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Thanks so much for sharing this Miriam! It's good to know something is happening seemingly across the board, even if there is no solution.

Appreciate the response!

Thanks for the reply Miriam. I read this article the other day before I posted in here actually

Unfortunately, this seems to be quite consistent. I've seen results like these for months on some of my accounts.

Hello All,

Has anyone come across the following message "Not enough data for selected time period" when they choose a time frame in Google My Business (GMB) for one week. It seems to be consistent with  "Customer Actions" and "Where Customers View Your Business on Google sections.

I'm confused because I am pulling in a minimum of 500 searches a week according to the "How customers search for your business" section. I can scroll over top of each day in these areas and manually write down the results, but what's the point of offering a 'one week" insight if it won't calculate for you.

If anyone has had the same issue or knows what's going on, please let me know. Thanks!

Yes, I tried the old Search Console option before I posted in here but sadly, it just redirects you back to the new version. However, I didn't even think about the redirect opportunity and considering the website is built on Wordpress, that should be easy enough to set up.

Thanks so much!

Hi There,

Thanks so much for your reply. The trick with this is that the page that is showing as a sitelink is not even part any of the website's sitemaps. We just rebuilt the website for the client about 3 months ago - went from static website to Wordpress and for some unknown reason - Google is remembering a .php link from the old website somehow, but it is nowhere in our FTP, so if you click on it - it provides a 404 error.

The other disadvantage is that the old website was never SEO'ed or had proper page titles so users are confusing that sitelink as the new website link and it goes to a 404 page and people think the website isn't working.

Have I explained a bit better? Does that change your suggestion? Thanks!

Does anyone have any recommendations on how you can tell Google (hopefully via a URL) not to index that page of a website? I have tried through SEO Yoast to hide certain sitemaps (which has worked to a degree) but certain functionalities of Wordpress websites show links without them actually being part of a "sitemap" so those links are harder to hide.

I'm having an issue with one of my websites - the sitelinks that Google is suggesting are nowhere near the most popular pages and I know that you can't make recommendations through Google not to show certain pages through Search Console. anymore.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Brick and mortar - I have a patio furniture store.

I actually ended up finding a link for Google Customer Service and got on a support call with a rep to review my situation. There was quite a bit of back and forth and proof required to show why I wanted "temporarily closed" vs. Closed and I needed to provide a 're-opening date' to achieve this. But I was able to achieve it.

The other thing to mention is that there are two ways you can be found on Google for Business listings:  1) via Google Maps Search (google.com/maps) and 2) Google Search.

For the Google Maps Search it is not possible (I confirmed with a Google specialist) to temporarily close a location via the Maps. Google Maps requires you to be open or closed.

For Google Search, once the seasonal location is ready to re-open you have to contact them again to have "Temporarily Closed" removed from your listing.

Hope this helps.

Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions about how to go about getting some approximate costs for keywords through Google Adwords to assist my SEO efforts. I don't want to open an AdWords account, just looking for costs. If the pricing is too high then the opened account was a waste of time. So if anyone has any resources to find out this information, that would be great! Thanks in advance!

Thank you so much for the suggestion. The info you tried above was the first way I tried to mark as temporarily closed but as soon as I tried to close all the "regular" hours I got an "invalid or missing data error". Do you know if this only works if there are special hours set (i.e. for holidays?)

Hi there,

Not sure if anyone will have any insight but I have a seasonal business that I am closed for from September to March. I don't want to mark my business as  "permanently closed" through Google My Business as I don't want my customers to think I've gone out of business. I've seen a few times through forums that you can change your business to temporarily closed, but I can't find the specifics on how to do this. Any insight, suggestion or resources would be great!

Thanks!

Hey Moz Community,

I've been reading some articles that Facebook no longer likes if Business Pages run contests on their Pages. I was thinking about doing something super simple with a "Like, Comment, and Share" type of an entry. Does anyone know if this is still allowed - I can't seem to find a concrete answer. Even the guidelines for Facebook seem a bit vague. I could always take the contest offline and use a landing page on my website to generate traffic but that also doesn't help with my social following.

Thoughts, insights all welcome.

Thanks!

