Questions created by KateWaite
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The images on site are not found/indexed, it's been recommended we change their presentation to Google Bot - could this create a cloaking issue?
Hi We have an issue with images on our site not being found or indexed by Google. We have an image sitemap but the images are served on the Sitecore powered site within <divs>which Google can't read. The developers have suggested the below solution:</divs> Googlebot class="header-banner__image" _src="/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx"/>_Non Googlebot <noscript class="noscript-image"><br /></span></em><em><span><div role="img"<br /></span></em><em><span>aria-label="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada"<br /></span></em><em><span>title="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada"<br /></span></em><em><span>class="header-banner__image"<br /></span></em><em><span>style="background-image: url('/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx?mw=1024&hash=D65B0DE9B311166B0FB767201DAADA9A4ADA4AC4');"></div><br /></span></em><em><span></noscript> aria-label="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada" title="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada" class="header-banner__image image" data-src="/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx" data-max-width="1919" data-viewport="0.80" data-aspect="1.78" data-aspect-target="1.00" > Is this something that could be flagged as potential cloaking though, as we are effectively then showing code looking just for the user agent Googlebot?The devs have said that via their contacts Google has advised them that the original way we set up the site is the most efficient and considered way for the end user. However they have acknowledged the Googlebot software is not sophisticated enough to recognise this. Is the above solution the most suitable?Many thanksKate
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite0 -
Issue with Site Map - how critical would you rank this in terms of needing a fix?
A problem has been introduced onto our sitemap whereby previously excluded URLs are no longer being correctly excluded. These are returning a HTTP 400 Bad Request server response, although do correctly redirect to users. We have around 2300 pages of content, and around 600-800 of these previously excluded URLs, An example would be http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/africa-and-the-indian-ocean/botswana/suggested-holidays/botswana-classic-camping-safari/Dates and prices.aspx (the page does correctly redirect to users). The site is currently being rebuilt and only has a life span of a few months. The cost our current developers have given us for resolving this is quite high with this in mind. I was just wondering: How much of a critical issue would you view this? Would it be sufficient (bearing in mind this is an interim measure) to change these pages so that they had a canonical or a redirect - they would however remain on the sitemap. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite
Kate0 -
Best method for blocking a subdomain with duplicated content
Hello Moz Community Hoping somebody can assist. We have a subdomain, used by our CMS, which is being indexed by Google.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite
http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/
https://admin.naturalworldsafaris.com/ The page is the same so we can't add a no-index or no-follow.
I have both set up as separate properties in webmaster tools I understand the best method would be to update the robots.txt with a user disallow for the subdomain - but the robots text is only accessible on the main domain. http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/robots.txt Will this work if we add the subdomain exclusion to this file? It means it won't be accessible on https://admin.naturalworldsafaris.com/robots.txt (where we can't create a file). Therefore won't be seen within that specific webmaster tools property. I've also asked the developer to add a password protection to the subdomain but this does not look possible. What approach would you recommend?0 -
Under-performing blog as part of main site
Hi I was hoping to get some thoughts and opinions on our blog. It is part of our main site (not on a subdomain) but performs very badly, pulling in very little organic traffic (only accounting for 0.6% of our organic traffic). Every page of the blog is listed in our sitemap, and using Screaming Frog I've done spot checks of several pages to see if they are indexed, which they have been. Looking at Google's text cache, all the content is visible. Pages are often well shared on social media (for example): http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/blog/2014/10/antarctica-photography-safari-2014-updates.aspx I'm aware that we do need more links coming into the blog but I still feel that it should be performing better than it is. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite0 -
How would you handle this duplicate content - noindex or canonical?
Hello Just trying look at how best to deal with this duplicated content. On our Canada holidays page we have a number of holidays listed (PAGE A)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite
http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/north-america/canada/suggested-holidays.aspx We also have a more specific Arctic Canada holidays page with different listings (PAGE B)
http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/arctic-and-antarctica/arctic-canada/suggested-holidays.aspx Of the two, the Arctic Canada page (PAGE B) receives a far higher number of visitors from organic search. From a user perspective, people expect to see all holidays in Canada (PAGE A), including the Arctic based ones. We can tag these to appear on both, however it will mean that the PAGE B content will be duplicated on PAGE A. Would it be the best idea to set up a canonical link tag to stop this duplicate content causing an issue. Alternatively would it be best to no index PAGE A? Interested to see others thoughts. I've used this (Jan 2011 so quite old) article for reference in case anyone else enters this topic in search of information on a similar thing: Duplicate Content: Block, Redirect or Canonical - SEO Tips0 -
Rankings drop - we've added user reviews, are they causing over optimisation on page?
