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Agree with Andy and Donford.
I've seen it take as long as 8 months. It really depends on how long it takes for Google to reindex your site and every other page that previously pointed (backlinked) to you. It also assumes, as Andy-Halliday has pointed out, you've done your redirects correctly.
Don't give up. Don't change it back. Be patient. The only thing you can do is earn more and better links and that's not really recovering faster, it's augmenting your existing authority.
I concur with Ryan. Personally, I would not want to give up that history and would avoid multiple properties. I'm wondering if you could, with a little forethought and planning, group content to enable meaningful comparisons after you do the switchover.
Here's a link to a recently published (Jan 2015) guide to over 150 Google Analytics resources that I've found helpful.
While the explanations offered make sense and I agree with them, you say it's happening "a lot". What's "a lot"? A couple of weeks? A month? More than that? I would think that the difference you're seeing should lessen if you're controlling for all the other influencing factors mentioned above. If not, it would seem as though there's something else at play.
Agree with Ryan Purkey's recommendation.
Domain names are treated differently than most text probably because of space constraints. You don't need to worry about separating words. You want to keep your domain name short and memorable. As Ryan says, having to say "Gray DASH or Hyphen Digital) is not memorable.
Go with graydigital if it's available.
That's a tough one Heather. I've had a surprising number of people ask me that same question.
You have some good suggestions so far. I can think of one more. It's called Barnacle SEO. It's referencing an analogy where you make like a barnacle on a ship, attaching yourself to a higher authority site to outrank the one that's above you in search results.
Rand did a whiteboard Friday on it last summer. It's still not a quick or easy solution, but it could help.
If I'm understanding you correctly, I think you're going to have the same problem with channels. Google changed their reporting structure in July 2013.
No, I don't think letting nature take its course is the answer, but there might be another approach.
You could, as Hutch42 suggests, inventory existing URLs and then gather some additional information, meaning inbound (landing page) traffic and links.
Group pages according to the ones that are getting a significant amount in inbound traffic or have inbound links. Redirect those. Don't bother with the others.
Google analytics will tell you which pages have landing page traffic. Use a couple of different link tools to assess which ones have valuable inbound links including Google Webmaster Tools. (Every tool is going to give you a different answer. You want as good an inventory as you can muster.)
How much is "enough" inbound traffic and/or links? That'll be a judgment call on your part. So really you'll need to weigh the amount of effort to do this analysis versus the amount of effort to build the redirects and go from there.
That's my two cents.
And the data aggregators of course, as they feed so many other local local repositories. That's the benefit of using Moz Local. It will guide you through the submission process and feed data aggregators. Then, as Jim Rudnick mentions, Whitespark is an excellent resource for finding (and acquiring) other highly relevant and worthwhile citation sources.
If you don't want to use moz local, you can use their educational materials to arrive at the same place.
It might make sense to ask for an objective 2nd pair of eyes on your Wordpress configuration. It's sounding like it might be a setup problem. Do you have someone you can ask to do that?
If anything changed between the 15th and today, it'll help ensure it gets updated. But that's all.
Can you see if it's cached? Try cutting and pasting the entire URL into the search window, minus the http://. If it's indexed, it should show up in search results. Not the address bar, the search window.
You maybe haven't gotten any responses yet because the page you reference - http://manvanlondon.co.uk/category/clients/removals/man-and-van-wandsworth - comes up as a blank page with the words "write error" in the upper left-hand corner. It's hard to diagnose without being able to see.
I get the same error if I try to view http://manvanlondon.co.uk/category/. Are those legitimate pages? I can't navigate to it via your site structure. I can get to http://manvanlondon.co.uk/category/removals/ but not http://manvanlondon.co.uk/category/clients/removals/.
Hi Dan,
You might find this Q&A helpful. It offers suggestions for what to do when an unexpected page is ranking for your targeted keyword phrase. I think most, if not all, suggestions apply in your case as well. Good luck!
