Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks Tyman, I just connected Google Analytics to Adwords. Once the data pulls, I will dive in and see what I can find. Thanks for the info! - Will H.

Hello Moz World,

I am running a Google Adwords campaign utilizing Google Search and Search Partners only. These are traditional text ads. When I look at the analytics through Google Adwords, I am seeing 60 clicks. Great! However, when I look through the keywords in the ad groups, none of my keywords are registering clicks. I also checked search terms under the keyword tab, and no keywords are populating. Where are my ads being clicked, and how can I view information on these clicks. This is a relatively new campaign, and I am still trying to figure out if I am targeting the right keywords.

Thanks ahead of time for all the great responses!

B/R

Will H.

I use JSON-LD and have had no issues since implementing it. It's easier and is a

Great Advice Yossi & Chris. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I will have to dig into the Google Guidelines for additional information, but both of your points are valid. I think I was looking at robots.txt the wrong way. Thanks Again Guys!

Hola AliMac!

Personally, I am all about adding your brand to the end of your title tag if your brand is not already associated with your product/services. However, if you are already ranking well for your brand i.e. You show up first for branded searches like Pepsi .com showing up when Pepsi Cola is searched, then I don't think it's necessary to have your brand in all of the titles on each page. Just include it in your about page or something to that effect.

With regards to abbreviating your business's name, Unless your business is commonly referred to as the abbreviated version of your name, I wouldn't include it in the Title. Also, if you have a long business name, I think it's more enticing to write a compelling title that includes keywords than it is to include your brand name.

How does this affect SEO? It really doesn't. There is no bias for branded titles. See this blog post by Rand on Search Engine Land.

I hope this helps!

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Will

Hello Moz World!

I have been reading up on robots.txt files, and I understand the basics. I am looking for a deeper understanding on when to deploy particular tags, and when a page should be disallowed because it will affect SEO. I have been working with a software company who has a News & Events page which I don't think should be indexed. It changes every week, and is only relevant to potential customers who want to book a demo or attend an event, not so much search engines. My initial thinking was that I should use noindex/follow tag on that page. So, the pages would not be indexed, but all the links will be crawled.

I decided to look at some of our competitors robots.txt files. Smartbear (https://smartbear.com/robots.txt), b2wsoftware (http://www.b2wsoftware.com/robots.txt) & labtech (http://www.labtechsoftware.com/robots.txt).

I am still confused on what type of tags I should use, and how to gauge which set of tags is best for certain pages. I figured a static page is pretty much always good to index and follow, as long as it's public. And, I should always include a sitemap file. But, What about a dynamic page? What about pages that are out of date? Will this help with soft 404s?

This is a long one, but I appreciate all of the expert insight. Thanks ahead of time for all of the awesome responses.

Best Regards,

Will H.

Thanks Martijn. That makes a lot of sense. I'm working with small websites, but hopefully I will be moving on to bigger fish

Thank you for the awesome response and taking the time to write this all out. It was very helpful!

Hello Moz World,

So, I trying to wrap my head around all of the different robots.txt. I decided to dive into a site like Twitter, and look at their robot text. And now, I'm super confused. What are they telling the search engines with /hasttag/*src=.  Why don't they just use:

Useragent: *

Disallow:

But, they address each search engine. Is there any benefit to this?

Thanks for all of the awesome responses!!!

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Will H.

Hello Moz World!

I have a client that has an events page that they update every week. They conduct weekly demos with current customers and potential customers for their software. They post dates, times and topics for each demo. I'd like to enable event rich snippets for their website (see attached image for an example), but I am unsure exactly how to do that. A) Do I just need to setup Event Schema Tags? Does it need to be updated manually every week? Is their a software solution?

Thanks ahead of time for all the great responses!

Cheers

Will H.

8Wsh3l8

Hello Luciana,

The frequency at which your website gets indexed is based on several factors; whether the website is crawlable, the site structure (how many page links), how often you update the website and the popularity of the website. Your website could be indexed every 4 days to every 4 weeks. In my meta tags I request my website to be crawled every 30 days.  I use this tag in my Head;  <meta name="revisit-after" content="1 month">. Doesn't actually mean Google is going to crawl my website. It is just a recommendation based on the assumption that my website has data that is updated every month. If Google Bot comes to my website for a few months and notices no changes, it will begin to crawl my website less frequently.

Here is a link to a blog article by Kissmetric that gives you some tips on how to entice Google Bot into crawling your website. Great read and I recommend following the advice inside. I hope you find this helpful.

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Will H.

Thanks Kevin & Don! Your insights are very helpful. I was asking myself how much traffic would some of these "off the beaten path" directories generate, even if they had a high page rank, and if the effort was worth the reward. I think I will just list them on DMOZ and any niche specific directory my clients recommend. Thanks Again!

