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Thanks for that info, but I actually don't see a trace of 3.3.1 anywhere in my source code, so I'm still confused as to how it came up with that info. I do have a meta generator tag but it just contains a credit to Visual Composer.

The site is http://foam-roller.com.

Thanks for the response. It's interesting to me that Google doesn't penalize for vulnerabilities - you'd think it'd have some effect since it'd be in Google's best interest not to serve potentially insecure/malicious websites, just as SSL has a positive effect on rankings.

Howdy, Moz fans,

Today I received four emails from Google Search Console recommending I update WordPress. The message reads, "Google has detected that your site is currently running WordPress 3.3.1, an older version of WordPress. Outdated or unpatched software can be vulnerable to hacking and malware exploits that harm potential visitors to your site. Therefore, we suggest you update the software on your site as soon as possible."

This is incorrect, however, since I've been on 4.3.1 for a while. 3.3.1 was never even installed since this site was created in September, 2015, so the initial WP Engine install was likely 4.3.

What's interesting is that it doesn't list the root URL as the problem source. The email states that it found that issue on a URL that is set up via WP Engine to 301 to a different site, which doesn't use WordPress. I also have other redirects set up to different pages on the second site that aren't listed in the Search Console email.

Anyone have any ideas as to what's causing this misidentification of WP versions? I am afraid that Google sees this as a vulnerability and is penalizing my site accordingly.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Kevin,

I understand how MOZ's duplicate content system works. It would just be nice if it could take canonical URLs into consideration for Crawl Diagnostics Reports or give you the option of not counting URLs appended with parameters as unique pages.

Patrick was able to help me figure out that I can do the latter via the robots.txt feature by using a wildcard: Disallow: *?.

The statement was in a response to a question I asked earlier.

"I was having an issue like this where moz was showing a lot more duplicate content than webmaster tools was, actually webmaster tools showed none, but I was being penalized. I realized this when I added an exclusion to robots.txt to exclude any query strings on my site. After I did this I saw my rankings shoot through the roof."

Thanks for the info. I did edit the settings in the URL parameters section to tell Google that these parameters do not change the page content, so it should now index only one representative URL. My only concern was that the kw (keyword) parameter does change page content for search result pages, but I just read that Matt Cutts encourages disallowing those pages anyway.

Just to verify, disallowing those pages with parameters won't affect the "link juice" passed from external links?

Webmaster Tools correctly identifies the query strings/parameters used in my URLs, but still reports duplicate title tags and meta descriptions for the original URL and the versions with parameters. For example, Webmaster Tools would report duplicates for the following URLs, despite it correctly identifying the "cat_id" and "kw" parameters:

/Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM
/Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM?cat_id=87
/Mulligan-Practitioner-CD-ROM?kw=CROM

Additionally, theses pages have self-referential canonical tags, so I would think I'd be covered, but I recently read that another Mozzer saw a great improvement after disallowing all query/parameter URLs, despite Webmaster Tools not reporting any errors.

As I see it, I have two options:

1. Manually tell Google that these parameters have no effect on page content via the URL Parameters section in Webmaster Tools (in case Google is unable to automatically detect this, and I am being penalized as a result).
2. Add "Disallow: *?" to hide all query/parameter URLs from Google. My concern here is that most backlinks include the parameters, and in some cases these parameter URLs outrank the original.

Any thoughts?

This is very interesting! Strange that Webmaster tools wouldn't display duplicate content, but Google would still penalize you. I'd like to try this on my site, but am a little wary because I think some pages rank with the query string version of the URL, despite a canonical being specified.

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the quick reply as always. As far as Google is concerned, these pages are set up correctly with canonical tags and URL strings - MOZ actually reports far more duplicate content than Webmaster tools.

My issue is just with the number of errors reported in MOZ. You mentioned that I can handle this via the robots.txt file - Is there a way to only disallow Rogerbot from crawling URLs with query strings, or URLs that contain a certain phrase such as "item_id=" or "cat_id="?

