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I would absolutely recommend canonical in this case, and I'm afraid you're working on a bit of a misconception about indexed pages and the effects of duplicate content.

When a user searches Google, Google tries to serve them the most relevant, useful pages and resources based on their perceived intent. If multiple pages on your site appear to potentially fit the needs of the searcher, then Google is likely to do 1 of 2 things—rank one of the pages (potentially the wrong one), or determine that the appropriate page isn't clear and skip your site entirely. What canonical does is let Google know what you consider the appropriate result.

Having these duplicates is likely to do the opposite of what you're expecting. More pages indexed ≠ greater visibility.

Honestly, maybe both? For me, it would depend on how useful those old posts are. Are they getting traffic? Are there valuable links pointing to them? If so, it may be worth it. If not, 301 redirect them to new, relevant, optimized posts.

For what it's worth, I also wouldn't recommend "churning out" blog posts unless they add value for your visitors.

Hi bmayer09,

How's this going? Any luck with Luke's suggestion?

Hi poke1! If Gaston's replies helped, mind marking one or more as a "Good Answer?" It'll get him some bonus MozPoints, and it's helpful for us.

Otherwise, how can we be of more help?

Hi there,

While I agree with Logan that hreflang may actually be your best bet, in response to those specific questions:

• Cross-domain canonicals are not inherently problematic.

• By my understanding, at least, you're free to use rel="canonical" whenever you deem appropriate.

Hi Daniel,

It's tough to recommend someone outside of our list of recommended companies, but BuiltVisible's Guide to Baidu SEO is a great place to start learning. I've heard good things about the Webcertain blog, too.

Hi SneakerFiles! Any progress on this? We'd love an update!

Hi there,

Just wondering, what do you mean that you'll get penalized for any off-page work? If you earn quality links, I can't imagine they'd be an issue.

If you're not trying to rank, then you may not need to prioritize fixing this.

Duplicate content isn't a penalty; it's a risk. The risk is that more than one page on your site will seem appropriate in response to a particular search query and Google might 1) rank the wrong one, or 2) "decide" it's not clear and rank neither. If these aren't pages you'd expect or want to show up in search results anyway, then you can feel free simply to put together a page that'll provide the best experience for the user.

Hi Steve! I'm not positive what Google considers duplicate, but I can tell you that our tools flag pages as duplicate when ≥90% of the source code (including content) matches. It's likely that we're more sensitive to it than Google is, which is intentional.

Out of curiosity, are you trying to rank both of these pages?

Just a heads-up, everyone, there's another potential response to this thread here: https://moz.com/community/q/i-ve-lost-my-google-referral-international-traffic

Hi bmayer09!

Because this question appears to be essentially identical to another one you've posted, I'm going to lock it to further responses. Thanks for understanding.

Everyone, please add responses to this thread:

https://moz.com/community/q/i-ve-lost-my-google-referral-traffic

Hi Jake! Just checking in—were you able to work with our Support team on this issue, or are you able to share the name of the campaign you're referring to? I want to make sure you get an answer.

Hi M V,

Any updates on this, or are you able to share the site? How's it going?

Hi Cornelius!

It looks like there are some alternatives in this Quora thread:

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-sites-offering-free-video-distribution-services-similar-to-those-formerly-offered-by-TubeMogul/

Does that help at all?

Hi there,

Welcome to Q&A! Hopefully we get some more specific suggestions from the community, but have you have the chance to check out our Learn section yet? I'd especially recommend reading through the Beginner's Guide to SEO, which shouldn't take too long.

Hi Ralph,

As Gaston mentioned, it's very, very possible—probably, even—this what you're seeing is a result of this month's somewhat smaller index (161 billion vs. 92 billion URLs). I'd really recommend this Rand post on PA/DA fluctuations, along with the ones Gaston has already mentioned.

A PA/DA of 1 almost always means we don't have information on the URL in question in the index. If the sites linking to you weren't indexed, then it's likely your site wasn't, either.

It's very likely that your site will be back in the index after the next update.

That said, it's definitely neat that that allows their images to have the appearance of containing text, but that the text is actually crawlable. Maybe that would be beneficial for SEO!

You know, to be honest I've never heard of that having much to do with SEO at all. I'd assume it's cosmetic.

Hi WWWSEO! Have you done any competitive research in Keyword Explorer? The SERP analysis section might give you a sense of what's going on.

Hi holdportals! Are you able to provide any of the information Dan asked for?

The best thing you can do is consider what would be useful for your visitors. If those keywords represent the sorts of things on which visitors to your site would expect to find information, then you should certainly include that information. You definitely don't want it to feel like you've written that content just to include your keywords, though.

As for structure, put that content where it makes sense. If you're writing a page about your nursing expertise, then place it among your services offered, or as part of a section on your expertise. Does that make sense?

Apologize that I can't be more specific than that. It depends a lot on your audience and how you want them to engage with your site. Also, I can't read Greek.

Just wanted to recommend this video, too: https://moz.com/academy/keyword-research

Exactly.

Hi Joe!

To reiterate what the other folks on this thread are saying, it's very, very likely that the drop to 1 is because we didn't end up indexing your site or the sites linking to it in the last index update (which isn't the same as a bug, for what it's worth, though if your data isn't there I realize the distinction is academic). This index was rather smaller than the previous one, with 161 billion URLs after the previous update's 193 billion. You can get all the details here.

