Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks... I stand corrected

I think there is a rich snippet for breadcrumbs that you can use to create something like this. - it's not exactly the same, but instead of the URL, Google will create links.

I had it for a while, until the powers that be within my organisation insisted that every page on my site needed an SSL certificate - then it all went

So, so long as your pages are not on https (e.g http) then breadcrumbs would work.

Some info from Google here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/185417?hl=en

Hope it helps!

Amelia

Hi Andy,

I just wanted to say, I followed your advice and now every single page I've submitted via webmaster tools in the xml sitemap (for Commercial Trust) has been indexed! Thank you for helping with this, you are a super-star!

Amelia

Do they bring traffic? Does that traffic convert?

If yes, then making them nofollow won't actually hurt you very much at all!

It seems counter-intuitive I know, but better to be safe than sorry.

Good luck,

Amelia

Thank you, much appreciated! Have a fab day

Andy,

There is a new xml sitemap on the new domain: www.commercialtrust.co.uk/sitemap.xml, this is a directory xml sitemap.

The old xml sitemap can be accessed here: www.turnkeylandlords.co.uk/sitemap.xml.

I was wondering if I should redirect the TurnKey Landlords xml to the Commercial Trust xml?

Thanks,

Amelia

Hi Andy,

Everything in the old XML sitemap redirects to the new site.

So, I should redirect the XML as well?

Thank you,

Amelia xx

Hi Mozzers,

We have recently rebranded with a new company name, and of course this necessitated us to relaunch our entire website onto a new domain.

I watched the Moz video on how they changed domain, copying what they did pretty much to the letter. (Thank you, Moz for sharing this with the community!)

It has gone incredibly smoothly. I told all my bosses that we may see a 40% reduction in traffic / conversions in the short term. In the event (and its still very early days) we have in fact seen a 15% increase in traffic and our new website is converting better than before so an all-round success!

I was just wondering if you thought I should redirect my XML sitemap as well? So far I haven't, but despite us doing the change of address thing in webmaster tools, I can see Google processed the old sitemap xml after we did the change of address etc.

What do you think? I know we've been very lucky with the outcome of this rebrand but I don't want to rest on my laurels or get tripped up later down the line.

Thanks everyone!

Amelia

You're welcome, Anne.

I wouldn't add ALT tags to all images. Only those that add context to a page - if it's a design element that repeats from page to page it would be incredibly annoying to have it read out by a screen reader over and over again. Example: 'Company X Logo, Company X Logo, Company X Logo, Company X Logo....' How to wind-up the blind very quickly!!!

I started my digital career working for an agency that specialised in producing accessible websites for schools, nurseries, public libraries etc. I learned a lot about how screen readers work there and it was a real eye-opener. (if you excuse the pun)

XXX A

Fantastic news! Well done

Pleasure! How did it work out?

Google is making you change your company name? Strange!

Do you mean that Google wants you to create your custom name? If so, make it your company name! If there is another entity with the same company name as you - for example my company is based in the UK and caters entirely to the UK market but there is another company in USA with exactly the same company name (fortunately they have good reviews, so are clearly trustworthy!) - we made sure we bagged the Google +, Twitter and facebook profiles first to avoid this issue, but I can imagine it's frustrating!

If as I suspect, you have the same company name as another entity on Google + then why not add something meaningful to yours - if your a local service (e.g. TV repair man) then why not 'company-name-location'? If the other entity is on a different industry to you, why not append your industry to your company name - 'company-name-TV-repairs'?

Just a thought! Good luck, and best wishes,

Amelia

Yeah - do this!

Webmaster tools will tell you what google is 'thinking'

It sounds like a temporary redirect so, yes a 302 would be correct. Remember 302's do not pass link juice though.

Hi Mark

These sound like ace suggestions. As a heads up, when I made a suggestion, I was directed to this page (by a Moz Staff member) in order to make it: https://seomoz.zendesk.com/forums/293194-seomoz-pro-feature-requests

Hope it helps!

XX Amelia

You can tell Google in webmaster tools that your site has changed address. Only do this if the entire site has changed address though.

There's a Matt Cutts video on moving domains here:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

Best of luck,

Amelia

Totally agree with you, great points!

I may not be answering this correctly...

Are you looking for a list of URLs? If so, easy peasy to use screaming frog.

If it's all the pages Google has indexed, I don't really know and I'm sorry! However, I will come back to this thread to see if someone else has the answer for you, because I'm quite interested in it myself!!!

Best of luck,

Amelia

Wish I could say the same. When they use incorrect English grammar in the request email, we send it round the team to have a giggle....

