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Thanks for that article, not quite the type of links I'm addressing here, but definitely some applicable nuggets of information there.

The objection is that those links pass more authority/PR. Therefore the hesitation to remove them is that SEO pages will lose authority. I know this isn't true, but am having a hard time getting others to come to the light side.

Of course, no problem! Maybe a comparison of before and after MozBar PA for a couple of the top performing SEO pages? Not sure if that's the best KPI for this test, but it's a rather difficult thing to measure...just throwing out some ideas on how I intend to measure when I'm able to run a similar test.

Thanks for your feedback.

I've done the research to prove that people don't use them, but still unable to convince my opponents of the lack of true SEO value in terms of authority, PR, page discovery, etc.

Thanks for your feedback.

I totally agree with all 3 of your points, especially the comment regarding better ways to tackle internal linking.

Thanks for your feedback.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one dealing with this debate! Would you mind sharing any data you collect on your test once you have enough to be conclusive?

We have an internal debate going on right now about the use of a link list of SEO pages in the footer.

My stance is that they serve no purpose to people (heatmaps consistently show near zero activity), therefore they shouldn't be used. I believe that if something on a website is user-facing, then it should also beneficial to a user - not solely there for bots. There are much better ways to get bots to those pages, and for those people who didn't enter through an SEO page, internal linking where appropriate will be much more effective at getting them there.

However, I have some opposition to this theory and wanted to get some community feedback on the topic.

Anyone have thoughts, experience, or data to share on this subject?

For future reference, if you've got the Moz bar installed in your browser, all you need to do is click the pencil/marker icon and select the "Nofollowed (pink)" option. All nofollow links on that page will be highlighted.

Hi,

Generally speaking, any link that takes users off of your site should open in a new tab. If you send them away in the same tab, they're probably not coming back to your site. Especially with social media, they're likely to get distracted with something else and forget about what they were doing in the first place.

Hi Will,

It'd be impossible to find a solution to the problem without having the domain. If you want to message me the URL, I can take a quick look for ya.

A lack of either of those files shouldn't create any crawl issues. Setting up those files won't fix your problem, but you should add them both anyway.

Hi,

I've never seen any evidence of title-casing being more attention-grabbing or of Google overwriting them because of it. If you're concerned with Google replacing your meta descriptions, use a NOODP tag and your problem is solved.

Regarding ALL CAPS, Google has never been a fan of this technique to improve CTR, you can even see this in their ad copy rules for Adwords. I'd steer clear of ALL CAPS in SERP-visible meta data.

Hi,

On this new page, you mostly talk about the other 2 types of oak beams, so there's really not enough differentiation in this content. At this point, you're kind of working up hill against yourself.

The better way to tackle this would have been to generate content for your broadest keyword first, show Google that your site is about oak beams. Then write content for specific types.

Recommendations from my other comments still stand.

Regarding your thought about ranking the US website in both US and UK, and directing UK visitors to a UK version will work, however you won't be able to do that with redirects or a different version of the post. Doing that would change the URL, which would affect which page gets indexed. It's possible to change content of a page based on location without changing the URL, which is what you'd have to do in order to keep indexing in line.

I do still think that your best bet is to use the UK domain and treat it as its own entity just as you're doing with the other countries.

No problem! I'm not too familiar with secure migrations in WP, but I bet there is some kind of plugin for that.

Hi,

Found the source of your issue: this URL (https://www.aerlawgroup.com/sex-crimes.html) has a link pointing to it from a HTTP URL (http://www.aerlawgroup.com/sex-crimes/new-allegations-emerge-in-sexual-misconduct-case.html), which is probably how SF found all the other secure URLs.

All of your HTTPS page return 200. If you want to go back to non-secure, those secure URLs will need to be redirected back to HTTP, the same as you probably did when you went to secure.

Also, looks like you've still got a couple HTTPS pages indexed: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aaerlawgroup.com+inurl%3Ahttps&oq=site%3Aaerlawgroup.com+inurl%3Ahttps&gs_l=serp.3...5577.15088.0.15655.24.24.0.0.0.0.150.1864.19j5.24.0....0...1.1.64.serp..3.0.0.bf5ZiosfHMI

Hi,

It sounds to me like you might be over-optimizing your site for a single word spread across multiple pages. When you do this, you're doing one of two things; confusing search engines to the point where they don't know which of your pages is the best match therefore they're not showing any, or you're being flagged for being too spammy. Optimizing multiple pages for the same keyword is an old grayish/blackish hat technique that people used to do before algorithms caught up to them.

Might be good to take a few steps back and start at the basics. Have you checked out the Beginners Guide to SEO yet? I highly recommend it as your starting point: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

AHA! I had a feeling is was something like that. Glad to help!

