"apart from main page, contact page, about us and some other generic pages, site name should be removed as it might produce duplicate content."

As a blanket statement, this is misleading at best.

Default title tags for most websites are "Page Title - Site Name", or something similar.

I generally like to keep the brand name in the title tag because I'm usually working on sites where the brand is valuable. For instance, "Seattle Lodging - Airbnb" is more compelling than "Seattle Lodging".

The main reason I usually get rid of the brand in the title tag is when I'm trying to create a high-clickthrough-rate title tag and the brand portion is getting in the way. For example "Seattle Lodging & Vacation Rentals - Nightly Rates Starting from $79!" might be a really compelling title tag and I can't fit the brand name on there, so I'll drop it. BUT I won't drop it elsewhere on the site where I want a solid default title tag format.

The only caveat is that if your brand sucks (eg DavidsCheapAffiliateReviews.info) then it might actually detract from your click-through rates, and you might want to leave it out.

Yes, example.com/blog/ will typically perform better than blog.example.com and exampleblog.com, and the more decent links that are pointed to the blog and the main site, the bigger the expected impact from combining them.

One word of warning - reverse proxies are complex and many teams encounter major developer headaches. Oftentimes it is easier to find a different way to set up content to be published on a subfolder like /blog/.

If you want to leave notes on what type of website you are working on (CMS or other software type for both regular site and blog) I am happy to leave notes if it's one I recognize.

The normal way to handle internationalization is to have separate Geo/Language subfolders, and potentially redirect users based upon IP address, or prompt them to switch to the appropriate language or country if they want.

For example, a US-based publisher with separate UK content might do this:

• domain.com/news
• domain.com/uk/news

Is there a reason you want to keep the URL the same while doing multilingual?

Google's overview of methods and why they're good or bad is a good starting point: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en

Hey Mat,

Answering your second question here - "I do have another question though: the links and images that are embedded in CSS (so for example links that are not 'a href') are not recognised by the Moz toolbar. I know that the toolbar only can see normal 'a href' links, but can this hurt my SEO? Or will Google recognise these internal links?"

Generally images that are stored in CSS, for example a background image on a div, will not be indexed by Google. If you're storing links inside CSS I'll assume it's a scenario like a :before pseudo element. In that case, I would default to guessing that Google does not treat these the same or as highly as a standard link, and I'd suggest you change how that content is added to the page to get it out of CSS or JS files and into the core HTML file that is being crawled.

I'm getting a bunch of 500 errors in my browser console when attempting to view the link you shared, so I can't see any content being loaded by CSS, so I'm guessing those resources are blocked to non-logged-in users on your staging server. That is also a  potential reason why certain toolbars might not be able to load the content, however if you're logged in they should be able to fetch that content.

Answering the first question for anyone that stumbles on to this thread:

1. Go to the Appearance >>> Menus page
2. Select the correct menu you are looking to edit (some WordPress sites have multiple menus, or a separate mobile menu)
3. Click the down arrow on the menu item you want to enter, and edit the "Title" field:
   Screenshot example on imgur

If that doesn't work, then my next step would be seeing if A) you're using a custom menus plugin, eg MegaMenu, or B) you're using a theme with it's own interface. In either case I'd be looking at that theme/plugin to see if they are overriding these WordPress defaults.

Those are all the same brand. Something like the following on the same site makes more sense to me from both a branding and SEO perspective.

• modernapts.com
• modernapts.com/locations/ - overview page
• modernapts.com/locations/seattle/ - city/location page
• modernapts.com/locations/los-angeles/ - city/location page
• modernapts.com/locations/seattle/capitol-hill-penthouses/ - building page

This is more or less the same as any retail/physical chain that has location pages.

Here is an example of an actual brand that has locations on the same domain, city level pages, and building level pages:

• http://www.equityapartments.com/san-francisco-bay-apartments - city/location page
• http://www.equityapartments.com/san-francisco-bay/mission-bay/azure-apartments - building page

I have not reviewed their overall SEO setup, but this is a great example from a URL point of view, and they have lots of useful information on their actual building level pages. The city level pages are great for SEO and targeting city-level keywords as well.