Thanks for the link. I will request this because it took me an age to add everything! Thank you.

You should specify a preferred domain in webmaster tools to get google to list a particular domain/subdomain.

Sounds to me as though Google is listing one version of your domain and the other search engines a different version. I don't think this is a moz error.

Hi,

Is there a facility to upload a spreadsheet? I have a LOT of pages to grade and it's taking a very long time.

Can you make this possible in some future update if it isn't currently available?

Thanks,

Amelia

Thank you

Hi,

Gyorgy has answered your question about the page titles. However, you ask another question about why your site doesn't show in Australian Google: have you checked webmaster tools site settings to make sure your Australian site has Australia as the geographic target?

Good luck,

Amelia

This is a really good question.

I think ALT tags should be used on all images that add information to the user, but not on those that are just there to add a bit of interest to the page (background images etc).

Someone using a screen reader would find it intensely annoying if you just stuff keywords into your alt tags. Don't ever forget the true purpose of alt tags: they are there to help people using screen readers (generally blind and visually impaired people) to 'view' a web page. Not to get additional SEO benefit. Though of course, if you choose relevant images you can 'kill two birds with one stone'!

Hello Cyrus,

I LOVE your blog posts!

The urls are:

https://www.turnkeymortgages.co.uk

and

https://www.commercialtrust.co.uk

Hi,

I tried to add my URLs and descriptions and titles last Friday evening (I didn't have time to post in here). I had the same errors.

What I would like added is:

TurnKey Mortgages

https://www.turnkeymortygages.co.uk

TurnKey Mortgages is a whole of market mortgage broker based in the UK.

Commercial Trust

https://www.commercialtrust.co.uk

Commercial Trust is a brokerage specialising in buy to let mortgages, bridging loans and commercial mortgages. We are based in the UK.

A note about Commercial Trust - YES I know it's just displaying our holding page but in about a month's time we will move everything from www.turnkeylandlords.co.uk and everything from www.turnkeybridging.co.uk to www.commercialtrust.co.uk along with some brand-spanking-new content about commercial mortgages...

Thanks for all your help,

XX Amelia

Hi,

For some reason when I try and add my site's link in my Moz profile I keep getting an error.

My site an SSL so I used https instead of http. I tried again without the 's' as my domain redirects to the https version, but this didn't work. Then I tried without http or https and this didn't work either.

Why does Moz hate my site? It's actually really good!!!

Thanks,

Amelia

Thank you Keri - I suspected that this was the case. It is good to have it confirmed by you.

Thank you Chris.

I appreciate you taking the time to answer this question for me.

Best wishes,

Amelia

Hi Jstrong,

I have a cousin called J strong! I don't suppose you are the same person, but if you are, Hi James!!!

Thank you for pointing this out, yes it is very important to have a preferred domain set. I'm just about to double-check that I have done it.

Have a great day

Amelia xx

Thank you, you have confirmed my thinking on this. I will choose the https version.

I'm OCD and have verified all versions of my site in webmaster tools... Is this normal? I thought it was better to have and not need than not have and need... if you know what I mean?

Thanks again for responding, it's very kind and helpful of you to do so. I hope you are having a lovely day

Amelia

Hi Mozzers,

I am about to move a load of content from one site to another and switch off the first site. I've got all my 301s mapped and ready to go. My gosh, that's one heck of a piece of work - it better be worth it

I have been looking at Webmaster Tools Change of address. I want to know which site do I choose to change the address to? I have three versions of my site in webmaster tools:

• the ssl version (https)
• the non-ssl version (http)
• No www. in front

My site has a sitewide SSL certificate (company policy - personally, I'd only have it on the parts that need it, but life's too short for some battles...) so should I send everything to the https version? My instinct says the https version but I really can't afford to get this wrong.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Please help!

Thank you,

Amelia xx

Hello Niners,

There's very little control over this... Via webmaster tools you can demote a sitelink, but you can't tell Google which pages to choose. You can also turn the feature off altogether (though WHY someone would want that is beyond me...)

I guess you have control over the hierarchy of your site, so you could influence the sitelinks, but I don't really know how you'd go about doing this....

Best of luck,

Amelia

Hello,

You are better off not getting keyword rich anchors these days. I wouldn't change a thing if I was you. Google isn't happy by this type of link (apparently it's a 'bought' link even though no money has changed hands), so you're better off making sure it looks as natural as possible.

Best wishes,

Amelia

Hello Wardy,

If you are really concerned, you should make the links nofollow. However, I think Robert has got this answered for you!

