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LauraSultan

Will she have an actual office at this new location in Chicago with staff, or are you talking about a virtual address rented for the purpose of making Google think you have an office at that location?

If your answer is the second one, then let me stop you there. This type of virtual address goes against Google's policies and can have negative consequences. See https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en for Google's guidelines. They've been going after these types of virtual offices for a while now. See also http://www.localsearchforum.com/help-support-google-local/978-virtual-offices-home-address-google-plus-local.html.

Leave the real address and focus on building organic traffic for Chicago. If she really wants to grow to a national level, you'll have to work on growing the brand to a national level through social media and content marketing. Unfortunately, there are no SEO quick fixes in this situation.

LauraSultan

Yes, please share the URL.

LauraSultan

John Mueller addressed a similar question in a recent Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout, and he was pretty definitive. The question was about text that's hidden behind tabs. He states that they see the hidden content but won't give it as much weight.

Here's the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZAY-BwL6rU. The question starts at 6:45.

Google does read JavaScript and CSS, and that's why they send warnings to webmasters if such files are blocked from googlebot.

LauraSultan

When you say "there seems to be more and more spam links that are popping up on my site," do you mean the links are actually on your site? Like blog comments?

You can scan your site at https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/. There are others as well, but it's a good idea to have a web developer actually look at the files on your server as well. Scanners don't always see everything. If your site is a WordPress site, you can install and scan for malware using the Wordfence plugin. (Note: Some hosts, like WP Engine, don't allow the Wordfence plugin.)

If you don't want to share your domain name publicly, you can send it to me in a private message and I'll take a look.

LauraSultan

Are the backlinks pointing to actual pages on your website? I have seen cases where there was malware on a site that created new pages the site owner couldn't see. Then hundreds of backlinks were created that point to the malware pages. You may want to scan your site for malware.

LauraSultan

Google will probably index it, but it won't be given the same weight as content that's immediately visible.

LauraSultan

The problem is that these two pages have almost identical content on them, and the content on these product pages is thin anyway. This is a common problem with ecommerce websites, and some ecommerce platforms automatically create a lot of duplication headaches You also seem to have a related issue with crawl inefficiencies.

Yes, this may very well be affecting your performance in SERPs.

There are a number of ways to address duplicate content issues on ecommerce websites. The precise strategy to use will depend on the specific issue, and you have multiple issues that need to be addressed on your site that relate to duplicate content. Below are some resources that you might find helpful.

LauraSultan

Domain authority is not a metric that can tell you whether or not you've been penalized. Moz recently updated their index, which caused a significant change in DA for a lot of sites. See https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority for more information on what domain authority can tell you.

Moz Local isn't the type of spammy directory submission service that will get you in trouble with Google. The kind you need to watch out for are those that submit to hundreds of low-quality directories that really only exist for SEO link building. You don't see that kind of submission service as much now, but they were everywhere in the pre-Penguin days.

LauraSultan

It really depends on your rationale for having two different pages with mostly the same content. Ideally, you could remove the old page or merge the old with the new and 301-redirect the old URL to the new one.

On the other hand, I recognize that there may be a legitimate business case for keeping both pages. In that case, you would add the new URL within the rel=canonical tag to the old page. That tells the search engines that the new page is the one that should be indexed by search engines and come up in search results.

LauraSultan

I can't speak to the validity of the Moz report in your case, but you might want to try a different crawler like Screaming Frog and compare what you are seeing from Moz.

LauraSultan

To my knowledge, the behavior of the googlebot is not influenced by whether or not the product is out of stock. Is the page still accessible when the product is out of stock, or does it not display at all?

If the product page remains with an "out of stock" message, that's what users from search will see. If the product page becomes inaccessible when it goes out of stock temporarily, users from search will likely see a 404 page.

You may want to canonicalize to a higher level category page rather than one of the product variation pages. That way, it won't be an issue if one product variation goes out of stock.

May I ask which ecommerce software you are using?

LauraSultan

Adding a cross-domain canonical tag like this is fine assuming you are doing it for customer service (and the manufacturer doesn't mind you copying content from their site). You won't see any SEO benefit from the content on those pages because they are unlikely to be indexed. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt your site either.

LauraSultan

In that case, you'd need to add the robots meta tag at the page level before the tag.

or

LauraSultan

So, the problem is that the robots.txt file can't be accessed because of the 301 redirect to the new domain?

Do you plan to keep the help files on the old domain, or will they be removed completely?

LauraSultan

Do you want to disallow the URLs that these pages are being redirected to? If not, there's no need to add anything to the robots.txt file.

