Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Mozzers,

Under Mobile Usability, in Google Search Console, I am seeing very few website pages getting analysed - 10 out of 40 static pages, on the website in question.

Is this to be expected or does this indicated an indexing problem on mobile?

Hi there - I am planning out an SEO migration but this thought just occured to me:

If the links into a site's previous URL went to the non-canonical version of the domain name - e.g.

to: https://theguardian.com/uk and not the correct version of that URL, which is: https://www.theguardian.com/uk

Then, if I do a redirect simply from the correct canonical version of the domain: 
https://www.theguardian.com/uk - rather than the versions of the domain that are being pointed to by backlinks - e.g. https://theguardian.com/uk - then the migration will not be carrying across all the linkjuice from the previous site.

So how would you suggest dealing with this issue?

Hi all,

I'm looking at how to handle backlinks on a site, and am seeking a tool into which I can manually paste backlinks - is there a good backlink audit tool that offers this functionality?

Please let me know! Thanks in advance, Luke

Hi Steve and thanks for the feedback - it would definitely be interesting to check - I can't imagine this is a huge issue on uncomplicated sites without thousands of pages, but who knows... testing is needed.  All the best, Luke

I often see commentators mentioning out of balance site structures/IA but what does this actually mean in SEO terms?

For example, Yoast advises: "If one category grows much larger than others, your site’s pyramid could be thrown off balance." Neil Patel advises "Try to balance the amount of subcategories within each category. Basically, try to keep it approximately even. If one main category has fourteen subcategories, while another main category has only three subcategories, this could become a little unbalanced."

Does this have any direct influence on SEO (crawlability, etc.) or is this more a UX issue? I look forward to receiving your feedback.

Many thanks Miriam - I will have a good read of that

thanks Dmitrii - It always seems to make things simpler if devs sticks to my guidance on JS - ensuring all links (inc menus) and all static text is visible whether JS is switched on or off - sadly, the often miss this bit!

When I am working on a new website I usually spec that the main navigation should work whether JS is on, or off.

I always assumed everyone did that - until today - spent a couple of hours analysing menus on websites and noticed many didn't function when JS was disabled - particularly the menus designed for mobile devices.

Any thoughts on this from fellow Mozzers would be welcome.

I have noticed that some e-commerce sites don't worry aout their store working when JS is switched off - yet some do - are there any SEO implications of losing faceted navigation/filtering functionality when JS is disabled

I tried M&S - didn't work - but Tesco did - when JS is disabled.

Hi - I am seeking an onsite search engine that is SEO friendly - which do you recommend?

And has anyone tried doofinder.com - that specific search engine - if you have, is it well aligned/attuned to the SEO aspects of your site?

Thanks as ever, Luke

It does appear to be increasingly volatile and I do worry about some of my clients - their marketing backbone is usually a single website, with little marketing diversity - so sometimes I am recommending multiple websites covering distinct niches rather than a single website - and I'm even focusing more on non-digital marketing to some extent. It's more work yet spreads the risk.

None of the websites I have worked with re: content/SEO campaigns have been hit, yet an increasing volume of my work deals with fixing websites suffering volatility for a number of reasons - what is clear is that there are mounting issues even when people haven't purposefully been gaming the system.

PPC is quite possibly worth including as part of your mix anyway - I usually run PPC alongside organic/PR/content work to maximise results.

Robert's advice is good - however you may want to reference this if you experience larger scale attacks in the future - http://moz.com/blog/to-catch-a-spammer-uncovering-negative-seo  PS. I have never managed to get a porn site to remove a link, so I tend to resort to disavow...

RE: "In order to maximize the direct traffic to a domain, it is advised that webmasters should only buy a domain if the .com version is available. "

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain

• I am working for a client who's had a domain live for 5 years or so without a .com version of the domain (just .co.uk) - the domain is also hyphenated (which doesn't look like a great idea).

So, just wondering what research has been done into probs caused by lack of .com domain and by using hyphenated domain. I'm trying to figure out whether it would be worth advising client to switch to a new domain.

Your thoughts would be welcome

Hi - I'm just looking at the text on a redesigned homepage.

They have moved all the text to the very bottom of the page (which is quite common with lots of designers, I notice - I usually battle to move the important text back up to the top).

I have always ensured the important text comes at the top, to some extent - does it matter where on the page the text comes, for SEO?

Are there any studies you can point me to?

Thanks for your help, Luke

Thanks Casey - really useful

I've seen some major movements re: the sites I monitor over last 48 hours.

I've just been playing with one of my own new sites. Level of social media engagement appears to make the difference between a top of first page ranking and second page ranking re: a competitive keyphrase I'm tracking. I am going to widen my testing to additional keyphrases in due course.

Btw, you might find this interesting: http://moz.com/blog/ranking-factors-2013

Hi Mozzers, I have a question...

I'm planning to add a blog summary/twitter feed throughout my website (onto every main content page) and then started worrying about duplicate content.

What is best practice here?

Let me know - thanks, Luke

PS. I sat down and re: blog feed... thought that perhaps it would help if I fed different blog posts through to different pages (which I could then edit so I could add<a></a> text different from that in blog). Not sure about twitter.

It's a difficult one. I mean, my site (a restaurant/bar) gets a large proportion of its traffic from relevant directories. Actually, 40% of the backlinks to my site are from (mainly) relevant directories. Will it incur penalty? Well, most links to the site are non-directory backlinks, so I think you have to maintain a mix.

Yes, I agree with you Alan. It's just not worth the risk, it really isn't. The developer might think it is, but it's not his website. Thanks for your advice!