Welcome to the Q&A Forum

hi

just a quickie, anyone know off hand when you change your FB username/url do you retain or lose the likes/fans ?

cheers

dan

Hi Oscar

Sorry not a direct or full answer but just to let you know i have definately seen a few instances of this too i.e. Google coming up with their own titles and replacing the pages actual title tags.  If they think they can write a better title than whats in the tag they sometimes do

Cheers

Dan

I would still optimise the target landing page as per tradtional on page techniques and guidelines for the keyphrase, just in conjunction with my, and the other contributors to this threads, comments too

Thanks for the good info Chris !

Hi

I'm thinking of migrating my 11 year old store to a hosted platform based e-commerce provider such as Shopify or Amazon hosted solutions etc etc

I'm worried though that will lose my domains history and authority if i do so

Can anyone advise if this is likely or will be same as a 301 redirect etc etc and should be fine ?

All Best

Dan

in short - dont focus on the keyword anymore, focus on user/searcher intent so provide high quality content that answers queries relating to the topic in question and include the various synonyms as well as plural and singular versions of the related keywords if can be done in a manner thats makes sense and provides value

Thanks John

I do use SensorTower, really looking for a service that combines all, a hybrid of appfigures and sensortower is desired

Will check Appcodes when get a chance

Thanks for all your comments

Thanks for your comments Cyrus !!

I think (but may well be wrong) that they used to have a 1000 follower critieria before verification considered, so hope they don't raise the bar regarding qualifying critieria based on follower numbers

Also seems a tad unfair if follower numbers do contribute to qualifying criteria since pages in some countries (such as the USA) will have advantage over smaller country pages (UK etc) due to smaller local market size

All Best

Dan

Thanks for your comments but im looking directly into subfolder option (since TLD not an option and sub-domain considered bad practice from what i can gather after many days research on Moz etc

As a result this is what ill issue to a clients development team in this circumstance is as follows for where sites preferred structure is sub-folders/directories:

1. Implement IP sniffing on the home page ONLY

2. Then have Sub-Folders named after the official country abbreviations which will create a better user experience than both country and language i.e. domain.com/us/ as opposed to domain.com/en-us/ or domain.com/en-gb/ etc etc. This way it will only manipulate the homepage crawling and not site-wide indexing issues.

3) Target these folders to the correct countries in Google’s and Bing’s Webmasters Tools. Use the official country and language codes in the Hreflang mark-up as per point 4.

4. Set up site maps for each subfolder and rel="alternate" hreflang= according to Google guidelines. Here's a great tool to help with correct implementation: http://www.themediaflow.com/resources/tools/href-lang-tool/

5. Specify the content language/country by adding the 'country-language' meta-tags in the html head

6) Link between each country/language version in a crawl-able and visible manner (for SE and Users)

7) Create individual profiles in GWT & Bing Webmaster Tools for each country/language sub-folder and geo-target accordingly

Create individual profiles within GAnalytics for each country/language version and configure to track internal activity between different versions

9) Localise content so has US currency, contact details, spelling etc

10) Other localisation techniques ( such as marking up contact details with schema places code)

Note RE: HrefLang & Canonicalisation:

An extra advantage of using hreflang is that it will provide a degree of canonicalisation. Should canonical tag be employed in the future never so across language versions if site expand into non English versions. More info here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Igbrm1z_7Hk

Thanks for confirming that John !

PS - App Figures, which is great btw (thanks for the heads up), doesnt offer keyword rank reports as far as i can see (only category)

ok great many thanks John, sorry but just to confirm, thats in iTunes directly we should be able to get all that data  !!

Thats great information thanks John !

Our app is free (but with in app purchases), will iTunes data (sales & trends or other section) tell us the actual number of downloads (as opposed to sales) ?

Thanks for the heads up re Appfigures too

Have a great weekend !

All Best

Dan

Hi

Where do you get accurate app download information from (I cant find in iTunes) ?

Cheers

Dan

Hi

According to all the resources i can find on Moz and elsewhere re int seo, say in the context of having duplicate versions of US & UK site, its best to have subfolders i.e.

domain.com/en-gb/

&

domain.com/en-us/

however when it comes to the user journey and promoting web address seems a bit weird to say visit us at: domain.com/en-us/ !?

And what happens if someone just enters in domain.com from the US or UK ?

My client wants to use an IP sniffer but i've read thats bad practice and should employ above style country/language code instead, but i'm confused about both the user journey and experience in the case of multiple sub folders.

Any advice much appreciated ?

Cheers

Dan

Hi

If you were developing a US version of an existing UK site then is this the correct format/instructions for on-page SEO.  Ive taken quite a lot from Aleydas great post:  http://moz.com/blog/the-international-seo-checklist but just want to confirm below is a good overall checklist to provide to clients developers ?

1. Create US & UK country & language subfolders such as:

domain.com/en-us/

and

domain.com/en-gb/

2. Add 'rel=alternatehreflang' attribute according to google guidelines

3. Add individual site map to each subfolder or will the hreflang attribute do or vice versa or both best?

4. Don't redirect users via IP sniffing their location and serving up country/language version.  Instead obviously link between language/country versions with a crawlable and very visible menu.