I agree with Ray-pp. It can take some time - weeks to months - for Google to catch up with the changes made to the site. Sounds like something else might be going on causing you to have so many extra pages indexed. Can you explain the cause of having ~5,000 extra pages indexed? When did they first start to appear? Are you sure you've configured your wordpress implementation to minimize unnecessary duplicates?
There are some pretty good resources right here on Moz Christopher:
Messichessi, it's a good question. I suspect the sources of those incoming links to your site - the sites linking TO you - might not have been part of the 35%. It could also be that Moz only shows you a sampling of the incoming links it has inventoried, much like Google does.
As you can see from Sean's explanation above, Moz doesn't inventory every link, and the process they use is different from Google (and any other link reporting tool, for that matter).
Hi Messichessi,
That question has been asked before. The short answer is about once a month and you can view updates here.
It's always best to search Q&A before posting. You can often find your answer quickly that way. Of course there may be times when you need additional clarification or the answer might need updating, but it's a good place to start.
Maybe try a search internal to Facebook. Type your company name. Facebook will autosuggest options. Skip the one that probably represents your own facebook page, assuming you have one, and click on "company name" (probably the last option shown on the drop-down list).
I'd start by taking a look at your link profile. I did a quick check with Moz and Majestic SEO and noticed a couple of things:
Another quick note (but this wouldn't prevent you from being indexed) is your tag pages are indexed. I'd change those to noindex to minimize duplicate content.
LindaLV's suggestion is a good one too. Take a look at that. GWMT gives you not all but more keyword data that Google Analytics.
You can, if you narrow your objectives, specialize and try to rank organically.
If you're trying to rank for "big city" + "short, popular and highly competitive keyword phrase" then you won't be able to outrank local search results. At least not for the short term.
The recommended approach is to carve a geographic or specialty niche for yourself, produce excellent, compelling content, and build some popularity and authority. Once that's done, you can consider expanding and going after some of the more popular and general terms like "toronto dentist".
See what Matt Cutts has to say on the matter here - www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XHAhn8HCzs.
Agree with Hutch42, and also suggest you can do some experimentation with Adwords. It's not perfect, but it does make it easier to identify and segment the phrases that are actually converting.
If it were me, I'd keep looking.
Nothing wrong, from a SEO perspective, with going with .gy or .co. I just think you'd be explaining "it's not a .com" and spelling the extension for years. It's less memorable. You'll get a lot of questions. You'll frustrate people with fat fingers.
How about "thepbguys.com". It's a funky (in a positive way) name for a funky (in a positive way) site and also still available.
This is a great post to help with site architecture. Published in 2011 and still relevant today.
Site architecture determines, in part, how your link equity is distributed across the site. Right now you have it spread too thin because the vast majority of indexed pages sit in the root directory. I think you'd be better off grouping pages by related topics, much like you have in your left-hand margin, by author and topic. Read the post and see what you think.
Another thing I though of is when I search for a quote, I tend to type in whatever I can remember of it. For example, if I search for "never give up", brainyquote is the 2nd result I see. They have that specific text in their title tag. I don't see quotery anywhere in my search results. It doesn't have quote text in title tags.
Now in this instance, you could say it's because the actual quote is "never give in" (in vs up), but you could use that common misconception as an opportunity to add more text to the page and increase your chances of ranking.
Another example is a search for "nasty, brutish and short". You guys don't show up anywhere although I do see you have that quote in your inventory.
Hi Jason,
I have a couple of suggestions.
Those are just a few things I noticed. You should probably get an independent audit of the site and supporting processes and use it to identify risks and opportunities, and then set priorities for next steps.
If you want to share a set of urls I'd be happy to take a look at it in case anything else jumps out.
It appears as though they are though. You got what you need then? Your question is answered?
The site command doesn't always show you every page that is indexed. You can:
It sounds like your pages might, in fact, be indexed.
As to the wrong directory content getting indexed, I'm assuming you've no indexed one of them or assigned canonical tags indicating your strong preference. Both of these are only "suggestions" to Google. It can ignore you and when that happens, the situation like the one you describe happens.
