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@Stevejcr @nb2e4fg

I'd strong advise not using tags that are rankable, especially if they replicate the sub-categories! No index them.

Also no index tags and categories in your blog. They can also damage inline pages.

Nigel

@nb2e4fg

Hi There,

Pleasure - glad you found it useful. To answer your queries

1. Like I said it depends on the search volume:

Woosculp Dog (0 searches per month)
Woodsculp Elephants (0)
Woodsclup Safari (0)

So if this is the case and my searches are correct I would put them all on one page. At a push, if there are a lot, have an ajax filter as I described in the original post, so that users can slim the page down to just the animal they want. Same for Safari or frankly even season. It doesn't matter because all the 'juice' will be directed at Woodsculp.

If there are other brands with more searched for subcategories then you need to make a decision. Remember you will have all these animals on the page so the combination of Woodsculp+Animal will make it rankable, plus you will have the SEO text so you can mention them in there.

2. If you are going to have subcategories because they are searchable, (and my research is in the wrong country maybe?) Then the category would be Woodsculp Elephants (plural) There will be plenty of occurrences of the term Elephant (singular) on the page. It's also grammatically incorrect to name a page of elephants, elephant.

3. It doesn't matter how you display the category page. I prefer a top or sidebar, but some themes have categories in blocks on the page. It can be like this but I prefer just products in the main body of the page with sub cats/filters away to the top or side (plus in the menu)

4. You can put brand and sub-cat in the URL if you like (If you are having sub-cats because they are searchable) - but only if they will never move. Nothing worse than finding a product in one category then having to move it and change the URL. NEVER have a product in multiple categories with different URLs! One product/one URL

allthingsnature. com/woodsculp/dogs/ws012-woodsculp-scottie-dog

You will just make trouble for yourself down the line if products move category.

This is fine too

allthingsnature. com/product/ws012-woodsculp-scottie-dog

Personally I think the URL slightly helps SEO so having woodsculp and dog in there is great!

allthingsnature. com/product/woodsculp/dogs/ws012-woodsculp-scottie-dog

• Note 'dogs' not dog in the URL

You can remove the 'product' and 'product-category' slugs in WordPress using Premmerce, but do it before you launch - DO NOT do it after, or if you do, prepare for a ranking hit after you 301 them!

**actually you mentioned you are restructuring so you will have to 301 all the changes from original structure to what you are doing here (Brands, Cats, Products) . This will take time - up to 6 months to get them all ranking properly. You must do this otherwise you'll have a mess, so crawl the site using Screaming Frog and extract all URLs. Then make the changes and when you launch use a bulk redirection plugin to do them straight away. Don't leave it otherwise you'll get a mass of 404s (not found)

5. Sites are better for SEO with one product in one category, however, you can get away with some product being in 2 or 3 different categories. Just note that Google will see that and the clearer you can make the structure for Google, the better

If 'Woodsculp Pets' is the higher category (as opposed to Woodsculp on its own), broken down into subcats, Dogs, Elephants etc, then I don't see a problem (If there are enough searches for the sub cats)

Many sites have Gender, Category, Brand. Others just Category and Brand

So for example you could have a category view:

Wooden Animals
Dogs
Elephants

and a Branded View

Woodsculp Pets
Dogs
Elephants

We did this for a shoes website. In each case there is one URL for each product. See the two images.

https://carouselprojects.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Brand-Hierachy-600x318.png

Yes, noindex sale, best sellers etc - they just cause problems.

Good luck!

Nigel Carr - Retail SEO Specialist
Carousel Projects

@nb2e4fg

There are two ways of handling this imho and it all depends how strong the brand and the sub categories are. It depends if people actually search for the subcategories.

Your primary aim is to rank for the brand 'Woodsculp' because that presumably is the most frequently searched word used to find the brand.

So the first way is like this

Woodsculp
> Dogs
>Elephants

So the main page will be Woodsculp with every model listed.

You then put a sidebar in to point to a subcategory page of Dogs or Elephants.

