Actually quite often there are links to pages of search results. Sometimes webmasters link to them when there's no decent, official page available for a series of products which they wish to promote internally (so they just write a query that captures what they want and link to that instead, from CTA buttons and promotional pop-outs and stuff)

Even when that's not the case, users often share search results with each other on forums and stuff like that. Quite often, even when you think there are 'no links' (internally or externally) to a search results page, you can end up being wrong

Sometimes you also have stuff like related search results hidden in the coding of a web-page, which don't 'activate' until a user begins typing (instant search facilities and the like). If coded badly, sometimes even when the user has entered nothing, a cloaked default list of related searches will appear in the source code or modified source code (after scripts have run) and occasionally Google can get caught up there too

Another problem that can occur is certain search results pages accidentally ending up in the XML sitemap, but that's another kettle of fish entirely

Sometimes you can have lateral indexation tags (canonical tags, hreflangs) going rogue too. Sometimes if a page exists in one language but not another, the site is programmed to 'do something clever' to find relevant content. In some cases these tags can be re-pointed to search result URLs to 'mask' the error of non-uniform multilingual deployment. Custom 404 pages can sometimes try and 'be helpful' by attempting to find similar content for end users and in some cases, end up linking to search results (which means if Google follows a 404, then ends up at the custom 404 URL - Googlebot can sometimes enter the /search area of a website)

You'd be surprised at the number of search results URLs which are linked to on the web, internally or externally

Remember: robots.txt doesn't control indexation, it only controls crawl accessibility. If Google believes a URL is popular (link signals) then they may ignore the no-crawl directive and index the URL anyway. Robots.txt isn't really the type of defense which you can '100% rely upon'

As Joe said canonical is fine. No need to play with all the other tags, leave them alone!

"루비카지노" translates into Ruby Casino according to Google:

https://translate.google.co.uk/?um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&client=tw-ob#auto/en/%EB%A3%A8%EB%B9%84%EC%B9%B4%EC%A7%80%EB%85%B8

Your main difficulty won't be the language, it will be that you are part of the gambling neighborhood, which is one of Google's defined bad neighborhoods

That being said, most of your competitors will be in that same situation, so in a way that's not really a massive problem

There aren't really many people searching for this right now:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%EB%A3%A8%EB%B9%84%EC%B9%B4%EC%A7%80%EB%85%B8

... so you'd have to do something to inspire people to search for the term (as of now, no one really seems to care)

https://d.pr/i/ORTrBM.png

Google doesn't reject the keyword, it's just not really worth anything right now. Google should at least be able to interpret the keyword

100% agree with Zee

Past performance is seldom a good indicator of future success. The web is so competitive now that 'good unique content' isn't really good enough any more (anyone can make it)

This video from Rand is a good illustration: https://moz.com/blog/why-good-unique-content-needs-to-die-whiteboard-friday - where you say "content is original and not bad" - maybe that's not enough any more

One solution is the 10x content initiative: https://moz.com/blog/how-to-create-10x-content-whiteboard-friday

And your site should have a unique value-proposition for end users: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AmRg3p79pM (just wait for Miley to stop outlining issue #1 then stop watching)

It's possible your tech issue is a contributing factor but I'd say search engine advancements and changing standards are likely to be affecting you more

Even if you do have a strong legacy, that's not a 'meal ticket' to rank well forever. SEO is a competitive environment

Sometimes tech issues (like people accidentally no-indexing their whole site or blocking GoogleBot) can be responsible for massive drops. But these days it's usually more a comment on what Google thinks is good / bad

I posted a bit of a Reddit rant here under my personal SEO alias of "studiumcirclus":

https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/bgqelg/changing_web_host_will_it_affect_google_rank/em1m0cg/?context=3

(click "View Entire Discussion")

Mainly these things vex me about the platform:

"In basic terms, Shopify is limited by its vision. They want to make sites easy to design for the average-joe, which means they have to spend most of their platform dev time on the back-end of the system and not the front-end of the sites which it produces

_ If they're always bogged down making extra tick-boxes to change things in the back-end, how can they be keeping up with cutting edge SEO? With WordPress you have a much larger dev community making add-ons, many of them completely free and still very effective. Because everyone is on WP, when new Google features, directives or initiatives come out they are quickly embraced (putting all sites on WP one step ahead)_

_ With smaller dev communities, platforms like Shopify or Magento lag behind. Why do people always expect that 'average' will rank 'well'? Ahead of the curve ranks well, average ranks averagely_

_ Also Shopify has some nasty Page-Speed issues which they won't acknowledge and they just argue about instead of fixing things. It's just not good for SEO_"

Other "Shopify is bad" evidence:

https://moz.com/community/q/main-menu-duplication#reply_391855 - just contains some of my thoughts on why Shopify isn't that good

https://moz.com/community/q/site-crawl-status-code-430 - a relatively recent problem someone had with their Shopify site, scroll down to see my reply

https://moz.com/community/q/duplicate-content-in-shopify-subsequent-pages-in-collections - someone else having tech issues with their Shopify site. While my answer was probably right, they probably couldn't implement the fixes

