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Hi,

This is not strictly a SEO/inbound marketing question, so please excuse me for that--- but I think this awesome community could certainly help

We recently migrated a client website to https (SSL from Godaddy; the hosting provider is a different one).  All that went fine. The problem though is that when a link from the website is shared on Facebook or sent via Whatsapp, and a user tries to open the page on any Android device, it throws up a Security Error.  On the Facebook app, it doesn't allow the user to go any further.

It seems that this problem is not unique and many others have raised it in various forums -- we've tried many of the options mentioned; have tried to work with Godaddy support as well ---- but the problem persists.

Any solution(s)/fixes will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Manoj

Hi,

I think internal linking to 'relevant' content is a must-do, because it is great for both human visitors as well as helps with improving accessibility of content for search engines.

My suggestion is to not focus too much on ratios as Dennis has suggested above. Identify and link to relevant content; don't over-do the number of links.  Similarly with anchor text, mix and match the terms/ phrases you choose to hyperlink.

Best,

Manoj

Thanks, EGOL.

The other big challenge is to get clients to also buy into the idea that it is Google's problem!

Hi,

Thanks for the response. I'd understand if the original source was indeed new or not so 'powerful' or an established site in the niche that it serves.

In this specific instance, the original source outscores the site where content is duplicated on almost all the common metrics that are deemed to be indicative of a site's relative authority/standing.

Any ideas/ potential solutions that you could help with ---- will be much appreciated.

Thanks

No, John - we don't use the 'Fetch as Googlebot' for every post. I am intrigued by the possibility you suggest.

Yes, there are lots of unknowns and certain results seem inexplicable --- as we feel this particular instance is. We have looked at and evaluated most of the obvious things to be considered, including the likelihood of the re-publisher having gotten more social traction. However, the actual results are opposite to what we'd expect.

I'm hoping that you/ some of the others in this forum could shed some light on any other factors that could be influencing the results.

Thanks.

Thanks for the link, Umar.

Yes, we did fetch the cached versions of both pages--- but that doesn't indicate when the respective pages were first indexed, it just shows when the pages were last cached.

No Martijn, the articles have excerpts from representatives of the republisher; there are no links to the re-publisher website.

I need insights on how “scraped” content (exact copy-pasted version) rank above the original content in Google.

4 original, in-depth articles published by my client (an online publisher) are republished by another company (which happens to be briefly mentioned in all four of those articles). We reckon the articles were re-published at least a day or two after the original articles were published (exact gap is not known). We find that all four of the “copied” articles rank at the top of Google search results whereas the original content i.e. my client website does not show up in the even in the top 50 or 60 results.

We have looked at numerous factors such as Domain authority, Page authority, in-bound links to both the original source as well as the URLs of the copied pages, social metrics etc. All of the metrics, as shown by tools like Moz, are better for the source website than for the re-publisher. We have also compared results in different geographies to see if any geographical bias was affecting results, reason being our client’s website is hosted in the UK and the ‘re-publisher’ is from another country--- but we found the same results. We are also not aware of any manual actions taken against our client website (at least based on messages on Search Console).

Any other factors that can explain this serious anomaly--- which seems to be a disincentive for somebody creating highly relevant original content.

We recognize that our client has the option to submit a ‘Scraper Content’ form to Google--- but we are less keen to go down that route and more keen to understand why this problem could arise in the first place.

Please suggest.

Hi,

It could be a temporary issue, a result of some flux in search results. You may also want to look at

a) any recent developments that you may have done on your website --- in case they have inadvertently resulted in a some problems

b) look in more detail into analytics to see if you can detect some patterns and your Webmaster Tools account for issues with crawling/indexing or links.

In any case, unless you spot some very obvious error, it may be worthwhile to watch over the next few days before taking any 'remedial' actions.

Thanks, Matt.

Yes, this issue with advertorial content is two-fold

a) With links and flow of PageRank --- which I suppose is more straightforward and a no-no. However, what's the likely impact on services such as PRWEb, PRLeap etc.?

b) Content that may have been generated and published as a result of commercial arrangement between two parties, but without any links and flow of PageRank. Need to consider this in the context of a supposedly a better understanding and reliance on entities-associations for ranking purposes.

Hi,

Recently, there's been a lot said and written about how Google is going to come down hard on 'advertorial' content.

Many B2B publishers provide exposure to their clients by creating and publishing content about them -----based on information/ content obtained from clients (for example, in the form of press releases) or compiled by the publisher.  From a target audience/ user perspective, this is useful information that the publication is bringing to its audience.  Also, let's say the publishers don't link directly to client websites.

In such a case, how do you think Google is likely to look at publisher websites in the context of the recent statements related to 'advertorial' type content?

Look forward to views of the Moz community.

Thanks,

Manoj

Thanks, Moosa. Would you have a link to the post you mention above? I did a Google search and  couldn't find it.

May be, Moz can come up with such a tool if there's none really available!

Could you give details of reliable tools that can measure and provide competitors' traffic data? Google Adplanner used to provide such information until June of last year, and while it's numbers didn't match Google Analytics data, the numbers were reasonably close.  The metrics we are most interested in are visits, page views and unique visitors.

We have looked at sites such as Compete -- but feel it is far too inaccurate/ skewed with US data only; also, would prefer to not rely on Alexa traffic stats.

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

There isn't a lot negative about a minimalist homepage other than you missing out on an opportunity to attract more organic search traffic.  There are lots of companies that seem to be adopting a minimalist home page look these days --- but personally, I am all in favour of more content than less on the home page. EGOL has listed reasons why you'd do better with more content and I agree with him.