The sub-category route would be.

allthingsnature.com/woodsculp

allthingsnature.com/woodsculp/dogs

allthingsnature.com/woodsculp/elephants

• If Safari is also a 'thing' then create a subcat for that as well, but don't for Summer 2022 - that's not required. Just have them all on one page.

This would allow the subcategories to rank as well (If You Need Them To).

Note this risks the subcategories affecting the ranking of the main brand which is quite common with branded products. It depends how strong searches are for the dogs and elephants or whether they just search the brand.

The second way is using an Ajax/Filtered way of listing,

The filter sits in exactly the same place, maybe a side bar but goes to a non-ranking filter version of the page like this

allthingsnature.com/woodsculp

allthingsnature.com/woodsculp?sub-cat=dogs

allthingsnature.com/woodsculp?sub-cat=elephants

The canonical (What Google sees) for all three would be allthingsnature.com/woodsculp

This means you don't set the subcategories to rank because Google doesn't read after the ?

Any other pages are produced via tags which are no indexed. This gives all the strength to the main brand page.

The first way you would write 300 word+ SEO content for the brand page. Make it really comprehensive, Maybe a short description at the top of the page with call to action and a fuller description under the listings.

SEO Title

Woodsculp - Wooden Sculptures - All Things Nature

Description

Shop for Woodsculp Wooden Scupltures including wooden Dogs and Elephants - Free Delievery ....... Other Calls to Action

Then have subcategories with a little content - focusing on the fact they are dogs or elephants.

SEO Title

Woodsculp Dogs - Wooden Sculptures - All Things Nature

&

SEO Title

Woodsculp Elephants - Wooden Sculptures - All Things Nature

Again, check the search volumes - if they are non existed use method 2 - filter/Ajax

The filtered page way you would only write content for the main brand but also write about Dogs and Elephants so you can rank for both types . Also write about Safari so that will rank as well. Christmas - you could have a separate page but noindex it so it doesn't compete. Also for Sale items - you can have a page for Woodsculp sale but no index it.

That's what I would do but it depends on the strength of the sub categories.

I would not put products in multiple brand categories - that is why I ask how important safari and Christmas are.

I would not have 'release date' categories - that's just designed to mess up SEO! If you must then use a non indexing filter as above.

I would however have no problem having them in another type of category, say 'Wooden Animals'.

Nigel Carr - Retail SEO Specialist
Carousel Projects

@Socialdom said in Block Links From Spam sites:

links backlinking to your site

The correct way of doing this is to research each backlink thoroughly. There are various tools you can use to do this, each one will give you a list of backlinks and a score of their toxicity. The correct procedure is to:

1. Email the offending site and ask for the link to be removed. This is OK if a site has stuffed a link in the footer of their site without realising the damage it can do. I've had it with friends trying to help. Just ask them to remove the link, or maybe move it to a help page or better something related to your website content.

2. If you get no joy this way then it's OK to compile a disavow file and upload it to Google. just be VERY CAREFUL doing this as disavowing sites that have a positive effect on your rankings can cause s drop.

Read more here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

The reality is that Google knows whether a link is spam or not and generally ignores them, and unless you have been involved in some dodgy link building all will be OK whatever.

If you have received a manual penalty then the proper process of research/disavow must be done thoroughly, but few websites suffer this indignity these days.

Just do things properly, build links organically, and your site will be fine. Use the disavow tool sparingly (if at all), replacing each txt file with a fill list each time you do it.

Hi Andy

The reason why they are coming up with a duplicate content warning is likely because there is very little content on the pages other than the forms.

You have a couple of options:

1. Flesh out the content on the pages so that the subject is clearly defined in each case. This would involve writing 300+ words/adding an image+alt/H1/Meta etc on the subjects of:

Content Marketing Consultation
Copywriting Consultation

• The other two

2. If you can't write unique content for each form because the subjects are too close (Copyright vs Content) then it begs the question why you have the 4 forms in the first place.

If you want to keep the 4 forms then can canonicalize 3 of them to the main one, so only 1 is set to rank.

Note: If you do canonicalize it is not guaranteed that Google won't feature either one or all the other forms. You are simply telling Google that that is your preference.

3. You could noindex three of the four forms which would be a perfectly acceptable solution even though most scanning software will warn you of the no indexes.

