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The site is indexing okay. A Google search using " site:http://customerconnect-services.com " will give you a rough approximation of what has been indexed for this site (Google Search console will provide more accurate data, however).

But Indexing isn't your issue. In short, this site isn't ready and, I'm afraid to say, it doesn't really deserve to rank well. (That doesn't mean it can't rank well, but it needs work - lots and lots of work.)

Looking through the currently indexed pages, you will see that a few Lorem Ipsum (pages with dummy content) have been indexed (these now 404 - http://customerconnect-services.com/?p=12982 for example), this is our first indication that the site is/was recently under development.

Further, there are other signals that this site isn't yet compete: http://customerconnect-services.com/our-offerings/ - the second slider on this vaguely titled page shows a slider "CONDO Makes selling and buying easier...." This is in no way relevant and is likely a remnant from using a template site with pre-populated demo content.

While we are on this page, let's look at the Navigation label and URL - 'Our Offerings' /our-offerings - offerings of what to whom? This could not be vaguer! These elements need to be used to tell visitors explicitly what it is you do. 'App Development' /app-development or similar would much better. As it stands, the visitor is expected to click it to find out what the page might be - assuming that they're sufficiently motivated to do so. Take a look at Steve Krug's 'Don't Make Me Think' then buy every client a copy. (http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/10-usability-lessons-from-steve-krugs-dont-make-me-think/)

Look at those who are ranking well for this phrase and compare your client's page against it Here's an example (These are number one in the UK for the term 'mobile app development':

https://www.mobilesmith.com/app-development/ - not an exact match for the service your client offers (though I'm still not sure what that is) but it's close enough to demonstrate the gap between where you/your client is and where they want to be. On-page grader gives your client's 'our offerings' page a generous C for 'mobile app development' from a user's perspective, it's a F.

Then, below the slider we get:

GET FEATURED ON GOOGLE AND APPLE STORE. ENHANCE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT USING ANDROID AND IOS APPS

Stop. What does that actually mean? This is just vague filler - it means nothing. and you're still not telling me what you do!

The list goes on (and on), I'm afraid. And while I'm being brutally honest, the domain name is AWFUL - it is as vague as the rest of the content, it also entirely unmemorable; not the end of the world if your content and user experience is up to scratch but it isn't. (Granted, as the SEO for this client, this is likely to be out of your remit.)

I don't think I would be helping you if I were to be delicate about this, so forgive me: The site looks like a template site with some content hastily thrown into it. In essence, your client has a LOT of work to do before they can expect to see results.

The technical SEO aspects/mechanics of the site (that you reference in your question) are a secondary concern. Content and UX are your primary concern - without getting those right, you're never going to succeed. Google is better than it's ever been at sniffing out weak content, so don't expect to circumvent this with a few keywords in your content and a handful of backlinks.

Good SEO is hard enough when you're working with a well-designed and well-established site; with a half-done website, that has been (or appears to have been) hastily assembled, it's impossible.

Start (and finish) with the user in mind, give the user what they want (Google is not your user), answer their questions, deliver your message clearly and make it easy for them to engage with you and then build upon that.

I'm sorry to be so blunt, but no-one wins until these issues are tackled head-on.

As an aside, I'd run a Fetch as Google from Google Search Console to speed up re-indexing. (https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2326164/index-your-content-faster-with-the-fetch-as-google-tool)

Good luck!

I say keep them separate. The ccTLD (.co.uk - clearly shows geographic relevance) - now the .com, which is a global TLD can be targeted/biased to the USA by using theGeographic target in Google Webmasters (the .co.uk is already set to UK and cannot be set to point to another country - only 'unlisted'.)

Furthermore, I wouldn't want to lose any benefits of the aged and established .co.uk by merging it with the .com. You will never get 100% of the link juice back with 301 redirects - maybe 90% at best and after some weeks have passed and then when you consider you are already well establised with your .co.uk site you would be mad to mess with it without VERY GOOD REASON!

Can't you just not restrict shipping to the US on the UK site? I have 2 ecommerce sites setup this way (one.co.uk and one .com - (which operates on a dropship basis only - as we are UK based)

With regards to the duplicate content issue - I would look at the fact that Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com have hundreds of thousands of product pages with the same/VERY similar content (descriptions etc) - and last time I check they were ranking pretty well ;o) - without the need to block users from certain locations - (they do of course pickup your IP address instead and SUGGEST(with a big flag and arrows that you visit the UK site instead when you select Amazon.com site from the UK) - They still restrict shipping of certain items should you persist and try and order anyway.

Your prices will also differ between £ and $ - as will the converted price - another clear indication that this isn't an attempt to get 2 bites of the cherry.

I would also move the .com site to a US based server too - as this helps with ranking anyway (server/website speed and location are factors)

Maybe bung a flag in your header graphics to further denote your geo-targeting?

Changing the spelling of UK/US variants is sensible anyway - though difficult to research initially - I spent some time battling between ize and ise!

Keep the .Co.Uk and .Com separate - state that you do not ship to the US from the UK site - restrict purchases accordingly (by shipping address). That should make it clear enough - hope that helps!

This list might give you some structure to your planning (https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015)

If you're ranking well already and are just freshening up, rather than changing the direction of your business, don't throw the baby out with the bath water - your old content may be a little dusty but it's why you have the rankings you do now. Ditching old content would see your rankings plummet. You can move it elsewhere within your site by all means but ensure it remains accessible and create 301 redirects for every page. If the passage of time has left some of your content a little outdated, you'd be better to add visible updates with links to updated articles.

