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Denise

Ahh right, sorry about that. There is no plugin I'm aware of. You might want to try this method though: http://www.bloggingspell.com/add-schema-org-markup-wordpress/

Also wanted to point out, John Mueller from Google just asswered a very similar question here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/RTfC0dCd8B8/discussion - not sure if this is the same exact situation but thought it might help.

Hi Denise

I would give Raven's Schema creator a try and let me know: https://wordpress.org/plugins/schema-creator/

-Dan

PS - Yoast SEO is much better for an SEO plugin. I wrote about why here and how to switch here

Thanks for helping Malika! To clarify for other readers, blocking in robots.txt after the pages have been indexed will actually prevent them from being removed from the index with a meta noindex tag, since Google won't be able to crawl the pages to see the noindex tag.

If staging URLs have been indexed already (and assuming they still need to exist), here's the steps I would take:

1. Add meta noindex tags to every staging URLs
2. If urgent, also do a URL removal request in Webmaster Tools (but this is usually not needed)
3. Wait until the staging URLs are noindexed - you can check periodically by doing site: searches in Google.
4. Only after they are noindexed, block Search Engines from crawling them with the robots.txt file.

Hi There - Moz Associate here - we're finding someone to help you with this.

-Dan

Hi There

I agree with Peter. You can 301 redirect your old images to the new ones. Leaving the old images won't hurt anything, but would be good to delete them to free space up on he server (why not).

Interesting - hopefully it's all fixed, but definitely let us know if it changes again.

Hello

Can you pinpoint a specific date the site dropped in ranking? Maybe check for a drop in Google organic traffic in analytics or a loss of impressions etc in Search Console. Or a date the ranking shifted? That's usually the best way to rule out an algo update. I think 11/19/2015 was the date of this last one.

Hello

I don't think any of those factors with the information provided could have had such an impact on the site. Especially not some simple title tag adjustments. It's possible that would happen over time as Google processes the new user signals, but probably not so quickly.

What type of keyword was it? What industry is the eCommerce site in?

Not sure if this came on your radar, but there was an unconfirmed Google update a few weeks ago:

• https://www.seroundtable.com/google-update-no-21225.html
• http://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/unconfirmed-google-algorithm-updates-2015/

If the changes you see match about November 19th, I'd check out Glenn's suggestions at the bottom of that second article. The site could have been caught in a content quality update.

Hi There

I would question if that's the best setup/solution for an architecture issue? What's the issue exactly?

Google might index the hello.html page, but you also risk confusing Google. How many URLs are being redirect / canonicolized in this manner? Are we talking about 10 or 100's?

I take it Google has not indexed any hello.html URLs yet? How long have they been live and accessible?

Hi Stuart

There could be many nuances to every situation (essentially, what type of sites they are and what type of content it is), but in general I'd go with what's most user-friendly - what will reduce any confusion, and send old traffic to the new home of the acquired company. A subdomain is fine if you want to clearly show to users a distinction between the acquiring vs acquired site.

Definitely do your 301 redirects. I would highly recommend reading up on Cyrus' article here about 301 redirects. In general, the content should be basically the same from the old page to the new page being redirected to. I would try to migrate the site "as is" as much as possible to eliminate other factors/changes that could affect things. You can update things later, but this was it makes it easier to analyze if any rankings are lost. In other words, be systematic and keep track of when/what you change.

Hi There

A redesign can definitely impact rankings. I also notice some slight architectural changes? The removal of "Cases" from the main navigation, among other things.

The trick is, there's tons of moving parts in any ranking situation like this.

Also, what rank tracker are you using? There's going to be a lot of localization/personalization/fluctuation in effect. Google is likely greatly varying rankings by location, user metrics, search history etc. Are you using a de-personalized rank checker? I like Authority Labs or Advanced Web Ranking for daily rank checking.

FYI, I just ran it through the Firefox Rank plugin and got #19 and #18 for your two keywords (I'm in Massachusetts).

Also, for all sites I track I tend to see way more ranking fluctuation for page 2 and beyond in general.

I would really focus on best practices - like great UX, local SEO efforts, CTR optimization - all the "known" things you can really control.

