Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Mazzamz

I would start by looking into the internal linking structure of the website to see if there are any issues/opportunities there.

Are you open to posting the url so community members can take a better look? Happy to help! Cheers.

Thank you Miriam!! This article helped and I was able to successfully get that "Products & Services: places.SinglePlatform.com" link removed. You rock!

I manage a GMB account for an HVAC client and noticed in their knowledge graph it shows:

"Products & Services: places.SinglePlatform.com"

I cannot find this anywhere on the backend on GMB. Has anyone experienced this and how did you fix/remove the link? Luckily, the link goes to the clients profile on SinglePlatform, but the info is outdated.

How did this all play out for you guys?

I am late to the party but am just now experiencing this for the first time with an HVAC client. In the clients knowledge graph on Google it shows:

"Products and Services: places.singleplatform.com"

I tried what was explained in the original post but it appears some things have changed in GMB since Aug. 2018. Imagine that

Any help on getting this link removed would be greatly appreciated!

Great point Chris, this is definitely worth looking into! A "lightbox pop up thingy" may give you what you want from a functionality standpoint, without having to kill those links.

Also, I do believe "lightbox pop up thingy" is the technical term. I've heard others refer to them as a "modal window" or something silly like that =P

Hey CalicoKitty2000!

Funny story, I actually have a Calico Kitty named "Cali.

I came across your questions and it made me think to share this video with you from Brian dean about zombie pages. Spoooookeyyyyyyy but good stuff! Definitely dump any of your unnecessary pages! Cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZCIbskIFkk

Hey vtmoz,

I am a firm proponent of experimentation and risk taking!! I say go with it, worst case you can rule it out and revert it back. This seems like a no-brainer experiment Hope this helps (or motivates) Cheers!

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." - Albert Einstein

My pleasure, glad you were able to get that fixed rather quickly!

Yes, I would set up a new property in Search Console with the https version and resubmit the new sitemap and all that fun stuff. Then you can delete the old property to keep things neat.

One thing I want to mention, I noticed your site is on a shared hosting server with BlueHost. You may want to see about moving onto a dedicated server with them to play it safe. You run into malware issues and the possibility of the server being slowed down when loaded with sites like that. Run your site through this tool and you will see that there are several other sites that share the same IP address as your site. I am not sharing this to make you panic because there is no reason to, just so you are aware and can make an informed decision.

http://www.ipfingerprints.com/reverseip.php

Here is an article on the topic that can help shed more light of the risks. I am super picky about where my sites are hosted and page speed so I always steer clear from shared hosting environments.

IMO the answer is: Absolutely, yes. Without a doubt.

I would type out my reasoning but feel that this post from 2016 just about covers it. Hope this helps!!

https://moz.com/community/q/messy-codes-in-page-source-affecting-my-seo

Sorry I just went back and read that you were a new to SEO! My apologies. Check this article out for more info on htaccess redirects.

https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection

Hey Rena!

I would just redirect that duplicate page to the new https version and call it a day!

Keep the SSL, just go through like you are and check to make sure everything is directing properly. You should be good to go. Hope this helps! Cheers

My pleasure! Glad you found it useful

IMO the difference between them boils down to where their content appears. Title tags appear in the SERP's (search results) and in a browsers title bar while an H1 appears in the body of your webpage. That difference impacts how search engines and page visitors will analyze your page. That being said, search engines give more weight to Title Tags than Page Headers.

Both should provide details about the overall message of your page, right, so the best way to optimize your Title Tags and Headers is to write for your audience. Of course follow best practices when creating each.

Moz made this tool that helps with the Title (character/pixel) length. The page also offers other great info on titles as well.

Hope that helps better answer your original question! If not please let me know how I can help further. Cheers!!

Hey Ryan! I saw that you got it working already but wanted to note that I've seen this same thing happen when I enter only the url, (without http:// or https://)

Once I add the http or https it seems to work perfect.

Either way, glad you were able to get it working, cheers!

Thank you for that Michael! Great advice!

I love your scholarship idea, especially since my client is very involved as adjunct faculty at a large university here in Florida. That could be a great way to get a link back to his new site. For now I launched the new site but have it completely blocked. I will be meeting with him next week and am excited to discuss the points you and Miriam have brought up.