Best practice is to use 301 where the content has moved but not changed substantially (if at all). You can create redirects to any page, of course but expect to lose some value if the content doesn't closely match the original. Check out https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection and https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo.

Good Luck!

Think from the perspective of your visitor. They will be asking themselves 'What's in it for me?'

They aren't likely to surrender their contact details unless they genuinely want you to contact them. So they will either want information (quotes or technical information) People expect to provide contact details in forms - which is why free quotes work so well, so if you are thinking on those lines - i.e. you are trying to capture details during a request for information it might be better not to deviate too much from the tried and tested.

Of course if you are thinking in terms of innovative marketing and you have a budget there are endless possibilities.

So you can appeal to their desire to get something for nothing - YOUR OLD CAR STINKS! - Win a lifetime's supply of Magic Trees! Contact us for details of our SWEET SMELLING deals!

Ask for their help - by stroking their ego - acknowledge their automotive expertise.

Ask them to help you help others - Pick a local charity and place a bucket on the sales office and pledge a dollar or $5  for every free quote request you get that day - don't forget to show them the actual bucket - with some $$$$s in it!

YOUR WIFE 's car IS DIRTY! Bring bring her down to our dealership today for a free hand wash and part ex valuation (on the car - not the wife!)

Essentially you need to either offer them something that they already know they want, but cannot normally get freely elsewhere (without providing details) or something that is exculsive to your dealership - so they cannot get it elsewhere - or the chance to get something they didn't know they wanted, but now that it has been brought to their attention they don't want to miss out on  - like Naked Bear Wrestling or a similar family fun day?

Forgive me, I'm a little confused by your post title. To be clear, are you referring to  <meta name="keywords" ...>which would contain a list of all of the keyword referenced within the page?</meta name="keywords" ...>

- If you are, you should know that Google drove a stake through the heart of that abomination years ago. Yahoo and Bing weren't paying much attention (if any) to these as of a few years ago, so this practice can be safely abandoned.

Meta Title and Meta Description are of value to users and a correctly titled page will give you some SEO benefit, so use these in accordance with these guidelines:

https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description

If you are simply referring to the keywords within the body of your page, I recommend treating your copy as though it were conversation with a prospective customer; if you keep endlessly repeating the same thing in slightly different ways they're going to ignore you at first and then, if you persist, actively avoid you. So what you need to say without trying to say the same thing a thousand different ways; it's a huge turn off for visitors and Google will not reward you for it. That's not to say you can't repeat the phrase a couple of times throughout the copy, with a few slight variations on a theme, but don't labour the point. Read your copy out loud  - if you start to annoy yourself (or others) you know you've overdone it. Less is more.

And give Google credit; it's smart. There really is no need to endlessly feed it every variant going. Google have invested huge sums of money in getting smarter and semantic search (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101-semantic-search-care/119760/) is a big part of that.  I'd drop VA altogether (apart from the odd mention in a page or two - if it justified it because it added clarity and stick with 'Virginia Beach', building the main thrust/theme the site (or section of the site) around that, with separate pages for each specific activity or article focus 'dolphin tour' etc. Google will work it out without the need for you to shout at them.

Keep the end user at the forefront of your thinking when you're building your site, answer their questions, scratch their itches, and you'll be rewarded.

Use your keywords appropriately  not repetitively, regardless of the context.

Good luck!

Note to self: I must write quicker replies, two other people answered this while I was writing this!

To be clear -  I am NOT a fan of trying to game the system - I'd rather take the long haul than the short cut everytime -  but it's difficult see the results these fake fans bring and not be seduced by them (the results - not the fake fans!) and  it would be fairly difficult to categorically determine the validity of these fake accounts - they aren't overtly spammy - though they certainly lack some originality when they create names for the accounts - and quite frankly Facebook aren't likely to tackle this issue any time soon - They love to boast about their huge userbase: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics and as such they aren't likely to purge the untold MILLIONS of fake accounts as this will suggest a dip in popularity or, perhaps as bad, Facebook is riddled with face accounts gasps - which is bad for business and terrible for Sharholders. - However, I wonder what they will do when their stats show that facebook has more users than Earth has inhabitants???

Hi Annette,

No. "Duplicate content is content that appears on the Internet in more than one place" (See: https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content.

It is quite common to add the company address to a footer file, which is visible below every page. This is not considered duplicate content and will not result in any penalties.

This may be relevant to you: https://moz.com/community/q/local-business-schema-markup-on-every-page

What CMS are you using? If Wordpress, there's a few good Schema plugins that may help you with this: All In One Schema is very popular and works well. I believe this one: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-seo-structured-data-schema/ allows you to add company Schema details in one place.

I hope that helps.

This thread may shed some light on this issue as you are not alone in seeing a drop in DA since recent Mozscape API (the last one was on the 26th Jan: <a>https://moz.com/products/api/updates).</a>

https://moz.com/community/q/is-everybody-seeing-da-pa-drops-after-last-moz-api-update

The last post by Staff Member 'Tawny Case' is very informative.

You'll see a few other posts throughout the Q & A mentioning this, over the last 3 days.

I hope that's of some help to you.

All the best.

@EGOL - You are absolutely correct. Quality is always preferable to Quantity. Now, we all know that the BEST WAY to make gains in the SERPS is to stick to the straight and narrow and work hard and eventually you will obtain the results you want. However, in the real world, we are competing  against huge numbers of SEO companies that all promise fast results - and deliver them - by using a variety of dark practices - and many of these companies are not getting penalised for it (and I have watched them prosper over the course of nearly 4 years using less than pure techniques.)