I'm extra-inclined to believe this is the case because 1) the site's previous DA was 14, which is low enough to imply that linking domains are also of generally low DA and less likely to be crawled, and 2) DA/PA of 1 almost always means we simply don't have information on the URL.

We're always working to grow the index, and I'd say there's a very good chance the site will be back in the next one. Rand has written about the affects of index changes on link metrics here.

On that point, I'd say it depends on how you and your developers prefer to work together. Definitely make sure they're familiar with mobile guidelines, at least.

I'm afraid link building really isn't something that can be outlined like that. It's about building relationships and putting together useful content that other web site owners and influencers will be interested in linking to, and there are countless ways of doing that.

The best advice I can give at this point is to read through the Beginner's Guide to Link Building and go from there.

D'oh! Forgot the link.

I'm a fan of JackThreads's content. This piece, for example, does a great job of personalizing style while presenting a solution to a common issue (WHY IS IT 90F OUTSIDE AND 60F IN THE OFFICE?).

Edit: Whoops! Meant to include the link to that piece. Their content section is here.

I have to agree that the first thing to consider (well, after fixing those broken links) is how your content ties into your conversion funnel. What compels me to stay on your site once I've found the answer I'm looking for? For example, if I'm just looking for recommendations for fans and I land on your post about them, once I've read, why wouldn't I click right back to Google?

Out of curiosity, what constitutes a conversion for you? If a visitor doesn't bounce away, what would you prefer them to do?

We'd love to hear what you find out, Dmitrii!

Yeah, I'd have to say that a 404 would be far preferable. A 301 would be ideal, but it would take some bandwidth to redirect to the next-most-relevant page whenever a deal expires.

Nice, Amir!

Totally fine, Igor. You answered the question in good faith.

I have to back Gaston on this. The tactics you're considering are EXTREMELY likely to result in penalties. Definitely start with the guides he provided.

Just seconding Chris. There's no reason to reproduce the site. You're question gets right into why, too—you wouldn't have a lot of control over which would rank. 301ing the exact match domain to the branded one is what I'd do.

Hi SEO-Bas! Just checking, is the issue resolved? I want to make sure you get the help you need, if not.

Hi anavasis!

First, whether you use those keywords will depend on whether they actually describe your services or apply to the information you offer on your site. For example, though "πτυχιακες εργασιες νοσηλευτικης" may be a suggested keyword, do you actually offer any services, resources, etc. for nursing dissertations? If not, leave it out.

Next, you're not going to see any benefit from blindly filling your pages with keywords—I'd definitely recommend against something like a keyword cloud. Your goal should be to make your site genuinely useful for visitors. To use the "πτυχιακες εργασιες νοσηλευτικης" example again, if someone is looking for information on thesis writing services for nursing students, that's what they should find when they land on your site. If they land on the homepage and then have to dig deeper into your site to find that information, you're likely to lose them. Plus, if you write an article on nursing dissertations and you've got an article about it, shouldn't they land on the article rather than the home page?

I'd suggest reading up on topical keyword optimization. They're on the old side, but there's still a lot that's useful in Cyrus Shepard's "How to Rank" and "Keywords to Concepts" articles.

Hi Patrick!

Google looks at a lot of factors when determining whether a page is mobile friendly. According to a post on their Webmaster Central Blog, for a site to pass the test it needs to:

• Avoid software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
• Use text that is readable without zooming
• Size content to the screen so users don't have to scroll horizontally or zoom
• Place links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped

As you can see, it's more than a matter of implementing a particular bit of code. In addition to the blog post linked above, I recommend going through Google's guide to mobile-friendly design.

Good luck!

Hi in2townpublicrelations! Definitely let us know if you figure it out, ok?

Hi David! Did Dan's answer help? Let us know if there's anything else we can do to help you work this out.

Hi myriad_ricardo!

Thanks for posting to Q&A. While I certainly hope doveseo of Andy are able to help you, I need to let you know that we actually don't allow job postings in Q&A. Inbound.org has a nice job board that may be helpful.

I'm going to go ahead and lock this thread to further responses. Thank you for understanding!

I can definitely get behind our Moz Local partners. They are:

• Infogroup
• Acxiom
• Localeze
• Factual
• Foursquare
• Superpages
• Best of the Web
• Bing
• Citysearch
• Insiderpages

Otherwise, I can say from my agency days that when they look sketchy, they generally are.

Hi Andrew! How is this going? We'd love an update!

Hi Ruben,

To be honest, our Perks program is suspended. We're no longer accepting new ones, and we're only willing to update the ones we have. I'm afraid that, as we don't currently have a Perk from BotW, this is really more a question for them.

I'm so sorry I can't be of more help!

Hi Paul! It sounds like ThompsonPaul has answered your question. Are you all set, or can we be of more help?

Hi Jonathan,

I can't say I'm very familiar with those particular companies, but generally affiliate marketing is promoting someone else's products or services in exchange for a commission, and remarketing is the practice of serving ads to people who've already visited your site, bought a product from you, etc. It's why ads for certain products can seem to follow you around the internet.

Hi Paul! If ThompsonPaul answered your question, would you mind marking his reply as a "Good Answer?" It helps us keep track of things, and it'll give him some bonus MozPoints.

Hi 94501! Did Gaston answer you question, and if so, would you mind marking his response a "Good Answer?"

Otherwise, how else can we help?

Awesome! Glad to hear it!