Thank you both again so much! Enjoy your weekend and be safe on the 4th!

Hey SEOhanna

Great question! I would go into detail about this but feel that my man Neil Patel already did an outstanding job in his article, so I wouldn't dare try to take credit.

Hopefully this helps if you haven't read it already! Best of luck!

Hey ThreeDrops... Both George and Roman made some great points!

Yes you definitely want to get that page speed up!! 35 is far too slow. If you have access to Adobe Photoshop you can easily go through and "Save for Web & Devices" or on newer version of PS you go to File > Export > "Save for Web (Legacy)

This allows you to control the size and quality of your images. Keeping them as sharp as you need while reducing the file size. Here is a great article I found that goes into more detail.

Hope this helps!

Hey there! I agree with Justen, sitewide links offer little to no value and could potentially do more harm than good. I would find somewhere else to place the link(s).

Not sure if you've already read this but here is an article that can help you learn more about MozTrust & MozRank Score

Although this article is from 2011, Dr. Pete does a great job explaining thin content.

Hope these help!! Cheers

Hey Glinski!

No matter where you go or who you decide to work with there will and should always be a difference of opinion. Simply because SEO is not a one size fits all type of service. It is a moving target and there are always several ways to skin the cat. My best advice is for you to interview people/agencies and go with what your gut tells you. There are a lot of people in this business that do it to for the sake of making money but there are also a lot of people that do it because they are passionate about it. After you interview a few you should be able to sort through and find the best fit for YOU.

Communication is critical. Draft a strategy, implement it, make changes, measure data, tweak things again, measure data... rinse and repeat. And most important... question everything. But don't be scared to make changes and bust outside the box every once in a while. If you don't, your competitors will and you will ultimately lose the battle.

Fight the good fight. Cheers!

Oh nice! I'll definitely check out that thread. Thanks!!

To clarify, since I am caught in a "who to please" battle of Client vs. Google, I was suggesting that since he "MUST" have the site launched by tomorrow morning that I block it from being indexed, which will allow me to launch it for him, yet, buy time to review with him the points you made and get everything sorted out with the old site penalty/duplicate NAP info before having Google come index the new site.

Does that make sense? Oy vey... what a mess lol

Wow Miriam, thank you so much for that detailed response. I appreciate all of your insight, you made some excellent points to consider and discuss with him.

The good news is he is open-minded and keen to staying up-to-date with the times regarding online search, branding, etc. So I think the points you made will be of great value when I speak with him.

In addition, about a year ago I went ahead and slowly began cleaning up his link-profile (against his wishes) as somewhat of a "loyal customer favor". What can I say, I think he's a good dude that deserves to shine! I don't normally do work for free but he's been a great client for a number of years and is easy to work with, unlike the majority we've encountered. I've been able to reduce the penalty down from "site-wide" to just a "partial" penalty. Working on it here and there, trying not to spend too much time on it.

The issue is, he is looking to launch the site for a presentation he will be giving tomorrow, so my plan is to block it from being indexed until I get a chance to meet with him and sort everything out.

Even if I block the site from being indexed do you think Google will see it and associate it regardless because the Google map is embedded and NAP is in there?

Thanks again Miriam!

If anyone else has anything to add or suggest, I am all ears!

I am working with a client in the dental space that has an existing (11 year old) website for his practice. His domain is tied to his last name, which he would like to get away from because he plans to sell the practice in the next couple years.

Backstory: Prior to taking him on, he was working with an SEO agency out of India that were built him quite an ugly backlink profile. Once we discovered it, we immediately notified him about the risk of a penalty if left alone. He was riding high in Google SERP's so of course, it was of no concern to him. Needless to say about a year ago he was inducted into Google's "manual penalty club" for suspicious links. His site vanished in Google and all! Hooray! But no, not really...

We met with him to discuss the options, suggesting we clean up his backlink profile, then submit for reconsideration. Based on the time we told him it could take to make progress and be back up and running, he wasn't very excited about that approach. He said he wanted us to rebuild a new site, with a new domain and start fresh. In addition, he wanted keep his original site live since it is tied to his already thriving practice.