Something you can do - go to Search Console - and make sure all the queries you are ranking well for have the best title/descriptions and snippets for those SERPs to improve your user metrics for the site overall.

Hi There

I'm not sure it makes sense having multiple URLs like that to being with? The content looks the same for each, why not just link to one consistent version internally?

Hi Jay

Here's what I'd do:

• Create your new WordPress site

• As Matt says, try to keep your URLs the same if possible. You can probably adjust these with your Permalink Settings: https://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

• If the URLs are the same, no need for redirects.

• If they are different, you can do 301 redirects with either a redirect plugin or directly in the .htaccess file

You can check everything when you're done by running a crawler, like Moz's crawl tool or Screaming Frog SEO Spider. Fix any additional 404s you find by redirecting them.

Thanks for helping Dirk!

Dirk's suggestions are perfect. In addition, I would add a few things.

First just to check, this is your real new logo now? http://fi.realself.com/images/layout/logo.png?1398004321

When you do the image search in Google, just look at where all the old images are located. For example I would go through ALL of the results, not just Dr Ellen - like this one shows up for me: http://www.elitemdspa.com/realself-testimonials/

Contact all websites that are using your old logo and ask them to update to the new one.

There's a way to create jump links in the link dialogue box, does this work for you?

https://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/page-jumps/

I also found this plugin:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-anchor-links/

It might help to search "anchor links" as that's what some people call them too.

That's right it depends on goals. If it's a single service / single product website targeting only one main keyword/topic, one page might be OK. I would definitely check out the article linked to!

Hey There!

Sounds like you're doing a lot of things by-the-books and "right" "on paper" but it's really tough to know if you're on the right track for sure without seeing the site or an example of some of the links being build, or content, etc.

I say this because "40 links a month" for example sounds like a nice number, but also sounds suspect because that's a pretty sizable amount of links, which makes me wonder about the quality of them.

What I'd be curious about is - what are the things outside of SEO or SEO tactics/fixes have been done? I'm thinking in regards to social, audience building, brand building, design upgrades, content, adding value etc? Also, what type of site is this and how big is it?

The other thing that's tough to know is how well the technical things were implemented. For example, switching to https among other things can create a lot of redirect chains. I would try to undo redirect chains and only do page->page redirects (instead of having chains of page->page->page->page etc).

And right, it's tough to know if your disavow is helping or hurting without knowing a lot of the specifics.

If it was me, I'd make sure you're focusing enough on others things besides just directly on SEO. That doesn't mean you'd ignore SEO when doing social, content, audience building etc - just that you're taking a more holistic view. I think Google definitely favors recovering sites that prove they are building something people want.

However, you should allow Google to crawl your JavaScript and CSS (which is now blocked). Here's some background info on that:

• https://moz.com/blog/why-all-seos-should-unblock-js-css
• http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/10/updating-our-technical-webmaster.html

Hi Riccardo

Yes to confirm the site is indexed and crawlable. Checking the number of URLs from a sitemap that are indexed isn't the most reliable way to see if you content is indexed. You can do a site: search on your domain in Google like this as probably one of the most reliable ways. Also, you can try jus crawling the site with a tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider - and if the tool can crawl everything, there may be just a delay on Google's end. But in your case now, all looks good!

-Dan

Hi There

Josh has a really good point. Is that your site also?

I'd also highly suspect some poor back links pointing at your site http://screencast.com/t/RbsezbmDwlVk as well as things like these active footer links http://screencast.com/t/BM7o0V8Z

You are ranking on page one for "suntech engineers" - what other keywords were you expecting to rank for, that you are not?

I see what you're getting at. This wasn't a "normal" redirect old page to new page situation. The page being redirected to existed all along, and then they decided to 301 pages to it that were not related topically or by page type. The page with redirects pointed at it dropped in ranking.

I suspect the redirects through off the topical understand of what the commercial page was "about".

It's a fascinating SEO test - but hopefully not something anyone would do for real. Rules of thumb:

• Try to get your URLs right from the very beginning
• Try not not change them unless you have to after the fact
• Definitely don't redirect from one page to another unless the content is an exact match (or really close) and don't redirect across page types (commercial to informational, vice versa etc)

Hi Quba SEO

Josh's answer is pretty solid - and just want to be sure the word "suppression" is not being used as "penalty" (algorithmic or manual).