So as time passes I watch them continue to reap the rewards, thinking to myself 'Any minute now Google will see what they are doing and drop them off the face of the earth...' Well, I'm still waiting, and waiting, and waiting...

So what does the honest, wholesome, whitehat SEO do?

How realistic is it for an SME with say 400 inbound links and 50 facebook followers to HONESTLY outgun a competitor who has 320,000 inbound links and 3,000 fake facebook followers?

I have fought quite a number of battles for some time with clients and employers, all the time resisting the easy path in favour of the long haul, but I am getting rather worn down by it. The addage if you can't beat 'em - join 'em springs to mind.

There are certainly scenarios where a quick boost to your fan base numbers for credibility are essential - especially if part of your pitch to potential clients will be that you will be marketing product X using social networking sites (Let's say we are selling a targeted property listings site, which will also use facebook and twitter to further promote its listings) Now your potential client will want to see the audience you plan to promote their product to - BEFORE you win their business and therefore have a product to promote - so  you are faced with a dilemma - spend a lengthy and non-revenue generating period  while you earnestly build a following, or, spend $50 and build the numbers in a matter of days - show the customer your thousand/s of eager followers fans - win the business and THEN invest your time in gathering genuine interested followers and in turn build a number of followers who are genuinely interested in the products you promote.

There is safety in numbers at play here - for all parties - as @Dunamis said 'if I see a page that has cool stuff and is followed by thousands of people, I am more likely to follow it.  I'm  not as likely to become a fan of a page with 100 members even if the content looks decent. '

We can't fight human nature with the argument 'Hey, I might only have a few followers, but one of them is the Pope!' Numbers are a very quick indicator of Credibility  and we are manipulated by the power of numbers dozens of times a day and this will not change!

With regard to your DA dropping, take a look at this discussion that's taking place elsewhere on the Q & A Forum: <a>https://moz.com/community/q/is-everybody-seeing-da-pa-drops-after-last-moz-api-update</a>  - It's starting to get interesting near the bottom.

Reducing the spam score will require some backlink analysis to identify the source of the links considered to be "spammy" and if you are concerned, and you are able, get them removed at source or use the disavow tool. Do read the advice given on this page before proceeding, though: <a>https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en</a>

Good luck!

No follow links certainly don't hurt! Whilst they may not pass on any direct PR, they can still attract REAL click through traffic (maybe even REAL customers!) especially if the nofollow links are coming from related "quality sites with high page and domain authority of their own." - If these sites which feature your no follow links are indeed quality then they will attract traffic as a result - if your no follow links are present amongst the quality information on these sites it stands to reason that you can only benefit from those links.

No follows links also help to create LINK DIVERSITY which will improve appearance of any link building method you use - as it is expected that a number of your inbound links will be no follow links.

There are some  who suspect that Google MAY take no follow links into consideration despite their clear statements to the contrary.

So in summary, if you can get no follow links from quality sites you should certainly do so as they will NOT harm your DA or ranking - at worst they would be neutral in this regard - but still pass additional traffic your way.

This question has been raised here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/title-tag-on-sitemap-xml

You don't want a link to an XML sitemap - rather a HTML sitemap (as Ryan states)

You can use a tool like http://www.xml-sitemaps.com to generates sitemaps in both xml and html formats. HTML being the one to display on your website and the XML installed into the root directory www.skycandle.co.uk/sitemap.xml

I have generated one for you here for you to see - of course generate another if you want to change the parameters.

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/details-www.skycandle.co.uk.html

Don't worry about the XML sitemap too much as these aren't essential on smaller sites if all the pages of your site are indexing OK - as they should be picked up without the need to direct Search Engines them if the site has a clearly navigable structure.

Take a look at these articles for additional info http://www.seomoz.org/blog/xml-sitemaps-guidelines-on-their-use

and

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/expert-advice-on-google-sitemaps-verify-but-dont-submit

Of course the HTML sitemap is a useful tool for quick naviagation of your site and will improve your visitors experience on your site.

This is a very useful article:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankings

While I don't have any direct experience to offer, I can absolutely see the benefit of separating product and company - but only if the product is big enough to justify standing alone - it makes perfect sense when considering the example you give, but that's right at the top end of the scale.

However, I see no issue whatsoever with "URL bloat". The URL hierarchy:  https://www.company.com/product/.... is very well understood and in common usage with good reason: Categories (and sub-categories) in your URL allows you to reference keywords in the URL as well as giving the visitor a better understanding of what they can expect.

Typically, when you're offering thousands of products across hundreds of categories, you'd want your URL hierarchy to  something like domain/category/sub-category/product. This allows you to bring maintain logical order and demonstrate the value of the product/service/information you're presenting, by positioning it further up the hierarchy. Millions of stores perform famously using this structure. I can see you've already considered this, but I wouldn't have any concerns about losing visibility with a domain/category/product structure. So, if you were only doing this because you were concerned about losing visibility for your product due to this fear of the product being diluted at the end of the URL, the example you gave isn't going to cause it.

If the product is as strong as you state and you want this to be the company's star performer, which justifies it's own space, then go for it -  but do it because it needs it rather than a fear of losing visibility.

You could always follow this example:

http://www.apple.com/iphone-7/

This works pretty well and you get the added benefit of  raising awareness of company brand (and) /product.

