Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
I don't know if it is harming your rankings, but it looks like you've got two or three meta description and keyword tags on most of your pages, including your home page. Probably an easy fix worth doing using your site's CMS or template files to remove any unnecessary meta tags. Didn't really see anything else that stood out.
New year, same old problems...
Thanks for the heads up though. I don't think any of us actually thought the index would be released on time anyway, but it's good to know ahead of time there's going to be a delay. Hopefully the issues get sorted out before the 29th. You guys are going to run out of excuses here soon! J/K
I thought this thread was in reference to the MOZ Open Site Explorer index update that was originally scheduled for the 2nd, then got pushed to the 9th (I believe), and currently says updated on the 14th. I was looking at the category where this was posted. Was there supposed to be a big update from Google on the 14th too?
It says the data was updated on Dec 14th, but I don't see any changes for sites I'm tracking. However, I think they only pushed back the release date of the index two weeks this time, which, if you're looking for something positive, is an improvement. I think I'm going to start taking bets on how many times they push back the release date. I'd be willing to bet at least two times next month. My guess, next month's excuse is that the dog ate my computer. Hey, it worked for me in grade school too! 
Matt,
Thank you for taking a look at my site. I really appreciate the feedback.
I had noticed the search results with parameter tags being indexed as well. I tried limiting Google's crawler to non-parameter pages about 8 months ago, but didn't seem to do much. I was afraid one of my settings was messing things up so I deleted it and selected let GoogleBot decide for all of them. Not sure why the paginated pages are being indexed too. I thought I'd read where the paginate tag was similar to the canonical tag and Google would treat it as a signal not to index. I would think if GoogleBot can crawl and index the paginated search pages, it could also crawl the listing results on all those pages. I do have a large portion of listing pages on my site no-indexed since they don't fall within my service area and I used to get a ton of calls about them. Maybe that is causing issues for all the listing results pages to not be indexed.
In regards to Screaming Frog, which settings did you use? I use the preset user agent GoogleBot Regular and have thousands of pages that it crawls. Wish I could replicate your scan to see what might be holding things up.
Regarding the Wistia sitemap, I put it in the robots.txt file to try and get the videos embedded on my site indexed. I didn't realize this was hurting more than helping.
Thanks again for your feedback and taking the time to review my site.
Sorry, I was checking the site listed in your profile. However, I checked http://www.quercusliving.co.uk and it took even longer to load. Actually timed out at 60 seconds on Pingdom.
I've been working on creating content and optimizing my website for the past 18 months, and have seen decent gains in organic traffic. Recently my keyword ranking increases have slowed dramatically, despite adding additional content. I'm hoping a fresh set of eyes can spot something that may be holding me back. I appreciate any feedback the MOZ community is able to provide.
One area of concern/confusion is the number of pages indexed according to GSC. The number tends to go up and down, and I can't figure out why. Of the roughly 8,000 pages that are submitted through the sitemap, it says only around 1,100 are indexed (sitemap page). The index status page says I've got 7,500 pages indexed. Kind of confused on that one.
Anyway, my website is MetroAtlantaHome dot com. Thanks everyone!
Your site took a very long time to load the homepage, definitely something to check. Seemed like it was the load time for all the images that was slowing it down. Try testing your site with http://tools.pingdom.com to see where the problem might be. I'd start there.
Btw, Open Site Explorer shows less than 20% of the backlinks to my site as well. The MOZ index is much smaller than Google's index, plus it hasn't updated in a few months, so any recent links will not show anyway.
It happens almost every time they set a date to release an Index Update. Usually they just push it back a week or two, then do it again, finally releasing the updates weeks after it was initially scheduled. This time they took a different approach and cancelled it all together.
I love MOZ for keyword rank tracking, keyword difficulty, etc, but have almost given up on their Indexes. There seems to be no consistency with the bank link data from one index to the next anyway, so you're really only able to measure relative changes in backlink profiles against competitors. Getting index updates when they're scheduled seems to be a rare occurrence these days, so you may want to get used to not getting data when expected, and I highly doubt there will be any compensation.
I understand we are talking about huge amounts of data... a huge undertaking that can't be easy. My advice to MOZ on the index updates, under promise and over deliver, not the other way around. Just tell us the next Index Update will be in two months, then release it in a month and a half (or on time) and everyone will be happy you came out with it early. Much better than stringing everyone along with expectations of an update then hearing another excuse the day after the update is cancelled/postponed.
Hopefully they can get this figured out and prevent future issues with index updates and customer frustration with this part of the product.
Thank you for the responses. I figured it can't be a good thing, but they made it sound like it wasn't impacting user experience because the switch to the available nameserver was immediate. It still seems to me that if Google Search Console is flagging 503/4 errors daily, as well as Bing WMT, there may be an issue. If it were only Bing, Google or MOZ I wouldn't be as concerned. Heck, I even ran a ScreamingFrog scan last night and got a handful of 504 errors. Going to be reaching out to them today to see about a fix. Thanks for your replies.
