Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
Well, thanks for the update, Tawny; we have clarity at least. There absolutely needs to be a definitive in-house list in place of this nigh-on useless third-party one. This is step two of your 'not showing up on OSE' troubleshooting list; if it had been valid we could have identified it as the problem in minutes, rather than hours. 
Disavowing should not be the go-to option. It's really only something you'd consider as a last resort (and in the case of high volumes of spammy links). Before you consider disavowing anything, you'd be wise to read this:
"[Google Disavow] 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."
Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en
It doesn't fill you with confidence does it?
Either the list isn't a true reflection of supported TLDs (and they aren't supported - and never have been). or, potentially even more unsettling, they should be/were supported and something is broken within the API.
Neither scenario is good news, however.
I'll contact support and share their reply, here.
Update: See below.
Sometimes it's easy to be blinded by the technical aspects of SEO and overlook the most basic things. Put it this way, my troubleshooting started from the links down, rather than the site up, so don't feel too bad - there's a lesson there for all of us, I'd say.
P.S. I think I preferred Toast 
Good luck and happy snapping!
This issue with the .Scot domain appears to cover the whole TLD. I've tested a number of other .Scot domains and They all show No DA/PA and No Established Links. (However, Page Social Metrics do show).
The last one I tested was isleofjura.scot (https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=isleofjura.scot&filter=&source=external&target=domain&group=0&page=1&sort=page_authority&anchor_id=&anchor_type=&anchor_text=&from_site=)
If this is TLD wide one can't help but wonder if this issue is more widespread?
Could this be part of something bigger, namely the drop in DA/PA after the recent Mozscape API update?
I think this has the potential to be the tip of the iceberg 
Hi Jay,
I was going to direct you to the SEOChat forum but I think you may have posted there very recently. There is a sticky post on there regarding SEO tools that will have some good suggestions for you. Sadly, that post wasn't sticky enough that I could locate it just now. I think it was somewhere within this section: http://forums.seochat.com/guide-90/
I saw this answer in response to a similar question on SEO Chat and I've got to say, it's rather amusing:
"The SEO software that is worth using is the one between your ears .... and yes that works with all browsers."
Good luck in your quest!
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!
What the deuce?!?!
If .Scot IS supported. you'd expect the Scottish Parliament (http://www.parliament.scot) to show one or two inbound links?! As it stands, it doesn't show any:
Something is amiss, here.
I don't know if you've seen Braveheart, Tawny, but the Scots don't take kindly to being oppressed. If you don't want a lot of hairy, blue-faced fellows showing what is worn beneath their kilts, I'd give someone in the Moz tech department a nudge
The legal wrangling aside (as this isn't something to concern ourselves with from a technical standpoint) I'd say this boils down to: If I redirect all of the established equity for one site well-established, authority site between two newly-established domains, will the new sites do as well, pro rata, as the original site?
Short answer, no.
The purpose of a 301 is to tell Search engines that the original content has been moved elsewhere. on a permanent basis. Between 2013 and early 2016, it was the case that approx 15% of PageRank was lost when using a 301. However, that is (thankfully) no longer the case *BUT **just because Google no longer imposes a penalty for 301 redirects, PageRank is only of hundreds of signals that Google uses when ranking web pages.
In a perfect world, if you create a 301 redirect from one page to another where the content remains exactly the same AND only the URL changes, then you should see no fall off in traffic.
See: https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo
Even if we assume that you have evenly (and successfully) divided 100% of the links between the two sites, with each page redirect passing over 100% of the link equity (and, in this hypothetical world, each page is carrying the same level of authority), you're still dividing the overall domain authority between two sites, so, even if everything goes perfectly when you create all of the redirects, you still end up with two sites which are weaker than the original.
In reality, of course, you are unlikely to manage to pass on every drop of 'link juice' from each of the original pages, and not all pages will carry the same weight as the others (you could compare page authority in Moz and divide by overall "value" rather than number of pages but that's never going to be precise - or easy). And this is before all of the other ranking signals come into play.
I'd suggest the best you can do here is to carefully plan and execute the separation but both parties are going to lose out here - it's now a matter of trying to lose least.
(*I like big buts and I cannot lie.)