As Saijo has answered here, it is perfectly fine to have the same posts in multiple categories. It will be useful to define how you want your site architecture/ hierarchy of categories beforehand, for example, whether you want to place the brand at a higher level than the product type or vice versa, or for that matter keep both of them at the same level. This really depends on how you are positioning the site.

Yes, what's done is done.  As many of the others have already suggested here, you will be much better off by focusing on getting better quality links rather than trying to clean up the mess that's already created.

Thanks for your answer, Joel. I think the order of priority you've suggested for B2B marketing through social media seems very logical.

If there is anything more definitive/tangible about the influence of social sharing/ interaction on organic search results that you could point me to, it would be very valuable. It always helps to show some clients hard data/ case studies!

Thanks again.

How much does visibility on Facebook (or for that matter, Twitter) impact search engine results? I did see a post recently on SEOMoz recently related to that--- but do others have similar experience/ have data to show strong correlation between FB shares/ Likes and search engine results (on Google)?

The second, FB-related question is: what are your thoughts on the effectiveness of Facebook for a B2B audience, particularly in a rather niche sector - let's say industrial products?

Look forward to your views and answers!

Thanks.

Hi Mike,

I do think that there is going to be an even more local bias in search results; and we will see a lot more of the phenomenon that you describe above ie.a site going up in local/ country-specific results while going down in international results.  While it will not be impossible to rank highly globally, it has and will continue to become a lot more challenging to do so, especially for terms that are quite competitive.

To market better internationally - or specific geographic markets, you may need to give those geo signals to Google, which could be having country-targeted pages on the site; geo-targeted sub-domains/ sub-folders or even separate websites targeted at a market that you are targeting.

Regarding the second issue, if I understand you correctly,having keywords in the url isn't bad/ black hat-- it is perfectly legitimate and  recommended (though not necessarily a must-have). So, if it doesn't involve a whole lot of re-development and you feel that is making a huge difference in the space you are operating, then you should go for it.

Hope this helps.

Best,

Manoj

Hi,

a) I don't think your client should really get affected with that one link out to your website.  May be, one thing you could consider is to request and obtain from the client a link from  the body of a page (say, for example, Our Partners) instead of having it from the footer.

b) Secondly, you could vary the anchor text that you get from different client websites, instead of using the same  one from all.

I'd say, treat this as an "earned" link from a happy client. Google might not value it as much as it does other links (based on placement on the page; the surrounding text etc.); but I don't think one would get penalised by this.

I'm sure there will be views to the contrary!

This is another one of those grey areas, I think, where is there no perfect answer.

To draw an analogy from the world of politics and elections:

a) Your vote benefits the recipient more than it will benefit you.

b) If you were fighting the same election, casting a vote for a more prominent candidate who is a  competitor for that same position will hurt you more than benefiting you.

c) If you vote for the right candidate-  because that is the right thing to do--- it might eventually benefit you, in a roundabout sort of manner.

So, I'd apply the same rules when casting your vote for a website (ie. giving out links)----do vote, but cast your vote with care!

Hi,

I feel the days of global dominance of search results for any website are over and feel that results will have a much more geographical bias than previously.  Therefore, if the retailer has an established website that is pulling in good traffic from the UK, my suggestion would be to create another website (say, a .com) with geo-targeted sub-domains/ sub-folders, or if time and money permit, have separate country-specific domains for the main different markets you are targeting.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

I would leave them as "follow" ---- and don't see why search engines should have an objection to that.

Personally, I think it is very much part of the 'search + social' integration that is the in-thing currently.

Manoj

Thanks.

Thank you, Gianluca. Your detailed response is much appreciated.

Would you be able to give any indication on the time it could take for the sub-domain to get all the search traffic directly for queries originating in that country?

Any case studies or references you will be able to point me to?  That'd be great.

Thank you for your response; it's helpful.

By any chance, are you able to point me to any case study that shows the time it took for the geo-targeted sub-domain to get all the traffic directly from the search engines?

Our concern with using a new TLD is the time it will take the domain to acquire authority and attract traffic of its own from the targeted geography.

For a client of ours, we are likely to create a sub-domain that is to be targeted at a specific country.

Most of the content on this sub-domain will be from the main site, although with some specific differentiation to suit that geographic market.

We intend to tell Google through Webmaster Centre that the sub-domain is targeted at a specific country. Some questions:

a) Any idea how long it could take before google gives precedence to the content in this sub-domain for queries originating from that particular country?

b)  What is the likely impact of content duplication ? What extent of differentiation is necessary from a search engine perspective?

Thanks.

Justin,

I'd also like to suggest that instead of trying to get the low quality links removed, it will be a better option to try and obtain higher quality links.

Manoj

Thanks, Gareth.

Yes, we are evaluating the different options, including the sub-domain/ separate folder one, though the option we really want to go for (primarily due to business considerations) is the one I've described above. Any more thoughts/ ideas will certainly be appreciated.

I had previously asked this as a 'private question' and couldn't make it a 'public question' automatically-- hence reposting it as a new question:

We have an existing site, let's say www.xyz.com --- which attracts traffic from all over the world (including the US), though it's primary audience is the UK/ Europe. Most of this traffic is via organic search results on Google.

Now, there is a business case to launch a US-centric website -- www.xyz.us, which will have most of its content from the original site (probably with some localization).

Our goal is that on day 1 when the new site xyz.us is launched, we want all traffic originating from the US (and may be some other North American countries) to be directed to the .us domain instead of the .com domain.

We don't want to lose any search engine traffic; equally importantly, we want this to be done in a manner that is seen by the search engines as a legitimate technique.

What are the best options to do this such that the new .US site automatically inherits all of the traffic from the .com site on day 1, without either of these sites getting penalized in any form.

Thanks.