Best of luck,

Amelia

Edward,

I just had another thought. If you have good photography it would probably be worth starting a Pinterest board for your products and recipes.

Best of luck,

Amelia

It's a pleasure

Hello Edward,

First of all, you've joined the right community! In my experience Mozzers are incredibly friendly and helpful.

I can't give you a complete SEO strategy, but these suggestions may help:

1. Check out your competitor's backlinks. 
   I have no idea about your industry, but you must have competitors. Use the Moz backlink tool (Open site explorer) to see the backlinks your competitors have. This will give you a list of potential sites you can then try and get a link from. In my experience, it's easier to get a link if you actually speak to the site owner so if they display their telephone number then ring it!
2. Blogging
   You already mentioned blog posts. If you have the time to, you should be posting something regularly on your blog. I believe it is better to publish high quality blog posts less frequently (but still on a regular basis) than poor quality ones more frequently. Make sure you write for your human visitors first - the search engine robots have no interest buying your cavier!
3. Online review sites
   There are several independent review sites where your customers can leave a review of your products and services. Although this won't increase your rankings, if the reviews are good it will increase the conversion rate of your site. Some have an agreement with Google, where once a reviewee has 30 positive (I think 4.3 or higher rating) reviews, then the star rating will be displayed in the SERPs. This can increase CTR which means even if you're not in the top spot your listing will stand out and the stars will encourage visitors. We use Trustpilot, but they are quite pricey - the other company we were looking at at the same time was reviews.co.uk who I believe are a little cheaper. You can also use your Google business page to gather reviews but customers have to create a google account if they don't already have one so the take-up may not be as strong.
4. Reach out
   There are about a gazillion foodie blogs out there. I know because I love food and I read them! Why not send some samples to some carefully selected blog owners (pick the most popular) for reviews / tastings? The reviewer will get some free caviar (not to be sniffed at, eh) and you get some tasty links.
5. Reach out some more
   Why not do the same with your favourite national newspaper foodie columnists? They all have online versions of their columns and may provide a link. At the very least they may include your site in their supplier lists which would be nice.
6. Winter Olympics!!!
   You sell caviar, the most luxurious Russian food available. Use the upcoming winter olympics to your advantage (though you will have to be careful about copyright).
7. Start an online recipe book
   This doesn't need much explanation... Make sure to use the rich-snippet recipe mark-up (or the data-highlighter tool in Webmaster Tools) to 'tell' the search engine's that it's a recipe (if you have a picture of the recipe then this will display in the SERPs increasing CTR.)

I hope these help! Do let us know how you get on!

Best wishes,

Amelia

Hi Luke,

I'm interested in other responses to this question...

If I was in your position after seriously berating the dev I would make sure you disallow the dev site in your robots.txt and use webmaster tools to remove the URLs from the index. Then I would password protect the dev site so the search engines couldn't get there even if they try.

Like I say, I'm interested in other responses! This is what I would do, but I don't really know if it's definitely the right thing to do. Does anyone else have anything to add?

Best of luck - its crappy when someone else's error cocks up your work: when our site launched for the first time our IT department screwed up on a monumental scale by getting the DNS settings wrong.

Amelia

Hi Kyle,

I'd be careful. The more your sites look like a link farm the less likely they will list.

If you can't be arsed creating several decent sites, why not just create one excellent one and put all your efforts into that rather than this (dodgy-to-me-sounding) strategy. If you don't mind my saying, I think it's fundamentally flawed and I recommend against it.

Good luck with whatever you end up doing!

Best wishes,

Amelia

Hello Lee,

Are you using Google+ Authorship? If you aren't then I think you should be.

Are you sourcing the sites manually, and maintaining a direct relationship with the site owners (as in you don't go via a 3rd party)? Are you adding value to the sites you guest blog on? If you are doing this things then I would have thought you'd be OK.

I think the slippery slope is when the link matters more than the content, the site it's published on, the audience who read it and something Rand didn't mention: if you paid for it or not. So long as your content is good and it is being published on sites that send you relevant (converting) traffic then it ticks more boxes than just being there for the links. I try and think of all links like this: If Google stopped counting this link, would it still provide value? If it's on a high-traffic site and is relevant to that site's audience then it doesn't matter whether Google gives credit for it or not because it still brings in traffic, hopefully my site does it's job properly and turns that traffic into customers. Because it's customers that make a difference to my business NOT rankings!!

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes,

Amelia

As far as I know, Google isn't case-sensitive so the two queries would be treated as identical.

Good tip, thank you