I'm seeing a large amount of duplicate page titles, duplicate content, missing meta descriptions, etc. in my Crawl Diagnostics Report due to URLs' query strings. These pages already have canonical tags, but I know canonical tags aren't considered in MOZ's crawl diagnostic reports and therefore won't reduce the number of reported errors. Is there any way to configure MOZ to not consider query string variants as unique URLs? It's difficult to find a legitimate error among hundreds of these non-errors.

Lots of people seem to be experiencing a drop in DA recently. Rand addresses it here: http://moz.com/community/q/big-drop-in-domain-authority#reply_299907

Thanks, Andy! I just tested with Webmaster tool's tester, and it worked.

Is there any way to disallow URLs ending in a certain value? For example, if I have the following product page URL: http://website.com/category/product1, and I want to disallow /category/product1/review, /category/product2/review, etc. without disallowing the product pages themselves, is there any shortcut to do this, or must I disallow each gallery page individually?

I wonder if Moz has recently modified their domain authority algorithm to take into consideration Google's mobile-friendly or "Phantom" updates?

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the reply. It's good to know it's not uncommon, and it is an internal page. I haven't tried any other tracking apps, but I might have to give that a shot to see if it reports the same findings.

As far as ongoing work, we did make a few changes to the page in late April/early May. We modified a few on-page ranking factors to boost our Moz page grade for that query, but that's unfortunately when the initial drop happened from #8 to out of the top 50. We've since reverted a few of these changes and haven't touched it for about a month.

-Joel

One of our pages has been significantly changing positions over the past few weeks. I know that some daily fluctuation is normal, but this seems a bit extreme. Any insight as to why this might be happening?

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I'll certainly bring it up. Maybe we can use the general concept and agree on a page title that accomplishes the same goal without sacrificing brand consistency.

Thanks again for the great suggestions.

That's a very interesting approach! I like the idea, but although it may be effective in gaining clicks and thus positively impacting our rank, our organization is very focused on maintaining a high level of professionalism, so informal title tags may not be suitable for us. I appreciate the suggestion, though!

Thanks for answering. Luckily we have other pages that rank on page 2 for that term. They are not really optimized for that keyword, but I'm reluctant to make any changes at this point!

Focusing on a readable message makes the most logical sense. We second-guessed this strategy based on the decreasing rank and thought we might be losing out by not including the singular form of the word, which is searched about 10 times more often than the plural.

Hi there,

Thank you for the quick reply! I am actually getting my ranking from a keyword tracker I have configured in Moz as I realize performing a search would yield inaccurate results from personalized search.

As for the sitemap, it has been properly submitted and is updated on the first of each month. Canonical tags are also set up correctly and have not been recently modified.

I'll take a look at some of the other links to see if I can find any helpful information there.

Thanks!

Joel

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. I thought the same thing about an adjustment to the title tag making a small difference. That is why I was so surprised when the page dropped in rank so significantly. Unfortunately the multiple changes to the page make it impossible to isolate the detrimental factor, but if I revert all of the changes, is it reasonable to think the page would return to a similar position next time it is indexed?

Hello,

Last week I noticed one of my pages decreased in rank for a particular query from #8 to #13. Although I had recently made a few minor edits to the page (added an introductory paragraph and left-column promo to increase word count), I thought the reason for the decrease was due to a few newly ranked pages that I hadn't seen before.

In an attempt to regain my original position, I tried to optimize the meta title for the singular form of the word. After making this change, I fetched and rendered the page as Google (status = partial) and submitted the page for indexing (URL only, not including on-page links). Almost immediately after submitting, the page dropped from #13 out of the top 50.

I've since changed the meta title back to what it was originally and let Google crawl and index the page on its own, but the page is still not in the top 50. Could the addition of the page description and left column promos tipped the scales of keyword stuffing? If I change everything back to the way it was originally, is it reasonable to think I should regain my original position below the new pages? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!