I'm very confused, Tawny. I checked that list (and referenced it myself, above) as this was one of my concerns. if you search the list for Scot, you'll find:
**// scot : 2014-01-23 Dot Scot Registry Limited
scot** Which, unless I'm very much mistaken, would suggest you do (or should) support it - assuming this list gives a true reflection of TLDs you support. I'm quite happy to be mistaken but would be more concerned if the resource you're referencing isn't current or accurate. Perhaps an internally generated list of supported TLDs would be a better resource?
**UPDATE:**
Having checked this against the Scottish parliament's own: www.parliament.scot/ it appears that you're absolutely correct, Tawny, the .Scot isn't supported. However, there does need to be some clarification about supported TLDs.
EDIT (for clarity): I checked www.parliament.scot in OSE and it shows no established links.
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:
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:
Ad<cite class="_WGk">www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/</cite>David Walters captures moments as they happen, relaxed unobtrusive - no fuss.
Good luck!
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.
As part of the normal backlink profile you would absolutely expect to see some nofollow links (In many cases, you can expect to see more nofollow than follow (Moz's inbound links have a ratio of something close to 40% follow to 60% nofollow). Of course, if you only have a few inbound links there's every chance that 100% of them could be passing equity. However, as your site grows, you'd definitely expect to see that percentage drop off. Being honest, I can only see this ratio being something to concern yourself with if you are trying to make your backlink profile "look natural", rather than allowing to develop naturally. Often, the kind of places that allow you to "get" dofollow links (i.e. paid links/directories etc.) are of lower quality and Google will have a pretty good understanding what they're up to and simply discount the links, which could see you investing a lot of effort and gaining nothing of any worth at the end.
So, in summary, there is no optimal ratio of follow/nofollow links, only good links (natural/relevant) and bad links (paid/spammy). Concentrate your efforts on building great contents, satisfying your visitors (by giving them what they want) and building relationships within your vertical and you'll gain far more from fewer links. It may seem counter-intuitive, especially if you see your competitors gaming the system, but their success will likely be short-lived.
I know that the "build great content" and "putting the user first" messages can seem a little trite, but you hear it a lot because it's true.
Good luck with your project!
Hi,
Well, there is some good news: A search using: site:www.landscaping.scot and site:www.gardeners.scot shows both are indexing and I can see that there are inbound links to the site.
It could simply be that OSE hasn't crawled the site, yet: "Keep in mind that, while large, our index doesn't cover the entire web. If you have a smaller or new site, it's possible we haven't crawled it yet. When we discover a new link, it’s added to our queue, but it can take 1-2 index updates before we actually crawl the page." However, it does appear to be getting on for a year old, so, unless your inbound links are from sites that Moz hasn't crawled, you'd expect to be showing by now - unless there's another issue...
.Scot is a recognised TLD within Moz:
https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat so this shouldn't be a problem.
UPDATE: See my reply in response to Tawny, below:
Have you recently changed the robots.txt file, perhaps?
Looking at: http://www.landscaping.scot/robots.txt I note that Sitemaps is showing at the very top of robots.txt when I would expect to see it at the bottom (See 'Sitemap Parameters', here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/robotstxt). I'm not sure if this is enough to trip Roger up, but I'd certainly start my investigations there, as an incorrectly configured robots.txt can cause chaos.
The fact that Google is seeing the site is a good sign, obviously.
Let us know you have you made any other structural changes recently (i.e within the last month or so).
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!
Hi Sam,
First of all, congrats on the lovely site 
DON'T PANIC!
OSE does not represent live results as it is linked to the Mozscape Index, which updates about once a month (There was on update on Jan 26th and the next one is due around Feb 28th).
Discussed here: https://moz.com/help/guides/research-tools/open-site-explorer/updates
For latest and pending update information, go here: https://moz.com/products/api/updates
If you want to do a quick check to see whether your site is showing for both www and non-www variants, do a search for:
**site:sassandgrace.co.uk **(with no spaces)
and you'll see what Google has indexed.
Interestingly, there is one reference within Google's results for the www. version:
**www.sassandgrace.co.uk/blog-detail.html **which is a remnant from development as it contains lorem ipsum text.
If the redirects have been created manually it's easy to see why this would be overlooked.
Best practice would be to create a global redirect rule from the www to non-www. version of your site.
Read this for some solid best practices when dealing with redirects: https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
You can also indicate that non-www. version is your preferred version of the site in Google Search Console.
That stray page aside, I'd have no concerns. Check back in OSE after the next update and see if everything hasn't settled down.
