Hi all. Should you use rel sponsored on internal links? Here is the scenario: a company accepts money from one of their partners to place a prominent link on their home page. That link goes to an internal page on the company's website that contains information about that partner's service. If this was an external link that the partner was paying for, then you would obviously use rel="sponsored" but since this is a link that goes from awebsite.com to awebsite.com/some-page/, it seems odd to qualify that link in this way. Does this change if the link contains a "sponsored" label in the text (not in the rel qualifier)? Does this change if this link looks more like an ad (i.e. a banner image) vs. regular text (i.e. a link in a paragraph)? Thanks for any and all guidance or examples you can share!

@lewald1 Hey. A few questions for you...

Does the other page on your website canonical to the page Google is saying is a duplicate? If there is a canonical in place, that may explain why you aren't seeing the duplicate page in the links report. Google groups those by the canonical URL. If that is the case, though, you should see backlinks pointing to the duplicate page under the other page in the links report.

As well, how well is the other page on the site performing? Is it performing better than you'd expect based on that page's specific backlinks? If so, that might be a sign that Google is already collapsing the page they've said is a duplicate into that other page. If that is what is happening, the redirect wouldn't be a problem to add but you may not see much impact by adding that redirect.

As for the redirect, I think that could make sense to add it and generally, redirects are the best solution for duplication. A redirect is a stronger signal than the canonical and, in this case, the redirect would reinforce the signals Google is already seeing about the duplication. Of course, is there any reason you can't redirect this page into the one Google has selected as the canonical? Do you need that page for something else on your site (like as a landing page for ads)? If not, then adding the redirect would be a good way to resolve the duplication.

I hope that helps!

@jerrico1 Only including some pages in the sitemap won't hurt your SEO performance at all. I've done this on a number of sites for exactly the same reasons you are facing.

The XML sitemap simply gives Google one more way to find your pages. Ideally, you could use it to give Google a way to find all of your pages but you want to at least use it for the pages you want to be sure Google finds. However, there is no penalty if the page isn't in the sitemap.

That said - you may want to check if you need the XML sitemap at all as a point of discovery. If you have lots of links (internal or external) to the pages on your website, then odds are good that Google is already finding those pages. The XML sitemap wouldn't hurt to have but if there already links to these pages, you likely don't have a big problem to solve here.

The best way to check this is within your log file - pull a unique list of all the URLs that Google has crawled over the last few weeks. You may not be able to open up your log files (sometimes you can't easily on large sites and you aren't using an enterprise log analyzer). If that is the case, then you could check to see how many of your pages are Google organic landing pages in your analytics tool--if the page is getting traffic from Google, then Google clearly found the page.

Hope that helps!

Hi. I have a client who is about to deploy ads on their site. To avoid bots clicking on those ads and skewing data, the company would like to prevent any bots from seeing any ads and, of course, that includes Googlebot. This seems like it could be cloaking and I'd rather not have a different version of the sites for bots. However, knowing that this will likely happen, I'm wondering how big of a problem it could be if they do this. This change isn't done to manipulate Googlebot's understanding of the page (ads don't affect rankings, etc.) and it will only be a very minimal impact on the page overall.

So, if they go down this road and hide ads from bots, I'm trying to determine how big of a risk this could be. I found some old articles discussing this with some suggesting it was a problem and others saying it might be okay in some cases (links below). But I couldn't find any recent articles about this. Wondering if anybody has seen anything new or has a new perspective to share on this issue? Is it a problem if all bots (including Googlebot) are unable to see ads?

https://moz.com/blog/white-hat-cloaking-it-exists-its-permitted-its-useful
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4535445.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBO-1ETf_dY

Thanks for the reply! Yep, it is the same company (though each country's website is managed by a different group). Good idea on just doing the home page for the brand terms. Could maybe extend that logic for top-level pages too - target similar topics even if the content is a bit different per site.

