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@Boodreaux said in My visibility went from 14% to 3.33% this week. HTTPS Change?:

So I am trying to figure out how my google rankings dropped from 3 to 9 This past week.  Could it be the new HTTPS security issue?  My site was created in HTTP not HTTPS.  Is this an easy fix? Can I hire someone on this site to fix this?

A drop in your Google rankings from 3 to 9 could definitely be influenced by several factors, and HTTPS security issues are a common cause. Google prioritises sites with HTTPS over those with HTTP for security reasons, as HTTPS offers a more secure browsing experience by encrypting data between the user and the website. Websites that aren't secured with HTTPS can see a decline in rankings, especially if competitors have moved to secure protocols.

If your site is still using HTTP, this could be contributing to the ranking drop. The good news is, switching to HTTPS is a fairly straightforward fix. You will need to install an SSL certificate on your site, which ensures the HTTPS protocol. Once the SSL certificate is installed and configured, all HTTP traffic can be redirected to the new HTTPS version, maintaining your SEO value.

This task can be handled by a web design agency in Melbourne or a skilled website designer in Melbourne with experience in custom web design and technical SEO. They can ensure the transition is smooth, implement proper redirects, and resolve any potential security warnings.

Yes, you can hire someone through this platform or directly from a custom web design Melbourne provider to implement SSL and ensure your rankings don't continue to drop due to security issues. Let me know if you'd like any recommendations or help with this process.

The .melbourne domain extension itself is unlikely to be the primary reason for the lack of movement in your domain authority. Domain extensions generally don't have a significant direct impact on SEO or domain authority, provided that your site is well-optimised. The issue is likely related to other underlying SEO factors. Here are some areas worth investigating:

1. Backlink Profile:
   Domain authority is largely influenced by the quality and relevance of backlinks pointing to your website. If your site has few or low-quality backlinks, this could be hindering its growth.
   Focus on building high-quality, authoritative backlinks to your website from relevant sources in your industry.
2. On-Page SEO:
   Review and optimise on-page SEO factors such as meta tags, header tags, keyword optimisation, and internal linking. These elements play a crucial role in improving site rankings and authority.
   If you're looking for a professional overhaul, we offer web design Melbourne services that ensure your website is fully optimised for SEO.
3. Content Quality:
   Publishing high-quality, informative content is key to improving domain authority. Ensure your content is relevant, engaging, and aligned with the interests of your target audience.
   Are you regularly updating your content? Fresh, valuable content can significantly improve your website's performance over time.
4. Technical SEO:
   Conduct a thorough audit of technical SEO aspects like site speed, mobile responsiveness, SSL security, and structured data. These factors are crucial for SEO performance and can impact domain authority if not optimised.
   Proper indexing and crawling of your website by search engines is also vital to ensure visibility.
5. Competitor Analysis:
   Examine the SEO strategies and domain authority of your competitors in the Melbourne web design space. Understanding their approach could help you identify gaps in your current strategy.
6. Link-Building Strategy:
   If your site lacks a solid link-building strategy, this could be a key reason for stagnant domain authority. Focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks through outreach, guest blogging, or content marketing.
   Conclusion:
   The .melbourne domain extension is unlikely to be the issue. Instead, it's essential to review and improve your overall SEO strategy, including backlink building, content optimisation, and technical SEO.

We specialise in website design in Melbourne and can help optimise your website, address SEO challenges, and boost your domain authority. Let us know if you'd like assistance with an in-depth SEO audit or a comprehensive strategy to enhance your site's performance.

@WP33

Your query delves deep into the nuances of SEO, particularly in the context of Shopify Website Design, where both collection pages and blog posts can be powerful tools for organic visibility. Given your specific circumstances — a small product range, an authoritative blog, and a focus on user experience — the decision between creating additional collection pages or using blog posts for secondary high-sales-intent keywords is a fine balance.

Collection Pages: Google indeed prioritises collection or category pages, especially for e-commerce sites, as these pages often provide a comprehensive view of what the website has to offer. They're great for product-based SEO and typically perform well in converting users because they are closer to the "transactional" end of the buyer's journey. However, with a limited product range, adding too many collection pages might dilute their individual potency and make site navigation cumbersome, affecting UX.

Blog Posts: Blogs serve as excellent platforms for long-tail and informational queries. Given your blog's established domain authority and quality content, leveraging it to rank for secondary high-sales-intent keywords could be beneficial. The downside, as you mentioned, is the typically lower conversion rate compared to collection pages.

Recommendations:
Leverage Existing Assets: If your blog already has a strong reputation and domain authority, you might find quicker SEO wins by creating high-quality, keyword-focused posts that also link back to relevant collection pages.

Test and Measure: Since you've made technical upgrades to improve your blog's conversion rates, why not test its efficacy with a few high-intent keywords? Use A/B testing to gauge performance.