To sum it all up, his goal is to keep what he has live since his customers are accustom to using his existing (penalized) website. While building a new brand/website that he can use to build a cleaner backlink profile and rank in Google as well as to sell off down the line without having his name tied to the practice.

Question: Being that he has an existing site with the company NAP info throughout and the new site will also have the same NAP (just a different domain/brand), is there a "best way" to approach this? The content on the new site would be completely unique. I understand this approach is iffy but in his situation it makes sense to some extent. Any feedback or ideas on how to best handle having two sites running for the same dental practice?

If any part of my question is confusing or you need further details to help make a suggestion, please fire away and I will be happy to give as much detail as possible. Thanks Mozzers!

I am still having the same issue as well. Definitely shoot them over an email and see what happens. I will do the same. Hopefully they are already looking into it for us. I will keep you posted if they get back to me on it.

Ahhh ok I follow you

Yes, in that case, that is be a much better approach! Thanks for clearing that up. Cheers!

Hey James!

The typical form of press releases being spun across a network of PR sites is a dark path. Over the years Google has implemented several algorithmic changes to discount these links.

Before going this route be sure to read up on Google's link scheme guidelines. Would hate to see you (or anyone for that matter) caught up being penalized. Consider Press Release links as "Nofollow" and be sure not to use multiple links with keyword optimized anchor text to avoid any penalties.

We stopped using press releases 10+ years ago and have focused our efforts in other areas of value.

Press releases that are sourced from the press side is where you'll get the most value. Those are difficult to acquire but they are the best source for links & referrals. Hope this helps! Cheers James!

I love it, thats awesome!!

Sounds like a great strategy and all you have to do now is rinse/repeat. Seems to me like you are becoming quite the expert, but I respect your humbleness. I know a good amount of self-proclaimed "SEO Experts" who've been in the business for years that can't think outside the box enough to pull off what you are doing.

Great work DLG, cheers!!

Hey DLG, thanks!

I'd love to hear more about what has worked for you in regards to guest posting. Please do tell

Hey DLG! Great question...

It won't hurt to resubmit but i guess it just depends on "how often" you make changes.

There was a thread on this about a year ago, take a look. Hope this helps! Cheers

Ha haaa!! No thinkLukeSEO, you aren't trippin'!

Yes, while gaining links by commenting on related blog articles may improve your rankings, they are still just low quality links. Depending on who you are up against in the SERP's and the competitiveness of the keyword you are targeting, this method may or may not move the needle. If this method is working in your scenario, I would be willing to bet that your competition must also have low quality links pointing to their site. Or very few links.

If you want high quality links you just have to dig deep, research and create valuable, high-quality content on your site that your target audience will find valuable. Share it, do outreach and make sure it can be found! Though these type of backlinks are harder to achieve, when you get them they are worth more than a hundred blog comments. At least in my experience this has proven true.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a spam-free internet to browse and find reputable sources for all of our search queries? Sadly that just isn't the case today. But we can dream, can't we! LOL

Cheers Luke!!

Thank for for jumping in Kristina!

I am still not seeing the conversation bubble using the latest Chrome browser (version 59.0.3071.109)

I had a similar issue a few years back using Firefox and was able to resolve it by disabling my browser add-ons one by one until the feature worked again. Do you think I should try disabling my chrome extensions to see if that fixes it? Funny I only made the switch from Firefox to Chrome because of how buggy the Moz toolbar was (in FF). Look at me now lol

Any help is much appreciated!

Nice! That's what this community is all about! Glad we could help

If you are using filezilla that video should help you get everything sorted out. Best of luck!!

Hey there!

Have you seen the webinar from Moz called  "When we changed from SEOmoz.org to Moz.com"

Might be able to shed some light for you. Good luck with everything, cheers!

Yes you are correct, you need to provide the path to access your xml sitemap. Add your sitemap to the root directory of your domain via FTP then you should be all set. Try submitting again using the url

Hope this helps!

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en

My pleasure Imran! Glad you found my response useful

My best advice here would be to NOT spend much (if any) of your time worrying about DA/PA. You will quickly drive yourself crazy doing so. Similar to watching your rankings from day to day, right? You will end up going bananas over it, for nothing. Not to say that you shouldn't be aware and check in on them front time to time but... you get it.