5. Use the meta content language/country by adding the 'country-language' meta-tag in your html head

6. Create individual profiles in GWT & GA for each country/language version and geotarget accordingly

7. Localise content: spelling, currency, contacts etc

Anything else re on-page/technical im missing ?

Many Thanks
Dan

[edited to fix formatting]

Hi Max

So do you need an individual site map for each country subfolder as well as hreflang, or either or (since you say or) ?

Should subfolders be of the format /en-us/ & /en-gb/ etc ?

Any resources you recommend for finding the right way to deal with IP sniffing or not ? or preferred alternate solutions ?

Many Thanks

Dan

Thanks for commenting Jen,

The seller is the manufacturer so yes.

Strange one since they (manufacturers site) should and probably will rank higher since the established brand and descriptions been live for a lot longer than on Amzn, but Amazon likely to rank well too due to authority and with time as you mention extra content via reviews etc etc

Hence presume fine to simply copy and paste description from manufacturers website into manufacturers amazon descriptions.  Since site should rank better and Amazon will differentiate over time with reviews etc ?

cheers

dan

Hi

When filling in inventory files to upload to the likes of Amazon clients will usually be copying and pasting the product descriptions from the website product descriptions into the Amazon product description field

Should they really be re-written to avoid dupe content issues ?

I presume not since it is the official description of the product.

Please note that i'm talking here about the manufacturers website/product descriptions and their own Amazon shop descriptions.  So theirs is the original authoritative description.

Cheers

Dan

Thats great info thanks very much Maximilian !!

thanks Cyrus will do !

Hey Jake

That is correct as i understand it

That broad match in title is: keywords in any word order

and exact match is: keywords in the exact order of the target keyword

Hope that helps ?

All Best

Dan

Hi

I have a client project site thats been operating successfully in the UK now for a few months and looking to expand offer to USA.

Their dev team thinks best to have a UK & US subfolder with IP sniffer serving up the relevant version depending upon ip location

Apart from price differences and some spelling differences content will likely be duplicate.

Please can anyone offer advice in regard to the above such as links to latest international seo resources/articles etc (i have seen Aleydas great WBF).

If anyone has any experience of above scenarios (i.e. knows of probs with ip sniffer method in regard to seo or essentially having dupe folders for uk & usa just with local differences) then any advice comments will be much appreciated ?

Many Thanks

Dan

Thanks Yusef you answered fine originally - i know about this bit but thanks for taking time commenting again anyway

thanks but does seem to be on most site pages ?

if 'fixed' it would that require 301 redirects from old dot version to new non dot version (since old established pages) ?

cheers

dan

Hi

Ive got a new project and seeing a dot after the forward slash something ive never seen before what does it mean ?

Are there any seo issues regarding it, is it bad practice or fine to proceed using that format ?

Example below;

www.domain.co.uk/**.**cool-new-product

Thanks

Dan

Hi

Have you changed criteria for onpage grader recently since i see a page a havn't touched/changed has dropped from an A to B ?

Cheers

Dan

Thanks Gary, so you are confirming that this is an issue ?

My clients using NOP commerce which is automatically populating the category page with the product listings hence can either leave the brand keyword in listings or remove them, not sure how or even if possible to edit/change so brand is removed when listing populated on category page, but then retained on the sub product specific page ?

Cheers

Dan

Hi

Say you have a category page on your ecommerce store for a range of a brands products you sell, say brand is called "Cool Surfboards" and is hence the pages target keyword.

This page is being populated by name, image and snippet/description for each of the brands different products in the range, such as: "Cool Surfboards HiFive", "Cool Surfboards Rad" , " Cool Surfboards XYZ" etc etc etc

Since there are many products in the range the kw is being repeated aprox 20 times.  The page is scoring an A grade but obviously failing in regard to keyword stuffing.  However if you remove the brand and rename the products by model name only then the sub product specific pages will fail to be optimised for 'brand and model' and it would seem silly to not name the product what it actually is.

So the question is, i take it Google is clever enough to ignore kw stuffing in these types of instances since its not actually kw stuffing and hence should leave as is ? Or will G consider it stuffing/over optimised and you should remove the brand name for the individual product names to prevent this ?

cheers

dan

HI Anna

its most likely reduced because new KW planner is giving Exact match search volumes rather than previous kw tool giving Broad match search volumes

All Best

Dan

Some seo's have been offering this type of billing, on results only, for quite a long time now.

I can see the attraction, although i would never offer it myself, especially since the consequence of a good contemporary seo program extend far beyond ranking results.  For example an SEO's efforts sorting out all the social media profiles for the SEO benefit and advice or work on the ongoing social profile management would likely result in more reach, engagement and hence traffic and hopefully sales and increased brand awareness and reputation etc etc.  Hence client would likely be receiving high value results from social immediately but not paying anything for it. So i wouldnt be happy working like that.

I would ask what defines a result that justifies billing ?

Is it simply a ranking result for keywords they choose (in which case be very wary since they may not convert) OR keywords you choose based on research OR is it conversions from organic search result to your website OR is it an actual sale tracked back to organic search (& arguably social too if they are doing a holistic 'Inbound' package).