If you do decide to relocate your product (elsewhere in the company site or to a new domain) with careful planning, you can roll it out using 301 redirects to guide searches to the new location (https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo)  and rel=canonical tags  - if you're using the same content across both sites (https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization). This, alongside your other marketing efforts should enable you to transition from company to product site without any real risk of losing visibility.

Good Luck!

Okay. After re-reading the question (with my eyes open this time) I understand that the fact that no link jiuce will be passed to Site A (from Site B) is not an issue, rather you don't want to lose the existing link equity when you switch Site B back on and then 301 redirect Site A to Site B?

So, with that in mind - there is no specified 'acceptable' time limit attached to a 302 redirect, so you should be able to redirect without fear of being penalised, regardless of duration.

This is mentioned elsewhere on SEOMoz here: http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/9994/302-redirect-timeframe

This is an interesting read however: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/007233.html - just to keep things edgy ;o)

Yes. (Assuming by schema you mean Schema.org rather than the greek word for plan? ;o) As they allow you to show relevance to search engines - ultimately Google et al are definitely in the business of 'trying' to deliver relevant results to their searchers/customers.

See this article for more information - it's a good read.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/schemaorg-a-new-approach-to-structured-data-for-seo

If there anything preventing you from moving site B into an environment where you can control it and 301 ing it from there?

EDIT: Ahh, it looks like you consider that as your best option currently - based on the comments right at the end of your post?

Migrating Site B into an environment you can control as you wish makes perfect sense to me and create all the 301s  to your new Site A when migration is complete - you should be able to do this pretty seamlessly - as you don't need to worry about the bulk of the site itself - just a change of nameserver and point it to a server that contains your already mapped out 301'd .htaccess file?

Synonyms are part of our everyday language. we use a wide variety of synonyms in every conversation without any loss of meaning or confusion; using them in our written communication (specifically, web copy) ensures that it sounds natural, makes it less of a chore to read, and not just something that has been hammered out, solely to try to gain traction in the search engines. Google knows that its continued dominance relies on it's ability to deliver relevant results and understanding how synonyms work is an integral part of that, so, unsurprisingly, this is something they are very, very good at.

(Here's a 2010 article from the official Google blog which refers to synonyms: https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/helping-comnds puters-understand-language.html.)

If you look at Google's example of keyword stuffing (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66358?hl=en) you can see how unreadable that is; much better to add a variety of synonyms throughout a piece of engaging copy.

To address your concern directly, editing your copy and replacing keywords with a sprinkling of synonyms is not going to result in you suddenly getting penalised for 'keyword stuffing'.
(Remember, that the notion of a keyword density % is a myth See: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/myths-and-misconceptions-about-search-engines

Don't forget to test your edits with On-page Grader: https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader.

Proceed with usability and readability in mind - write something a human being would enjoy reading - and you won't go far wrong.

Overall, David, your inbound links don't look too bad. You have a Moz Spam Score is 1/17 which is positively saintly. But, as you say, the worst of them are all based around the 'Liverpool wedding photographer' anchor text.

http://www.submit.biz/23/Photography/ - a bit nasty

and

http://marieosmondwedding.com/find-the-best-wedding-photographer-in-liverpool/ - positively stinky.

All too often, when people find they have fallen foul of less than pure SEO practices they start start disavowing directory links despite the fact Google clearly says they probably don't need to:

"This [disavow tool] is an advanced feature and should only be used with caution. If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site’s performance in Google’s search results. We recommend that you disavow backlinks only if you believe you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and if you are confident that the links are causing issues for you. In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool."

This page is worth reading:  https://www.bowlerhat.co.uk/penguin-4-0-business-directories-yay-nay/

However, I don't think this is where your problem lies:

Compare the site in the number one spot (with next to no inbound inks): http://www.theliverpoolweddingphotographer.co.uk/book-online

to your site:

http://www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/contact/

Can you see the difference (or, more to the point what's missing)?

AN ADDRESS!

Google knows where 'Merseyside, L37 4AL' is but even the Mighty G will struggle to locate  "David [who is] a wedding photographer based in liverpool." In fact, you don't even use the word Liverpool on your contact page!

I hope that helps you, David. You're work looks great. Correct that address issue and see how that changes things for you.

Also, I noticed your AdWords (down the bottom of the page) I'd urge you to get 'Liverpool Wedding Photography' in your Titles along with some ad extensions: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375499?hl=en-GB and a compelling call to action.

Compare:

1. Liverpool Wedding Photography - £500 for 2017 Weddings‎

   Ad<cite class="_WGk">www.stevechaplinphotography.com/special-offer</cite>‎If you're getting married in 2017, I have an amazing offer for you - 50% OffBeautiful Albums · Great Client Reviews · Professional · Creative · Special OfferSouthport‎ - 07769 998166‎ - Closed now · Hours

against your ad:

1. NorthWest Wedding Photographer - Natural Relaxed Unobtrusive‎

   Ad<cite class="_WGk">www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/</cite>‎David Walters captures moments as they happen, relaxed unobtrusive - no fuss.

Good luck!

Yes, adding both www and non-www to Google Search Console is absolutely best practice to ensure you aren't presenting duplicate content.

It's also the first recommended step in your check list after you've verified your property within GSC (which suggests it's pretty important).

Here's what Google say about this:

You may need to verify ownership of both the www and non-www versions of your domain. Because setting a preferred domain impacts both crawling and indexing, we need to ensure that you own both versions. Typically, both versions point to the same physical location, but this is not always the case. Generally, once you have verified one version of the domain, we can easily verify the other using the original verification method. However, if you've removed the file, meta tag, or DNS record, you'll need to repeat the verification steps.

