Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
In that case, it doesn't sound like there are any blog posts that get frequent traffic from referrals? If that's the case, everything should get a broad 301 redirect to the new blog page. This can typically be done in one redirect depending on your URL structure, so you don't have to do each and every URL.
On the topic of subdomains, subfolders are typically a better choice for SEO purposes.
I'm not familiar with CodeIgniter, but this isn't terribly different from how Wordpress and other PHP-based CMSs manage permalinks.
Currently you're simply forwarding shortened URLs (/contact/) to the actual URL (/site/contact/), which isn't ideal. It would be preferable to remove the base path (/site/) from the URL completely.
This guide (http://www.web-and-development.com/codeigniter-remove-index-php-minimize-url/) has a good rundown on how to control this in .htaccess. I believe that the sections titled "Removing 1st URL segment" and "Routing automatically" are going to be the ones that are applicable to your case, because you're trying to change the controller.
You should also take a look through the original documentation at http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/general/urls.html.
You're also going to want to make sure that any canonicals being used in the match the intended URL, and that any incorrect URLs (eg /site/contact/) are 301 redirecting to the proper URL (eg /contact/). Use wheregoes.com and type in the /site/contact/ version of the URL to test this - it should spit out "301 redirect" not "302" or anything else.
If you're not really comfortable messing around with htaccess, I'd highly recommend trying this out on a development server and making sure it all works correctly before you move it to a live server.
The link you provided has an iFrame, but if you leave the iFrame and go to http://www.interactivegoods.com/fss/#/options you'll see the actual page.
When I open up the source, I see two things:
In the code, you see this:
If you take a look at those page2.html files, they're not even full html files, they're sections of code being used as if they were PHP include files. I haven't seen html files used that way before and I don't think it's a standard practice.
I avoid content loaded via javascript, because I've seen it cause issues for clients. I am not a javascript developer, so maybe there's a way to do it correctly, but I"m not familiar with it.
Personally, I would not use this plugin on one of my sites. Find one that uses divs to contain the content, and javascript to animate the sliding, rather than using javascript to load the content, too.
I usually noindex Wordpress tag pages, meaning I tell Google not to show them in search results. This is because they don't add a ton of SEO value to the site - tag pages are typically 100% duplicate content.
That said, IF you provide a custom description at the top of each tag page, you could make an argument for keeping them indexed, since there would now be relevant unique content at the top of each page.
Here's an example from a personal site where I keep my category pages indexed: http://www.seattlehomestead.com/category/gardening/. See the paragraph at the top of the page? That's the minimum amount of unique content you'd want on a tag or category page to keep it indexed.
Yup, take a look at the microdata generator for restaurants (none built for hotels yet that I have seen):
http://www.microdatagenerator.com/restaurant-schema
That gives you a good comparison for how the hotel format should look. Here's an example implementation for a restaurant:
Name of Restaurant
4 stars -
based on 321 reviews
123 Fake Street
Seattle ,
Washington
98146
(206) 123-4321
URL of Map
Categories: American
Price Range: $$
Takes Reservations: No
I can't recall the full range of codes that they will show, but if they can track the redirect process and deliver a code in WhereGoes.com, then I think most of the time Google will be able to follow it as well.
301 is the only code that indicates you're getting full link value, but last I heard Google used 302 redirects for indexation (2006 post so might be dated), but Bing might not.
The title tags on each page of the site should be different. If they all have " - ENA Shop" at the end, that's OK, so long as there is something before that that is descriptive of the page. I'd also consider changing "ENA Shop" to "ENA Nutritionals" since that seems like the better brand and the better keyword.
I just did a crawl of your site and it seems that the majority of the pages have their own unique title.
You do seem to have an issue with lots of 404 pages still being linked to, as well as lots of pages being indexed that should not be indexed, such as shopping cart pages.