Lately I've noticed more and more 503/504 errors being flagged in my MOZ reports. One week I had over 1300 errors show up. I checked Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster tools and noticed they were showing up in there too, although not near as many (50 or less per day). I contacted my hosting company about it and they said these were normal and that it was due to one nameserver reaching capacity, but that there was a backup nameserver that kicks in. I've seen one or two of these errors show up before, but never more than one or two a week. Is this something I should be concerned about?
Just got my weekly MOZ report and see a huge drop in Google SERP for a ton of my keywords. I see similar drops for the competitors I am tracking as well though. I don't know if this is a MOZ reporting issue or if there was that big of a shakeup in the keyword rankings across the board. I have noticed bigger changes in keyword impressions/position in Google Webmaster Tools this week, so maybe the 4.2 update is the cause. I am in the real estate industry by the way.
It sounds like you may be better off targeting the long tail keywords that pertain to your online store. If you're looking at putting together a "complete guide to main keyword" and it's going to take you a few years, imagine where your already strong competition will be by then. Seems to me that writing shorter articles on a regular basis about the subkeywords would be more effective, especially if those keywords are not near as competitive. If topics are hard to come by, that means there should be less competition and you've got a chance to create unique content that provides value to your customers. Does your store have a blog? Would hate to see you put all your eggs into one keyword basket so to speak, and nothing happens.
I searched for the keyword "asian travel tips" and you were on the 3rd page of Google. I clicked and went to your website, so you should see at least one organic visit. Your site seemed to load pretty quickly, so that is good. Check the stats for today and let me know if the visit shows up. If you don't see it, there must be something wrong with your analytics tracking, which I feel must be the case because your visits dropped to zero. It just doesn't seem right that you wouldn't have at least a couple visits show up.
Have you been tracking some of your keywords daily with the rank tracker tool? That is a better way to get an update more often on your site's ranking for specific keywords since you can run it every day and see how the keywords have tracked over time rather than waiting for the weekly update.
I ran a site:www.travelnasia.com query and it looks like you've got 806 pages indexed in Google. Does that seem about right?
I scanned your site with Screaming Frog SEO Spider. It's a pretty nice tool, check it out if you haven't yet. It definitely helps with locating and fixing broken links. The tool also gives you access to tons of information about your site. Here are some sample reports from your site:
Crawl Overview: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74533600/crawl_overview.xls
404 Errors: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74533600/client_error_%284xx%29_inlinks.xls
No Response Links: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74533600/no_response_inlinks.xls
Hopefully you're able to get this figured out quickly. I'll let you know if I think of anything else. Best of luck!
Have you checked your keyword rankings yet? Have they completely dropped off too? Hard to believe Google would completely drop your site overnight. Maybe there is an issue with your analytics tracking code being removed when you switched your website's theme. Are you seeing other traffic in GA?
Regardless, it looks like you've got a decent amount of broken links & 404 errors on your site. I doubt Google would kill your traffic over that, but it wouldn't hurt to fix these items so that once you're back online the Google Bot is not tripping over broken links.
Wow, 10 years ago EGOL! Must have been tough taking that approach back then when black-hat methods still worked pretty well. You were always in it for the long term I'm guessing.
From my experience I say user engagement does play a role. I have a page on my site that was never really optimized and doesn't have high page authority, but the user engagement is great. I get regular traffic to that page through quality keywords. If only I could get all my pages to perform like that. At the end of the day, I think focusing on engagement in addition to links & on-site optimization is worth the additional effort.
The Mozscape Index update yesterday includes even fewer urls, root domains, subdomains and total links than the previous Index from May 5th. You can compare the size of the Indexes on the Mozscape API Updates page. Most likely, you've built additional quality/relevant links as you have mentioned, but with the smaller Index these new links, and even previously indexed links, are not being picked up. Therefore, less links are being used to calculate your domain authority score. I would say the drop in your Domain Authority is due to the size of the index. Try checking out your competitor's sites to see if their domain authority dropped as well. I know mine went down slightly yesterday. You don't have anything to worry about, just keep earning quality links. I know it is tough to see your domain authority drop when you work hard to earn/build links, but the data used from one Index to the next has not been consistent, so don't worry too much about the increase/drop in domain authority from one index release to the next. If anything, track your domain authority over time and compare it to the size of the index to get a better idea of how your link building is performing. Unfortunately, that is the best answer I can give at this time.