Note: Once you've set your preferred domain, you may want to use a 301 redirect to redirect traffic from your non-preferred domain, so that other search engines and visitors know which version you prefer.

I hope that helps.

This article may set your mind at ease: https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo

PR drop off no longer drops off circa 15%  as of early - mid 2016, which has been confirmed by some lovely Google folks (referenced in the above article).

I think that you're only going to benefit (mainly in terms of management), ongoing.

As Alick has pointed out, this is considered duplicate content.

Appropriate use of the canonical tag can help you overcome this. Take a look at these articles:

https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/217991468-Duplicate-Content-and-SEO

https://woorkup.com/medium-seo-canonical-tag/

https://brianli.com/how-to-republish-to-medium-with-rel-canonical-41d1821866e8#.x9hjo2zae

That should give you all you need to rectify this issue.

Good luck.

From what I understand, you're already decided to split your traffic between HTTP and HTTPS. If this is correct, I would urge you to reconsider and redirect all traffic toward HTTPS versions as there are more issues to consider other than duplicate content, particularly as you are an e-commerce store. The latest (and future) versions of Chrome and Firefox will more clearly highlight unsecured connections. This is from Google's security blog: (https://security.googleblog.com/2016/09/moving-towards-more-secure-web.html?m=1)

"In following releases, we will continue to extend HTTP warnings, for example, by labelling HTTP pages as “not secure” in Incognito mode, where users may have higher expectations of privacy. Eventually, we plan to label all HTTP pages as non-secure, and change the HTTP security indicator to the red triangle that we use for broken HTTPS."

Chrome is the world's most popular browser, used by over 50% of all internet users. If your site is displaying a red triangle with the words 'Not Secure' next to it on ANY page on your site is going to turn visitors away. If over half you your visitors are receiving such a message the consequences will not be good.

Google are pushing users toward HTTPS (https://moz.com/blog/https-tops-30-how-google-is-winning-the-long-war) so I would suggest that it's a mis-step to swim against the tide.

There are also other minor benefits to serving all of your pages via HTTPS; it's a minor ranking signal and better support for browser compression, among others.

Here's another article that covers the recent changes.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-requiring-https-for-secure-data-in-chrome/183756/

However you proceed, I hope this goes smoothly for you.

Good luck.

Here's Moz's explanation of 'No data': "No data means we have not yet collected volume for the keyword" and the expanded answer from their FAQs (https://moz.com/help/guides/keyword-explorer

What does it mean when a keyword has “No Data” for its volume?

“No data” indicates that we’ve not yet collected search volume information on this keyword. It may have very high or very low volume (more likely the latter than the former, but with many exceptions, especially recently trending keywords or very obscure ones). Over time, we attempt to gather volume data for keywords on which we’ve reported “No Data” so you may see us update these as we gather it (approximately monthly).

As a rule, I usually assume low volume - the fact that these keywords are often "longer-tail" ('large black leather handbags uk', for example) will often confirm that.

There are other keyword research tools you can use to cross-reference, such as SEMRush and http://keywordtool.io but, like most of the best tools, these are paid-for solutions.

And, of course, there's Google's own keyword planner: https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/ This is free, but requires you sign up for a free Google Adwords account (you don't need to create an Adwords campaign).

Don't forget that if you're not sure, you can always contact Moz for help: https://moz.com/help/contact

I hope that helps.

Make sure you're doing this for the right reasons: Don't do this to in an effort to improve rankings; do it because it's it improves the user experience, particularly if the site is sizeable. Adding an HTML version of the sitemap can help users find what they want on your site as quickly as possible. This, will reduce bounce rates and increase time on site, which can be a signal that your site delivers content that is relevant to the user's search (which is Google's primary objective - if they deliver relevant search results, people will continue to use their service).  Everything you do to help your visitors find what they are looking for (be that a product or information) as quickly and as painlessly as possible will benefit you directly. Google will reward you for that.

"Provide a sitemap file with links that point to the important pages on your site. Also provide a page with a human-readable list of links to these pages (sometimes called a site index or site map page)."

If it's a large site, you may want to break this down over several pages. - "Limit the number of links on a page to a reasonable number (a few thousand at most)."

I'd be inclined to add a link to this in the footer of the site and/or in an on-site search page.

Source Google Webmaster Guidelines (under Help Google Find Your Pages section): https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en

Good luck.

Thanks, EGOL, that's most kind.

(Does anyone know where the blushes emoticon is, on here?)

Oh dear, not mobile responsive, Moz? Google's gunna getcha...

Jo's quite right, Google haven't gone live with this, yet:

"To make our results more useful, we’ve begun experiments to make our index mobile-first. Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results. Of course, while our index will be built from mobile documents, we're going to continue to build a great search experience for all users, whether they come from mobile or desktop devices.

We understand this is an important shift in our indexing and it’s one we take seriously. We’ll continue to carefully experiment over the coming months on a small scale and we’ll ramp up this change when we’re confident that we have a great user experience. Though we’re only beginning this process, here are a few recommendations to help webmasters prepare as we move towards a more mobile-focused index."
See: the full post, here: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html

http://www.kingofcopy.com/sitemap.xml - references only 3 files (with the index and sitemap/xml link making it up to 5)

However the other sections of the site are installed into sub folders or are disconnected from the content referenced from your root www.kingofcopy.com

take a look at this sitemap further into the site from one of your subfolders http://www.kingofcopy.com/products/sitemap.xml and you will see what looks to be the 1000+ pages you refer to.