If its the latter and the CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) they propose/you negotiate leaves you with a profit then worth considering.

Interested to hear what other think ??

Hi

Does anyone know why Google is no longer accepting verification request fro G+ co pages ?

cheers

dan

Many thanks Mike

Google is already rewrting the titles in the serps, what I'm asking is once we actually rewrite them in the meta title can further ranking improvements be expected ?

What i mean is if Google are already correctly entitling the page in the listing with kw etc can further ranking improvements be expected from actually populating the title in the page meta title area ?

Hi

Im working on a client/project and crawl report is showing thousands of dupe page titles

In the case of the blog/news section its aprox 50 since aprox 50 posts and they all have the same meta-title:

"Brand News | Brand"

as opposed to:

"Title Unique to Page/Topic/KW Relating to Content | Brand"

Since these are the main content pages we want to rank (in addition to the main site category pages) then i have instructed dev must prioritise populating these pages meta-titles with the actual post/article titles, as per the latter version of the above example. (I should mention that i have requested they fix all dupe titles but main content pages are the priority).

Whilst this will reduce the number of dupe titles in crawl error/warning report which is a good thing, is it actually likely to increase the ranking of these news/content pages given that Google does seem to be rewriting the titles correctly in the serps based on the page content ?

Many Thanks in advance for your input

Hi Lynn

Yes have seen the wbf but thanks for the other link

All Best

Dan

it certainly would, must be hard for people with different characters in their alphabet.  However i think if your otherwise scoring a B then you know that really you have scored an A etc etc

Thanks Lynn !!

Blimey ! any thoughts how to explain that to a client (or post covering this) , that we will no longer be able to distinguish between brand & non branded organic traffic, let alone kw specific traffic

All Best

Dan

Thanks for confirming that Paul !

Ive also noticed that when using services like Buffer etc, to post socially, that the articles image is not being displayed as an option in the images to choose from, to display as the image in the post, Instead its only showing options like the site logo etc which we don't want.  I asked Buffer tech support and they said that if the images had height/width attributes then they should then be presented as image options to accompany the post

All Best

Dan

i would guess that yes it is because of the Latvian characters, if you send Moz a support request they will be able to confirm this for you

All Best

Dan

Hi

How important are the image height/width attributes and would you expect a best practice site to have them included ?

I hear not having them can slow down a page load time is that correct ?

Any other issues from not having them ?

I know some re social sharing (i know bufferapp prefers images with h/w attributes to draw into their selection of image options when you post)

Most importantly though would you expect them to be intrinsic to sites that have been designed according to best practice guidelines ?

Thanks

Why am i still seeing very recent organic kw traffic being reported in Analytics if G is now fully encrypted ?

Should it not all be 'Not Provided' now ?

When this fully roles out if not already wont it be impossible to distinguish between brand and non brand kw ?

Cheers

Dan

Many Thanks Tomas for that very interesting information, its a very good reference and i shall frequently refer to it

Thanks so much for taking the time to write such a thorough comment

Have a great day !!

Good answer cheers Tom !

Hi

If a pages url has half the pages target keyphrase (i.e. 1 word instead of 2) is it still worth changing to include entire keyphrase (2 words) given need to then add 301 redirects etc after ?

If it was a new page then I would definately include full keyphrase but the page is a few months old and has quite high page authority as is (i know a 301 should transfer most authority) but given this page and other sub pages would also need to be 301'd if this change occurs and the dev time/cost that would incurred/charged by the design/dev agency. Also thinking Google being cleverer now (the pages content will be about the target kw) so thinking G would work it out from rest of page content and partial match kw in url.

In other words to best target keyphrase is it best to leave url as is or change url to include keyphrase ?

For example if the pages target kw is 'swimming clubs' and the current url is

www.franksleisurecentres.com/clubs

changing it to

www.franksleisurecentres.com/swimming-clubs

:Thanks

Dan

the sites pages are dynamically generated so they have either quoted for an option to create a special page/another step in the process to provide a unique url or adding an event as a goal (with the event being the clicking of a 'submit order' button) but i cant see how this second option would take more than 30-60 minutes as well

Thanks but no idea how to, what do i do just copy and paste the code in your above/most recent comment, change the word 'button' to something else (or add something else after it) like 'data-transaction-button'.  Do i change every instance of 'data-paypal-button' in above script to 'data-transaction-button' too ?

Then i just email it to dev and ask them to add it to an external file on the site ?

What about the code in your first comment ? (which i had already emailed the dev team) does that need to be done first before code in your most recent post ? And how and where does one fire an event in javascript ?

Pls be aware i havn't got any site backend access, i've just been advising dev what i need done so i can track conversions etc but they have come back with a massive quote for that so if i can do myself great but have no dev or code experience

Really appreciate you taking the time to comment/help

Thanks Lynn

Client doesnt want to pay for anything they think should be included as best practice since original dev was quoted as going to be best practice

Cheers

Dan

thanks again but im not after recommendations, im talking about the general principle and approach in regard to it

thanks Tom but im talking about developers not SEO companies