Sure thing, those posts from May were probably after the last release of the index (May 5th). Hopefully you will see your site's DA return to a similar level, or even higher with the next release of the Index (scheduled June 23rd). Here are a few additional threads with more explanation. Nothing to worry about, you're not alone.
http://moz.com/community/q/what-s-the-story-on-mozscape-updates
http://moz.com/community/q/what-causes-total-external-links-to-fluctuate-so-much
http://moz.com/community/q/significant-drop-in-external-followed-links
Other users have experienced similar things with the most recent MozScape index since it was smaller than previous ones. There should be a new update coming in about two weeks, that will be a good opportunity to measure results and compare with previous Indexes. Since your client's sites don't have many links to begin with, even small variations in the index could cause major shifts in the site's DA. Check out this thread below for an explanation, it sounds like you're experiencing a similar situation.
I agree with Patrick. If you're getting quality natural links from authoritative sites, you're improving your site's ability to rank for keywords. This ability to rank should help you as you improve your on-site SEO and ad high quality content to your site. Since more authoritative sites get crawled more often, quality links should impact your site quicker.
I think it's worth noting that the increase in rankings will also depend on the competition for the keywords you're trying to rank for. Using Moz's keyword difficulty checker will give you an idea of how tough it will be to be to get on page 1 of the SERPs. If you're doing everything right in terms of on-site SEO, keyword optimization and your backlink profile is on par, or better than the competition, you'll have a good chance at seeing your rankings improve.
Tested your site with Pingdom Tools, it seemed to load pretty slow. Looks like some of the images may be the cause. You can test yourself for free to see which resources are slowing you down and how changes impact your load time. Plus, you can test from different locations, give it a try.
Yea, Google can and will alter the page title in the search results if they feel the title you have provided is not the most ideal. Regardless, you'll still want to optimize your title, meta description, headers, img alts, page text, etc to improve your overall on-page SEO. I think once you've got everything structured and optimized like it should be, you'll start to see some results and your titles showing up in the SERPs. It can take some time for these things to start working and showing up so just stick with it.
It's going to be hard to get the homepage to match for every keyword you want to rank for. When using the page grader you'll probably want to stick to one or two keyword phrases per page, otherwise you'll simply be stuffing a ton of keywords into a page like you've done with the title tag you provided. You want the page titles to read naturally so they look good to humans while still containing the keywords you want to rank for. To do this, you'll only be able to truly focus on a couple keywords per page.
I'm not too familiar with magic, but I'd guess that you probably want to optimize your homepage for the term "Close Up Magician" since that is what you are. You could include paragraphs on your homepage that briefly talk about each of the types of magic you do (wedding, table, etc) with links to the dedicated pages for each of those types of magic and so on. Those dedicated pages would then be optimized for those keywords and then you branch it out from there.
Once you start doing keyword research you'll be able to identify the supporting keywords you'll need to include on each page and which subpages you'll need to create. Remember to naturally link your pages as well.
BTW, it appears to be Geolocation results that are impacted. Notice in your screen shot the results that dropped were Woodbridge location results, not the national ones.
It appears to be some issues with the Moz rankings tracker, although it hasn't been confirmed. It has happened on my site and I noticed another thread earlier where someone was having the same issue. Not 100% sure this is the case based on the screen shot you provided but since others are seeing similar issues I would say it's not an issue with your site.
http://moz.com/community/q/is-anyone-seeing-consistent-fluctuation-in-geolocated-search-rankings
The authority of the sites you are receiving links from will likely play a role in how long they take to show up, if they show up at all. If the pages sending you links are also well linked, those backlinks will probably show up first. If you're listed on a directory buried deep within the site, it's going to be tough for the Moz crawler (as well as other crawlers) to find the links to your site. I've noticed links to my site in OSE come and go depending on the size of the current Mozscape index. I see many more links in Google Webmaster tools, so you're probably best served using a variety of tools to discover backlinks and focus on earning quality links.
I know I focused too much on my backlinks in OSE and my DA & PA when I first started using MOZ. My advice would be to use the information as a general barometer to measure your efforts over time. Best of luck!
Did they recently try and do some 301 redirects to point all non-www pages to the www version? It looks like the redirects may have been setup wrong and they're going to 404 pages instead of redirecting. There are a handful of other broken links on the site as well that could be contributing to the decline in Googlebot crawling. That's where I would start.
These options allow you to view backlink results from a single page level up to the entire domain level.
If you only want to see what backlinks OSE has for a specific page on your site, select "This Page"
ex: (yourdomain.com/single-page.html)
If you only want to see what backlinks OSE has for an entire subdomain on your site, select "This Subdomain"
ex: (**blog.**yourdomain.com)
If you want to see what backlinks OSE has for any page on your entire site, select "Root Domain"
ex: (yourdomain.com*)
Hope this helps.
I have been experiencing this on my site as well. Just curious if you were still receiving this kind of traffic since it has been a few months?