However, there is no connection between the root directory and these other pages and sub folders.

It appears that your main page is http://www.kingofcopy.com/main.html

Ordinarily you would want to bring them into one common, connected framework - with all accessible pages linked to in a structured and logical way - and if you have other exclusive squeeeze pages/landing pages that you do not want to show up in search results - and just direct users to them using mail shots etc then you can prevent them getting indexed - for example - you may want to prevent a pure sqeeze page like http://www.kingofcopy.com/max/maxoutsideusa.html from appearing in the SERPS.

To prevent all robots from indexing a page on your site, place the following meta tag into the section of your page:

Personally, I would consider a restructure to bring this content into the root directory - noindexing the squeeze pages as required - but this would need to be carefully planned and well executed with 301 redirects in place where content has moved from one directory to another

However, you could always shuffle around the first few pages - renaming main.html to index html and having the copy you currently have at www.kingofcopy.com in a lightbox/popup or similar over the top of the main page ?

I think the problem with the main.html page not being found as your default root/home page and the lack of connections between certain pages is the cause for a lot of the issues with your campaign crawling so few of the pages.

Incidentally, if you did restructure consider using Wordpress as would be a great fit with what you have produced already (and there are plently of wordpress squeeze page/product promotion themes available.

Yep. Spot on advice from John. I always like to keep in mind how your page content would sound if you read it out loud. If you're not sure, do exactly that, preferably to a friend and get them to tell you when it sounds like you're labouring the point.

Always, ALWAYS make the user experience your primary focus. If you can clearly explain to the user what it is you're offering - without repeating yourself endlessly- then the search engines will be smart enough to pick this up. Now there's no harm in using your keyphrase (and synonyms) a couple of times throughout your content but only when it's needed for clarity.

I understand how Yoast's SEO plugin can give you green light fever, but as is often the case, less is more.

Yes. You will need to edit the header.php and replace the thesis <title>...</title> with
 <title><?php wp_title(''); ?></title>

UPDATE: Okay, scrub that. Just looked at my thesis header.php and I can see it is created using hooks, rather than PHP directly in the header file.

Take a look at this URL discussion marked as RESOLVED on Wordpress.org forum http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-missing-meta-description-for-homepage Let us know how you get on with that.

If you use Chrome, you can see this using the free Mozbar: https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar

Click on Page Analysis > On-Page Elements and you'll see Page Title, Meta Description etc. along with character count.

There's a ton of other cool stuff on there, too.

Enjoy!

All this ^ and that ^^

Hey Bill,

Can you tell us what campaign type you initially setup: Sub domain, Root domain or Sub folder?

I believe you are going to struggle setting up your campaign to monitor all of these pages due to the current configuration - based on the link architecture/navigation.

Would it be fair to say that you are actually only concerned about monitoring the performance of the  visible Sqeeze pages in the SERPS - because if every other page should only be visible when you opt in then it stands to reason that you would be better to have all of this content hidden using noindex, to preserve the value of the content within those pages - to give potential customers every reason to opt in?

If we had a better idea of what your end goal was it might help us better assist you.

Hello and welcome aboard!

It's working here, (with hurl.it and others - and I can see the actual page content as you'd expect). I can also crawl it within MOZ: "Accessible to Search Engines"  - CHECK

Could this just be a temporary issue with your web host or perhaps an issue where you are/were connected where you attempted the crawl?FYI: Crawl results show all your pages with 200 status (apart from one 301). All is well

Good stuff! It seems that this issue is tripping a few people up. If this turns out to be the definitive solution be sure to update this thread - I wont be able to sleep until I know I've truly earned my first Moz Points! ;o)

I've already emailed support about this (on Friday), they assure me that they are looking into it. I'm sure that all will be resolved soon enough and harmony will be restored across Mozland once more.

UPDATE: After checking your link, I see you first experienced this a few months ago. As far as I can see, all was well until Friday afternoon. I think we need to bear in mind that the Moz community ranking table isn't the SERPS So there's no danger of angry calls from clients on Monday morning

More often than not, you wouldn't be expected to have any particular influence over these inbound links - assuming they have come about naturally.

A popular site (which doesn't engage in illicit practices) will, over time, gain a high percentage of nofollow links (MOZ, for example has a split of around 60% nofollow/40% follow), the anchor text will vary, and usually links to a relevant page within the site i.e. the kind of anchor text you see across good quality blogs, which reference external sources/articles. A percentage of these inbound links will also be "naked" i.e. a straight hyperlink showing the URL in full. Expect to see a good few brand anchor text links, too (Moz). So, "good" sites, get a broad mix, of good/bad and indifferent anchor text links split between follow and nofollow.

Conversely, "bad sites" (who try to game the system) will have a disproportionately high number of exact match keyword anchor with an extremely high percentage being follow links, quite often from lower quality or irrelevant sites and they stick out a mile when you do any backlink analysis.

If you have any influence over this process it might help you get a better understanding of this by taking a good look at the backlink profile of a big player within your vertical (who is unlikely to need to try and cheat the system) in Open Site Explorer.

If you're not going out of your way to manipulate your rankings you should be able to let the anchor text links develop naturally, without concerning yourself too much about it.

So, in summary, "Should the anchor text vary per customer and if so how?"

Yes. You would expect to see it vary significantly, especially when spread from a broad range of sources and in numbers, as highlighted previously. Natural links look natural (you'll smell the bad ones a mile off!).