See my relevant answer to an older, similar question here:

https://moz.com/community/q/why-did-my-site-s-da-just-drop-by-50

"Keep in mind that PageRank (which is used by Google to weight the popularity and authority of web pages, yes it's still true even after the little toolbars got deleted) does not read, utilise or rely upon Moz's DA metric in any way shape or form. DA is a 'shadow metric'. Since Google took away our view of the simplified PageRank algorithm (TBPR - ToolBar PageRank, which is dead) people working in SEO needed a new metric to evaluate the quality and ranking potential of web pages

Moz stepped in to supply this (in the form of PA / DA) but Google still use PageRank (they just don't show it to us any more). Whilst Moz's PA/DA metrics are a good 'indicator' of success, Google isn't using them (at all) and so they do not directly affect your rankings"

Only someone from Moz can confirm why your DA dropped, but it may have dropped for a reason that wouldn't impact or effect Google rankings in the slightest (so don't panic yet!)

I haven't had experience with this personally, but I think it could be worth it to try

Firstly you have to entirely separate your view of North and South Korea's 'internet situation' as they are both radically different

North Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_North_Korea

"Connection to the internet in North Korea is done via Naenara, a modified version of Firefox that can access approximately 1,000 to 5,500 websites in the internet. It runs on Red Star OS, a North Korean Linux distribution."

"Nearly all of North Korea's Internet traffic is routed through China."

... so you might think, hmm maybe it will be impossible. As you may know, the most popular search engine in China is Baidu (not Google).  Now I can personally tell you that signing up for Baidu tools (equivalent of Google Search Console) is virtually impossible if you're not native to China. If you can get through the (non-translated) login / setup steps AND provide a Chinese landline number for verification purposes (and collect on that number) you stand a sliver of a chance

I actually once set up one of my own sites on there, it took hours / days to do it. Then - in a few months, I was randomly un-added and removed. The truth is, they don't really want too many Western influences appearing in Chinese search results. Even being seen to promote certain Western ideologies (even if you're not slating or attacking the Chinese state, which I would never do) - you can still be removed 'just like that' with no explanation, no recourse and no means to address the situation (period)

So now you might be thinking, well since almost all of North Korea's internet activity is routed through China, and since Baidu are so impossible to work with - is it really worth even bothering?

There is a small ray of hope: https://dailycaller.com/2018/04/03/most-popular-internet-search-engine-in-north-korea/

Apparently, even though most of North Korea's internet traffic is routed through China, unlike China - North Korean web-users more frequently use Google. So actually the issues surrounding Baidu, aren't so relevant to North Korea

That being said, you might wonder - is there much point in trying to appear on Google's results there, since North Korean users can only access "approximately 1,000 to 5,500 websites in the internet" (a tiny section of the web's true content)

If users in North Korea can type things into Google and your site comes up. but then when users click on your site they are blocked from accessing it (as your site isn't not one of the state-approved 5.5k which are accessible) - then really what's the point?

IMO there's not much you can do here, not many ways to reach people and there are probably better ways to spend your marketing / web / SEO budget

South Korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_South_Korea

"About 45 million people in South Korea (or 92.4% of the population) use the Internet.The country has the world's fastest average internet connection speed. South Korea has consistently ranked first in the UNICT Development Index since the index's launch. The government established policies and programs that facilitated the rapid expansion and use of broadband."

A completely different situation!

http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/south-korea

Many people in South Korea have very fast broadband, access to much of the web's contents and they prefer Google over something like Baidu. The key thing is that when someone sees your Google result listed in South Korea, if they click it they are unlikely to be blocked from getting through to you

I'd say that the South Korean market and culture, which has such an involved and socially integrated web-sub-culture, could assuredly be worth targeting. You'd almost assuredly have to translate your keywords into the right language, and even the right alphabet - according to Google Trends which does seem to suggest that people in South Korea primarily search in their own language (not in English):

https://trends.google.com/trends/trendingsearches/daily?geo=KR

For North Korea you can't even get to or see similar data: https://trends.google.com/trends/trendingsearches/daily?geo=KP - "Daily search trends are not available for this region. Try a different region"

Keep in mind that in South Korea, many searches happen when people are out and about, in cyber / web cafes etc

Final Thoughts

North Korea is too difficult to penetrate from a search POV, even though Google is their primary search engine. For South Korea it's a different story, their population is very web-accessible and celebrates online / cyber culture. You would have to translate all your keywords into the South Korean alphabet and language, and use Google's Keyword Planner as a guide in terms of average monthly search volumes

I personally wouldn't invest time in trying to reach people in North Korea. I don't have a problem with the North, it's just simply that it is very, very hard to reach them and the cost of doing so would probably out-weight the potential financial gains

For South Korea, it's different - I'd certainly have a go

I tend to use the base domain as the site's 'home' language (e.g: if the blog was first conceived in the UK and the authors live in the UK, then I'd use "/" as en-GB). I only create sub-folders for the 'additional' languages (e.g: "/nl", "/de", "/fr" etc)

