Hi Chris,

Are you still using ColdFusion?

It sounds like you're on a Windows server, yeah? If so, adding this to your web.config file should do the trick:

<match url="(.*)"><conditions><add matchtype="IsFile" negate="true"><add matchtype="IsDirectory" negate="true"></add></add></conditions>
    <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:1}.cfm"></action></match>

Otherwise, adding the following to your web.config for WordPress should work:

 <rulename="company cfm"=""><matchurl="^company (.*)$"=""><conditionslogicalgrouping="matchall"><addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isfile"negate="true"><addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isdirectory"negate="true"><actiontype="rewrite"url="{r:1}.cfm"></actiontype="rewrite"url="{r:1}.cfm"></addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isdirectory"negate="true"></addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isfile"negate="true"></conditionslogicalgrouping="matchall"></matchurl="^company></rulename="company> 

Thanks for your great question!

Schema.org has stated that using either is fine. Here is their longer form answer from their FAQ page on which to use:

"There is a general trend towards using 'https' more widely, and you can already write 'https://schema.org' in your structured data. Over time we will migrate the schema.org site itself towards using https: as the default version of the site and our preferred form in examples. However 'http://schema.org' -based URLs in structured data markup will remain widely understood for the forseeable future and there should be no urgency about migrating existing data. This is a lengthy way of saying that both 'https://schema.org' and 'http://schema.org' are fine."

That being said...I think I'll go switch Moz.com to https now. Think they will keep http:// around for a while, though. Especially considering SEOs who implemented Schema before https and G doesn't want to penalize site owners for not knowing any better? <- My personal thoughts on this.

Thanks again!

Definitely, agree with Robert. You do not need rel=canonical tags on filtered / search views of your content.

After you remove these rel=canonical's, I'd suggest running your site through Screaming Frog's rel=canonical error report to confirm that the rel=canonical issues are fixed.

Hope that helps,

B

Hi Jessica!

You're absolutely correct, use of a canonical on paginated pages should point to a "view all" page as opposed to page 1 of the paginated content. I've heard of the Yoast plugin causing some problems with rel=canonical markup in WP and would suggest getting rid of that canonical (especially if you have rel=prev/next markup).

Hope this helps.

B

So the consensus is that there's no right or wrong answer here, but in general, you should be looking to be higher than your competitors (especially on non-branded KWs).

You should also aim for higher visibility over time. The higher your visibility, the more traffic you will drive to your website. However, if you don't see organic traffic increase (with increased search visibility), you might be missing some primary keywords.

Hope this helps,

B

This is such a great question Meagan! I imagine it'll be quite different for individual industries?

Let me check with my team to see if we know the ballpark average search visibility and what you should shoot for. Thank you for asking this

-Will get back to you soon.

Thanks EGOL

Apologies, it was late and I've heard that term used in a few different ways. Should have figured that was the case though. -Thank you!

This is another great resource on how Search Visibility is calculated: https://moz.com/help/guides/moz-pro-overview/rankings/search-visibility

Just to clarify, what do you mean exactly by search visibility percentage? Percentage of visits to your website via organic search?

Hi David,

Curious why you're not interested in doing rel=canonicals? I think I understand your overall goal and would suggest simply hiring a content marketer or writer to differentiate the content from product A page to product B page.

Hiring a content marketer or writer to differentiate the content from one to the other would be well worth it in this situation. Have the writer re-organize and re-write the content (while maintaining the same message) so that crawlers will view each page as unique.

Cheers,

B

It's also worth mentioning that Google gets SO MANY of these before and after requests they have created a segmented carousel (Dr. Pete would prob punch me for using that name haha!) -Nudity is not an issue for these indexed / segmented photos and greatly improves UX.

THANKS PEOPLE!!

Peace, Love & Grandma Hugs

oL5a1hM.png

Great example! We haven't been flagged for any nudity but it's great to be aware of situations like that. Thanks so much

Image names have been optimized, are you referring to the "?attachment_id=117" that WP auto assigns uploads?

Are you familiar with a custom code we could use to alter that auto attachment name?

Thanks so much

Hi MoosaHemani,

Thanks so much for your response! -Only a small % of the images (ones that have been embedded on pages are indexed), while we are trying to make sure the before and after photos are being properly indexed. -All names of photos have been optimized aside from WP's auto ?=attachment_blahblah thing.

Also, how would we "use natural anchor text instead of targeting keywords all the time" for photos...the primary website is naturally linked to things however not sure what you mean for the photos?

Thanks,

B

customerparadignm.com makes a good point, however I've seen consistency & having a set office location work better.

https://moz.com/local/ does a great job of cleaning up consistency errors and is less expensive than Yext Business Listings.

Tips:

1. Submit a Change Of Address to G

2. Consistency, consistency, consistency.

3. Verify all major business listings for your new location.

4. Make sure your new location is on your website.

5. Schema markup never hurt.

Good Luck Fiona!

One of our clients is in the Cosmetic Surgery business (bodevolve.com) and individuals most likely to purchase a cosmetic procedure only search for 2 things....'**before & after photos' and 'cost'. **

That being said we've worked extremely hard to optimize all 500+ before and after photos. And to our great disappointment, they still aren't being indexed...we are testing a few things but any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

All photos are in the 'attachment' sitemap: http://bodevolve.com/sitemap_index.xml

I'm also testing a few squeeze pages like this one: http://bodevolve.com/tummy-tuck-before-and-after-photos/

Thanks so much,

Brit