**As the customers aren't totally relevant to my own product (although the anchor text is) would this also be hurting my ranking? **

**No. **Not if they are out of your control, gained naturally, and vary in nature. Millions of links are created between sites of all different varieties, every day. The best ones will be from high-authority sites, often with some connecting theme - but that isn't essential - and that doesn't mean the lower-authority, unrelated sites are going to do you any harm whatsoever.

However, you wouldn't want to encourage everyone to drop an anchor text to your service in the footer of their websites, for example, because that isn't natural and will not be rewarded.

If you've got that many customers who are happy to link to you, you'd be wise to generate some great content and encourage them to engage with it - the kind of stuff they'd be keen to share, and others would be keen to read and you'll never have to concern yourself with your anchor text again.

You need to bear in mind that this the figures given are a guideline only. If your pages have been constructed with the user in mind (rather than just the search engines) and the keywords present are there because they add clarity then I'd be reluctant to start stripping them out solely in an attempt to tick a box.

That said, if you have gone a bit overboard with your references to a specific keyword/phrase then it would be sensible to rework the copy to include synonyms (different words that mean the same, or very similar, thing). Current best practice is to build content around a theme, rather than a single keyword, position your core keyword prominently (but not excessively) within the page and use related phrases around it to establish your theme. This practice will pay dividends with the rise or Google's RankBrain (https://moz.com/blog/rankbrain-unleashed).

Before you rush off and rework your copy, we should first look at improving the situation your facing now, and the above can be  something to consider when you are next producing content.

Can you share a breakdown of the keyword distribution with us?

Better still, share the page and we'll gladly give you some feedback.

Here's an example of mine (from a product page - the product ranks top 5 with almost no inbound links (it's a new site) in a moderately competitive niche. Moz grades this page as a A.

We found this keyword used 26 times.

Title 1, URL 1, Meta Description 1, H1 1, Body 10, IMG ALT 12

The alt tags are around one per product image - this could be trimmed back a little and we could stand to drop one of two from the body but, in truth, the page reads naturally, and isn't stuffed with keywords unnaturally. (some of the instances of the body in the copy are on labels, sub-section headings and brochures etc).I always recommend reading the page out loud as a may of gauging if it is over-filled with repetitive keywords - reading it to someone else helps (insist on honest feedback). If they start grimacing every time you use the keyword you may want to adjust the copy. In your case, if your page copy contains exactly the necessary amount of keywords (and your still keen to reduce your count) start stripping them from the Alt tags of less prominent images. If you're using WordPress (you might want to try Yoast's SEO plugin as it will assist you with monitoring this for you. However, keep in mind the Moz tool, Yoast's SEO plugin etc. are only guidelines. Don't let them get in the way of you producing great content. Create content for your potential customers, if, when you've done that, the copy also ticks these boxes then so much the better.If you haven't read this already, I'd suggest you take a look at this: https://moz.com/blog/visual-guide-to-keyword-targeting-onpage-optimizationGood luck.

I had a very similar problem with my own site disappearing from the SERPS, but showing as it should on any other PCs (that I hadn't previously used.)

The problem then related to Google's personalised search. Essentially, I had accidentally deleted my site and prevented it showing up in personalised search - though it still worked in any other browser that wasn't displaying my personalised results. ( See this article: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-test-lets-users-vote-add-and-delete-sites-in-serps/6031/ )

To remove personalised search take a look at: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54048

This sounds to be a likely suspect for the issue you are having.

Personalised Search can also provide false results as you are seeing personalised results, based on your search history, activity and preferences, rather than the non-personalised results as they actually appear without personalised bias in the SERPS.

You can see your web history settings here: https://www.google.com/history/

Hope that helps!

Paul, what you're seeing in the results from the Moz crawl don't always (immediately) reflect what's going on at the moment.

If you have made recent changes to the site, you could be seeing a snapshot of the site when it is in transition.

You can also try a tool like :https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ (the free version may be enough to spot any correlation between the two reporting tools.

You've got a fair few other issues across the site multiple H1s in pages, etc. I've done a site audit report for you (so I could take a look at your site in some depth). If you PM me with your preferred email address, I'll gladly sent it across for you - free and gratis, naturally.

I hope that helps!

Host in your own country where possible (and practical) as server response time and server location are SEO factors - though not hugely weighted.

However, as .Coms are considered global hosting the US AND UK site on the same US server wouldn't be of huge detriment (in terms of server response time again.) -  if you only want to run one site and split the visitors between /US and /UK subfolders. Remember, you can use Google Webmaster Tools to create Geographic targeting for each sub folder (One for the US sub folder/sub directory and one for the UK for example.)

In a perfect world however I would want to see the sites hosted in the appropriate country as this does help to indicate your target audience (and the obvious server response times I keep mentioning.) Google does allow for those that host out of their own country, hence the geographic targeting option in google webmaster tools.

I think UK users do like to see .Co.Uk at the end of the domain - because they know that generally means they will sell (and ship) to UK users - but we also use global .com stores if re-directed to them (Ebuyer.com for instance.)

• You can always use a .co.uk domain (if you have that too) for marketing only and redirect all traffic to your xyzdomain.com/UK sub folder.

In terms of the ecommerce software, I would (and did) opt for another ecommerce solution altogether:

Interspire Shopping Cart is very good in terms of SEO (The URL structure, H1 tags, meta title, meta description etc are dealt with very well.  We rank number one for a variety of terms using this as the ecommerce solution. (Note this is self hosting) There is a hosted version that interspire are beginning to favour - see www.Bigcommerce.com

Hope that helps!