I hope that helps

Nigel

Hi MB

It's perfectly OK to rank articles and categories as long as you can justify them. For example, the primary keywords would be:

Category:  'Stock Market Training''

Article: What is The Stockmarket?

All well and good so far. You would make the primary keywords distinct and different for each and that would work well.

Once you introduce tags like Learn Stock Market - everything falls apart. They cut across and cannibalize the category and articles and so have no worth. It will ruin your efforts for the other two.

Write some compelling SEO text for the category page, up to 1000 words may do but check the competition and have just a short summary of each article on there with links to the articles.

No index the tags.  Trust me it's the correct way to go.

Nigel

Hi

You have to be careful creating city pages. make sure they are as unique as you can make them and add some local content. Treat them like you would any other page when SEO'ing them.

Ensure correct and on a one page one theme basis - forget the greater area and concentrate on the town/village. if you try and hoof the local area in as well you will destroy them all, especially if the local area has its own page.

Title
Description
H1
Alts
Local content

make sure it is in the form

City - Service - Company name

and not service first.

More here: https://moz.com/blog/do-you-need-local-pages

I hope that help

Nigel

Hi There,

There are a few reasons if you want to rank for the term Rubbee

1. Meta title

This is set as: "Le Meilleur Kit Vélo Électrique du Marché | Rubbee"

It should be: "Rubbee - Le Meilleur Kit Vélo Électrique du Marché"

So move the primary keyword to the front on its own.

2. Meta Description

This is not a rankling factor on it's own but keywords will bold and a good description can increase a higher click through rate (CTR) which is a ranking factor

Include the term Rubbee in this as well.

"Turn your bike into an electric bike today with Rubbee - Ready to pre-order now from just E599 with free delivery and guaranteed.............."

Something like this a strong call to action.

3. Alt Tag

You have many and this is OK - make sure you alt them all.

4. H1

make this a close variant of the primary keyword. It is Rubbee - make it "Rubbee - Kit Vélo Électrique"

4. NAPS

Add address, as well as phone number and email - maybe company number

5. Content

You only have this on your home page.

"Rubbee est une assistance électrique pour n’importe quel vélo standard. Sans ajouter un seul fil, ce kit électrique vous permettra de transformer votre vélo classique en un vélo électrique en seulement quelques minutes. Dans sa version la plus puissante, le moteur électrique vous permet d’atteindre la vitesse maximum de 32 km/h pour une autonomie minimum de 48 km. Avec un prix compris entre 599 CHF et 797 CHF, Rubbee est à un tarif défiant toute concurrence."

Make AT LEAST 300 words of content describing what Rubbee is and what it does.

6. Hreflang

One of the main reasons I can see is that there is no hreflang tags on the page.

There is :rubbee.co.uk

No doubt there are other international websites as well. the problem here is that Google doesn't know which site belongs to each country despite the .co.uk and .ch TLDs.

each site should have Hreflang tags to specify the language and the country.

so read here:

https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag

and here:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

You need to pick a default and then specify each country's version of the website. Then add the hreflangs to every page where there is an equivalent.

The blog may be original content so that may be why it is ranking.

So in summary:

Add standard SEO enhancements on a one page one theme basis.
and, sort the Hreflang tags.

7. Sitemap

There does not appear to be a sitemap - use Yoast to add one.

So lots of basic reasons why it is not ranking well.

I hope that helps

Nigel

Hi John

If the pages are old and have had no useful visits then it would make sense to forward them to more relevant content. This would be standard SEO practice anyway. However, unless you have 1000's of pages then crawling and indexing your site really isn't a problem. If you had a very large site with frequently updated pages then it could be a problem. You can change the crawl rate but if it is 'calculated as optimal' then you needn't bother worrying. read more here...

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/48620?hl=en

Regards
Nigel

Hi Shirapn

I think it is perfectly acceptable to use an accordion to 'read more'. However, according to Rand Fishkin, who did a study on this a couple of years back, the page with the hidden text will not rank as highly as it did with the page visible. They will not treat the hidden text with the same weight as it would if it were visible.

https://moz.com/blog/google-css-javascript-hidden-text

It is far better to have the text visible. One of the ways around this would be to have a couple of lines at the top of the page and then add the rest of the text under the category content.