If you do want to disallow the URLs that these pages are being redirected to, use relative URLs in your robots.txt file. For example, let's say olddomain.com/old-help-page/ is being redirected to newdomain.com/new-help-page/. If that's the case, add the following to your robots.txt file.

Disallow: /new-help-page/

There's no need to disallow the specific URLs that are being redirected to something else. Are you trying to get them removed from Google's index or something? If so, Google will update their index eventually based on your 301 redirects.

LauraSultan

We usually noindex the archives subpages and sometimes the main blog page itself (if it isn't the home page). I'd prefer to see the individual blog post pages in search results than page 2 of blog index page. Depending on how your blog is set up, you run the risk of an internal duplicate content issue. The only way to guarantee that the search engines prioritize the single post page is to noindex the blog index pages.

LauraSultan

A common post-Penguin misconception is to avoid using important keywords in anchor text at all. You should avoid using the same keyword-stuffed anchor text in a bunch of backlinks to your site, but it's still a best practice to include important keywords in anchor text. Just don't be spammy about it. Make it natural and vary the anchor text. It shouldn't be a problem on your own website as long as it isn't done in an unnatural way that isn't helpful to the reader at all.

LauraSultan

Is there a particular reason that you don't want to 301-redirect the old domain to the new domain? If customers go to the old domain or even search the domain name, they'll be redirected to the new one automatically. Can you help us understand why this is not ideal?

LauraSultan

Any chance you can give us the URLs? Otherwise, it's difficult to troubleshoot. Does this only happen in Google, or do you see it in Bing as well?

Based on what you're saying, I would look first at at a few possible culprits.

Index Issues - Have you checked to confirm that the home page is indexed by the search engine? Search site:domain.com to check. If not, you may have a technical problem that prevents the
Internal Link Scheme - Is the other page getting more internal links than the home page, making it seem more important?
Content - Does the other page have loads more relevant content than the home page?

LauraSultan

Yes. I suppose if you have a massive site and you're seeing a problem with crawl budget, it wouldn't hurt to nofollow the print links. Otherwise, it isn't really necessary.

LauraSultan

You are correct to noindex it, but I see no reason to nofollow.

LauraSultan

This page is set to "noindex," so you've essentially told Google not to index it.

LauraSultan

Laurie, when you say that your most valuable pages are nowhere to be found, can you provide an example?

LauraSultan

It's really a shot in the dark without knowing the website URL, but there are probably multiple issues going on. If Google is only indexing half of your pages, it's probably a crawl issue or a meta robots issue. Check to make sure the pages aren't being blocked or noindexed. If that isn't the problem, you may have a problem with crawl inefficiency.

LauraSultan

Do you mean that it isn't being crawled by Googlebot? A Google search for site:footeschool.org reveals that it is, in fact, indexed.

LauraSultan

That's the way it should work. When you set up a cross domain canonical from a URL on domain 1 to a URL on domain 2, you are telling the search engine that you want the content on site 2 to be indexed rather than the same content on site 1. The page content on domain 1 is probably not in the index for search results anymore, but the canonical tag ties the content on the two domains together.

In your example, does the search results link to the content on domain 2? That's what I would expect.

LauraSultan

It's really going to depend on the search query. Some search queries are seen as having local intent regardless of whether or not a geo-modifier (i.e. "Chicago") is included in the search. Since your client's site is for the national organization, or the main website for the brand, you'll likely outperform for some queries based on brand strength, backlinks, domain authority, etc., than the localized websites. On the other hand, if someone searches for "summer day camp," that searcher is likely looking for a local service provider.

Are you specifically searching for the query "dog safety" in Chicago for the example you provided? That seems like more of an informational query, so your site would need to be seen as a topical authority to perform well.

You say that your .net site uses a search function (zip code search?) to display the individual locations. Is the location info crawlable by the search engines, or is it hidden behind the search functionality? If you want the .net site to perform for local searches, you'll need to work on optimizing local landing pages that can be easily found and indexed by search engines.

LauraSultan

Yes, I have seen that work as well. I'm not saying that you can't do it. but those are highly competitive keywords in large metropolitan areas. It will take longer to see results. Local landing pages will work to build authority for the entire domain for those locations. I have seen this happen many times with our clients. Both the optimized local page and the site's home page can end up ranking well for geo-targeted keywords.

LauraSultan

You'll be fighting a steep uphill battle if you try to optimize one URL for all three. You should, of course, mention that you have offices in all three cities on your home page, but why not create local landing pages for each city?