UX Over SEO: While it's tempting to create additional collection pages for the Shopify SEO benefits, always consider your user experience. Too many categories can make site navigation confusing and may alienate users.

Hybrid Approach: You could create blog posts that deeply explore the secondary keywords and then link them to a 'featured' section on your existing collection pages. This way, you capitalise on the blog's authority while still pushing traffic toward high-converting pages.

Given the complexity and competing factors, perhaps a blended strategy that combines both collection pages and authoritative blog posts would yield the best ROI in the context of Shopify Website Design. Measure the KPIs rigorously to determine what's working best and adjust accordingly.

@williamhuynh said in Shopify SEO - Double Filter Pages:

Hi Experts,
Single filter page: /collections/dining-chairs/black
-- currently, canonical the same: /collections/dining-chairs/black
-- currently, index, follow
Double filter page: /collections/dining-chairs/black+fabric
-- currently, canonical the same: /collections/dining-chairs/black+fabric
-- currently, noindex, follow
My question is about double filter page above:
if noindexing is the better option OR should I change the canonical to /collections/dining-chairs/black
Thank you

Hello,

Your question about canonicalisation and noindexing for double-filtered pages is quite pertinent, especially in the context of Shopify Web Design, where SEO considerations are often front and center.

The primary objective of canonical tags and 'noindex, follow' tags is to help search engines understand which version of a page to index and display in the search results. In the context of your double-filtered page (/collections/dining-chairs/black+fabric), both options you mentioned serve different purposes and have different impacts on SEO:

Using Canonical Tags: Changing the canonical URL to /collections/dining-chairs/black implies that this page is the "master" version, and you're suggesting that Google treat the content on /collections/dining-chairs/black+fabric as duplicate content. All the link equity and SEO benefits will be transferred to the canonical URL.

Using 'noindex, follow': When you specify 'noindex, follow', you're instructing search engines not to index the double-filtered page but still to follow all the links on that page. The benefit here is that it allows Google to crawl other relevant pages linked from it, but the page itself won't appear in search results.

Deciding between the two largely depends on your Shopify SEO strategy. If you believe that the double-filtered page doesn't add much value or is too specific to deserve a separate entry in search indexes, then setting a canonical URL to /collections/dining-chairs/black is a sensible choice. This way, you centralise SEO benefits to a more generic page that likely has a wider appeal.

On the other hand, if the double-filtered page has unique content and you believe it should be crawled but not indexed to avoid duplicate content issues, then keeping it as 'noindex, follow' would be more appropriate.

In Shopify Web Design, best practices often lean towards the use of canonical tags for similar or duplicate pages as it is more straightforward to manage and implement via Shopify's admin interface. However, you should base your decision on a careful analysis of how these pages contribute to your site's overall SEO and user experience.

Choosing between cPanel hosting and managed WordPress hosting depends largely on your specific needs, technical skills, and the amount of time you have to manage your website. Here are some factors to consider:

cPanel Hosting

cPanel is a popular web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a web site.

Advantages:

Flexibility: cPanel is incredibly flexible, allowing you to install a wide variety of content management systems (CMS), including WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal.
Full Control: You have more direct control over your hosting environment, including the ability to manually edit files and manage databases.
Cost: cPanel hosting plans are generally cheaper than managed WordPress hosting plans.
Disadvantages:

Technical Knowledge: You'll need a basic understanding of web technologies to manage your website efficiently.
Time-Consuming: You'll be responsible for managing your website, including updates, security, and backups.
Managed WordPress Hosting

Managed WordPress hosting is a concierge service where all technical aspects of running WordPress are managed by the host. This includes security, speed, WordPress updates, daily backups, website uptime, and scalability.

Advantages:

Ease of Use: Managed WordPress Web Design and hosting platforms are built specifically for WordPress, so you'll typically find they offer a very streamlined onboarding process.
Less Management: The host handles the technical aspects of running your site, so you don't need to worry about server maintenance or updates.
Support: Managed WordPress hosts typically offer excellent customer support, which is knowledgeable about WordPress issues.
Security and Performance: These platforms optimize for the specific characteristics of WordPress, and often offer improved speed, performance, and security features.
Disadvantages:

Price: Managed WordPress hosting tends to be more expensive than traditional hosting.
Less Control: Some technical aspects are managed by the host, so you may not have as much control over your site.
Only WordPress: These platforms are tailored to WordPress, so if you want to switch to another CMS, you'll need to switch hosts.
In summary, if you're new to running a website, value convenience and support, and are planning to use WordPress, managed WordPress hosting could be a good choice for you. However, if you have a tight budget, need more flexibility, or have the technical skills to manage a server, cPanel hosting might be a better fit.