I hope that helps - watch the above video - it's very clear.

Nigel

Hi Fabx

It really depends on what you want to achieve. Pages are to be considered a permanent feature of the hierarchy of the website. Those which you would naturally find in the site structure and probably in the menus at the top.

Posts are dated pieces of content which form a natural part of the blog.  These are themes pieces of content which don't fall into the natural structure. News stories and updates on the business.

For reviews, many themes have a testimonial section when you can publish reviews and then add them using shortcodes wherever you need to in the website. If you do not have this as part of your theme then consider uploading a suitable plugin to handle them. I would always encourage site owners to get as many Google reviews as possible then use a plugin such as BNE Testimonial to add them to your site in a widget.

For lists, you need to be more specific.  These can be numbered (ordered) or bullet-pointed (un-ordered) as part of any page or post depending on the content of the pages.

I hope that helps

Nigel

Hi John

Usually, when this happens the page is being redirected to itself. If you have a redirection plugin then check the URL and make sure it is being redirected properly.

If it's redirected to itself then it will be in an eternal loop and will not work.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Choice

This will clear it up for you:

1. You don't need index follow on any of these pages as that is the default setting anyway. The only reason I would use a robots tag is if I wanted to noindex a page.

2. Sorted Page and Pagination of sorted pages - remove the index/follow and replace with a self-referencing canonical tag to the main category

rel="canonical" href=

https://www.site.com/category/

You do not want sorted pages and pagination of sorted pages appearing in Google. You just want them pointing back to the main category.

That will tell Google to ignore the sorted URL and index the core URL.

3. Paginated page

For pagination, you need to add rel=prev and rel=next (You don't need a canonical) - this is just for category pagination.

Still relevant for pagination:

https://moz.com/blog/pagination-best-practices-for-seo-user-experience

Just don't get confused between sort pages (low grade) and pagination (needed for Google to crawl all the content & links) and don't let Google index any of the sorted pages.

Regards

Nigel

That's what I would do Joe!

Hi Kingsplan

The problem here is that you would still have them pointing at your domain. Even if they 404'd, the links would still be hitting your site.

I would:

1. Ascertain if they are actually toxic - look at SEMrush or similar (anything over 65 toxicity is worth removing) - we have had a lot from 'the globe' recently. I have disavowed them for some sites but honestly, they don't appear to have done any harm to others.

2. Email the 4 or 5 domains and ask them to remove the links.

3. If you don't get a response after 2 weeks or so simply add those domains to the disavow file.

Regards Nigel

The reason we answered 'quickly' by the way is because we are in the UK -  you were still in bed lol!

There is only ONE URL that is the point.

If they share the same URL then you only have one page of code so ONE canonical

Regards

Nigel

Hi JH

I'm sure Thomas means well with his multiple complicated posts but all of this is totally unnecessary.

Both sites are serving the same URL

You can't put a rel=alternative because there is nothing to point to.

Just put a self-referencing canonical. I said that 2 hours ago!

That is all.

Regards Nigel

The URLs are identical it is just the content that is served that may be slightly different.

Since you can only specify one canonical for each URL it makes no difference. Just self-reference and that is it.

If you had to different URLs then it would be an issue where you woudl need a rel=alternative so there is nothing to worry about.

Regards

Nigel

Thanks!

A agree - I have just done a similar clean up by:

1. Don't let them be created
2. Redirect all previous versions!

One site I just worked on had 8 versions of the home page! lol

http
https
/index.php
/index.php/

A mess!

We stopped them all being created and 301'd all versions just in case they were indexed anywhere or linked externally.

Cheers

Good solid advice

They can be created in any number of ways but it's normally simple enough to specify the preferred URL on the server then move any variations in htaccess, such as those with www (if the none www is preferred), those with a trailing slash at the end etc.

The self canonical on all will sort out any other duplicates.