Suppression definitely happens with generally all redirects because the redirect is like adding a middle link between the two pages. PageRank and other signals gets diluted when passing through a middle page.

And yes, if the content does not match and Google picks up on that, they won't pass your signals through the redirects either.

I'm not surprised to hear of Dejan's results at all, and as Josh says be very careful with URL changes of any kind. I used to advise clients to improve URLs, but lately (especially if the URL has equity and traffic) I'm shying away from that more and more.

I think WordPress Multi-site is your answer - here's a few resources:

http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/ultimate-guide-multisite/

http://mashable.com/2012/07/26/beginner-guide-wordpress-multisite/#Z2BAvs7t.Eq1

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/the-complete-guide-to-creating-a-wordpress-multisite-installation

I believe this should allow you to maintain consistent plugins / settings etc across multiple sites.

Thanks Moosa! Just want to clarify a few points to be sure they don't get mis-understood by other readers:

Duplicate content

• just want to make sure they know, although duplicate content is not the best thing, there is no penalty per se

Cross Domain Canonical

• search engines will in fact crawl both versions. They will just not index the one with the canonical tag pointing to the source page.

Hi Lehia

Given that your site has relatively low domain authority right now of 17 and to eliminate user (and your) confusion, I would 301 redirect every individual blog URL to the corresponding new URL on the new domain. It's possible you may lose some ranking - but let me ask:

• how much traffic do you get from the blog right now?
• I bet there's a typical 80/20 pattern where maybe a small handful of blog URLs are getting more of the traffic?

Point being, I would really do what's best in the long-term and to consolidate your brands/domains. I've performed and seen many migrations perfectly fine.

One last thing!

1. Crawl your old site or somehow gather up the old URLs from the old domain
2. Throw them in Screaming Frog in List mode
3. Export the "Redirect Chain" report
4. And undo any redirect chains

I talk about that a little here.

Also, make sure you continue to allow Google to crawl the old domain (don't block it with robots.txt).

Hi Allie

Stramark has the right idea. That aspect of Yoast is a tool just for you to help with keyword targeting. It doesn't actually impact the SEO of your page though. You could try something like Moz's On-Page grader. Unfortunately, knowing if you can get Yoast's tool to work, would require knowing how the site was in fact coded. It might be a simple fix, or it might be tricky. I'd see if you can ask the developer though, maybe it's an easy fix.

-Dan

You could take all of the suggestions above, but I would actually make sure redirection is the best choice. Watch Matt Cutt's video here about what to do with expired products: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tz7Eexwp_A - he explains that in some cases users may prefer to see a 404.

Hey Michael

I wouldn't be concerned, Google stated recently that blocked 3rd party images should not be an issue.

Hey Marc!

Is the old site a WordPress install? Can you just use the Redirect Plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/?

Hi Mirko

I think the root fix, is to have a better URL setup (and not have them changing like that). This is something I think only your developer can answer, since I did not set up the site nor do I have expert hands-on experience in Magento - but I do know in theory, it should be possible. I've never heard of another eCommerce site doing it that way.

If you need further help from the Moz community, let me know and I'll see if someone else can chime in! But I'd definitely try to talk to your developer about it.

Hey Trenton

Do the pages in fact return a 404 code now? You can check with http://urivalet.com/ set to Googlebot. Are they indexed in Google? search for the URL and put 'site:' before it. If they 404 and are indexed, it will just take time for them to drop out. Google continues to crawl pages they had once discovered, but are not linked to anymore, and these will definitely show up in your crawl errors. Pages with crawl errors are actually a good thing if that's what you expect and intended which in this case, it was I know it stinks to have errors showing up in the report, when in fact they are not really errors you have to "fix", but just think of it more like a report, and some pages it's perfectly OK to have 404'ing.

Hi John

Did ATP's solution help you out? Let us know if we can look into this further!