Even 301 redirects can dilute SEO authority a little (or a lot, under the wrong circumstances). Since lots of webmasters and editors will just 'lazy-link' to the base domain (or because it makes the link look cleaner / more legit within their content) I'd have your primary language deployment at the base domain, then all the rest in sub-folders

This is my go-to approach and to be honest it's never failed me yet

Google's tolerance for 301 redirects is pretty high as long as you use speedy ones (implement via NginX - 'engine X', not via .htaccess lines). If  the redirects are logical and they don't chain or contact with incorrect redirect types (Meta refreshes, 302s etc) then usually you're ok. Still it will take Google time to digest all the changes and you could see a small interim performance dip

Flat URL structure tends to build the 'authority' of URLs better, making them more powerful. Deeper and more nested URL structures serve 'relevance' better as they give much more context. If your domain's overall SEO authority is low to begin with, then a flatter structure may be better for now. If you have lots of SEO authority then you may be able to 'irrigate' more deeply nested URLs more effectively, thus reaping long-tail gains (so each structure has strengths and weaknesses, depending upon your current standing on the web)

Flatter structures rank better for larger terms, but only if you have the SEO authority to power them. Deeper structures rank better for longer-tail terms (but thousands of them) - again though without the right SEO authority metrics, there will be very few droplets of 'SEO juice' which end up reaching the lower-level pages

In the end most sites evolve to a point where they adopt the more deeply nested structure, but they usually suffer growing pains as they transition. In the long run it can be superior, but only for sites which can make good use of it (e.g: eCommerce web stores with categories, products, collections, product variants etc). If a site is services based it often doesn't have so much SEO authority and also - the deeper structure isn't really so relevant! A services based site will usually offer far fewer services than an eCommerce store offers products (tens vs hundreds of thousands)

A strong publisher with lots of ranking power (online magazines, newspaper digital editions) will often switch to the deeper structure for listing their content and (in the long run) see a lot of benefit from that. For smaller publications (blogs, blog or news pages on business / non-publisher sites) - it's often not worth the move

Not a problem. Sometimes you just need a pro

That sounds like a hell of a mess. Instead of tying your name to one proposed implementation and saying "yes, this IS the way" - I'd get the complexity of the issue across to the client / boss

I'd then present your idea and say "I want to test this, but if results suffer we will need to revert the changes". I think that with such a complex architectural nightmare (on a HORRIBLE platform like Shopify, which is just awful for SEO) - it would be extremely foolish to charge off into the night without making the risks clear

The best practice is really to not have built such a terrible site to begin with. In making things better, there may be growing pains. There may be NO options which would result in 100% growth and 0% losses

My recommendation would be to continue blocking Google's access to the original, default product variations (as those are already happily ranking on the main site. Don't fix what ain't broken). I might allow Google to crawl the sub-variations which are inaccessible from the main site. I might alter the main site's UX to include links to the sub-variants on the 'shop.' subdomain

In the end though, it's a very tangled web they have spun

As far as I know, although aggregate review ratings themselves can be used by Google in terms of GMB / Google maps rankings, 'likes' don't factor at all and will make zero difference

It looks weird anyway, I would think that it would be very rare for people to take the time to 'like' reviews. Maybe if it was something they were passionate about (a book they read, then they saw someone's review and really vibed with it. Or a big brand with an extremely innovative product...)

- but to see liked reviews for drier SMB stuff, would seem a little contrived (just my 2pence)

You can use Screaming Frog to do this

Crawl the whole site, then once it's done save the crawl file (File->Save) so you don't lose the project (important, in-case you accidentally export the wrong thing - you can load it back up again!)

Then go: Bulk Export->All Outlinks

That will get you the data you need. It will list all the links on the site, including links to resources (as long as your crawl settings are right, it can be somewhat of a learning curve - if for example you neglect to even crawl pages blocked by Robots.txt, if you neglect to crawl links inside of CSS or if you don't use the JS crawling method correctly you might miss stuff)

The spreadsheet will contain loads of columns containing data on the links. One will show you the referring page / source URL, the other will show you the link target / destination. On the link destination column, filter by your desired URL (which in this case would contain /image-name.jpg or similar)

Once that's done, on the left you'll see all the referring URLs. Sorted!

If the data which is created by Screaming Frog is too large to be analysed in Excel you can export to CSV instead of XLSX. You can then proceed to:

a) Upload it to a local MySQL database for analysis with MySQL queries

b) Use a big-data CSV manipulation tool, like Delimit instead to narrow the data down. Once it's narrow, re-save and then analyse in Excel

Problem solved!

Highly doubt that would be a reason to 'lose of lot of SEO ground'. If those URLs were 404-ing before, you had breadcrumb links to 404s and that's worse than breadcrumb links to 301s

The bigger problem was, you lost your category pages which got set to not visible. And by the way, even when you change them back to 'visible', if the 301 is still in effect - users and search engines still won't be able to access your category URLs (as they will be redirected instead!)

If the category pages have been restored and you're still redirecting them, yes that is a big problem. But it's not because you used a 301 in a link, it's because you took away your category URLs. That very well could impact performance (IMO)