As for getting rid of them - the search console way is the quickest. If they don't exist after that then the won't be reindexed unless they are linked from somewhere else. In such cases, they will 301 from htaccess so it shouldn't be a problem.

if you 410 you will lose any benefit from those links going to the pages and it's a bad experience for a visitor. Always 301 do not 410 if it is a version.

410s are fine for old pages you never want to see in the index again but not for a home page version.

Regards

Nigel

You are right - you could only use teh rel=alternate if there was an m. version or similar

Regards

Nigel

Then there is no problem simply putting a self-referencing canonical. There is in effect no mobile version as there is a single URL so no need for a rel=alternate.

It's an even easier solution. Well, there isn't a problem in the first place.

rel=alternate is only necessary if you have two different URLs! The fact they are the same takes away the problem.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Evoe

If the partner is paying you to maintain Website B then it is vitally important that you keep that one alive. In this case, I would canonicalise the other way round so that all of their pages on Website A are canonicalised to Website B. You would need to make the pages different from website A to continue to rank.

However

If you do not do this then Website B will disappear all together form SERPS and the company will not see any activity.

If it was my site I would remove Website B completely and canonicalize their pages to the version on Website A, (as you have suggested) but bear in mind that they will not be able to see Website B. When you canonicalize to A the organic traffic will collapse anyway so you may as well remove it.

Then you can report the stats for their pages on Website A, the primary site.

You cannot keep both with canonicals as you have said and still get organic traffic to Website B!

Regards Nigel

Hi India

It is unusual to keep both domains if you really want to move site but yes, you can do cross-site canonicals.

So place ON EVERY page of the old site a canonical to the corresponding page on the new site.

The old site will disappear from SERPS and the new site will appear.

Warning

The problem you will have is that the new site will not inherit any of the backlink equity you have built up on the old site. For that, you will need to do a page by page 301 redirect in htaccess on the old site.

I hope that helps

Regards Nigel

Hi again vtmoz!

1. Make sure that they are not created in the first place
2. Make sure that they are not in the sitemap
3. Go to search console and remove any you do not want - it will say temporary removal but they will not come back if they are not in the structure or the sitemap.

More:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663419?hl=en

Note: Always self canonicalize the home page to stop versions with UTM codes (created by Facebook, Twitter etc) appearing in SERPS

Regards

Nigel

Hi JH

This is very straightforward.

Use the following annotations:

1. On the desktop page, add a  rel=”alternate” tag pointing to the corresponding mobile URL. This helps Googlebot discover the location of your site’s mobile pages.
2. On the mobile page, add a link rel=”canonical” tag pointing to the corresponding desktop URL.

It is that simple and doing this will not create duplicate content

More here: https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/separate-urls

Regards Nigel

Hi Mark

If you are trying to get your Cycling Tours Carnarvon Gorge into SERPS for a Cycling Tours Italy search then you are barking up the wrong tree. Of course, they are going to add the place (Geo Modifier) because that is what they want.

I would have a drop-down menu which had a link

Cycling Tours South Australia>
                                                Queensland>
                                                                   Carnarvon Gorge
                                                                   Tambourine Mountains
                                                                    Etc

...and all of the other places in Queensland where you run tours. Then build out each page fully with photos and local information.

Don't create pages with links, to links - put them in a logical menu structure otherwise the pages will be too many clicks away & people won't follow them.

You cannot do this so forget it:

“cycling tour Carnarvon Gorge” which is in Australia into the SERP when someone searches for “cycling tour Italy”

MAPS on the tour pages will help them rank.

Regards Nigel

Hi Chook1

I would set up 'City pages' or in your case 'Country Pages' which target the different places you offer cycling tours.

For example:

websiteurl/italy-cycling-tours

Then fill the page with highly detailed content and alt texted photos & maybe videos of the tours you offer in that country.

Make them local specific and you will see traffic. It works like a dream.

Simple to implement and highly effective.

Regards Nigel

Hi Justin

If the two businesses have different names, different phone numbers and different URLs then I don't see this as being a problem at all. One company would target commercial sales & lettings and the other residential sales & lettings.

