Welcome to the Q&A Forum

HI Holly

Pls can you update us as to how this is progressing, any progress or at least aproximate timescales for a UK rollout of Moz Local ?

All Best

Dan

Here's a recent article on the subject: http://marketingland.com/googles-horowitz-no-google-plus-is-not-dead-130328

I think the whole 'authorship' and 'publisher' G+ features; linking real entities (people & organisations) to content, as a way of verifying & qualifying the content as being good quality & from a reputable source must be pretty helpful for Google so i would personally be surprised if they did away with those aspects of G+.

I know they have scaled back some aspects of 'authorship' such as removing the authors image in the SERPS but that could just be due to needing to reduce the 'computational budget/bandwidth' they allocate to it.

cool beans

cool thanks i see the tick

so that confirms that strucutred data testing tool can make you think its not set up when it actually is in the circumstance where you havnt added any code!/

We have set up webmaster tools long ago but not sure with what email address since so many in the oragnisation for this client. So are you saying if we havnt with same email address then theres a problem ? (the tick is there)

thanks for that resource, although it doesnt answer my question since says it was a bug and now working again so i need to know how you get a brand box bakc in the Knowledge graph, any tips welcomed

not really still looking for the answer, any ideas Matt ?  

yes thanks i did , had posted twice since no one answered this original post prob due to time of day

pls do see my follow up notes though

Thanks Tafser

What im asking is how do you check is the page/publisher is successfully set up if you have not used any code (so testing tool wont work since no code to look for) ?

Then I ask what do you need do to win the brand box in the knowledge graph, do you need a certain amount of followers or interactions before you get that ?

Thanks for the tips

All Best

Dan

• Hi

  How do you test successful G+ company page/publisher integration/verification if using the less technical methods such as linking between the Home page and the G+ company page instead of adding code to the head section? Since i  take it the google structured data testing tool cant work in these cases since no code on the head section !

  Is it best to add the code anyway ? I note my clients still not achieving a knowledge graph card/section in the search results for a branded search but i have heard that doesnt come until you have at least hundreds of followers and/or G+ interactions.

  All Best
  Dan

the moz bar says they are 301'd so presume so but will double check with dev

i suppose if all definately are 301'd for sure, then just wait and see what haps after the sitemap is updated correctly and then take it from there

Re: 302 vs 301 do you mean there's a possibility dev rewrote via a 302 instead of a 301 (they had told me used a 301) ?

Re mozscape not updating, I just checked G search results and upper case versions indexed there and last cache date was 12 march

Grt thanks !!

Sorry 1 final question since just noticed another related anomaly

The urls have been redirected to lower case for over a month now but the urls showing in ranking reports are mainly still upper case versions, how can that be ?

Cheers

Dan

thanks for confirming that Ryan !

So use 301 as the method for 'rewriting' upper to lower case, so the 301 is the rewrite ?

They had told me they had already applied 301's of upper to lower case so i guess its probably just a case of updating the site map urls to resolve this ?

all best

dan

Hi

How do you test successful G+ company page/publisher integration/verification if using the less technical methods such as linking between the Home page and the G+ company page instead of adding code to the head section? Since i  take it the google structured data testing tool cant work in these cases since no code on the head section !

Is it best to add the code anyway ? I note my clients still not achieving a knowledge graph card/section in the search results for a branded search but i have heard that doesnt come until you have at least hundreds of followers and/or G+ interactions.

All Best
Dan

thanks Ryan

I will do that , but just to confirm then re the contradictory messages, is that because there are 400+ pages indexed hence showing that info in the index status, BUT in the sitemap there's only the home page showing  because all the other urls in the sitemap have probably changed ?

I had instructed dev to rewrite upper case urls to lowercase and amend the sitemap. If the have done one but not the other could this be the sort of thing causing this discrepancy in the GWT messaging ?

All Best

Dan

Hi

Im looking in GWT account for a client of mine and see that in the index status area 400+ pages are indexed so all seems ok there! But then in the sitemap area 111 pages have been submitted but only 1 indexed !

Any ideas whats going on here ?

Cheers

Dan

Just looked into this further and the HTTP to HTTPS migration totally explains it IMO

Hi Monica

Im noticing even less pages in the sitemap index in GWT now so thinking could still be a genuine problem issue rather than data issue with GWT

Ive been looking a bit more in depth at ranking pages and notice that site went HTTPS in early Feb and the impressions started to drop almost straight after:Some previously well ranked HTTP pages dropped to the 50's - 60's suddenly in between the 4th - 11th Feb to be replaced in the high rankings soon after by their HTTPS equivalent/replacement. This time frame is exactly when the GWT impressions drop starts.The HTTP pages are still ranking though, so could the fact that pages are falling out of the index, combined with HTTP pages still ranking signal a possible dupe content issue causing the drop in impressions, and i should tell dev to delete or fwd/redirect the old HTTP pages now HTTPS are live ?If this is the cause, could it be a permenant problem or should deleting/redirecting solve it ?Just a thought !?------------------------------------------------------------Edit additional info:Ive just seen this article: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-webmaster-tools-http-https-19965.htmlThis makes me think need to set up a whole new webmaster tools profile for the HTTPS version and also explains loss of impressions etc for HTTP - so loss is nothing to worry about since impressions now being achieved by the HTTPS site version ?