It sounds like you're on the right track. If users and bots start off with the same content, that's a good start.

From there, the question is "how much content is being customized, and how frequently?" For example, if you're swapping out 5 different headlines for 40% of users, and 60% of users see the original, that's not a big deal, particularly if the rest of the page is the same.

But if you're swapping out 80% of page copy (eg removing a bunch of excess copy that is shown for SEO purposes), and 60-90% of users are seeing that "light" version of the page, you run the risk of two things:

1. First, the chance that it wouldn't pass a manual review if one was performed.
2. Second, the chance that Google may render a copy of the page as a user (not announcing themselves as a crawler), seeing a different version of the page multiple times, and then effectively devaluing the missing content, or worse, flagging the page in their system as cloaked content.

We could get lost in details of whether or not they're doing this, or how they're doing this, but from a technology standpoint it's pretty simply for them to render content from non-official IPs and user-agents and do an 'honesty check' for situations where content is showing up multiple ways. This is already how them compare the page on desktop vs mobile to see which sections of the page render, and which are changed.

I think you are also right to rely on site interaction before personalizing, but since there are multiple ways to do that, you should know that it's possible for Google to simulate some of those interactions. So there's a chance at some point they will render your content in a personalized manner, particularly if personalization is the result of visiting a URL or clicking a simple toggle switch or button.

Hey there,

I wouldn't worry too much about the concept of LSI. Most of the people who know it well will tell you that it's a valid concept, but not used actively by Google (https://twitter.com/bill_slawski/status/963525512294379520).

LSI are synonyms of the keyword your target (the one in the H1 and title tag). For example my keyword would be  "Tuscany bike tour" and my LSI would be "Tuscany cycling vacation", "bicycle tour in Tuscany" etc...

Then secondary related keyword are for me the other topics I need to cover in my content. In this case for example it would be "Florence", "Siena". But from what I understand a good writer wouldn't use "Siena" or "Florence" multiple times in it's content it would replace it by keywords that support them such as "the town of Florence", "the city of Siena"," the Palio of Siena" etc...Is my understanding correct ?

I disagree with that. While you don't want to use a term excessively in a piece of content - there's no problem with using it multiple times, and writers should use variations naturally. Also - you don't need to think of "town of Florence" and "Florence" as separate keywords. They're close enough to be interchangeable. Usually when SEOs talk about related terms, they're talking about "world war II" and "germany", or "trees" and "leaves".

If so what is the use of using those secondary related keyword, is it to rank on other keywords such as Palio of siena tuscany bike tour ? or just not to repeat a secondary keyword too many times. If i write the Palio of Siena isn't it considered as another topic that the topic siena ?

An article about a bike tour in Siena should be a separate piece of content from an article about the town of Sienna. It appears that "palio of siena" is a horse race? In which case that would be two separate pages of content if you wanted to rank for both terms.

I recommend looking at some established and top-ranking websites in your niche and see what they're doing. That's often the best way to get a feel for what is working. If your niche isn't super competitive and you can't find examples you think are good, you can also look at more competitive topics in related industries - for example "kentucky derby"-related searches might be a good example in the US.

I'll just jump in and add that Miriam thinks about local SEO much more than I do, so I'll second all of her opinions.

Knowing that all of your properties are in the same area, this seems like the biggest argument in favor of separate sites. Google may be more likely to rank other sites instead of subpages of the same site to avoid what is called domain crowding. However, it still happens in local. Just search for "office supply stores" and you're likely to see multiple listings for Staples or OfficeDepot, for example.

Honestly you could do both. Have a corporate site with pages for every property on it, and set up microsites with single properties on them. If the site is setup well with something like Wordpress Multisite then at least the same software can be running and updated simultaneously. In that case I'd probably use the microsites as the landing pages for Google local listings.

If you do go the route of multiple sites, I'd recommend having a clear button or call to action to "View Our Other Properties in the XYZ Area".

Hey Mike,

Outside of Local SEO, one single site would be the clear winner because it’s easier to build the authority of that one domain.