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure many of you received the email from Google over the past few days with the subject line: [Action Required] Important updates on Google Analytics Data Retention and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

I hope I'm not alone in not knowing what exactly this whole notification was in regards to. I realize it's for Data but are we no longer able to pull stats from the past? If anyone has a "dumbed down" explanation for what this update entails, I would be very interested - I don't want to miss out on any important updates and info, but I'm just not grasping this content.  Below is the full email in its entirety for those who are interested as well:

Dear Google Analytics Administrator,
Over the past year we've shared how we are preparing to meet the requirements of the GDPR, the new data protection law coming into force on May 25, 2018. Today we are sharing more about important product changes that may impact your Google Analytics data, and other updates in preparation for the GDPR. This e-mail requires your attention and action even if your users are not based in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Product Updates
Today we introduced granular data retention controls that allow you to manage how long your user and event data is held on our servers. Starting May 25, 2018, user and event data will be retained according to these settings; Google Analytics will automatically delete user and event data that is older than the retention period you select. Note that these settings will not affect reports based on aggregated data.
Action: Please review these data retention settings and modify as needed.
Before May 25, we will also introduce a new user deletion tool that allows you to manage the deletion of all data associated with an individual user (e.g. site visitor) from your Google Analytics and/or Analytics 360 properties. This new automated tool will work based on any of the common identifiers sent to Analytics Client ID (i.e. standard Google Analytics first party cookie), User ID (if enabled), or App Instance ID (if using Google Analytics for Firebase). Details will be available on our Developers site shortly.
As always, we remain committed to providing ways to safeguard your data. Google Analytics and Analytics 360 will continue to offer a number of other features and policies around data collection, use, and retention to assist you in safeguarding your data. For example, features for customizable cookie settings, privacy controls, data sharing settings, data deletion on account termination, and IP anonymization may prove useful as you evaluate the impact of the GDPR for your company’s unique situation and Analytics implementation.
Contract And User Consent Related Updates
Contract changes
Google has been rolling out updates to our contractual terms for many products since last August, reflecting Google’s status as either data processor or data controller under the new law (see full classification of our Ads products). The new GDPR terms will supplement your current contract with Google and will come into force on May 25, 2018.
In both Google Analytics and Analytics 360, Google operates as a processor of personal data that is handled in the service.
• For Google Analytics clients based outside the EEA and all Analytics 360 customers, updated data processing terms are available for your review/acceptance in your accounts (Admin ➝ Account Settings).
• For Google Analytics clients based in the EEA, updated data processing terms have already been included in your terms.
• If you don’t contract with Google for your use of our measurement products, you should seek advice from the parties with whom you contract.
Updated EU User Consent Policy
Per our advertising features policy, both Google Analytics and Analytics 360 customers using advertising features must comply with Google’s EU User Consent Policy. Google's EU User Consent Policy is being updated to reflect new legal requirements of the GDPR. It sets out your responsibilities for making disclosures to, and obtaining consent from, end users of your sites and apps in the EEA.
Action: Even if you are not based in the EEA, please consider together with your legal department or advisors, whether your business will be in scope of the GDPR when using Google Analytics and Analytics 360 and review/accept the updated data processing terms as well as define your path for compliance with the EU User Consent Policy.
Find Out More
You can refer to privacy.google.com/businesses to learn more about Google’s data privacy policies and approach, as well as view our data processing terms.
We will continue to share further information on our plans in the coming weeks and will update relevant developer and help center documentation where necessary.
Thanks,
The Google Analytics Team

Hi Emily,

Thanks for the reply. Basically, we went from being a garden centre to expanding into other areas. Like clothing and home decor. Because the garden market in my city is not like it used to be, we knew we needed to change our product offerings to keep thriving. So while, we still sell flowers and potted plants, we know it's not our "money maker" and not where we want to focus our SEO efforts.

Looking for some advice

I have a domain that has been registered since 1999 and currently hosts my website - the problem is that my business has moved in a different direction and my URL is no longer associated with my main product offering. For example in the past I was xyzgarden.com however now something like xyzhomedecor.com is much more appropriate.

How should I handle this so that I am not at a disadvantage for SEO.

thanks!

Matt Dunlop

• 4 minutes ago
• Edit

Thank you so much for the reply!