Hi Will,

It's hard to say without seeing exactly what the format of the broken and working URL is. When you click the link and you get the working URL, do you take that exact URL when entering directly? Or are you typing it in?

URI valet might help you troubleshoot this further. Or if you want to DM me the URL, I can take a look and see if I can identify the problem.

Regarding this: ? how do you conclude this a spammy? any better way?

I'm specifically referring to the second instance of the product name. You only need to include the product name one time.

Regarding this: (im trying to build brand, is it not necessary? I see many ecommerce titles?

It's only taking up character space for something that's already visible in the search results. There are better ways to build your brand than this.

Regarding the overstock example: their title tags aren't exactly what I'd call SEO-friendly

With your product titles being so long, your title tag should only be the name of the product, once.

Here's my take on your title tag, broken down by part:

ACDelco 40-count Super Alkaline AA Batteries - this product title is all you need

Buy - the intent of this search already implies a purchase-based query, so 'buy' is unnecessary

ACDelco 40-count Super Alkaline AA Batteries - this is redundant and therefore spammy

online at Best Prices: -'online' isn't necessary, if someone is searching, they're already online

Domain.com - your domain information is already in the URL, not needed in title

A title tag formatted like this is almost certainly going to prevent improved organic visibility. Keep it as concise as you can while still being descriptive.

Hi Astrid,

First things first, it's important to remember that the keywords you track are not the only keywords driving traffic to your site. It's entirely possible that people were finding your site by way of a keyword(s) that has actually dropped in rank that you're not monitoring.

A good way to gain some insight into what's bringing traffic to your site is through Google Search Console. Go to Search Traffic > Search Analytics. From there you can see things like position, CTR, impressions, and clicks based on queries. There are a number of ways you can slice data up here to give you some really good insights.

You can also take a look in Google Analytics at your landing page report for organic traffic and compare dates to see if there is any major differences in entry points to your site. This is a good way to determine topics people were searching to find your site. For example, if they enter from organic search on /blue-widgets they were probably searching for something related to that.

You should get 2 emails when the crawl is complete, one with and issues/errors from the crawl report, and another for rank changes.

It's not recommended to change URLs for the sake of rankings. Check out this article for a comment straight from Google on this topic: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-urls-seo-17889.html.

I'm seeing this same thing, within the same instance of GSC.

I believe the discrepancy between the Sitemap Report and Index Status Report is due to the Sitemap report being strictly based on the URLs submitted in your XML sitemap. The index status report seems to be more inclusive of URLs that don't exist in the XML sitemap - dynamically generated URLs, old 301'd URLs that haven't been dropped yet, paginated URLs, etc.

Regarding the discrepancy between the Index Status Report and the Site: command, I have no clue. I would expect those to be more similar, but I'm seeing similar differences to what you're seeing.

Hi,

According to this article, John Mueller says Google doesn't weigh URLs that heavily when determining rank. I always advise against changing URLs unless it's absolutely necessary, as you'll lose about 15% of the page's current PR when you redirect it.

This article also directly says to not change URLs for SEO purposes: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-urls-seo-17889.html

Hi,

That just means you added those keywords after the most recent crawl on 2/08, therefore Moz has no data for them yet. Crawls happen weekly, so your next crawl should actually be today. You'll see your ranking data for those keywords once today's crawl is complete.

Heyo!

That redirect is most likely causing your problems. If search engines can't access the homepage of that subdomain, it's going to be difficult for them to find other URLs on that subdomain.

Search engines are also going to have a hard time finding the robots.txt and XML sitemap if the homepage of the subdomain is redirecting. Turn that redirect off and make sure you've got a good robots and sitemap file in place and you should be good to go. You'll also want to make sure Google knows about the sitemap by submitting it in Search Console.

Hi,

Your content should be targeted to the geography, especially regarding keywords. One country might call your product one thing, and another country might have another phrase for it, even when translated, i.e. 'biscuits' in the US vs. UK. You might also need to speak more directly to the audience, there could be different ways to connect with each of the audiences for which you are writing. Do some research on each of the markets that will be reading this content and see if there's anything that you can learn to better target the message.

Your country code TLD approach is a great start, as you're already giving search engines information about the location which your sites target. As additional measures, you can set geography in Search Console, and use the hreflang tag. A combination of all of these things will help ensure your content gets indexed in the country-specific Google.

For more information on this topic, check out this international SEO guide.

Hi Melissa,

You actually won't see any benefit simply from having keyword rich domains redirecting to your site. This is a tactic that people used to do in the early days of SEO, and Google has since flagged this as a spam tactic and their algorithm accounts for it now.

For improving your rankings, there are literally hundreds of levers your can pull. Since you're running local SEO, I highly recommend spending time reading everything you can on the topic. A good starting place is the Moz Local Learning Center.

