Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks v much Marie - that's really useful - this sounds like it'd be good to test so will try to do that and see what happens.

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 for your helpful feedback Gaston - much appreciated.

Thanks for your helpful answers - much appreciated

I automatically think yes... but nofollow links will be safer - that would be my choice as I always err on the side of caution... If I reached out to the entire network with quality content, as I would through a PR campaign, I am wondering whether the pre-existing business relationship would mean the link wouldn't be seen as truly independent by Google.

Your thoughts would be welcome, Luke

I have just been contacted by a company whose website has lost nearly all of its traffic.

The web developers appeared to know nothing about the SEO aspects, when it came to migrating the website (this website change took place first week of August) - the traffic has gone from 7,000 sessions to 200 sessions a month.

I can work through the usual SEO migration steps to help recover performance, yet normally I get employed on this kind of project as soon as the traffic loss is noticed... this time the traffic loss kicked in nearly 2 months ago - what are the implications of such a time lag re: SEO recovery?

Thanks for all the feedback everyone - much appreciated, Luke

Thanks Tom for picking up on that error - ugh - corrected now. Brain working sluggishly this morning lol!

Hi Mozzers - was just looking at website speed and know the google guidelines on average page load time but I'm not sure whether Google issues guidelines on any of the other 4? Do you know of any guidance on domain lookup, server response, server connection or page download?

Page Load Time (sec) - I tend to aim for 2 seconds max: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/your-website-design-should-load-in-4-seconds/ 
Server Response Time: [Google recommends 200ms]: https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/Server Redirection Time (sec) [dependent on number of redirects so probably no guide figure]
Domain Lookup Time (sec)
Server Connection Time (sec)
Page Download Time (sec)

Thanks, Luke

What is the best keyword ranking tool you have used? I have used various tools by which I am expected to identify and input the keyword I want to track...

However, recently I was introduced to Searchmetrics, which I think automatically pulls in the keywords a website ranks for, without the need for manual input from the SEO (I haven't used this tool yet, so apologies if I am incorrect!). Do any other rank trackers work like this?

Thanks, Luke

Many thanks Beau - much appreciated.

Thanks for your feedback Beau and Jordan - very helpful Luke

Just looking at an ecommerce website and they've hidden their product page's duplicate content behind tabs on the product pages - not on purpose, I might add.

Is this a legitimate way to hide duplicate content, now that Google has lowered the importance and crawlability of content hidden behind tabs? Is this a legitimate tactic to tackle duplicate content?

Your thoughts would be welcome. Thanks, Luke

I just ran a robots.txt file through "Google robots.txt Tester" as there was some unusual syntax in the file that didn't make any sense to me...

e.g. /url/?*    
/url/?
/url/*

and so on. I would use ? and not ? for example and what is ? for! - etc.

Yet "Google robots.txt Tester" did not highlight the issues...

I then fed the sitemap through http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp.com/m/robots-text-tester/robots-checker.php and that tool actually picked up my concerns.

Can anybody explain why Google didn't - or perhaps it isn't supposed to pick up such errors?

Thanks, Luke

Thanks Angular Marketing, and Everett... very helpful feedback and much appreciated. Luke

Thanks everyone for your helpful feedback - much appreciated.

Just read this: "The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/." here: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location

Yet surely it's better to put the sitemaps at the root so you have:
(a) http://example.com/sitemap.xml 
http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml
http://example.com/sitemap-spongecakes.xml 
and so on...

OR this kind of approach - 
(b) http://example/com/sitemap.xml
http://example.com/sitemap/chocolatecakes.xml and 
http://example.com/sitemap/spongecakes.xml

I would tend towards (a) rather than (b) - which is the best option?

Also, can I keep the structure the same for sitemaps that are subcategories of other sitemaps - for example - for a subcategory of http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml I might create http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes-cherryicing.xml - or should I add a sub folder to turn it into http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes/cherryicing.xml

Look forward to reading your comments - Luke

I am looking at a website and have noticed that there are lots of photos living on different domain - so I imagine they're coming through from another website - e.g. the domain I'm looking at is www.chocolatecakeszoopla.com - the images on that domain name feature the third-party website's url - e.g.: www.chocolatecakestockimages.com/chocolatecakeicing.jpg - is this anything to worry about?

I was imagining the pics would feature the same URL as the rest of the website - that would be more logical? Would it be better practice to amend image names to feature the URL of the site they appear on, or doesn't this really matter?

Thanks, Luke

Hi everyone

I've just been looking at a few https websites and noticed the http urls weren't redirecting to their https equivalents - why would a website owner not bother redirecting?