ok thanks Monica

yes it does seem very strange and im very worried about that sharp fall in search impressions although cant explain it since rankings havn't fallen and neither has traffic from organic search, but impressions look like they are falling & consistently getting worse

Server error - im not sure since marked as fixed to see if old error and will see if it comes back but had been reported since December and these GWT issues only started on 9th Feb

Similarly the sitemap warning was first observed in October so didnt think would have anything to do with it. Its a 404 to do with a 'page-sitemap.xml' with the following message:

When we tested a sample of the URLs from your Sitemap, we found that some URLs were not accessible to Googlebot due to an HTTP status error. All accessible URLs will still be submitted.

But when i click on the example url it actually resolves with the correct page ok, so again didnt think this woud have anything to do with recent GWT issues

Panguin screenshot attached - doesn't look like anything since GA data is showing traffic and s light increase over mentioned period/after final yellow line which i presume is G update you refer too ?

Regarding: "Acquisition - Source/Medium and check the amount of unique traffic (not the total sessions, just the new sessions) from Google Organic and compare that to what you see in GWT"  Here i've gone to Source/Medium > Google Organic Then i've clicked 'Other..' ? 'Users' > 'User Type'. (Is this the best route to the data you mean ?). In here New Visitor and Returning visitor are listed with New Visitor saying 406 visits (same period in GWT is 393 so v close).

cfPbfwm

I've never really looked to see if they actually match to be honest, its not so much a about them not matching exactly, just that GA is reporting visits from organic search (specifically from google) as per normal/as it has done for last couple of months and GWT reporting sharp decline in impressions and almost zero click thrus (i attach a screen shot of the GWT dash).

Also a weird anomaly in GWT ive just seen today is that crawl stats crawl an average of 55 pages per day (last data point the 22nd Feb) whereas the sitemap index section is showing 65 pages submitted but only 16 indexed (which i'm sure is a drop and most were previously indexed). And Google index status is showing a sudden drop in indexed pages from the 15th to the 22nd going from 64 to 30 indexed pages).

21QCRQh

why not ?

surely if the GWT data is out of sync with everything else then it seems most likely the problems with GWT data doesnt it ? (especially given all the other recent articles on probs with GWT in Feb?)

I cant really due to showing who my most important client is so cant risk chance an unethical seo may see comment & who my client is and try to steal the biz, although im confident that would never happen from a mozzer, i just cant risk it since my most important client

In GA im looking at Organci Sear Traffic then looking at Google specifically and traffic all reporting fine right up to date, GWT shows no clicks over same period and ever reducing impressions (manual searches also contradict the GWT data)

So surely this is a GWT data issue ?

All Best
Dan

Ok thanks Monica,

but its definately looking like a discrepancy between GA & GWT since GA is reporting much higher visits than GWT, if site had been hit then GA would be reporting a drop in SE traffic too, which its not.

Also since there has been all this recent talk of GWT missing data then that seems to confirm that, although seems strange still getting some data when this recent talk of data loss is referring to halts in reported data on a certain day, which then seems to catch up (wheras im looking at up to date graphs just with much reduced search queries/impressions & clicks).

The site is not e-commerce and i have looked at Panguin (thanks for that great looking tool and from a v well respected agency), but in this particular case it just verifies the GA data, i have a problem with the GWT data not GA.

many thanks

dan

Hi

I'm seeing a significant drop in search queries being reported for a client in GWT starting on the 7th Feb. I have seen a few articles on SERound Table etc saying that many are reporting probs like delays etc with GWT updating its data, such as these ones:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-webmaster-tools-data-stalled-19854.html

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-webmaster-tools-analytics-data-19870.html

However these seem to suggest the problem is simply a delay with displayed data being updated, in the case im looking at the data is up to date but showing an increasing decline.  When i look at Analytics data though the data is completely different.  For exmaple GWT says on the 21st Feb there were 23 impressions with zero clicks but Analytics says there were 6 clicks/sessions from organic search. I take it this means that there is a likely problem with GWT data and I shouldn't worry ?

All Best

Dan

great thanks Chris

Thanks Alick !

RE:  If you're marking up your content for rich snippets, you can let us know

How do we let them know ?

Also how do i use this to see what triggers the snippet, i thought this was just for testing correct implementation: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/

many thanks

dan

Hi

Once you have added structured data to a web page, say adding 'product schema' to a product page how long can you reasonably expect before it take effects, ie. displays rich snippets ?

Also in the case of product schema what triggers the display of the rich snippet ? is it a branded keyword and product title search or just a product title search or can it result from a generic keyword search too ?