The other thing to bear in mind is how long ago you noindexed or tagged your pages. It can take Google days, weeks, months and sometimes forever to catch up to your requested changes. You have to be patient and cross your fingers.
"if my business is using keywords that do not map to a local business category, then placing location in the title tag will not help me rank for non geo queries."
I always like to repeat the question to make sure I've understood what you're asking.
Your statement is true. Adding location data to your title tag might hinder your rankings for non-geo searches because you'll be wasting valuable pixels on characters the searcher cares nothing about and Google will consider irrelevant.
Agree,
Use your own client's data to support this theory.
Build a case for what seems like common sense to the rest of us.
If your client is like the one Lee describes (fuel, with fluctuating prices), then you should at least provide something helpful like "We don't list prices because they fluctuate daily. Please refer to X to gauge industry pricing."
If you search for the page directly, can you see if a version of it has been cached?
Erica, Thank you for sticking with this and continuing to share your thoughts. It's very helpful and much appreciated!
**Does it help to include a town name in your title tag when KW planner shows no evidence that anyone is searching for it? **
I agree with Patrick_G and RangeMarketing that yes it does. The KW planner tool doesn't necessarily give you comprehensive results. Rand Fishkin published a post in February 2012 that showed evidence that Google chooses to hide some of it's keyword information unless you specifically ask for it. If your goal is to rank organically for a keyword + town then yes, you should use your town name in the title tag on your most important pages.
Does Google deliver local results based on location names in title tag if the query didn't mention it?
Google looks for and delivers local (vs organic) results when the search query maps to a local business category for which it has results. If you include a town name in your title tag it will help boost your local search result ranking, but you have to be an indexed local business to begin with and it sounds like you're just talking about organic listings.
Matt-Antonino and Matt-Williamson have narrowed down two options that are highly respectable and well thought of - Bright Local and Whitespark. You should also consider Moz and Yext.
Moz offers a basic citation building service that helps you claim the most important listings – the ones that require manual verification. It gives you quick and easy access to all the local data aggregators (the sites that feed a majority of local directories). It's the most affordable.
Yext is limited in it's reach and least affordable. It will however, get your citations built fastest.
Whitespark and Bright Local can get you the most citations. They're both reasonably priced, accurate, and can speed up or slow down according to your needs.
This previously asked, answered and Moz staff endorsed question on the Moz Q&A forum compares Moz Local vs Whitespark vs Yext. The discussion was prompted by a question about UK citation building services, but I think you'll find it helpful.
I wrote a post a while ago that compares local directory submission services that you might like simply because of the simple chart shared under recommendations. It compares your options at a glance.
This forum has a brief back-and-forth discussing Bright Local vs Whitespark. It's just one thread, so don't give it too much weight in your decision. But, depending on your need, I suggest searching for similar feedback on this subset of services, checking out their websites, and then making a decision.
That makes sense. But I really want to make sure I (and others) understand because of EGOL's earlier referenced comments (June 2011).
"If I kept my category pages out of the search indexes I would be walking away from hundreds of search engine visitors per minute.
Do analytics to see how much traffic is coming into these pages from search, who is linking to them, how much revenue they earn and also consider their future traffic potential.
Its not good to follow generalized advice blindly." and (February 2012) ...
"I have two wordpress blogs and category pages are where most of my search engine traffic enters. Some bring in thousands per month. Most of my post pages bring in very little traffic.
If you are not having any problem with duplicate content at present maybe it would be a good idea to allow indexing of the main page, the post pages and the category pages. They if you do have a duplicate content problem you can remove from the index the pages that bring in the least amount of traffic."
So is the key then, ensuring the category pages contain unique content in addition to whatever else is on the category pages? I would have thought the mere fact that you're creating a unique combination of unique content by the grouping excerpts from identically tagged posts might have been enough. That content would also get updated each time a new post gets published.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on this Erica.