Run your site through a tool like Xenu (desktop), Screaming Frog (desktop), or the IM Ninjas Crawler (browser-based). They will give you a full list of pages that have broken links you need to fix, as well as tell you what pages are being indexed by Google that should be. Another good test is to do a search on google for site:enasport.com. If you see any pages listed there that don't have unique content, like shopping cart pages or "compare product" pages that will be duplicate content, you should noindex them.
Hi Bhanu,
Domisol is correct. NoFollow is talked about more frequently, but I'm referring to what is called NoIndex. Using NoIndex tells Google not to show that page in the search results. In contrast, NoFollow tells Google not to pass value through all or some of the links on a page.
I also agree with Domisol that NoFollow should not be used along with NoIndex in this situation. Allowing the link value to flow freely throughout the site and selectively choosing to remove the tag pages is a better solution. Doing this will help index more pages with more obscure tags, too.
To NoIndex your tag pages, go to the Indexation page under the SEO options. Under Indexation Rules, select "Subpages of Archives and taxonomies," "Tag Archives," and "Date-based Archives." If you're not doing anything special with the Author pages or only have one author, go ahead and select that, too. I would prefer to see you add unique content to the Category page before you NoIndex it, but that one could arguably go both ways.
Sounds like they're doing about as well as any affiliate business model can do in regards to creating valuable content and value for site visitors.
I wouldn't worry about linking to the other site - if that's the only way to make money than there's not much choice in the matter.
Google isn't going to "see it as leaving one site for another" - if anything it's a good thing that site visitors went to that site, and found a link that led to whatever they were looking for. Google can't draw any conclusions beyond that.
If you're worried about passing link value, find a way to 302 redirect the link.
Can you track the dropoff to within a week of any significant site changes?
Did you noindex something like category or tag pages on a blog?
Did you add rel canonical to sections of your site?
It sounds like you should be able to go into GWT and go to Configuration > URL Parameters and tell Google which URL parameters you don't want to be crawled.
They have a quick guide to doing this correctly at https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1235687. Definitely read through that before you do anything, to make sure you don't accidentally deindex more than you planned on...
If you're targeting one location, you can probably work with the homepage.
More than one location? I'd use specific pages for each location.
Regarding too many pages - I'd argue that you only have too many if they have duplicate content. If each geo-targeted page has content that is unique to that city or area, I think you're in the clear. That said, if it's implemented in a way that looks spammy, then you have too many...
I'm assuming that she serves clients outside of her locations if you're concerned about store radius? I would figure out the actual area that she is willing to serve clients, and divide it between the two locations. Each location will then have it's own Google Places listing, serving a different radius.
That answer feels a bit to easy - maybe I'm missing a nuance with your question?
Duplicate content: If you're doing each location page correctly, you'll be minimizing the duplicate content by creating unique content on each page. If it's all duplicate content, that's a strike against how you implemented it, not the strategy of having multiple location pages.
Dedicated Page vs. Homepage: If you're trying to target "nyc real estate" you're going to absolutely need a page dedicated to that keyword. Your homepage will only suffice if you're only targeting NYC. If you're targeting beyond that, you'll need a dedicated page, bottom line. It's simply to competitive of a term to try and do it any other way.
Anchor Text: Don't worry about anchor text so much. Build branded links to your homepage, and get whatever links you can to those subpages, both with optimized anchor text and without. Subpages are great for getting exact and partial match anchor text because it's often the best way to describe that page, which isn't the case with the homepage.
Basic Keyword Variations: Regarding variations such as "nyc real estate", "real estate nyc", and "real estate new york city", Google is pretty good at filtering through simple variations like that. Pick the one that gets the most exact traffic in the adwords keyword tool, and then include the other variations on the page in a non-keyword-stuffing manner.
Where is this error coming from? Your browser? Google Webmaster Tools?
I can't get any pages on your site to load, including indexed pages from Google - if you haven't spoken with your website hosting company or webmaster yet, that should be your first stop. More likely than not your host will be able to determine what is wrong.
Yup, your site is back up now. All 4 pages are loading for me.