I don't mean that you should create one page, copy it, and replace the city name. That would be bad.

Each city page should have unique content with a local focus. In addition to contact information and directions, there's probably plenty of ways to add unique content to each local page. Highlight key staff members for each location, add location photos (inside and out), add customer testimonials, etc.

More about location pages:

LauraSultan

First of all, It's unrealistic to rank well for a highly competitive single keyword like "pashmina" within 3 weeks of launch with no backlinks - even within the first 100 results. Your other pages are doing better because "white pashminas" and "white cashmere pashminas" are not as competitive. Sites rarely jump to the top of the rankings right after launch. There may be a bump at first as Google indexes the site, but then it drops back down.

Secondly, you state that you haven't done any link building, and I assume you mean that you haven't done any spammy link building. However, you still need good backlinks to your site to be competitive. Below are a few resources on link building.

LauraSultan

This type of duplicate content is common on ecommerce websites, and it isn't necessarily a big problem. However, given the fact that there will be a higher percentage of duplicate content than unique content, you run the risk of some of your pages being omitted from search results for certain queries. If that is the case, searchers will see "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the (# here)already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."

This isn't really a penalty. It's just Google being efficient with their algorithm. It shouldn't be a problem for highly targeted searches, but you may lose a little search visibility for more generic searches.

My advice is to get creative and find new ways to add more unique content to your product pages. Add testimonials, user-generated reviews, camper van adventure stories, etc.

You are right that canonical tags are wrong for this situation. Using an iframe doesn't make much sense either. Google has stated that they try to associate iframe content with the page it's embedded on anyway.

Further information:

LauraSultan

Micha,

After looking at your site and running a few quick tests, I still don't think your site has been penalized. You have a few technical and on-page issues to deal with, but I don't think fixing these alone will catapult you to the top of the SERPs.

I checked the SERPs for "climb kilimanjaro," and I think your competition is your biggest hurdle. In addition to being around a lot longer, your competitor's websites have far more targeted, editorial backlinks, and consequently much higher authority, than your site.

Unfortunately, there's no quick and easy fix for this problem. You'll have to work toward earning good backlinks. Check out the resources below.

LauraSultan

I doubt that a single sitewide reciprocal footer link is causing your site to be penalized. There are dozens of possible reasons why your site is not ranking, and it's impossible to say what's going on without knowing the website in question. If you don't want to post it here, send me the URL in a private message and I'll take a look.

How long has your site been online?
Has anyone conducted a link building campaign for you at any time? If so, what did they do?

LauraSultan

Here's what I would look for:

Comment spam - Do you have any visible comment spam on your website that includes these types of keywords? If so, remove it all.
Malware - Some types of malware will create new pages on your site that you can't access through a simple crawl from your home page. Search "site:example.com" in Google, replacing "example.com" with your domain name. Go through all of the results to see if Google has any pages indexed for your site that you don't recognize.

Even if Google doesn't flag your site for malware, it may still be there. Look at the files on the server to see if there are new files that shouldn't be there. Scan your site at https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/ to see if anything comes up there.

If your site is infected with malware, Google will eventually find it and flag your site. Yes, it will certainly harm your SEO efforts.

LauraSultan

It's perfectly normal to link two sites together like this. It can be useful to site visitors, and it's also very common. The problem comes when you have dozens of websites cross-linking together in some sort of link network.

More information

Google's Matt Cutts Says It Is Okay To Link Your Sites Together But in Moderation

LauraSultan

Moz Analytics is wonderful, but I haven't seen a tool out there that gives you the complete picture when it comes to auditing your site and competitive analysis. This is especially true when it comes to SEO. Nothing can replace a comprehensive SEO audit and analysis conducted by an SEO expert.

Having said that, you'll probably get better help here if you share the URL, your relevant keywords, the metrics you are comparing, and what you've done already to win in local search. By the way, when talking about "local search" are you talking about local map results or local organic results?

LauraSultan

There are different types of duplicate content, and URL parameters are a common culprit. This is especially true for ecommerce sites. Fortunately, there's an easy fix. Set up a canonical tag for the URL that you want indexed,

Helpful resources about the canonical tag:

LauraSultan

If your site has in fact been negatively impacted by Penguin, you'll have to wait for the next Penguin refresh for your changes to have an impact. You may see fluctuations due to other algorithm changes though.

http://searchengineland.com/google-says-the-penguin-panda-algorithms-still-require-manual-data-pushes-218212

LauraSultan

You say that you only changed the date, but I assume that means the URL as well. Is the 14-15 page gone? If so, have you set up 301 redirects to the new URL, or is it returning a 404 error? If the page is gone, you'll need to set up 301 redirects to the new page. Otherwise, you'll lose any value from backlinks to the old page. This will also eliminate the duplicate content issue.