All Best

Dan

ok thanks for sharing your experience, i appreciate your comments

all best

dan

ok great thanks for confirming that Martijn

All Best
Dan

Hi Martijn

Its absolutely working globally by virtue of the papers subject 'digital nomadism': http://paper.li/danlawrence/1352573243

Now i want to put it on www.digital-nomad.info so on its own domain (since this is 7 years old/aged with relevant content)

However I understand it form other seo's/sources etc that .infos, like most other uncommen domain suffixes, are very hard to rank for on google, or rather .coms etc have a much easier job of achieving rankings quicker (all other things being equal of course)

Would appreciate your thoughts (and anyone else reading this who has any experience of .infos etc) ?

All Best

Dan

Hi

I know general concensus is to stay away from the non established domain suffix types and concentrate on .coms .co.uk’s etc etc.

But i have an aged .info domain that has some content on it related to a online news paper i have on that subject (on the news paper providers domain sub-folder currently) which i want to focus more time on and put on its own dedicated domain. So i want to upload it to this aged .info domain.

However waste of time if .info domains are bad for seo etc

Does anyone have any experience of .info doing well in serps or should i totally scrap the idea and try find a new .com etc type domain ?

My .info has been live with related content for 7 years so hoping that should count for something

All Best
Dan

ok thanks Oliver

does anybody else know the criteria via which its being offered and when they started offering it ?

Thanks Oliver yes that does make sense although I would imagine that they would offer CTA options for all page types, maybe just with different CTA types, so i'm thinking it may just be a random roll out.

Do you know how long these CTA's have been offered for or are they a brand new feature ?

All Best

Dan

Hi

On one of my projects FB fan pages ive been given option to create a CTA button such as 'Shop' 'Contact Us' 'Watch Video' etc etc

However on another projects FB fan page i logged in to try and set up for too and not being given the option although has many thousands more fans than the page i had been offered it for !1

Does anyone know how new this option is and likely reason only being offered it for a low fan number page and not pages with high fan numbers ?

All Best

Dan

cheers i think it has

thanks again for your help pointing me in right direction

Sorry Lynn but what is the 'windows' bit in control-windows-L since cant see on my keyboard, can it have a different icon/symbol etc?

Great stuff thanks Lynn !! Ill tell their dev to do that

many many thanks

All Best

Dan

cool cheers Don

Many thanks Don

ill ask client but dont think so (doubt any links pointing to them) but due to varying kw rich meta titles and h1's think client may have implemented this for some seo reason (hes very seo savvy but bit old school) prob not aware needs more content on page beyond a pic & some meta & an h1.

On a side note do you think these could be dragging sites rankings down (there are 350 of them) ?

All Best

Dan

Thanks Lyn

Yes it is wp i think

If i click on the image it loads page with image (another duplicate) in the series next

I'm not sure what the normal page is since can only find these via the cralw reports, they dont seem to be linked to in any site nav etc

Does that sound to you then like best solution is via Yoast redirects etc ?

On a side note do you think these could be dragging sites rankings down (there are 350 of them) ?

Cheers

Dan

Hi

I have a new client whose first MA crawl report is showing lots of duplicate content.

The main batch of these are all the HP url with an 'attachment' part at the end such as:

www.domain.com/?attachment_id=4176

As far as i can tell its some sort of slide show just showing a different image in the main frame of each page, with no other content. Each one does have a unique meta title & H1 though.

Whats the best thing to do here ?

1. Not a problem and leave as is

2. Use the paremeter handling tool in GWT

3. Canonicalise, referencing the HP

or other solution ?

Many Thanks

Dan

Have worked out how to check in sitemaps and can see that there are upper case urls being referenced so have instructed dev to force lower case and update sitemap to dynamic

A few months ago

Good point I'll ask , should that be a quick task for a dev to carry out ?

Also is it something i can verify myself ? (i have looked in GWT but cant see any urls listed only the sitmap itself)

Cheers Hutch

Hi

I have a client e-com site who's dev platform is on a windows server

Their product pages have been auto-named after the product title, with the first letter in each word being upper case, which has hence translated to the URL having upper cases instances too.

I asked them to set up 301 redirects for all url's that had upper case instances to lower case versions, which they say they have done.

However I'm still seeing url's with upper case instances showing up in webmaster tools and moz crawl reports but when I copy & paste them into a browser they do redirect to, & resolve in, the lower case version. Its also upper case versions reported in the Google cache!

So how come webmaster tools & Moz etc are reporting the upper case versions, surely if redirected it should be the lower case versions

All Best

Dan

great thanks for that additional info Geoff !

all best

dan

ok thanks !

nothing has changed just hoped it might do something

thanks Donna ! yes its all there and cache date is 15 Jan but still thought worthwhile fetching & rendering & submitting again, or does that do nothing more if its already indexed apart from asking G to take another look ?

Thanks for commenting Donna !

And providing the link to the interesting Q&A although this isn't the scenario i'm referring to with my original question.

The page isn't ranking at all although its very well optimised (and not overly so) and the keyword isn't that competitive so i would expect to be somewhere in the first 3-4 pages but its not even in first 100

Very similarly optimised pages (for other target keywords which are more competitive) are ranking well. Hence the fetch and render & submit to index i did, just to double check Googles seeing the page.

Cheers

Dan

Marvellous !

Many Thanks Robert !

All BEst

Dan