I'm willing to bet the host had some downtime and just got it fixed in the last couple hours, then proceeded to tell you it was fine (since it now is). Short downtimes happento a lot of hosts once in a while.
If it happens frequently - verify that it's not your fault, and then switch hosts. Should not be happening more than once or twice a year at a good host, and they should fix it promptly. They should also honor their 99.9% uptime guarantee if they have one.
Use an uptime tracker like http://www.monitor.us/website-monitoring or https://www.pingdom.com/ or http://www.siteuptime.com/ if it becomes a problem. (I have used the first one and it works fine, can't vouch for the others).
I've never tested the turn around time of the rich snippet tester - but actual Google SERPs for Author markup are changed almost instantly. Have you checked a live search result for one of your articles to see how quickly it changes?
Are you saying that the website is showing up multiple times when you search for "company name" or an unbranded keyword?
What exactly looks bad about the SERP? Are any of the titles or meta descriptions the same?
The "grouped" links that you're referring to are called sitelinks - read more about them here: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=47334
Sitelinks tend to take awhile - I think they may need to be "earned" either through increasing branding or increasing general domain authority. Not certain about that, but I don't think they show up for newer sites often. The could be a factor.
I would build up internal links as well as branded links to the site, and I imagine they'll come soon enough. That Google article I linked to gives a small amount of guidance - since you're doing a static site I'd double check these items:
"There are best practices you can follow, however, to improve the quality of your sitelinks. For example, for your site's internal links, make sure you use anchor text and alt text that's informative, compact, and avoids repetition."
For the red arrows in that seroundtable post, that's common for branded searches. It looks junky because the titles and descriptions (IMO) are too similar.
All of that said, I wouldn't personally worry about it for branded searches. If they've made it that far, they'll find you.
"Keyword | Company Name" is fine for your title formatting. Whether the homepage is different depends on your niche and the value of your brand I guess. Overall I'd probably leave it as keyword first unless you've got a great brand that's been built up quite a bit over the years.
Seems fine to me as long as you keep everything in the same case (preferably lower case) and use the exact file structure you had before.
If you're worried, use the redirect tracker at WhereGoes.com to verify that it is working.
Option 1:
One option would be to set up a normal 301 redirect and have a pop-up message on the new site that explains the branding change to all new visitors.
Option 2:
Another solution would be to set up all 301 redirects to forward to the new URL + a tracking parameter, such as http://www.newdomain.com?redirected=true.
You could then instruct Google to ignore the tracking tag by (A) not displaying the parameter in the canonical tag, and (B) telling Google to ignore the parameter via Google Webmaster Tools.
You should be able to display a message when that parameter is present, and when they click through to another page on the new site, it can go away.
A variation on this would be to do the same thing and use normal Google Analytics UTM tracking parameters. Google will definitely know to ignore those and you should be able to display a popup based upon those as well
Theoretically option 2 shouldn't cause any problems. In an ideal world, you would test this first.
--
There are probably other options that would work - but those two come to mind first.
Does this message need to be permanent or is the client ok with leaving it up temporarily?
--
In case you haven't already, take a look over the rest of Google's suggestions on migrating the domain: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105
Well, it could just be that lots of organic search traffic was finding you through blog posts and resource content and then leaving the site right away. That's normal and OK - it can mean that they found what they wanted and then left. I wouldn't worry about that as a ranking factor - I doubt that it's going to cause any significant change in rankings in your niche.
So, for the most part I don't see any issue with this.
The only thing that comes to mind is that all 4 domains would suddenly be on a single IP address. While that's fine for the brands that aren't competing with each other, it looks like there are a few store location in KY under competing brand names. In the event that there are geographic areas where you have competing locations that are suddenly on the same IP address, I could potentially see one of the domains being affected if the SERP for "city name KY mattresses" is highly competitive. I don't have any tests I can point you towards to support this, it's primarily a theory that Google might display just 1 in the interest of domain diversity. That said, I wouldn't worry about it too heavily.