Hello Hopefully can get a few opinions on this. We've added some user reviews to our website for key products. We added these approximately 3-4 weeks ago. In the last week we've seen keyword rankings drop on the pages they've been added to. For example see: http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/wildlife/primates.aspx This page ranked well for both gorilla safari and gorilla safaris but both terms have dropped considerably (12 to 20 checking Google UK on the Moz rank checker). Due to the formatting required for the Rich Snippets (and we have the user review stars in the SERPS) the term "Gorilla safari" is perhaps becoming a bit spammy on the page. Another example would be "Borneo holidays" (up and down in the SERPS between 12-18) on this page: http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/far-east/borneo.aspx Do you feel that these fluctuations in keyword ranking could be to do with this? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite0 -
Could this be seen as duplicate content in Google's eyes?
Hi I'm an in-house SEO and we've recently seen Panda related traffic loss along with some of our main keywords slipping down the SERPs. Looking for possible Panda related issues I was wondering if the following could be seen as duplicate content. We've got some very similar holidays (travel company) on our website. While they are different I'm concerned it may be seen as creating content that is too similar: http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/africa-and-the-indian-ocean/kenya/suggested-holidays/the-wildlife-and-beaches-of-kenya.aspx http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/africa-and-the-indian-ocean/kenya/suggested-holidays/ultimate-kenya-wildlife-and-beaches.aspx http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/africa-and-the-indian-ocean/kenya/suggested-holidays/wildlife-and-beach-family-safari.aspx They do all have unique text but as you can see from the titles, they are very similar (note from an SEO point of view the tabbed content is all within the same page at source level). At the top level of the holiday pages we have a filtered search:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite
http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/africa-and-the-indian-ocean/kenya/suggested-holidays.aspx These pages have a unique introduction but the content snippets being pulled into the boxes is drawn from each of the individual holiday pages. I'm just concerned that these could be introducing some duplicating issues. Any thoughts?0 -
Steady decline since Panda 4.0 but struggling to identify cause (and solution!).
Hello I work as an in-house SEO (previously worked for an agency) for the website naturalworldsafaris.com. After a strong start to the year we were seeing really good growth but since Panda 4.0 was released we have been steadily declining. Our site has, I believe, good, unique content and is largely free of technical issues. I'm struggling to identify what exactly is the issue for the drop. We've had several key terms drop from the top half of page 1 to page 2 of the SERPS, such as the term "Borneo Holiday" (on a Google UK search). I don't believe we have any duplicate content issues. We've had a few external SEO specialists take a look and none have come up with anything new. Site speed has been flagged as a concern but when compared to our competitors in the SERPS we are consistently one of the faster sites so while we are looking to improve this, I don't feel it can be the only issue. Any suggestions as to what else we should be investigating next would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite0 -
Site wide links from another domain - could these cause a problem?
Hi I manage the SEO in house for the site http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/ A new add on to our services has been launched in the form of an online store allowing us to sell, for example, expedition clothing that is relevant to the trips we offer. The store is managed elsewhere and sits on a subdomain of the company who are providing this service for us. There are sitewide links throughout this site back to our homepage: http://naturalworld.newheadings.com/index.php I'm just a bit concerned about these links from an SEO perspective and was wondering if we should request these are set up as no follow. Would appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | KateWaite0 -
Sudden drop in ranking for important keyword? No penalty / other issues detected
Hi For our site we previously ranked well for the term "botswana safari holidays" on the page: http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/africa-and-the-indian-ocean/botswana.aspx We've suddenly seen a dramatic drop for this term, currently ranked #43 on Google UK. There are no penalty notices in Webmaster tools and the only edits to the page recently have been to include the term "Botswana safari holidays" in the page title and the on-page h2 (previously Botswana safaris and holidays). Any suggestions why we have seen a large decrease for this term? We expect to see some fluctuation but this one seems a bit dramatic. We've not lost any backlinks to the page that we know of. Thanks for the help.
On-Page Optimization | | KateWaite0