It depends on the type of publication, but it usually works best to pitch it in ways that will benefit them. This post on guest blog outreach should help you formulate a strategy.

Hi,

Since you're already using an SSL, you might as well apply it to the whole site. Here's a great article on all the necessary steps to take to ensure a smooth transition: https://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl

I can't speak much to your second question, but my guess would be as Google continues to focus on overall site quality, this will play a role in rankings to some degree.

Hi Danny,

Since product variants on the same detail page probably won't work for you, I think this is going to come down to how creative you can get. There are plenty of phone case manufacturers out there that all have different descriptions of their products which are essentially the same thing. Try to approach it from that angle, treat them as though they are different and start with a clean slate for every product.

You might want to have different people in your organization tackle similar products, so they're written from a different voice. When the same person writes all the descriptions, they end up using the same adjectives and thinking about the content in the same way, so it's hard to break the pattern on the 2nd, 3rd, etc. product descriptions.

Hi Gary,

Regarding SEO specifically:

The sites that you've been submitting too aren't going to move the needle much for you, if at all. You might even see some negative effects of doing so. Those sites are kind of like directories, no one submits anymore, and Google doesn't value them. So from an SEO perspective, they wouldn't be helpful even if you did get them posted.

You should look for industry-specific publications and build relationships with the owners of those sites. This gets your content in front of the right people and for the right reasons. You're also way more likely to get published on a site that's relevant to what your business does.

Take a look at the bounce rates for each page in the Landing Page report. Run this with the same date comparison so you can see if any specific pages had a jump in bounce rate.

There are a few good use-cases for subdomains; higher education sites use them frequently, and often have organizational need for it. Another instance I can think of is international websites that want to have different sites for each country in which they operate. This can help each division operate a site without having to go through HQ every time they need an update.

That being said, given the typical website, with SEO considerations, I always favor subdirectories for the simple reason of keep all domain metrics (links, authority, etc.) together, rather than splitting the metrics across subdomains.

Yep, that's the one.

Hi,

Your XML sitemap should only contain 'clean URLs'. By that I mean only 200 status URLs.

You should not have any redirects or error pages. You should also make sure you've got the preferred format; i.e. www vs. non-www and https vs. http.

It depends on how accessible they are to search engines. If you've recently updated your sitemap, and those posts are on the new one, but weren't on the old one, that could cause it. New internal/external links pointing to those pages could have helped as well.

Can you DM me a screenshot of your All Page report view?

Hi,

As long as that's not the bulk of your content, I don't see it being a problem. Thin content penalties are more common when short-form content is the majority of a site. I've mostly seen this with ecommerce sites where product detail pages make up about 95% of the page count and the product descriptions are thin or non-existent. It's hard to be viewed as authoritative or trustworthy when only 5% of your pages have a decent amount of content.

Hi Joshua,

You will need all 3 of those tags to properly markup your pagination, just not all at the same time.

Page=1 should have a canonical to the base URL (no page=X), and a rel="next" for page 2. Page 2 will have prev tag for the base level URL, and next for page 3. And so on.

Google says they don't index paginated URLs anymore, but I prefer to play it safe and implement these tags anyway.

Regarding this comment: "It's also my understanding that the search results should be noindexed as it does not provide much value as an entry point in search engines." There is some validity to this, but honestly, it's your preference. I lean on the side of preventing indexing of search results. I don't see much value in those pages being indexed, and if you're doing SEO properly, you're already providing solid entry points. Those pages will also use up a lot of your crawl budget, so that's something to consider too. Chances are, there are better sections of your site that you'd prefer bots spend their time on.

Hi Shawn,

This is happening because you've got the Full Page URL filter engaged in Google Analytics. For some reason, even when you have that filter on, GA appends your domain to the beginning of the URL. Seems to me like they should provision for that with an option to turn it off.

If you turn off this filter, your links will work. If you need to see the domains for analysis, you can do so with a secondary dimension or with an advanced segment.

Hi,

By applying 301 redirects, you will certainly lose a small amount of authority for those pages, which will in-turn affect your rankings. Whenever possible, it's best to leave URLs as they are, especially if they're driving traffic. Is there a particular reason you want to remove the numbers?

When it comes to changing URLs, I always go by this mantra: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Good to know! Thanks!

Hi,

You might want to try the Google Adwords community: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-AdWords/ct-p/Google_AdWords

We tend to lean a little more towards SEO here on Moz

Hi Lauren,

This seems to be widespread across most news sites. I've reached out to many news sites before with the same request. The only theory I've been able to come up with is that they make money on the ads that plaster most news sites (even the big ones!), so if they link out to another site, they've just lost ad revenue.

*edit

Out of continued curiosity, I decided to see if I could corroborate my theory. While I couldn't do that (but really, they'd never admit it anyway), I did come across this article that points towards 'janky CMSs'.