Another option is a paid service such as ManageWP.com. This would allow you to manage multiple Wordpress installations on separate servers and mitigate any unforeseen consequences of having the domains on a single IP address. I can't say that the risk of experiencing issues simply due to server IP address is enough to justify the expense, however, so that should show you that I'm not very worried about the IP consideration overall.
Hey James,
Seems like this may be troubling you still. I see 6000+ urls still indexed under the old domain.
A couple other things to try:
Let me know if you have other questions I can take a look.
GWT will take awhile to update sometimes, as mentioned above. Are you still having trouble with this or have the errors started to decrease?
Aside from that, if Moz isn't reporting a duplicate title or duplicate meta description, issue, I would guess that GWT is simply reporting old data still or something along those lines.
I'm going to mark as answered for the moment but jump back on here and let me know if you're still having trouble - happy to take a look.
Hi Sarwans,
Did Anders' answer help resolve the problem? From the sitemap page he linked to, it looks like the minimum information you need to provide includes:
You're sending the video file page as which looks correct, but as Anders mentioned, I think you need to specify and/or video:player_loc</video:player_loc> as well.
There's a couple of questions to answer here. The first is the difference between asking "Will our Domain Authority Decrease?" versus "Will our Traffic & Rankings Decrease?". The second question is more important so I'll cover that first.
The official answer from Google is that, no, your traffic and rankings will not decrease. In practice, however, a number of people have seen 5-15% traffic drops for weeks or months after the transfer - even when completed correctly. The general assumption is that this is due to creating redirects for http -> https, which traditionally reduces the value of your inbound link profile.
With that said, it's small enough that you can recover quickly with some link reclamation - basically you should update the links you have control over and also email friendly webmasters and say "we changed our site to be HTTPS secure and were wondering if you could update your link on domain.com/xyzpage/".
Deacyde's notes on updating internal links are also correct. You should also reference popular "ssl migration" guides like this one from Yoast: https://yoast.com/dev-blog/move-website-https-ssl/
In regards to your exact question - "Will our Domain Authority Decrease?" - this could reference the literal Domain Authority that is measured by Moz, or you could be referencing the broader concept of domain authority in terms of how Google views your website. I don't have an exact answer for how Moz handles normal 301 redirects and if they treat https redirects different. I would assume that Domain Authority might drop slightly, but that's a guess and not an official answer. As noted above Google says that your website will be treated the same, and I think that is the case within a few months, but there can be initial traffic drops, and worse if you handle the migration incorrectly.
Sadly I completely believe you.
If it's not cost or time prohibitive, I'd recommend moving to Godaddy's Wordpress hosting package and rebuild the site in Wordpress, which won't have these problems. Godaddy might even offer a conversion package of some kind.
Otherwise you might try a website builder option like Squarespace instead, which is also fairly decent for basic SEO considerations like this.
Good call on GTM - I always forget about the ability to add normal HTML snippets.
Can you redirect the old help pages to the new help pages? Or are the old pages still present because people are still referring to them for old versions of the software?
Do you have any flexibility to change the help page Content Management System or coding? The HTML frames being used are antiquated and a waste of your time to try and support.
Can you edit the HTML of the subpages that are within the frames? Those HTML pages have sections and you should be able to set the <title>within them like any other HTML page. They will possibly get indexed with URLs such as <a href="http://kilgray.com/memoq/2015/help-en/memoq_help_title_page.html">http://kilgray.com/memoq/2015/help-en/memoq_help_title_page.html</a> even though they will get redirected to <a href="http://kilgray.com/memoq/2015/help-en/index.html?memoq_help_title_page.html">http://kilgray.com/memoq/2015/help-en/index.html?memoq_help_title_page.html</a>.</p></title>
Hi Taiger,
You can find instructions on how to do this at https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/answer/1235687
The menu itself is found at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/crawl-url-parameters
You'll just want to enter escaped_fragment when they ask parameter, and answer "No" to the questions regarding whether this changes content on the page.