Within Local SEO, having dedicated domains could make more sense. One could make the argument that it’s simpler for Google To understand a single location, but there are plenty of retail sites with single domains that refute that argument.

One could also make the argument that it might be easier to build homepage links to separate domains, but I don’t think it’s enough of a factor to change your web structure.

Option 2 is the standard in your industry, for certain. But it typically means higher web design costs to build and maintain them all, even if they’re somewhat cookie cutter. Frankly I think that’s as big of a factor in your decision.

I wouldn’t worry about the administrative relationship you described. It’s not going to be a major factor - you’re not deceiving Google by separating the sites, you’re changing how users experience the sites.

A couple of clarifying questions:

• Are any of the communities near each other, or are they in many cities across the country?
• Are you seeing subpages of corporate sites ranking in the local search results for any of your communities?
• Is there any administrative value to separating the websites? Outside of SEO considerations.

The Yoast team has plenty of experience with large publishers, so my guess is that this is the most robust option you have for Wordpress.

But, I don't have any insights for you on the peculiarities of the plugin and things to watch out for. Will forward it along to other folks in case they have any notes.

Not a problem with link structure. Doesn't appear to be a problem with code, either, from a glance just now.

The good news? Your title tags work fine for me in Google search results and I see you at #1 ranking after the image pack for "press release examples".

http://i.imgur.com/z2LTwcc.png

IMO this is probably a personalized search result problem that you're seeing, and I would guess it's limited to you unless you've confirmed it with other people outside of your company computers.

Never hurts to resubmit the URL in Search Console, either.

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.

Hey Sam.

Is this for a visual feature, like making the content "appear" as the user scrolls? While Google is doing a great job of reading JS, my concern would be that this looks like cloaking or hidden text if the purpose is misinterpreted.

There may be safer ways to do this depending on what your goal is. Let me know and I can go from there.

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.

I can't speak to the current Godaddy website editor - but most wysiwyg website editors won't offer you the option to specify a canonical tag.

Additionally, if you put ... code inside of the body copy, Google will generally ignore it since it could be manipulated by third parties with access to comment fields or other content editors. So, that's not going to help unfortunately.

You might be better off implementing the 301 redirect if they'll let you do that.

Also - if you can edit the navigation menu to make sure users are sent back to domain.com instead of domain.com/home.html, that should remove the URL from being crawled, which will help as well. Do they give you the option to get rid of that "Home" link and add a custom one that points directly to http://www.answer2cancer.org/ ? That would get rid of Moz crawl errors as well for the most part.

Posting new content to blog.corporate.com is still better than publishing nothing at all. For SEO it won't help www.corporate.com as much as www.corporate.com/blog/ would help, but SEO is not the #1 goal of every content program.

You can still get tons of value from driving qualified traffic to blog.corporate.com using tactics like Facebook Ads and other paid social media, and that blog can still rank in search results and eventually drive prospects back to www.corporate.com. As Patrick mentioned, creating links in blog posts that point back to key pages on www.corporate.com will help on the SEO consideration.

So to answer your questions:

1 - Will it help boost ranking of example.com if we share frequent content on our blog https://blog.example.com/? How much impact it has?

Yes, but good internal linking will be help. It has less impact than if you were to get that content onto www.example.com/blog/.

2- Everybody says content is the king, Ok fine, but when you are not allowed to share it on the main corporate site, then where to share it? Blog and social media sites? please help.

Subdomain is next best option if a subfolder on the main site is not an option. So, post content on blog.corporate.com - and then share that link on social media.

3- We are in a business where clients do not bother to go on sites and read, so in this scenario is it correct to say that you hav to create the content for search engine consumption even when your clients dont need it/or have not in the habit of reading it?

In most 'boring' industries there are still decent ways to get users on to the website reading your content, you just have to be more creative. Here's a few posts with ideas and examples:

• https://moz.com/blog/how-to-create-content-for-boring-industries
• https://moz.com/webinars/content-marketing-in-boring-industries
• https://moz.com/blog/the-guide-to-developing-a-content-strategy-for-boring-industries