If the page is archived on the site, you have a duplicate content problem. Either revamp the new content or set up a canonical tag on the old page pointing to the new one.

I would also go ahead and update the image filenames to reflect the current year as well as the meta description, as previously mentioned.

If you don't plan to archive the product page for past years, set up a generic URL so that it doesn't change from year. Leave off the "-15-16." Change the meta and on-page content as needed, including image filenames, but keep the same URL. That way you won't ever lose value from backlinks.

I would also revisit the content each year to freshen it up.

LauraSultan

I agree with Joey. Most prepositions are stop words, so they may carry less weight in the search algorithm. That's not to say they aren't important. I just searched "sporting goods stores in Atlanta" and "sporting goods stores Atlanta" and got very slightly different results for each.

The on page optimization suggestions are just suggestions to point you in the right direction based on keywords you entered into the tool. You should never sacrifice usability for your readers in order to satisfy an SEO tool. The tool is just a starting point.

LauraSultan

Toxic, spammy links can only hurt you, but they are even more harmful if they make up a large percentage of your total backlinks. Remove/disavow them as soon as possible and work on earning legitimate, high-value backlinks. Also, over-optimized link text can be harmful as well.

LauraSultan

What Dirk says is right, but there are ways to improve authority. Make sure you have a link on all of the new subsite pages to its corresponding "home" page. You'll also want to update any backlinks that pointed to the old home pages to point to the new subpage.

LauraSultan

Google may use your meta description, or they may pull your meta description from the content on the page if it's more relevant to the query. That's why you see different descriptions for different queries. They may also be using the description from the Open Directory Project.

Here's a post from Dr. Pete that addresses the issue:

Why Won't Google Use My META Description?

Here's another Q&A that addresses the same issue:

http://moz.com/community/q/why-does-google-not-show-my-meta-descriptions-sometimes

LauraSultan

I'm curious to see what others have to say on this, but I've always assumed that "fresh" and "unique" go hand in hand when it comes to website content. Therefore, duplicate content would not be fresh content.

LauraSultan

Since the campaigns are no longer available, I assume that these pages are no longer useful to the visitor. In which case, just put a note on the landing page that says "This offer is no longer available, but you might be interested in ...." In this case, the URLs remain in Google's index.

Alternatively, you can remove the pages from the server and 301-redirect each URL to your current campaign(s) if that seems more appropriate for the user. Because of the redirects, Google will eventually remove the URLs from their index.

In terms of SEO, the goal is not to lose any link equity coming from backlinks to those landing pages. If you simply use the URL removal tool, you'll lose any value from the backlinks. As Chris says, the canonical tag is relevant to duplicate content and not this type of situation.

LauraSultan

This duplicate content does need to be addressed, but it's not as complicated as you might think.

Use pagination to solve the "page=1" issues, or use a canonical with a "View all" option. See the following for reference:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html

http://moz.com/blog/rel-confused-answers-to-your-rel-canonical-questions

Set up the canonical links for the others, and that's all you'll need. You may want to noindex all of the tag pages for the blog unless you have unique content on those.

LauraSultan

Like I said, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to diagnose this kind of problem without the URL.

Learn more about 301 redirects at http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection .

LauraSultan

This sort of thing is very difficult to troubleshoot without the site URL and page in question. Feel free to message me privately, and I can take a look

There are so many variables that can be affected when you migrate sites, especially if you are combining multiple sites under a single domain name. You really need to perform a full technical audit after any kind of migration or redesign. Here are a few things that I would check right away.

Were 301-redirects were set up properly? If they weren't, you may be losing the value of your backlinks.
Are there any duplicate content problems created by Joomla?
Was the information architecture or linking structure changed significantly in the process?
Are there any files left on the server from the old static site that are still indexed by the search engines? (I found this recently during an audit.)

LauraSultan

If you're seriously considering nofollowing links in your main nav, then they probably don't belong there in the first place. Take them off of the main nav and add them as submenus that only show on topically-related pages.

LauraSultan

You can list all 5 addresses on your contact page, but you should consider creating local landing pages if you serve customers at each location. See the following for some best practices.

http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/30/16-ways-to-create-unique-local-content-for-cities-where-you-want-to-rank/

As for your second question, if you want to drive traffic through local search, you definitely want to clean up local business citations.

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LauraSultan

@LauraSultan

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