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Will H.

Hello Moz World,

I wanted to get some perspective on this. How many directories are too many directories to list a website. And what is a good Page Rank for submission.

Thanks ahead of time for all of the awesome responses.

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Will H.

Hello Moz World,

I am stuck on a problem, and wanted to get some insight. When I attempt to use Screaming Spider or SEO Powersuite, the software is only crawling the homepage of my website. I have 17 pages associated with the main domain i.e. example.com/home, example.com/sevices, etc. I've done a bit of investigating, and I have found that my client's website does not have Robot.txt file or a site map. However, under Google Search Console, all of my client's website pages have been indexed.

My questions, Why is my software not crawling all of the pages associated with the website? If I integrate a Robot.txt file & sitemap will that resolve the issue?

Thanks ahead of time for all of the great responses.

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Will H.

Hello Pure Visibility,

Unfortunately, I am unaware of any solution that updates directory information across multiple channels unless you are utilizing a system like Yext or Moz Local. I had to do this recently with a service based client who upgraded to a new location. He has been in business since the 1960's and was listed in every directory known to man. Not a fun undertaking. I used this procedure from Moz to locate all of the listings and update them manually. I hope this helps, and let me know if you find an automated solution. Good Luck

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Will H.

Hello Logan,

Thank you for the response. The URI Valet Tool was helpful. I found my error. In all instances except for one I had; www.mywebsite.com/My-Awesome-Services.html and one instance of www.mywebsite.com/my-awesome-services.html.

I did not realize how important consistency is when it comes to capitalization in a website's URL, Lesson learned. Thanks Again Logan!

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Will H.

Hello Moz World!

I am receiving a 404 error on one of my webpages. When I directly input the URL into my search bar I receive a 404 error. However, when I am on my website and link over to the broken webpage from my website I do not receive an error. The page will show up with no issues, and the address in the URL is the address that is receiving the 404 error. i.e. www.mywebsite.com/services

Does anyone know how i should go about troubleshooting this issue? Any suggestions on how I can resolve this? To me, I would think that if the link is not broken when being directed from the website, it shouldn't be broken when entering the url directly into the search bar. Right?

Any info/advice is appreciated.

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Will

Hello Dmitrli,

This does make sense. Just wasn't sure if you could "over optimize" for the Schema. Thank You for your response.

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Will

Happy Monday Moz World!

I am just wondering what are some best practices when using Schema.org Tags. For Example, I have a client who provides multiple services and provides unique content on each webpage. The design of each of the webpagesare unique, and conveys information differently.

My question is: If each page of a company's website has unique content that describes a service or product, could I essentially change the url & description of the Schema Tag so that each of my pages are indexable by relationship to that page's content?

Thanks ahead of time for the great responses!

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Will

Here you go Kristen, https://www.jamesdflynn.com/development/json-ld-markup-generator/. Enjoy!

Hello Peter,

I ended up using JSON-LD, I found someone having the same issues on a Webmaster Forum and another member referred him to a JSON-LD Markup Generator for Schema.org. I threw the code into my header, and checked it with Google Structured Data Tester. Everything Checked out! Thank You for your time and input.

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Will

Hello Gyorgy,

I was going to use Google Tag Manager as a last resort. I know Google supports a majority of searches through search engines, but I wanted all of the search engines to be able to read the Schema Data. I ended up creating a script using JSON-LD. Much easier, I used this generator. Thank you for your input!

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Will

Very Helpful! Thank you for your input Kristen.

Hello Moz World,

I would like to incorporate Schema Data onto my website. My website has Meta tags in the of the document, which incorporates our keywords. And, in the footer, I have my businesses address, logo and other relevant information. Everything flows because it is stylized using CSS. When I input the schema.org data it appears on the website as text w/ a hyperlink. See Code:

My Company
DESCRIPTION.

STREET
CITY
STATE
ZIP
United States
Phone: NUMBER

I've tried to put it inside the head, body & footer of the HTML code. I want my website to show up properly through Google Structured Data Testing Tool however, I don't want the text to show up on my website not stylized. It sticks out like a soar thumb no matter where I incorporate it. My questions are; Should I even bother with Schema.org? And, is there a way to incorporate it into my website so it does not show up and Google can still pull it up?

Thanks ahead of time for all of the awesome responses!

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Will H.

You should be good Steve, That's a minor issue.

b/r

Will

Hello Miriam,

Thanks for the feedback and references. I will definitely follow up and let you guys know how my implementation went.

b/R

Will

Thanks for the response, Russ.