As an example: http://www.marksandspencer.com

I look forward to your feedback. L

Many thanks Eric - much appreciated - that clarifies everything perfectly

Hello Mozzers,

I am looking at a website with the homepage repeated several times (4 times) on the sitemap (sitemap is autogenerated via a plugin) - is this an SEO problem do you think - might it damage SEO performance, or can I ignore this issue?

I am thinking I can ignore, yet it's an odd "issue" so your advice would be welcome!

Thanks, Luke

Thanks Miriam - that makes good sense - many thanks for your feedback Luke

Hi Miriam and I'm very grateful for your input, as ever.

Here's some clarification:

One business is a cookery school offering educational services - the other business is a restaurant open to the public, run by the students of the cookery school (both are owned by the same company).

The company in question has been using the same address for both - 24-27 Castle Mews - t**he business names and phone numbers are different. **

So all seems OK at the moment. I could keep their shared address as it is, which is accurate.

However, it is also clear that each business actually has a distinct address within Castle Mews, so if I wish to differentiate/split the addresses, so each business has a distinct address, I can:

The restaurant is at 24-26 Castle Mews - the cookery school is at 27 Castle Mews, so does it make sense to split the addresses along these lines, or doesn't it really matter?

Look forward to hearing from you, Luke

Might a solution be to <no follow="">the link to the global site in all instances - perhaps the safest option? That's what I would fo - the first thing that came into my mind... any other SEO feedback on this would be good -  Luke</no>

PS1. I would be tempted to avoid any kind of keyword targeting - even if nofollow
PS2. This is interesting - a different situation but hey: http://www.thesempost.com/design-websites-follow-designed-footer-links/

Ah, so varying all elements - the Name, Address and Phone number - that seems logical - thanks for your feedback.

Hi Mozzers - I'm working with 2 businesses at the moment, at the same address - the only difference between the two is the phone number.

I could ask to split the business addresses apart, so that NAP(name, address, phone number) is different for each businesses (only the postcode will be the same).

Or simply carry on at the moment, with the N and Ps different, yet with the As the same - the same addresses for both businesses.

I've never experienced this issue before, so I'd value your input.

Many thanks, Luke

I know - nearly fell of my chair in shock ha! Thanks for the links Luke

I have found this useful in the past: https://www.ayima.com/guides/conquering-pagination-guide.html

Hi Matt - yes, trying not to upset the web dev by posting link (though can do privately if needed)! The CMS is Drupal and is hand-coded in, it seems (and there lies the problem) - every day, month, week you can think of is creating a unique URL, which isn't very helpful - most of the days, months, weeks into the future are blank - you just get a box on the page with, say, March 2017 - and nothing else. I was thinking noindex may be a quick solution (best solution would be to remove the calendar) - though not sure whether that will protect me from all issues - do I really want crawlers heading through hundreds/thousands of empty pages - perhaps I should noindex, nofollow?

Hi Dmitrii - the tweets are copied onto multiple pages within the website - when one page is full another page is created - for all the tweets from the company's twitter account - I have advised them to stop doing this now - it seem like bad practice in terms of web development anyway.

These tweets that are copied onto multiple pages are only used to display the company's latest 3 tweets, anyway, which are shown in a tweet feed in the homepage footer.

Just noticed a web developer I work with has been copying tweets into the website - and these are displayed (and saved) one page at a time across hundreds of pages (this is so they can populate a twitter feed, I am told). How would you tackle this, now that the deed's been done? This is in Drupal. Your thoughts would be welcome as this is a new one to me.

Thanks, Luke

Hi guys - I have just stumbled across an onsite calendar that's throwing out hundreds of indexable pages (some are indexing) - most of the pages are basically blank - just a day date and the calendar design on the page. How would you deal with this issue? I was thinking noindex but would prefer a solution where calendar isn't throwing out so many pages to begin with!

Look forward to reading your thoughts, Luke

Hi everyone - I've just been looking at a site that simply uses Google Translate through its website.

So basically, on any page you can Google Translate the content to any language you like - there's no change to the URL structure according to language, etc.

I haven't come across this approach before (simply allowing users to Google Translate withing the existing page) - and it doesn't sit well with me - let me have your thoughts re: the SEO implications.

Thanks in advance, Luke

Thanks Dmitrii - I will take a look - as the client is migrating on Tuesday, would you think I could get away with ignoring these during migration, or perhaps I should redirect the pages (very few are backlinked - I can redirect those that are backlinked and leave the rest).

Or should I fix the issue first via htaccess rule before attempting the migration? The web developer has disappeared (before my arrival on the scenes), and nobody has any access, so not sure if I can make much progress - no access to hosting at the mo, or anything.