Hi. I have a client with international websites targeting several different countries. Currently, the US (.com) website outranks the country-specific domain when conducting a search within that country (i.e. US outranks the UK website in the UK). This sounds like a classic case for hrelang. However, the websites are largely not 1:1. They offer different content with a different design and a different URL structure. Each country is on a country-specific domain (.com, .co.uk, .com.au, etc.). As well, the country-specific domains have lower domain authority than the US/.com website - fewer links, lower quality content, poorer UX, etc.

Would hreflang still help in this scenario if we were to map it the closest possible matching page? Do the websites not sharing content 1:1 add any risks? The client is worried the US/.com website will lose ranking in the country but the country-specific domain won't gain that ranking.

Thanks for any help or examples you can offer!

Hi Judd. You wouldn't need the title or description tags for Google's sake (or Bing's sake) on pages behind a login since they couldn't crawl those pages. That said, title tags aren't just used by search engines. That is also the title that shows for the page in the browser window and in the bookmark name (if people bookmark those pages), so it can be worthwhile to add a good title tag to help your visitors. Obviously, beyond the meta description tag, there are other meta tags that you might need (like meta viewport or metra reresh, etc.).

Hi. If you are getting duplicate content warnings between the Mandarin version of your website and a website in a different language, the first thing I'd suggest looking into is to see if your code correctly uses the alternate/hreflang attributes to specify the different versions of the pages in different languages. This tag is intended for sites that have translated content from one language to another and gives you a way to tell Google that the Mandarin version of the page is at this URL, the Spanish version is this URL, the English site is at this other URL, and so on.

In terms of title, descriptions, and all other content, you do want to make that specific to the language of the page. So, your Mandarin website would have titles, descriptions, etc. written in Mandarin and your English website would have titles, descriptions, etc. in English, and so on. After all, your Mandarin website is intended for people speaking (and searching in) Mandarin so using that language throughout will increase your chances of ranking for that audience.

Hey. I agree with what Martijn said that generally, you want to request links from more active sites. Those sites tend to have better overall quality, search performance, and a more active audience. The one thing I'll add is that sometimes you can find blogs that have great evergreen content (good rankings, good links, seem to have decent traffic, etc.) even though they don't have a lot of recent content. In these cases, a link to a relevant page on your site could enhance that evergreen content and sometimes site runners are willing to update old articles (even if they aren't adding anything new). For example, maybe an old blog post on a currently inactive site has a great recap of the best ways to do X (where X is a subject that hasn't changed much in years). You have a page that offers another way to do X or is somehow tightly connected, so including it in that older blog post could be of use to the people who find that old article.

We are working with a client who has one irrelevant, off-topic post ranking incredibly well and driving a lot of traffic. However, none of the other pages on the site, that are relevant to this client's business, are ranking. Links are good and in-line with competitors for the various terms. Oddly, very few external links reference this off-topic post, most are to the home page. Local profile is also in-line with competitors, including reviews, categorization, geo-targeting, pictures, etc. No spam issues exist and no warnings in Google Search Console. The only thing that seems weird is this off-topic post but that could affect rankings on other pages of the site? Would removing that off-topic post potentially help increase traffic and rankings for the other more relevant pages of the site? Appreciate any and all help or ideas of where to go from here. Thanks!

It does need to be in the head tag. I was in a similar situation on another site where the rel next/prev was put in the . We saw no results from it (in terms of pages indexed) but as soon as those were moved back to the , life was good.

If you need documentation proof for your change request (which I was asked for!), these might help:

Google's blog post about this says "rel=”next” and rel=”prev” only need to be declared within the  section, not within the document ."

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

At a more basic level, the tag only works in the . See the "Tips & Notes" section.

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_link.asp

It doesn't make a difference whether you choose www or non-www as the canonical version of your domain. Choose based on your own preferences or the branding.

Regardless of what you pick, you do need to pick one version and have the other version redirect with a 301.