Hello Steve,

The address formatting of your citations does not need to be 100% consistent everywhere. Let me say that it is SUPER important that you are consistent with your citations, but you do not need to worry about minor discrepancies like Street and St or in this case Ave, Saint. Google will normalize the addresses it finds around the web to a standard version before trying to associate it with your business in the local cluster. Here is a link that can explain this phenomenon way better than I ever could; Google Normalize NAP Data. Also, here is a tool that will help you identify what kind of discrepancies with you are having normalizing to your correct address: Address Validation Tool.

I hope this helps!

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Will

Hello Moz World,

I was researching different ways to expand a client's SEO beyond his brick and mortar location. I listen to a webinar by Brightlocal on tactics I could use to help improve rankings. (Great Webinar, nothing really relevant till after the 30 minute mark). One of the host recommended an app called Nearby Now which will help a local service provider rank in multiple towns by allowing clients to provide a testimonial in realtime in the city that the service was provided and link it back to the website. I sat down with a customer service rep, and it sounds like its a great low cost solution for service providers to rank outside of their brick and mortar location. My question, Has anyone used it? Have you had a good experience? Can anyone recommend a better app?

As always, thank you for your feedback and time.

Best Regards,

Will H.

Hello Bryan,

Thank you for your response and tips on creating good local content. I have to do some research on how doing this effectively, but I'd like to follow good ethics. I'm glad that a forum like this exist, I don't know where else I would get advice. Thanks Again

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Will

Hello Miriam,

WOW & Thank You! I want to be a high road business; I've been researching this all day trying to figure out how to 1) tell my client, we need to shut down the false addresses, and 2) formulate a game plan on how to drive traffic organically for surrounding cities. Tough task but, I am up for it.

Your response is insightful, and I know what I need to do. Thanks Again!

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Will

Hello Moz World,

I have a client that has three brick and mortar locations. After placing all three locations into Google Places, I discovered that 2 of his 3 locations are not brick and mortar stores. They are actually his house, and his Mother's house. He is a plumber, and services most of the state. My question is, as a professional SEO consultant who wants to do the right thing, what should I recommend he do? How long before Google catches him, and what will actually happen? Should I advise him to play the system till he gets caught? And Lastly, does anyone have any recommendations on how to rank a single website for multiple cities within the state?

Loaded Questions, Thanks ahead of time for all of the responses!

B/R

Will H.

Hello Martjn,

We are using Castle.js and the Meteor platform. How can I ensure future pages are not created using the 302, is this when I would ref=canonical pages? Thanks for your quick response.

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Will

Hello Moz World,

I have a client that has a TON, like close to a thousand pages that have a 302 redirect set up. After further investigation, I found that every month they update their events page & Demo Request page, and the old events pages still exist but, get a 302 redirect to the updated page. From what I gather, this is a default mechanism set up by the hosting provider.

My questions; is this an example of when to use a Rel=canonical? Also, is there a method for integrating this without having to go into every page and integrate the code snippet? And Lastly, How should I go about ensuring this doesn't happen in the future?

Thanks ahead of time, you guys rock!

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Will H.

Hello Juan,

This is bad. Although you are getting link juice from this source, it's still plagiarism. You need to contact Google or notify the violators to take down that page. My recommendation is to collect evidence using screen shots, document or files. Reach out to them, and let them know that they are in violation of copyright infringement. If they ignore your request, file a DMCA Complaint with Google. Here is a link from Kissmetrics that will guide you in filing a DMCA Complaint. Also, some additional info on safeguarding your content. I hope this helps!

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Will

Hello Dirk,

Thanks again for all of your help. So, I ended up not having the redirect setup correctly (I'm a noob!). For whatever reason, I could not setup the redirect using the redirect icon through the panel. I ended up accessing the .htaccess file (which was tough to find because it was hidden!). and I added this code.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.YourDomain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://YourDomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

All of my redirects are now redirecting from www. To non-www.

I'll have to wait for my next crawl to verify that the duplicate content has cleared, however, the redirect is indicating on httpstatus.io.

Thanks for your assistance Dirk!

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Will

Thanks Dirk!

I did set up the redirect about a week ago. I set it up on Monday or Tuesday. I checked the status using the tool recommend (Thanks for the link), and it indicates that no redirects are set up. I'll give it till Wednesday and retry it. I'm fairly confident the redirect was set up correctly.

Hello Moz Community!

I am new to SEO, Moz and this is my first question.

My questions; I have a client that is getting flagged for Duplicate Content. He is getting flagged for having two domains that have the same content i.e. www.mysite.com & mysite.com.

I read into this and set up a 301 redirect through my hosting site. I evaluated which site had a stronger Page Authority and had the weaker site redirect to the stronger site. However, I am still getting hit for Duplicate pages caused by the www.mysite.com  &  mysite.com being duplicates. How should I go about resolving this? Is this an example of a Canonical tag needed in the head of the HTML?

Any direction is appreciated. Thank You.

B/R

Will H.