Good Luck!
Yes, indeed. HTTPS does carry a minor ranking signal. A nice article on this (and the other benefits of migrating from HTTP to HTTPS, here: http://searchengineland.com/http-https-seos-guide-securing-website-246940
You'd want to create a redirect (usually within .htaccess - assuming you are using a Linux & Apache setup) which will automatically redirect from HTTP to HTTPS:
RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Your web host will likely have information about this in their support section or simply Google "301 redirect from http to https"
More useful 301 reading: [https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection](https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection)
and, if you're still hungry for more: [https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo](https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo)
This guide on migrating from HTTP to HTTPS might be useful reading for you, too: [https://www.keycdn.com/blog/http-to-https](https://www.keycdn.com/blog/http-to-https/)
I hope that helps. Good Luck!
Oh dear, not mobile responsive, Moz? Google's gunna getcha...
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!
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.
If you are trying to rank two sites, owned by the same company for the same (or VERY similar) products/services at the same address, with content that can never be anything other than very closely related I'd suggest that this will look (rightly or wrongly) like you're game the system and Google don't like that at all. A read through of Google's Webmaster Guidelines might help you get a better understanding of what they consider to be good (and bad) practice: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en
Is there any scope for you to simply bring a personal lines insurance section under your main agency site, for example? I'd expect greater success doing this as you're not trying to get two bites of the cherry.
If you were to go with a separate site, you can openly use the same content across both sites by using rel=“canonical” tags to indicate to Google (other search engines are available) that given URLs are effectively carrying the same content - Ideal if you have content that is accessible across multiple websites - as this will not impact negatively on your rankings. That said, unless there is some industry specific regulation that dictates you cannot be part of insurance agency I'd be keen to keep it on the straight and narrow and build all the content under one roof.
If you want to increase your visibility, you can potentially appear twice on the page by running a very tightly targeted AdWords campaign (you can run it for a small geographic radius) - perfect if you typically deal with local customers, face to face.
Whatever way you approach this, the potential short-term gain of beating the system (i.e. having two sites running for very similar searches) is not worth the potential long-term pain of getting caught out.
Good luck
It would also be worth running through a best practice guide for implementing HTTPS on this site, as this can cause problems with link dilution etc. if not carried out correctly:
Source: http://searchengineland.com/https-setup-causing-seo-issues-254236
Sorry, I was editing my reply to include the 804 stuff when when yours came in.
I understand that your priority is ranking the bookbub version, not your blog. One can't help but suspect that something may be amiss with/on the site, but it's not good practice to speculate too much before we investigate.
Let's see if we can't use the power of Moz and find what the issue is...
Weil, it is ranking - just not where you want it to - it's 15th on Google.co.uk for "book marketing ideas" - under a domain you may be very familiar with http://dianaurban.com/98-book-marketing-ideas-for-authors - (and 11th for the US).
That may be helpful as it gives something to compare against after all, Google clearly doesn't have any particular issue with the bulk of the content itself.
At a glance, the results in On-Page Grader (https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader give the bookbub page a slight edge - though neither are far off the mark, with both getting A grades.
The URL on your personal site is a little more natural looking whereas the bookbub URL is perhaps a little too sterile (and looks a lot like you're trying a little too hard, perhaps? (However, that's my own take on it, rather than a direct violation of one of Google 200+ commandments)
With regard to your 804 error, this is going to be due to Moz and SSL/SNI not getting along, so it's going to something you're stuck with until Moz resolve this. (I believe they are working on this and have made some progress, but nothing that's ready to go mainstream, yet - You'll see it referenced thought out the forum) : https://moz.com/community/q/high-priority-error-code-804-https-ssl-error-encountered
That should give you something to kick off with for the moment.
Hi Kevin,
I ran a crawl of this site using ScreamingFrog's spider tool and found more than a few 404 errors, so something is amiss (or was when I looked at this, yesterday.) Try the free version of the tool yourself and see how it looks: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ It's a useful tool as it gives you real-time results.
Good luck!
Excellent. I have to say, the number of schema they offer is bewildering. Glad to hear you're sorted.
I think I'd go with either Residence or ApartmentComplex and pick what best suits from there - a quick glance suggests both would suit (though you'll know more about that than I).