I've been working on tracking, analyzing and optimizing this particular website for about a year now. I've optimized my homepage for the best and most specific keyword I can and I've got a 94% optimization score on the page (I can't put the keyword in the URL as it's the homepage). I've added in my competitors into OSE and reviewed their backlinks and besides some local advertising backlinks they have received, my Moz stats are much better than the competition. There is one competitor in particular that is mult-national company and I know that as a small business I don't stand a change in ranking higher than them, however, the other top competitor I have in my local market - does not optimize and still ranks higher than my site. One of the largest frustrations I have with this particular competitor is that the page that results higher than mine has little to no content on it and in other searches (because we are in the same industry) - their homepage will rank higher than my optimized interior pages. We use facebook and link back to our service pages which contain our keywords as often as possible and my crawl from Moz shows 1 missing meta description tag (on a category) and that's it.

I did read up on the Moz Blog today and it seems like everything is on-track but there's no progress. I should also mention that the website is built on Wordpress and as far as I know from the stats I am pulling from Moz - I've covered my bases.

I'm not sure what other specifics I can offer that might assist me with this challenge.

I guess at this point - maybe a second set of eyes on an audit (outside of Moz - because I look at that all the time) is what I need????

If you have any recommendations on a comprehensive site audit, I'd be very interested.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to this.

Thank you so much for the reply!

I've been working on tracking, analyzing and optimizing this particular website for about a year now. I've optimized my homepage for the best and most specific keyword I can and I've got a 94% optimization score on the page (I can't put the keyword in the URL as it's the homepage). I've added in my competitors into OSE and reviewed their backlinks and besides some local advertising backlinks they have received, my Moz stats are much better than the competition. There is one competitor in particular that is mult-national company and I know that as a small business I don't stand a change in ranking higher than them, however, the other top competitor I have in my local market - does not optimize and still ranks higher than my site. One of the largest frustrations I have with this particular competitor is that the page that results higher than mine has little to no content on it and in other searches (because we are in the same industry) - their homepage will rank higher than my optimized interior pages. We use facebook and link back to our service pages which contain our keywords as often as possible and my crawl from Moz shows 1 missing meta description tag (on a category) and that's it.

I did read up on the Moz Blog today and it seems like everything is on-track but there's no progress. I should also mention that the website is built on Wordpress and as far as I know from the stats I am pulling from Moz - I've covered my bases.

I'm not sure what other specifics I can offer that might assist me with this challenge.

I guess at this point - maybe a second set of eyes on an audit (outside of Moz - because I look at that all the time) is what I need????

If you have any recommendations on a comprehensive site audit, I'd be very interested.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to this.

Hi There,

I am currently struggling with the ranking of my website. No matter how many initiatives I try (backlinking, blog commenting, social posting, etc.) I can't seem to make any progression in Google Search. I've done competitive metrics through Open Site Explorer and can't seem to really find the reason why my site is not ranking as well as my competitors. The only one possible glaring element I've thought about is my website URL. This company is in the heating and cooling industry and majority of my competitors have either "heating" or "cooling" or both in their website URL's but mine does not.

Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations on if changing my URL and then redirecting my current URL would be a step in the right direction help me to climb the rankings in Google Search?

Thanks!

This is amazing and EXACTLY what we need! Thank you so much! I will look into it right away!

One of my clients came to me today asking to mirror their current website and host it on a different domain (i.e domain.com and domain.ca). Their reasoning is that there is no actual way to confirm via form entries from their website which visitors are submitting the form from an organic perspective and which ones are submitting the form through an Adwords ad campaign referral they are running (which I have nothing to do with). I know Google Analytics will show you visits to pages on a site and then you can find out which source (organic vs. cpc) they came from, but it won't confirm the source on the actual form entry. So my client feels the only way to find out this information would be to mirror the website so that the separate analytics would validate  their Ad spend.

Does anyone know of any tools that I could use for something like this? I do NOT want to mirror the website as I am fearful of duplicate content and the YEARS of organic SEO work I have put into this website going to waste.

The other element I should mention is the client only wants to have this "mirorred" site up for 2 months.

Any thoughts, suggestions and arguments for a mirorred website are welcomed!

Thanks!

Wondering if there are any webinars or websites available to help me better understand and break down the different categories and what they specifically mean when you run a website through the Compare Metrics in Moz?