Nope. Moz suggest you don't get too excited about anything below an 8 and even then proceed with caution. Disavowing links is not usually something Google would expect you to need to get involved in, unless you are dealing with thousands of links.

"This  [Disavow backlinks] is an advanced feature and should only be used with caution. If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site’s performance in Google’s search results. We recommend that you disavow backlinks only if you believe you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and if you are confident that the links are causing issues for you. In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool."

From: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487

EGOL (who is wise in such matters) references this in a recent Q and A post and says he has never disavowed a single backlink, I've only ever done so once, in a panic and don't see myself doing so again. Much better to concentrate your efforts into countering the spammy links with great content.

UPDATE: Another thing to consider, if you click on Open Site Explorer > Spam Analysis  - You'll see a number of these flags are issues you can fix without disavowing links. More often than not, you can fix a few of those. And remember, the Spam Score is not some hard and fast rule that Google follows; they are just a set of signals that Moz believe to have a correlation to Google penalties.

Here's the full list of Spam Flags from OSE > Spam Analysis:

Low MozTrust or MozRank Score
The site link profile is not trustworthy.

✓

Large Site with Few Links
We found very few sites linking to this site, considering its size.

✓

Site Link Diversity is Low
The diversity of link sources to this subdomain is low.

✓

Ratio of Followed to Nofollowed Subdomains
The ratio of followed to nofollowed subdomains linking to this subdomain is outside the normal range of others in our index.

✓

Ratio of Followed to Nofollowed Domains
The ratio of followed to nofollowed domains linking to this subdomain is outside the normal range of others in our index.

✓

Small Proportion of Branded Links
Links to this subdomain have low amounts of branded anchor text.

✓

Thin Content
A subset of pages within this subdomain have little content.

✓

Site Mark-up is Abnormally Small
There's a high ratio of visible text compared to HTML, JavaScript, etc.

✓

Large Number of External Links
A subset of pages within this subdomain has a large number of external links.

✓

Low Number of Internal Links
Pages crawled on the subdomain have a small number of internal links.

✓

Anchor Text Heavy Page
There's a high ratio of anchor text compared to content text.

✓

External Links in Navigation
There's a large number of external links within sidebars and footers.

✓

No Contact Info
None of the pages crawled contain an email address or links to a social profile.

✓

Low Number of Pages Found
Crawl only gets a valid response to a small number of pages.

✓

TLD Correlated with Spam Domains
This subdomain is on a top level domain (TLD) extension often found to be the source of spam links.

✓

Domain Name Length
This domain name's character count is higher than average.

✓

Domain Name Contains Numerals
Domain names including numbers are often found to be the source of spam links.

Good luck.

Generally the .xml.gz format is the one stated in examples there are a few references to this here : http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php#index

Most sitemap generators that create both compressed and uncompressed sitemap files name them sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz respectively. It also makes it clearer what the content of the zipped file is. I don't believe it is essential however, as you will direct tools such as google.com/webmasters to your xml sitemap - rather than expect it to find it of its own accord.

I always use the .xml.gz format when compressing. I would argue that (if both formats work) neither one is 'BETTER' than the other, rather one is more ACCEPTED than the other.

For Wordpress try : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/canonical/

also look at Yoast's Wordpress SEO plugin referenced on that page - I love it!

and for the duplicate content caused by the dymanic content on the pinnacle cart you can use the Google Webmasters tool to tell the Google to ignore certain parameters - go to Site configuration - Settings - Parameter handling and add the variables you wish to ignore to this list.

Okay. Interesting (and rather encouraging). Does all look okay under Sitemap Index Report?

See this article from a few months back reporting same issue:

http://searchengineland.com/google-says-google-index-status-search-console-report-broken-257111

This and the fact that Google is fetching them (and we can see that in the real world) suggests there's no cause for concern.

I would bear in mind that most people who are serious about undertaking an online degree are likely to search for an online degree in a specific field - Online Marketing Degree etc, rather than the very vague 'Online Degree', so I would target one main keyword (and related keyword variations) per page/discipline.

Potential customers who are further down the buying funnel will use more specific searches to find exactly what they want - afterall, they will know that a search for online degree will bring out LOTS of irrelevant results and not deliver what they are looking for - so they drill down using the long tail keywords.

Take a look at The Long Tail by Chris Anderson - http://www.amazon.com/Long-Tail-Revised-Updated-Business/dp/1401309666/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308771559&sr=1-2

You will also stand a better chance in the SERPS targeting the longer tail keywords.

It's easy to get blinded by numbers in SEO and it is very easy to all end up chasing the same keywords - when they might not be the best converting keywords - I have spent some years doing exactly that and it is only in recent years that I changed my tactics and started pursuing 'more of less' and as a consequence improved the performance of my online business considerably.

If by 'irrelevant keywords' you mean the words that occur naturally when discussing your subject area then it is absolutely not an issue if you provide quality information, written for the reader primarily - not the search engines. It is easy to get blinded by focusing on nothing other than keywords, which usually results in their overuse in an unnatural and spammy looking way.

Remember - Search Engines won't buy what you are selling - but your visitors will - IF you can show them ithat you offer what it is they are looking for using tried and tested sales copy, which is reassuring and can demonstrate the product features which will benefit your visitor/potential customer.

Yoast works well alongside Genesis - as StudioPress were gracious enough to allow a dedicated SEO plugin take over from their built in offering.