I'd go with JSON-LD (and have done) all the way: It's a lightweight, flexible and easy way to add metadata to sites. It's robust and forgiving so unlikely to break anything. It plays well with Google and opens up the a lot of options for you.
There's also a nifty looking JSON-LD generator, here: https://www.schemaapp.com/tools/jsonld-schema-generator/
All the best with the project!
If you want to be doubly sure, you can try Fetch as Google (under Crawl) in Search Console.
And you can also try crawling with a 3rd party tool such as Screaming Frog (https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/)
If these respond appropriately, it may be worth trying a crawl again, later (as the Crawl Test suggests) - it may just be a temporary glitch in the matrix.
Update us if things don't settle down or you get unexpected results following above.
Don't forget the HELP! button's there if you need it (it's right next to the PANIC! button on your keyboard https://moz.com/help/contact
Can you elaborate? What Moz tool where you using at the time (It sounds like a crawl test?)
Can you expand the message to reveal the error?
Is your site hosted on a CMS such as SquareSpace, for example?
Is it crawlable using similar external tools?
Do you have any errors within Google Search Console? - Always good to start here.
Please get back to us with some more details and we'll be better positioned to help.
Cheers.
Technical SEO considerations aside, first.
The answer depends (in part) on who their target audience is and where they are located. Are they targeting Parisians or Glaswegians, for example? As these are two totally different audiences with totally different expectations.
I'm guessing it's aimed at English speakers across the UK mainland, so something with mainstream appeal would be preferable to my mind. There are few peoples on earth more staunchly proud of their nationality than the Scots (and rightly so), but the current branding may be a bit of an irrelevance or source of confusion at best or a turn-off at worst - for some. Of course, the opposite applies if you are selling to Scots or selling authentic Scottish produce, but they aren't.
If they are using .scot or .scotland or some other variant (again, technical SEO considerations aside at this stage) there is some risk of confusion as people are still more familiar with the .com/.co.uk domains and you wouldn't want to lose potential clients to competitors with similar (and more memorable) domain names. (These .vanity type domain names are gaining traction though - albeit when the .co.uk variants are taken - you only need to Google any ad/media/seo agency to see a profusion of .buzz .agency .hipster - I haven't looked, but I'll wager that's out there, too!)
So, brand perception and confusion aside, we can look at technical SEO:
Is there any benefit to using a different domain suffix (user perception aside)?
No, as all TLDs are treated equally by Google. (See: http://searchengineland.com/google-explains-how-they-handle-the-new-top-level-domains-tlds-225671
So, there is no gain to be had from changing over - from Google's perspective.
However, If they are targeting French speakers exclusively then I see a case for ruling out on a .fr domain, especially if you have a local presence over in France. It goes without saying that you'd want the site presented in French first, too - but that's a given. a Google My Business listing to target local search etc would benefit, of course.
You could go as far as hosting the site in France to boost server response by a few milliseconds or so, but this is only applicable if you're actively seeking a predominately French customer base.
If you are thinking of switching domains or moving sites there are obvious logistical considerations (redirects, migration of content etc - depending on how you roll it out, so there is risk of losing some ground in the SERPS (even if you execute the migration flawlessly).
Of course, if my speculation is correct and you are targeting UK users in the main and you are gaining any kind of traction with the current site, you may be better to focus on delivering a better on-page experience - "Best places to visit in Dordogne" type articles, so you're catching prospective clients early into the buying process, broadening your site with engaging content, carrying out some content outreach exercises, promoting your brand on Social Media etc and stick with what you've got and there's no reason at all why you can't rank very well for any term you wish - you just need to but the work in to get the rewards. Just persevere, produce great content, keep your target audience in mind and you can beat the best - and you'll never be short of Scottish customers.
Bonne chance!
SquareSpace doesn't play along nicely with Moz. I first contacted SquareSpace about this, a year ago, here's their reply:
"Thanks for reaching out!
I'm sorry for the troubles with this. Our developers have this as a known issue and are working on a fix with Moz, they're aware of the issue as well and looking to update their system so we do not block them.
I've marked this message for follow up and we'll let you know as soon as this is resolved.
I apologize for the inconvenience of this and thank you for your patience...."
Then, some months later, this:
"Thanks for getting back to us, and re-opening this dialoge. I'm happy to get a status check running for you here.
Now, I am able to see that our engineers and Moz's were working on this together, and it looks like they made progress, but most of that conversation happens away from Customer Care.