There's nothing to worry about in regards to having /product/ in the new URLs. However (with any site upgrade) you need to be sure to individually 301 redirect all the old pages to the matching new pages. Do you have a plan in place for that?

Hmmm ... I think the more important question here is - would it be possible to not have URLs changing like that? I'm not 100% sure I follow the reason why it's set up like that?

Alternatively, could the URL change with ?parameters instead? That way you could set a canonical to point to the main URL and the parameters could achieve the changes you need.

Hi Fraser

Thanks for the info! Without being too intimately involved, based upon this description - it sounds like keeping two separate sites would have been perfectly fine. It seems like there'd be least user confusion (and much easier maintenance for you) with two sites. As mentioned the duplicate content issue is more of a myth as far as causing penalties in this situation.

However with that said - this doesn't mean you wouldn't want to mitigate against keeping the sites as unique as possible. You'd want to customize the content as much as you could for each site. I'd imagine because they are so different in real life, this wouldn't be hard to do - unique text, photos, design, etc.

Also - from looking at the sitemap, I don't think every one of those pages would be "landing pages" for commercial search terms. That's really the only issue I'd worry about - if you did have duplicate pages that were competing with one another to rank for the same keyword - but it doesn't sound like that's the case here.

That's right, pretty sure Vimeo works the same way

Hi There

Just to clarify, only the YouTube or Wistia video embeds will be in iFrames? The text will just be normal text on the page (check out a Moz Whiteboard Friday video for example - the transcription is actual text in the page)?

This is pretty normal - everyone uses YouTube and Wistia with the standard embed codes.

You can use Video Sitemaps to give search engines more info about the videos on your site. You can also use schema for videos. But even if you don't, if it's just normal video embeds this would be fine.

Few questions:

• How many pages are each site separately?
• How many pages of those are duplicates? (ie: looking for % of pages duplicate vs not)
• In the "real-world" how distinct are the two services? Different locations? Different names, logos, legal business entities?
• Do the two services serve two distinctly different customers? ie: would the same person ever be a customer of both places?
• What about other things like social media - different accounts for each one?

I should clarify too, that "duplicate content" as a penalty is a myth. The angle I would really approach this, would be from UX - what makes it easiest for users to find/understand/navigate the two services and not be confused? Some answers to the questions above would help!

If I'm understanding the question here's what you'll need to do:

1. Redirect the Hubspot blog URLs to the non-date URLs
2. Redirect the Dated URLs to the non dated URLs.

So _instead of _ a set of redirect chains (like shown in my graphic here you'll end up with something like this) - because the dated URLs were already created and "out there" you will have to redirect them to the non-dated URLs as well.

In terms of doing this quickly/automatically since it's 300 URLs, I'd usually do something like this:

1. Put the list of old Hubspot URLs in a spreadsheet column A
2. Put the new dateless URLs in colum B
3. Do some sort of matching work to get the appropriate URLs side by side so they match (what's done here depends on how your URLs are setup - maybe just alphabetical sorting will work)
4. I usually use some concatenates etc to then create each line of Redirects for the .htaccess file

If you're working with Hubspot or something like a partner they should be able to help you with the technical lifting.

PS - My redirect images come from this post, which is about finding and fixing redirect chains

Robert

Hmmm ok - this could possibly be an architectural and/or internal linking issue confusing Google as to which page it should rank. Or maybe it's your keyword targeting on both pages. Would you say the subcategory page is more optimized/focused on the keyword than the homepage?

Robert

To clarify - is this a product category for eCommerce or a blog category? I am assuming eCommerce product category. So the user is presented with a list of products in this category?

If so - what I would do is try to first determine which is better for users to land on. Does one get a higher conversion rate than the other? Which page is more relevant to the query?

Hi Robert

Some others have given some great ideas. Wanted to chime in and ask if you can give any more info? It's tough to say what's going on in such a general context. Anything would help - industry, a URL, keywords.

Also, as Andy suggested - do you have other sources of data to back this up? I would suggest actually looking in Search Console (Webmaster Tools) for your query and landing page data and see if you can tell how much it's happening one way or the other. You can filter by country, device and time period to segment things even more.

Let us know if you can provide more info or find any more data!