After picking your preferred version, you should set your preferred domain according in Webmaster Tools. Here is a discussion on that from Google. http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=44231

I agree with what John Cross said here - multiple domains means more work. If there is a business case to justify that increase in work, then that is an easier decision. If there isn't enough business case to justify the work, then maybe from an SEO standpoint you should keep it on the same domain to get the new content ranking more quickly.

Along with SEO considerations, though, there are a few other ways to break down this question...

First, what are the user expectations? Yes, the products are different and not highly related but are the customers different? In the Tesco example, would people who are interested in groceries also be interested in banking? Or, put another way, would people who are interested in groceries (but not in banking) be offended to see that this company also offers banking services? If the users are interconnected or are (at minimum) not put off by the variety of products, then why not have everything on one domain? That way you get the strong SEO benefit of using sub-directories. This isn't always a cheap investment though, as it requires a strong architecture to keep the directories and content types/voices distinct, but totally doable and a good solution from an SEO standpoint.

Second, I'd look at this from a brand perspective. Is this all the same company delivering these goods? Is it all Tesco or Sainsburys? If it is the same brand name, then why not have everything live on one authoritative domain name (assuming you aren't going to chase away customers by showing the breadth of products offered)? Google is an example of this - look at the wide variety of services they offer mail, analytics, drive, G+, search, etc. - it is all Google, even though they offer a wide range of products to a diverse range of customers. Now, if New Product A is a different brand and a really different thing from anything else being done by the company (in Google's case - Android), then that likely justifies a separate domain and a larger business investment (not just for SEO, but for design and other types of marketing too).

Finally, you do need to look at this technically I think. Chances are that Tesco Bank has to live on a different domain just because of security considerations. Some times the technology limitations have to dictate what we do with SEO. If those are great enough, then we may have to do the work to create two distinct domains and get those domains earning rankings/traffic. In that case, the business/technical needs justify the work required.

Hope that helps!

How much traffic do you get to those duplicated pages right now from Google/Bing? Are all of those pages indexed? Can you tell if you are losing out to the manufacturer websites? If the pages are indexed, you are getting traffic, and seem to be "beating" the manufacturer's website, I wouldn't worry too much. On sites I've worked on, I've seen duplicated pages get no traffic (or only one page gets traffic, but not all pages) or they get some traffic but the manufacturer's website ranks considerably higher. That is when you know you have a problem worth correcting. Another way to approach this would be to take a sample of ~50 products that get some traffic from search right now. Take unique pictures and write unique content for those products. Then, measure the results. Did organic traffic increase after 30, 60, 90 days? If so, you know that you've got a problem with duplicate content worth correcting. I hope that helps.

Hi zmbatt,

URL masking is not an ideal solution for SEO as it masks the URL for subsequent pages of the site which can create perceived duplicate content. Here is an article with a little bit more on that.
http://webenso.com/domain-forwarding-seo/

In your case, the ideal solution is to setup a custom domain for your Blogger.com blog. Here are the instructions on how to do that. Click "Host my blog on a URL that I already own" then click on "Yes" for the "hosted at GoDaddy" question.
http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1233381&page=ts.cs

Doing that will let you have individual URLs appear in the address bar. As for the canonical URL you were asking about, it is best practice to use them if you can. They are only essential if you have problems with duplicate content. Here is an article discussing how to set them up in Blogger.
http://www.mybloggertricks.com/2012/02/solve-problems-related-to-blogspot.html

I hope that helps. Thanks,
Matthew

You do have two h1s. Your logo is in an H1 as is the page title:

[http://www.absolutepower.nl/](<a class=)" title="Sportvoeding en Voedingssupplementen - Absolute Power" style="height:100px;">Sportvoeding en Voedingssupplementen - Absolute Power

and

class="line">Proteine Shakes

I wouldn't say it is a huge priority, but if possible I'd remove the h1 from your around your logo if you can and keep it around the page title. From a quick glance at your site and css, it doesn't look like you are depending on that h1 tag for formatting. Again though, I would place that at a much lower priority.