Just make sure that:

Categories are fully optimised. Choose every relevant category for both.
Add a full description for both, stating clearly what they do.
Add Google maps for both
Add images & video (upload via image link) 
Write weekly blog posts
Do not interlink between the two.

Similarly, the websites must not duplicate content. If they do and you cannot avoid it then add cross-site canonicals and choose 1 page to rank.

Regards
Nigel

Hi

Gutenberg is simply a back office editor. It has no impact on SEO.

How you organise your web pages is up to you, whether you use teh classic editor (for which there is still a plugin) or use the new editor.

Neither affects SEO as long as the on-page content and technical aspects are correct.

Relevent Title tags
On Page content
Images

All the usual stuff!

Regards

Nigel

Hi

You need to 301 redirect all of the teh pages on the old domain to the new. This will also forward the link equity from any backlinks you had pointing at the old domain.

Just as teh developer to add them in Htaccess.

Regards

NIgel

Hi spacecollective

As long as you tag the sites correctly then you will not have a problem.

Add Hreflang tags to the pages. They can be identical pages on the same server in if you wish but this is how I would do it. As long as they are separated like this.

website.com for the US
website.com/en for the UK

Any other country would then have its own directory.

This avoids you having to mess with the various country TLDs like .co.uk or any other you'd wish to set up.

Then add Hreflang tags to tell Google which country is targetted and the relationship between each one.

 https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag

(The first part en is the language and the second, the country)

The combination of search console and Hreflang tags is enough for Google to know that there is no duplication.

You would move UK users on to the gb version and US users would see the .com. It would all resolve pretty quickly as you are telling Google the alternative country versions in the Hreflang tag.

I hope this helps

Nigel

Carousel Projects

Hi Julie

Yes, add a post and a link. Right click ‘view source’ and find the link. If it doesn’t‘ have rel=nofollow in the ‘a href’ it is do follow.

regards

Nigel

Hi Julie

If they are your blogs which relate to your business and you have set them with do follow links back to your business website then they will be useful. It's when people use Tumblr to set up PBNs (Private Business Networks) where it becomes grey hat and ill-advised.

If the subject of the blogs, (URL & Title) have no relevance to your business then you may do more harm than good.

Also be careful with exact match anchor text - spread it out over different relevant keywords/phrases.

You determine whether a link is do follow or no follow.

Regards

Nigel

Hi nkolsen

Have a look at the right-hand side for the date they were detected. If it's way in the past then you can safely ignore them.

If they are recent then maybe download Screaming Frog and scan the site to see if you can find any of them. It may be that they are linked from an internal page that you have forgotten about - so dead links. Then go and remove them and tick the box in Search Console to say that the issue is fixed.

If you can't get Screaming Frog or don't know how to use the free version (500 URLs) just search the URL in Google and see if it comes up. It might just be an old one that is lingering there, you will find the page it is listed on then go and remove the link. If it is actually in teh index then go to search console and remove it under Google Index > Remove URLs

Whatever, old expired pages are not going to be doing you any real harm if there are just a few.

Regards

Nigel

Hi James

This is a huge question - 'How do I do SEO?'

If you know nothing then hire a consultant to help.

However:

1. Make the site structure easy to understand so Home>Department>Category>Subcategory
2. Use attributes for colour and size, so you have product pages with drop downs. Otherwise, the colour & size URLs compete with each other.
3. Construct an easy to follow menu.
4. Make sure filters do not create extra URLs - better to use Ajax
5. Make the site as fast as possible - consider a content delivery network (CDN) for larger sites.
6. Keep images under 100k by exporting them as 'save for web'.
7. Keep the descriptions and Add To Cart buttons above the fold - in the visible eye line when loaded.
8. Install a quick & simple checkout.
9. Write rich and interesting descriptions
10. Make sure every page has complete Meta tags - Title and a compelling 'buy me' meta description.

More
https://moz.com/blog/how-to-craft-the-best-damn-ecommerce-page-on-the-web-whiteboard-friday

https://moz.com/blog/heres-how-to-create-a-product-page-that-converts

https://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors

There are 100s of things to consider but these are the priorities. I am sure some of my colleagues will add many more.