To answer your question, although the amount of traffic the article receives will help readers find the link back to your web page, I don't believe it will have any effect on the link being indexed. However, the backlinks that article earns over time will most certainly help. Share that article and get the word out! Congrats on the publication, great stuff!!

My pleasure Taylor If you don't mind tapping that "Good Answer" button, it would be greatly appreciated! Cheers

Hey there! Here are some basic principles to follow...

Step 1: Add a blog to your site

Step 2: Publish articles about relevant, industry related topics that your readers will find valuable

Step 3: Share your article(s) on social media outlets

Step 4: Perform outreach

Here is a great article on the topic from Neil Patel. Read up, read it again and then get to work!

This should get you moving in the right direction. Hope this helps!

Hey Jeff!

Was just going through some old questions I asked and realized I never gave credit for your answer!

Thanks again bud, cheers!

Yes Nikki, great addition about avoiding redirect chains! Redirects are useful and difficult to avoid in most cases but redirecting to a redirect should always be avoided for the sake of Page Speed and common sense Cheers!!

Hmmm... now that you mention it, I am using Chrome and have not seen the messenger feature down there over the past few days. I wonder if there is an issue with it or if it is an isolated issue in Chrome.

Moz? Any ideas or feedback on this?

Hey Imran!

From what I've experienced and been told by Moz, it can take up to two months for new links to appear in OSE. This is due to the way their crawls are scheduled.

But to answer your question, your links should show up within two months unless anything new has changed with the way Moz crawls the web. Hope this helps!!

Hey Taylor!

From what I know the best way to ensure your page shows up at the top when searched in Facebook is as follows:

1. Make sure your Brand name and FB URL match

2. Confirm you have the proper category set for your Page

3. Have a completed profile with thorough details about your business. *The About section plays a key role in FB search queries

4. Content, Content, Content (create and share high quality content with your audience)

5. Engage and interact with your audience

I know these sound basic but sometimes as marketers we get so wrapped up in everything else that we overlook them and end up scratching our heads...

Hope this helps!

Well... still not ranked. I'll just wait it out a few more days and see what happens, if nothing I'll reach out to Moz and see if they know more about it. Thanks again EGOL! Always a pleasure

Hey CLMS!

When you say "does not rank for any of the main keywords", do you mean that the home page doesn't rank just on page one or anywhere that you can find? This is an interesting one for sure.

I am wondering if the way the main text appears way down towards the bottom of the page. I'd think you would want all that unique content to be above those elements showing that it's important and not pushed down under all those products, images and links. Just a thought at first glance...

I'm digging around to see if there is anything I can find.

I am going with with FALSE on one this Dylan. Final answer

Sure, having the company contact info (phone & address) up there serves well for your site visitors to reach you (which is GREAT) but does not offer any real value from an SEO standpoint.

Hope this helps!!

Hey EGOL! Thanks for responding. Good, I was hoping it wasn't the same process used to update DA/PA ha haaa

I'd be off the map for a good while if that was the case =P Thanks again!

I would stay away from this approach! Super spammy. Like David mentioned above, leave comments to engage with the author about the article itself. There are far better ways to get valuable links these days.

Here's a great article from Neil Patel on building links. Maybe you'll find some takeaways from it.

Hope that helps Cheers!

I've been off the grid for about a month but just came to find I am now unranked in the Moz Community. Anybody know why this happens or how long it takes to get back? I was inside the circle of trust, now I am outside. It's cold out here, please let me back in!

Any feedback or help with this is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance Mozzers

I agree, Donald. And to answer your question, yes, it most certainly matters.

So, your new navigation is pushing your page content below the fold? Is that correct Catherine?

Hey Corp Analytics!

In short...

If you can avoid redirects you will certainly be serving your content faster.

Google recommends avoiding them where possible: https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/mobile

"Have you ever asked where a bathroom is and when you go there you are told that this bathroom is closed and you have to go to some other bathroom? It is like that. Redirects cause your pages to load slower because it is a waste of time to go to one place just to be redirected to another."

Makes sense, right?

Here another great article on the topic and the source of that quote: https://varvy.com/pagespeed/minimize-redirects.html

Hope that helps!!