Sorry to hear about the drop in traffic. Like Hector said, it is really tough to know what caused the drop without more information. A few questions to clarify on this...

1. Like Andy said, are you referring to mobile organic traffic or overall organic traffic? What is the decrease in organic traffic per device (desktop, tablet, mobile)?

2. Let's go with it maybe having something to do with Google's mobile changes. Do you pass Google's mobile friendly test? I have seen a number of sites that had mobile sites, but they didn't fully pass Google's criteria. Do you see any errors listed in Google Search Console (Search Traffic -> Mobile Usability)?

3. If it isn't something with mobile, what other changes have you made to your site lately? Removed any pages? Removed any redirects? Blocked pages from Google's crawlers due to a code upgrade? Have you run a crawl test on your site - it can sometimes be the most basic of things that happened accidentally. Have you also checked for errors in Search Console?

4. Looking outside of your site, have any of your competitors made changes and/or gained rankings? Maybe the decrease in traffic doesn't have anything to do with you, just a competitor moving up quickly. I'd check the rankings report in Moz as well as the Search Analytics report in Google Search Console to see if you notice any changes.

Hope those questions give you some help in figuring out what is up.

Hi Catherine,

I'm with you on publishing my home address. Like you, my business is home-based. I opted to get a UPS store address instead of publishing my home address. However, despite my using that address for the last 11 years, this is apparently no longer acceptable practice. Same goes for PO Box addresses. (See http://www.billhartzer.com/pages/google-bans-ups-store-locations-for-google-maps-listings/ for example).

The other route some people have taken is to get a shared office space, somewhere where you do physically work (at least some of the time) and where you can receive mail. That way you can use that address instead of your home address. This can be expensive depending on what shared office spaces are available in your city. But, if getting into Google Local is important, it might be worth considering so that you have an address to use that isn't your home.

Good luck!
Matthew

Hi Jacob,

You do want to include a canonical on page 2 but you want the canonical to reference page 2. This confused me at first but the reason is that you want Google to see page 2 as something separate from page 1, but part of the same series as page 1, page 3, etc. So, for that page 2, your should have:

I look at it this way: the canonical says, page 2 is a page that Google can index but the prev/next links reminds Google that this page doesn't stand alone.

Here is more from Google. See the "A few points to mention:" section.

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

I hope that helps. Thanks,
Matthew

Hey Vanessa. I'd ask a few additional questions about the pages before making a decision...

1. If you were to implement redirects, would the redirect go from Treatment (the page) -> Treatment (the Ajax-loaded content)? Or, would it go from Treatment (the page) -> topic page (and people would have to click a link to view treatment content)? If the redirect goes from the page, to the related content of the page then maybe this isn't too terrible an idea. That would mean the Ajax-loaded page section for treatment would have some unique kind of URL associated with it (like /topic-name#treatment).

2. Next question, though, is how much traffic does this affect? Of the traffic those pages get individually right now, how much of that traffic enters the site on those pages (from any source - direct, referral, social, organic, paid)? If right now almost everybody comes into the site via an overview page and then clicks to Symptoms or Treatment, then probably okay to consolidate those into a single page. That said, if all three pages are landing pages for a reasonable amount of visitors I'd be reluctant to make this kind of change to disrupt the traffic...esp. if the answer to question #1 is no.

3. What about links? Do you have a lot of links pointing to the individual pages within each section? Yes, redirects will help retain the link equity, but with any redirect you lose some. So, if a large percent of the links to your site are to these pages, I'd be hesitant to make any kind of change without further testing/research around the weight and importance of those links.

Along with those questions, I'm also wondering why the agency thinks this would help with load time. Why can't they improve load time on the individual pages? Are they talking about the load time from clicking to the Treatment page from Symptoms? If so, there are probably better ways to address that vs. removing pages from the site. When you run a speed test, what is slowing down the page load? Is it something with the server or content that can be tweaked? I'd start there before trying to consolidate pages and running the risk of disrupting any existing traffic.

I hope that helps as you work toward a decision.