With that in mind, can you reply to this email, and let me know if you are still experiencing this? I'm guessing probably so, but I just need to confirm that, before next steps here. Also, can you let me know which of your sites are affected by this?"
I await their update 6 months on...
I'm afraid to say that this issue led to me shelving Moz for a while. However, after much encouragement, I got my SquareSpace clients to move over to another CMS, so I'm back. Hurrah!
I also spoke to a Moz staff member a week or so ago and they are aware of an issue and can offer a workaround of sorts, but you will still be limited to which tools will function correctly with SquareSpace.
I hope that helps.
There's some good news about 301 redirects that you may have missed: Since early/mid 2016, changing the directory structure (alone) and creating 301 redirects isn't going to (or shouldn't) cause any loss in PageRank.
The fact that 301s generally resulted in a loss of around 15% of PageRank (which was confirmed by Matt Cutts in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Filv4pP-1nw) is simply no longer the case.
Sceptical? So was I. Read on...
In February 2016, Google Web Trend Analyst, John Mueller confirmed this:
Q. Do I lose "link juice" from the redirects?
A. No, for 301 or 302 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS no PageRank is lost.
(Source: https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/PY1xCWbeDVC)
Further, Google's Gary Illyes confirmed this in July 2016, on twitter:
"30x redirects don't lose PageRank anymore."
(Source: https://twitter.com/methode/status/757923179641839616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
(Bear in mind, PR is not the only ranking signal.)
So, changing URLs for SEO purposes, including "Improving directory/subfolder structure" is considered less risky now that 301 redirects preserve PageRank (as long as the content and structure remains the same).
There's a great article on the subject of 301 redirect rules: "301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know for SEO" here: https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo
Remember: For this to work out for you, the content of the page at the receiving end of the 301 needs to match the original source as closely as possible.
Good luck!
Start by getting things in order in Google Search Console. You should add both non-www. and www. properties to your site. When both are verified you can set your preference (in this case, non.www.) Otherwise, "If you don't specify a preferred domain, we may treat the www and non-www versions of the domain as separate references to separate pages" and risk issues down the line with duplicate content.
See here for details about setting your preferred domain: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/44231
If, as I read your follow-up post, you're saying all of your links point to the www. version of your site then this could be the source of your problems.
You need to organise your domains within Google Search Console. Then determine where all of the inbound links and authority are headed and set your preferences within GSC accordingly. You can use 301 directs when things have settled down but don't rush and make mistakes as a result.
You can work through GSC documentation here, then follow the appropriate action for your scenario.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34592?hl=en
I hope that helps and good luck!
When you say kicks them out - did they actually login successfully?
I think you may actually be talking about 2-step authentication. If that's what you are referring to, you can turn it off by following these steps:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1064203?hl=en
I hope that helps.
You can also look at Open Site Explorer, here: https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/spam-analysis/flags?subdomain=minutedrone.com
However, as Andy says, starting with Google should really be your first port of call (assuming you have access): https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home
Thanks! Glad to have been of assistance.
Thanks for the reply. Presented like that it doesn't look quite so offensive
I take on board your feedback; I did look at address your question, near the end of my post, though I confess my language was a little vague, so I'll try again:
Having this phrase as part of your title page will not hurt your rankings; there are far greater sins you can commit than that.
(Just don't expect to be rewarded - I'm sorry, I can't help myself!)
Something else to consider, mentioning specific savings (to the penny) might be more eye-catching than $1000s, which comes back to my point about case studies.
If you do use it in your title. you can split test delivery and engagement of a few variants and see what works best for you.
Good luck with the project - I'll hit you up if I start getting any damp problems
This approach has more than a whiff of tackiness about and I'd be keen to avoid it at all costs. With a little thought you can deliver something far smarter.
If you want to talk about potential savings, deliver this message through the body copy, using real-world examples with case studies perhaps? For example: Typical cost of waterproofing an X x Y basement using product Z = $3,200. Doing the same job with WaterAway = $27.55 (and break it down, with an itemised shopping list for the alternative method). That's going drive more sales than the hollow (and over-used) promise to save them'Save $1000s' (even if it later turns out to be able to do just that).
An effective Call to Action is borne out of successfully identifying a problem and positioning your product as the perfect solution to it. With that in mind, I'd do some keyword research around 'waterproofing' (<a>https://moz.com/explorer</a>) and see what real world waterproofing problems people are looking for solutions for and tailor your content (Including Titles and Descriptions) around that.
