link also? The link is placed within an image, once the image is clicked it redirects you to another link for a second then redirects to our money site. We have got in touch with our affiliate program and they have made the link a no-follow, however, we are pretty certain this site is causing issues for us and we want to go ahead and disavow. Thanks, Brett
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0