Recently there have been one or two times throughout the day where I see a huge spike in direct traffic. As you mentioned, the GA numbers seem to suffer but as long as this does not impact my rankings or site performance I'm not too worried. I too am concerned that this is more than just an annoyance and possibly reason for concern.
I've had other sites show up on GA as sending tons of referral traffic and figured it was just spam, but not sure of the benefit to a spammer of sending ghost direct traffic unless it is some kind of negative SEO attack. Would love to find out.
I seem to have the same issue on my site. I get a sudden influx of visitors within minutes all coming from direct traffic. How did you discover the traffic was from Miami? The only identifying factor I could find in GA was that the Network Domain for the traffic was 1e100.net. Not sure how sending direct traffic would benefit a spammer.
Have you experienced an overall drop in traffic on days you get the huge spike in direct traffic? I feel like I do, maybe the high bounce rate is a problem and signal to Google?
Would be nice to block the traffic but possibly just filter it from GA to avoid skewed data if it is not affecting your site.
I don't know if it is the reason but I noticed the sites that showed up as backlinks to my site after yesterday's update were much different than those from before the update. After the update my site showed fewer backlinks but my domain authority actually went up. It's possible the Mozscape index crawler visited different sites than it did previously and fewer/lower Domain Authority links were discovered for your site. Either that or your site lost some quality links since the last update.
Have you been monitoring your links with other tools? That could help determine if it's a loss of links or just different links being used to calculate your DA. Either way that seems like a big drop in DA.
Thanks for the information. I don't know how to and don't think I have access to change those settings on my sitemap with my current website provider. I'll send this information to them and see if they know what the problem is. Google seems to update daily, so there must be a setting that Bing doesn't like.
I increased the crawl rate for certain hours of the day when the traffic is slower, will see if that does anything. It seems as though Bing is crawling my site, just not my sitemap for some reason.
Do those of you using Bing Webmaster tools find your sitemap last crawl date gets updated? I noticed mine never updates, just shows the date of the last time I submitted it. It seems like it would update daily as it looks like bing crawls my site daily. See attached image.
Martin,
Thank you for the reply, that sounds great. It seemed like the most recent index came a few weeks early (was listed as Oct 1st) and the next one is scheduled about a month out which seems like forever when you're trying to see what progress you've made, but as you mentioned, it is a ton of data to sort through on your end so definitely understand the challenges. Will be great if the next update allows for index updates on a more frequent basis and additional insights, definitely looking forward to it. Thanks again.
Kyle
Even after the most recent index update I didn't see some of the links I have built show up. So far it seems to take about a month for new links to show up but they appear in Google Webmaster tools much sooner. Hopefully if the Moz Index updates more frequently in the future these links will appear much faster. Good luck with your link building efforts.
Thanks, was able to get it done on most of them but a few I don't think I have the ability to add the no index with how my CMS is setup so will be working on trying to include unique content to those pages. Thanks for all the great advice.
Thanks for the response Travis, it's only about 35 pages so far and the content in the iFrames does update automatically each month. Right now other than page title and description the pages are basically identical to each other, so was worried about it being seen as identical content, that's why I have already no indexed them, so they shouldn't be showing up in search engines. Just want to make sure I'm using the tags right as to not do more harm than I am benefiting the site. The majority of my site is made up of Real Estate listings (I'm a REALTOR) so most of those pages don't carry much link juice I'm assuming, since they change frequently.
My focus is on maximizing my core pages so they show up on search engines so trying to exclude content that does not add value to the site (in the eyes of search engines). Maybe I'm looking into it too deep but just trying to get started on the right path since my site just launched a few months ago.
I appreciate you taking the time to comment and yes, possibly down the road if I can add enough unique content to those pages I will remove the tags, that's probably what I should do.
I have some pages on my site that don't really have any content other than some iframes that are embedded from another site. I thought it would be best to tag the page with a no-index so that search engines would leave the page alone since it has no content as far as the search engine can tell (but does provide value to my site visitors). Is this the proper approach or does it do more harm than good?
Great, hoping to see some movement with the links I've added. This stuff is a lot of work and the results take a while to show up but will keep at it. Thanks for the info Keri.
I've been using the Google Bot and it has been effective.
Thanks for posting those sites. They charge a fee but hopefully worth the money if they can help with better rankings.
In the same boat here, I've been waiting 75+ days and see the links on Webmaster Tools but my MOZ DA does not change. Haven't found out why they're showing in one and not the other.
Seems like Google is leaning toward favoring YouTube content with the removal of Rich Snippets. If you can get the same SEO benefit using a video site map and embedding YouTube videos instead, why not have your website visitors increase your YouTube video view counts and possibly add subscribers while you're at it.
Maybe try linking to the linked pages from your site you're trying to get links from. I think posting them on social media like Twitter could help too to let the SERPs know they're relevant links.