If this is done correctly, there's really no need to engage in cheap tricks. Understand your problems your potential customers are having and offer an easy and cost-effective solution.
To address your question (if using "SAVE $1000's.." would help or hurt) It certainly isn't going to help - as it doesn't relate to the user's search query in any way, which is what you should be focusing on. I wouldn't go as far as to say you'll be penalised for it, either (you'd need to engage in a few other nefarious practices for that to happen). Just don't expect to be rewarded for using it - by Google or your potential customers.
I hope that helps
I'm afraid it's going to need to be added manually. (They acknowledge this is a pain, here: <a>https://schema.org/docs/faq.html#10) </a>and explain why - sort of.
There's a getting started guide, here: <a>http://schema.org/docs/gs.html</a>
You can use Google's Markup Helper, which may make it easier for you to implement:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/?hl=en
There's a great help section on this, here: <a>https://support.google.com/webmasters/topic/4599161?hl=en&ref_topic=4589289</a>
If the code is in the footer (so re-used across the site) you should only need to tag it once.
Some schema properties that relate to your industry may be useful, too:
<a>https://schema.org/Hotel</a>
Good luck and happy tagging
Putting the user's experience first is your priority (and always should be). if your visitor is more engaged with your site content (and brand) because of these videos you'd want to add it anyway, right?
A video can answer questions text simply cannot, particularly in your niche. Keeping visitors engaged with your content for longer is going to have a positive effect on both the user and Google's perception of your site i.e. if your time on page goes up (and your bounce rate, potentially, drops - as users reach out to find out more/download brochures/contact you), which are signals that you are delivering a good user experience.
Sometimes, we focus too much on inbound links, when our primary focus should be on a great user experience.
All the best!
If the only change is to the URL (and job reference) and the content is otherwise the same, you'd definitely want to create 301s for these - this is exactly what 301s are for, after all. The 301s should, now, pass on 100percent of the pagerank. There are caveats (PR is not the only ranking signal), see here: <a>https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo</a>
Also, think of the user experience, If I've bookmarked a job I'd expect to click the link and find it.
A thought: If the new system could append the job number with a fixed value, creating a pattern match redirect rule could make easy work of this for them.
Then, with your 301s in place (and confirmed to be in good order - you can run a crawl test: <a>https://moz.com/researchtools/crawl-test</a>, you can remove your old listings.
Sorry for the multiple revisions of this answer, Adam; I was in the bath when I started writing it!
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!
My apologies if I haven't presented this clearly. However, I'm not seeing anything contradictory here:
"If same keywords are used in different match types then they are not considered as duplicate keywords."
Vs
"As Alick300 has mentioned, keywords with different match types are not considered duplicates"
As a matter of course, it would be a good exercise to run your campaign through Adwords Editor to check for duplicate keywords (as referenced above), in case any have slipped through the net.
Good luck with your campaign!
To answer your question about translations, here's what Google say:
Duplicate Content and International Sites
Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this might not always be possible. There is generally no need to "hide" the duplicates by disallowing crawling in a robots.txt file or by using a "noindex" robots meta tag. However, if you're providing the same content to the same users on different URLs (for instance, if both example.de/ and example.com/de/ show German language content for users in Germany), you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately. In addition, you should follow the guidelines on rel-alternate-hreflang to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers.
(Source: <a>https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en)</a>
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.
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.
A google search for: info:https://www.supershuttle.fr shows that the homepage is indexed. Have you tried the Fetch as Google within the Search Console on this and other pages? - A lot of this will be referenced on that best practice article I suggested, earlier.
Also, a quick search in Google using cache:https://www.supershuttle.fr shows it was cached (and therefore indexed) on 28th Jan.
Bonne chance!
I can see that you are using https://www.supershuttle.fr. Have you added the HTTPS version of your site within Search Console?
"Add all your website versions
Make sure you add both "www" and "non-www" versions for your site. Also, if you use the HTTPS protocol, add those variations as well."
Here's a best practice article on implementing HTTPS: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543?hl=en
It may be worthwhile adding your posting your question about translation separately to get it in front of more Mozzers (as you'll have the benefit of giving your question a relevant title and catching the attention of users with experience of this specific issue).
I hope that helps.