I've just been looking at a website and it includes numerous web pages with addresses like this. I click on the URL and it takes me to a fully functional web page (not an image) and when I run it through Screaming Frog this comes up as an HTML page. The site has around 150 unique pages and over 450 pages like this one - how should I deal with these pages during an SEO migration (only a few are backlinked to)? I look forward to reading your thoughts.

http://www.[companyname].co.uk/property/caravan-sleeps-4/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/images/cottageTypes/blank.png

Thanks Tom - that's very useful - appreciated - and thanks also Clever PhD re: the robots.txt tester info - Luke

Hello - I just came across this in robots.txt for the first time, and was wondering why it is used? Why would you have to proactively tell Googlebot to crawl JS/CSS and why would you want it to? Any help would be much appreciated - thanks, Luke

User-Agent: Googlebot

Allow: /.js

Allow: /.css

This temporary set-up idea makes little sense to me... migrations are tough enough anyway, and the temporary middle stage is increasing both risk and complexity.

Yes sorry it needed clarification - was struggling to describe the issue - what you suggest sounds like a good idea, indeed - I will put a complete NAP only at the top of each of the 8 main landing pages, in Schema, along with a calendar on each landing page linking to the class descriptions. Many thanks for your help with this - much appreciated

Hi Miriam - yes the 38 pages have been created about the services from each specific location (in this case health and fitness classes) - the classes are specific to that location, so each of the run of 38 pages are specific to a specific location, so there would a strong contextual relationship. Basically the 38 pages are specific to classes unique to that location (in terms of times, tutors and often type).

So I guess the whole idea of whether to do a specific footer for each locational section was what was humming around in my brain, with the specific address relevant to the content above, in the footer, rather than all 8 business locations consistently in the footer.

I was originally thinking of adding all 8 business addresses consistently in the footer, though I thought perhaps specific addresses may be more user friendly, and may even help Google understand the locational context.

Hi Miriam,

What I meant is there are 8 business locations and the site's 300 odd pages are divided into these 8 (so each geographical location has around "38 pages" dedicated to that specific location and its services).

So what I was planning to do was simply put the correct location-specific NAP in the footer of each of the location-specific pages (so each run of location-specific "38 pages" will have the relevant [single] NAP in the footer of every page).

But my co-worker said only put the correct [single] NAP in the footer of the 8 location home(/landing) pages within the site, rather than on every page.

Hope that makes sense [it's been a long week ;-I]

Thanks Miriam - it sure does - their website is divided up by location, so I'm planning to put the relevant NAP at the bottom of every page through the website (8 locations and NAPs in total - 300 pages) - a colleague suggested just puting the NAP on each of the 8 location homepages though I suspect it would help more if the NAP was at foot of every page (so long as the correct NAP on the correct page ha!) - is that the right thing to do?

I wonder whether anyone has carried out any research into this issue? Are there any stats out there?

I've noted my ideal URLs (from an SEO/usability perspective), so if there is a problem there's a plan b - the URLs are horribly clunky, and may be impacting CTR - yet traffic is increasing on the site, so will leave well alone for now - thanks for your advice Josh.

I've been looking at a local business in London and they have multi-sites, each with multiple versions of the same address in their NAP - they're using the correct addresses, with variations in terms of order of address elements (with some missing out London, and some including London)

For example, one listing puts the postcode after the city district - another before. Sometimes London is included in the address, though often not (the postal service doesn't include London in their "official version" of the addresses).

So the addresses are never wrong - it's just the elements in the address are mixed up a little, and some include London, and some do not.

Should I be concerned about this lack of address consistency, or should I try to exact match the various versions?

Thanks Marie and SErOb - appreciated

thanks Moosa - it does

Good to see you too and many thanks for your help - that's clarified everything perfectly - I can be a little over cautious at times ha

Hello, I was looking at Moz Local and saw that you are supposed to enter a business "description". However, I'm pretty sure local directories will not want duplicate descriptions - can I leave the description blank and then add varied descriptions directly? Is that a way around this issue? Your thoughts would be welcome.

I've noticed a potential problem with a mult-location business (this is an example URL - not the actual name of the business)

I sense this is OK:

carsdepots.com/ashford/cars

But then I noticed they've added cars to location part of URL in some instances (they have 6 locations in total and have done this with 5 of them):

carsdepots.com/birmingham-cars/cars

So we have cars in there 3 times (that's the maximum number of times in any URL but it looks a little spammy to me)

I am tempted to remove yoga from the location names, or flatten the URL structure completely - your thoughts would be welcome, or perhaps I shouldn't even be worrying?