Hi There,

Wondering if anyone has any other tools they would recommend using for finding out keyword traffic on websites. Currently (and I'm sure like most), my website is connected to Google Analytics and Google Search Console. My biggest frustration becomes the "(not set)" variable that appears when I go to review the keywords section. It's always such a large number and I have no way of finding out what people might be typing in and coming across my website. Of course, I understand the privacy factor as to why Google must do this but it's certainly difficult to analyze what's working and what's not.

Any tips, tricks or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Lindsay

I currently have a Wordpress platform website and previously I noticed that when I optimized my pages, if I indicated what I wanted my page names to be (through an application like SEO Yoast) that most times, the keyword would show up exactly how I had it typed in. Recently I have noticed that the title of my website is showing in my page titles too. So for example:

Before: Shoe Stores Windsor - XYZ Company

Now: XYZ Company | Shoe Stores Windsor - XYZ Company

In SEO practices, I know it's most often best to have the keyword you would like as close to the front of your title tag, but now this recent search adds my website title first. Plus this also seems to be making my titles longer.

I know Google ultimately has the 'final say' in a page title and I have ensured that I have the "rewrite titles/descriptions option" check in Wordpress to allow me to overwrite titles, but I am hoping someone can possibly provide me with a tip or trick to avoid this in search rankings. I think it's important to have the name of my site entered through Wordpress so that any pages that I have no optimized default to the page name and site name, but the ones I have optimized seem to be showing differently all of a sudden.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Hi There,

I am currently working on this site: completesteamclean.ca to rank as high as possible for "carpet cleaning windsor" on Google.ca and I can't seem to make any head way against the other websites ranking. I've optimized the page, created social media accounts for activity, even invested in Google Adwords and Facebook ads to try to boost my presence. Does anyone have any suggestions on any tactics/revisions I can make that may help boost my site?

Hello,

I am working on the following website: completesteamclean.ca and I have reached a plateau on how to increase my ranking to defeat my  two top competitors. When I run competitive link metrics it would appear that where I seem to be lacking is in external links and linking root domains. Does anyone have any tips on how I can build these areas of the website?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

I've been working on the following website (www.pleasantparkkennels.com) for about 2 years now for SEO and been able to place the site for many keywords. At times some competitors seem to come into the mix and 'just get lucky' in their rankings regardless of all the work I've done ... it seems they've implemented no SEO strategies whatsoever and yet them sometimes rank better.

Upon comparing link metrics with these competitors, I seem to be doing well in most criteria but Moz Rank and Moz Trust always seems to be a category I fall short in.
Does anyone have any resources / tips and tricks / checklists that I might be able review to assess my website for to see how I make it better.

I'm running out of ideas

Thank you!

I can't seem to get Google to read the title of my homepage the way I would like it to be read and I have double checked in all areas of my Wordpress Platform where the title may be defaulting and all it set up correctly. I have also ensured that the "force re-write of titles and meta descriptions" have been checked through a plugin I am using to monitor SEO (Yoast)... here is an example of how Google is reading my homepage title:

XYZ Company: Primary Keyword in Ontario Canada - XYZ Company

I would like it to read:

Primary Keyword in Ontario Canada - XYZ Company

But for some reason it keeps pulling in my website title.

I have always re-submitted my URL to Google but no luck with the title change.

If anyone has any insight as to why this is defaulting as such I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Thanks for your reply Patrick,

Each location has it's own individual page (and all URL's are unique), but all locations share the quote forms through parameters. Each quote page already has canonical implemented and I've reviewed URL parameters through WMT and it says it isn't experiencing problems with coverage of the site. The only way I found out about the duplicate title tag issue was through Moz's crawl.

For example:

The main quote page is www.site.com/online-auto-quote
And a variable found would be: www.site.com/online-auto-quote/?location=London

Moz Crawl is telling me I have a duplicate page title - the URL's look good.

It's the same quote but because the user has indicated they want an auto quote for London when the form is submitted it will send to the appropriate office.

I currently have an insurance website that has over 40 offices in Ontario. The site also provides online quoting.
In some of our programming, we have implemented variables in the URLS that will allow the quotes to go to the specific city offices - the issue I am having is that the quote in itself is the same quote form (same title, same meta) because it's technically one page on the website. We did it this way to avoid having to update 40 forms if a field on the form were to change. Is there any way I can relieve my site of this duplicate title tag/meta tag issue?

Any insight would be really appreciated - thanks so much!