Well unfortunately you will risk losing some ranking power if you decide to use just name and phone number. That's considered a partial (vs full) citation and is believed to carry less weight in Google's local ranking algorithm. (See well respected Local SEO company Whitespark's definition of the different types of citations.)
So it's a trade off - bulk vs ranking influence. The relative impact will depend largely on your competition. I guess you could always give it a try and measure results. There's no reason you couldn't just change it back if the impact is not to your liking.
Erica, shouldn't the decision to noindex category pages be done on a case-by-case basis? If the blog has few posts, or if posts aren't updated frequently, then the chance of category pages being viewed as thin increases and it would make sense to noindex them.
If, on the other hand:
doesn't it then make a case to index category pages? They can be a rich source of long-tail keywords and therefore a good draw for new entrants to the site as explained in this earlier Q&A post.
chrissmithps,
This might also be link or algorithm update related. Have you taken a look at your inbound links and link metrics recently? It appears as though the site has very few. Did it previously have more? Do you have any warnings in Google Webmaster tools?
The rules for Google local listings are fuzzy and the results can be somewhat unpredictable. Seems clear that the two businesses are separate legal entities. It's not clear, at least not to me, whether they'll share a common phone number, website or whether their clients or business categories overlap.
You could go the route of establishing a separate suite for each of the two businesses, but you're still at risk that the data associated with the two listings will get merged. That's not quick or easy to undo.
If I were you, I'd wait a few months until the other business closes shop and then stake a claim to the address on Google local.
This question has been asked in the past. Miriam Ellis usually chimes in and she knows Local SEO inside and out. Here's the answer she gave to how to handle multiple businesses at the same address a few years ago. It's still relevant.
The meta keywords tag has no positive ranking value. Some folks believe they "do no harm" so fill them in just in case. I think if you read thru past Q&As on this topic, you'll find that a majority of the knowledgeable folks in this community believe it's not worth the effort of populating meta keyword tags unless you want to play games with the competition and distract them with meaningless or conflicting keywords.
If your website auto generates keyword tags, just leave them blank.
You're right. If you removed the redirects, there's no need disavow. I assumed that was what you had done to remove the links given you said you sold Site A.
In my personal experience, it can take Google months, up to 8 months, to drop links. Hopefully in your case it won't take that long.
Linkedin sponsored updates can be geo-targeted, but they can also be expensive. It's worth investigating.
Hi PeteC12,
(1) I wouldn't 404 those pages. I'd 301 or canonicalize them. Canonicalize if you want to keep the location pages live for useability. If you're set on or well down the path to remove redundant location pages, then 301 redirect.
Even though there's no limit to the number of redirects you can create for a site, they can slow it down (because 301's trigger an extra HTTP request and cause latency). Given the size of your site, I'd recommend doing some analysis to figure out which pages actually have incoming links. If there's no evidence of incoming links, then I wouldn't bother 301ing them but rather monitor your analytics closely to put 301s in place only if page-not-found errors start showing up because of personal bookmarks.
For performance reasons, I'd also be careful to eliminate any interim redirects. By that I mean, for example, if Liverpool-Suburb (A) points to Liverpool (B) and Liverpool (B) points to parent-carpet-cleaner (C), skip the middle step and redirect Liverpool-Suburb (A) directly to parent-carpet-cleaner (C).
I'd also make sure my 404 page notes your redesign and explains that some pages have been removed from the site and point visitors to a user-friendly sitemap.
Should you keep location pages that rank well but show no evidence of traffic (using keyword planner)? Don't rely on Google Planner. If you have analytics in place, look at actual page traffic to see how many organic entrances you're earning to these pages. Base your decision on that.
Should you remove thin pages until you have time to flesh out the content a bit more? Well that problem may have been solved given it's been a few months since you asked the question. If not, and you're worried about penalties, noindex or 302 (temporarily redirect) rather than remove them.
Sorry you had to wait 3 months to get an opinion. So many questions get answered, sometimes yours can get buried. I apologize if I'm too late.
Good to know. Thanks for closing the loop on this.