@MultiAdE said in Footer backlink for/to Web Design Agency:

I read some old (10+ years) information on whether footer backlinks from the websites that design agencies build are seen as spammy and potentially cause a negative effect.
We have over 150 websites that we have built over the last few years, all with sitewide footer backlinks back to our homepage (designed and managed by COMPANY NAME).
Semrush flags some of the links as potential spammy links.
What are the current thoughts on this type of footer backlink?
Are we better to have 1 dofollow backlink and the rest of the website nofollow from each domain?

In the past, sitewide footer backlinks were commonly used by Digital Agencies as a way to showcase their work and generate traffic to their own websites. However, search engines have become more sophisticated in their evaluation of links, and there has been a shift towards emphasizing the quality and relevance of backlinks rather than quantity.

Having a large number of sitewide footer backlinks with exact match anchor text from multiple domains can indeed raise flags in SEO tools like Semrush, as they might be seen as potentially spammy or manipulative. Search engines may interpret such links as an attempt to artificially boost rankings rather than a natural endorsement of your services.

To maintain a healthy backlink profile, it's advisable to diversify your link sources and focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites. While having a single dofollow backlink in the footer and making the rest of the website's links nofollow could be one approach, it's important to note that search engines can still recognize patterns and evaluate the overall link profile.

@mollykathariner_ms said in I have a question about the impact of a root domain redirect on site-wide redirects and slugs.:

I have a question about the impact (if any) of site-wide redirects for DNS/hosting change purposes.
I am preparing to redirect the domain for a site I manage from https://siteImanage.com to https://www.siteImanage.com. Traffic to the site currently redirects in reverse, from https://www.siteImanage.com to https://siteImanage.com.
Based on my research, I understand that making this change should not affect the site’s excellent SEO as long as my canonical tags are updated and a 301 redirect is in place. But I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a potential consequence of this switch I’m not considering. Because this redirect lives at the root of all the site’s slugs and existing redirects, will it technically produce a redirect chain or a redirect loop? If it does, is that problematic?
Thanks for your input!

When implementing site-wide redirects for DNS/hosting change purposes, it's essential to consider the potential impact on SEO and any potential issues that may arise. In your specific case of redirecting from https://siteImanage.com to https://www.siteImanage.com, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Firstly, updating your canonical tags and implementing a 301 redirect is indeed the recommended approach to maintain SEO value during the domain redirection process. These measures ensure that search engines understand the change and transfer the ranking signals appropriately.

Regarding your concern about redirect chains or loops, it's important to handle the redirects correctly to avoid any negative consequences. If the current redirect from https://www.siteImanage.com to https://siteImanage.com exists, and you add a new redirect from https://siteImanage.com to https://www.siteImanage.com, it could potentially create a redirect chain or loop.

To prevent this issue, you should ensure that the old redirect from https://www.siteImanage.com to https://siteImanage.com is removed once the new redirect is in place. This way, you have a single 301 redirect directly from the non-www version to the www version of the site, without creating a redirect chain.

By implementing the redirect correctly and ensuring there are no redirect chains or loops, you can minimize any potential negative impact on SEO. It's always a good practice to carefully monitor your website's performance after making such changes to address any unforeseen issues promptly.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to ask.

Thanks Sandip, so do you think this is more of a branding issue?

The domain will remain the same.

For example :

The url for a product on the old site is :
example.com/product1

and

the urls for the same product on the new is are : 
example.com/product1-model1
example.com/product1-model2
example.com/product1-model3
etc...

Say I 301 redirect example.com/product1 to example.com/product1-model1

and add rel canonicals to example.com/product1-model2 & example.com/product1-model3

Can you see any drawbacks to this method?

Hi all,

I want to get some opinions on what the best practice is when transferring backlink values from an old site to a new one.

On the old site, I currently have a product page and this particular product has multiple models all listed on the one singe page. However on the new site, every model of this particular product has its own page. These product model pages would have relatively similar content apart from several key details which differentiates the models.

Firstly would you guys recommend this splitting of models of the same product to different pages?

If so, my initial thought process is to 301 redirect the old product page to the new model page that is most popular, and adding  rel canonical tags to the other model pages.

Would you consider this best practice? Or are there better ways I can be doing this to retain backlink values without also getting penalised due to possible content duplication?

Thanks!

Jac - sent from my manager's account.

Thx Gents,

To clarify, the content in question was footer links on my clients site.

It sounds like the consensus is that the approaches I have in the example should be fine as my intention is not to deceive and only visitors (most likely competition) would flag this manually if it was.

What remains unanswered is that the last two examples on my test page will still create issues.

The third example inadvertently has a transparent section of the background image where text exists. You can see this if you click/drag over the middle section. I would imagine this would get flagged by visitors as hidden text (as it currently shows white text on white), but aside from offering a complimentary background colour to either the div element or the entire site (say a pastel colour) is there a better way to manage this than the fourth example (where I have simply offer a fallback green colour. This looks pretty bad)?

Thanks again...

Dan