Regards Nigel

Hi Becky

If you just think of it in terms of not losing any backlinks and so that the old URLs in Google Index don't 404, then they just need the most appropriate page on your new site to be 301'd to.

You won't go wrong if you stick to this approach.

If there is no relevant category, then go up to department, no department? go to home.

Keep it simple & logical.

Regards Nigel

Hi Jens

I don't know Drupal but if it's like Wordpress it will add a noindex tag to the page.

Do it for one page then take a look at the code.

Go to the page: right click > View Source

Then go to the three dots top right in chrome and search noindex. It will look like this attached. (ignore the red line crossed out piece)

Best Regards Nigel

x6DFb9q.jpg

Hi Roman,

I work with a lot of e-commerce companies and I have to say from one SEO to another this is great advice!

Best Regards

Nigel

Hi Andy

You are probably better off doing this in your CMS or directly in the database. As far as I know, there is no MOZ tool to scan content for a particular keyword. You could query Google with site:yourdomain.com "cycling caps" This would give you a list of all URLs with the term Cycling Caps in. Then copy the link of each one and drop them in a spreadsheet.

However! I would warn against linking back through these two anchor texts back to the money page https://www.prendas.co.uk/collections/headwear/cotton-caps as you will likely kill the page for that search.

Make internal linkage natural and use a variety of anchor text. Cycling cap, Cycling caps, Caps for cycling and even **Check out our range of cycling caps **even here and the URL itself. Check out our range of cycling caps: https://www.prendas.co.uk/collections/headwear/cotton-caps Whacking a keyword over and over again in the content with a link is bad practice.

Regards Nigel

Hi Molly

There is no logical reason for you to do this unless the .org was live and listed somewhere so you would lose traffic. You suggest that the .org needs to be 'set up' so this is my suggestion.

If it is set up already then 301 each page on the .org to the most relevant page on the .com. If there is no relevant page then 301 to the homepage. Do this in htaccess, not on the pages themselves.

If the domain you are redirecting from is https then you will need an SSL on the server for that domain.

If there is a .org then it is most likely doing the main .com some damage anyway through duplication so 301ing is the best thing to do.

If there is no .org set up, don't bother.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Booedreaux

Whilst all of these issues are important I wouldn't have thought they would cause such a drop.

One by one:

1. Canonicals - each page should have a self-referential canonical - this stops utm versions created by apps such as Twitter being indexed. It's always better to have them. It also allows you to combine identical pages. Note if you have canonicals in place and the two pages are not the same then Google has recently started ignoring them and listing both URLs anyway so check in new Search Console what Google sees as the canonical.

2. Missing H1 - This helps Google understand the page content and should be a close variant or synonym of the primary keyword.

3. Long URLs - some just are and Google has a pretty high tolerance for long URLs - this often can't be helped with attributes being common on eComm sites.

For more, I'd need to see the URL.

Regards Nigel

Hi Raymond

It's a standard approach for most eComm stores. I prefer 301'ing to the closest new style first but if there isn't one then brand or category is perfectly fine. If the product then comes back into stock then a return to a 200 is fine - Google will pick it up if the 301 is removed. Also, make sure it's back in the sitemap.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Beck

Absolutely the correct approach. If you find any that simply don't match at all then you may consider gender, if that is appropriate or homepage if there is nowhere else.

Individual products need mapping as well, and if there is no close match for any of them then category>gender>home whichever is most appropriate.

Obviously, if there is no gender then just 301 to home but I work with a lot of fashion sites where it is relevant.

Regards

Nigel.

Hi John

What's the URL?

It's probably that the name of the town is in every title, some kind of duplication issue - let me see the site and I can tell you more.

Regards

Nigel

I think you are taking that rather too literally.

For example, as I said the .com could be the one targeted with an hreflang="x-default. A person in the UK would, by definition be served with the .com/uk version.

You wouldn't put a hreflang="x-default on the /uk homepage.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Becky

I can see chairs:

https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs

But the paginated versions above are not in there. (can you see them?)

All you need to do is remove this directive for pages without a page 2: rel="next" href="https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=2" > as there is no page 2 for chairs.

Regards

Nigel

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