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Does optimization of PDF files for search matter in 2017? If yes, what is the optimal way to do it? Is there a risk that it will compete for rankings with the parent page that is it's linked to?

Alick300 and Hurf, thanks so much for the answers and especially the resources you shared! Very helpful!

Hi, SEO wizards! My company has a company blog on Medium (https://blog.scratchmm.com/). Recently, we decided to move it to our own site to drive more traffic to our domain (https://scratchmm.com/blog/). We re-published all Medium blogs to our own website. If we keep the Medium blog posts, will this be considered duplicate content and will our website rankings we affected in any way? Thank you!

Yes, this makes sense! Big thanks for sharing your insights, Kevin!

Kevin, thanks for your answer! In fact, my question is more around organic search, not PPC, but good observation on the quality score as well! What about when you are optimizing pages targeting specific verticals - this means that the search volume of the keywords will be even lower. Let's say my page is about mobility solutions for the healthcare vertical. If I pursue "mobility solutions" and "healthcare" separately (keywords with really high search volume), won't I also capture the searches for "healthcare mobility solutions" (low search volume)?

Logan, big thanks for your answer. This has been our understanding as well, so you validated our approach. Do you optimize the page copy and the title tag for the same long-tail keywords, or in the title tag you go for more generic terms/ high-level topics?

Hi Moz community,

I need your insight into what would ensure better rankings. Some of the pages that I am optimizing are dedicated to niche products targeting specific verticals and the main keywords have really low average search volume (below 50). I'll give you an example (these are not the exact keywords, just an example to illustrate my dilemma): if my long-tail keyword is "student information management software" with search volume of 20, when do I stand better chances to gain search visibility: by optimizing the page for this long-tail keyword and incorporating it in the title tag, or by pursuing more generic keywords with higher search volume: "student" and "information management software"? If I am targeting short-tail keywords, will the page also rank for long-tail searches that are a combination of these keywords? In other words, which scenario gives better chances to rank higher: 1) pursuing short-tail keywords with high search volume in the title-tag 2) pursuing fewer long-tail keywords with lower search volume that are a combination of those in scenario 1?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Say my long tailed keyword has three words in it that I also consider keywords. Will I catch the searches for those short keywords, or just the long tailed keyword phrase?

Hello,

What should one do about a title tag for product pricing page (of a SaaS company)? The only keywords/phrases that have SV are "Acme Pricing" "Acme Product Pricing" and "Acme Solutions Pricing", but obviously I don't want to use all three since "Acme" and "Pricing" repeat in all three. Should the title tag just be "Acme Pricing"? In past experiences, a title tag that short typically gets changed by Google in SERPs. Should one not optimize the title tag at all?

Any thoughts, suggestions, would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Thank you so much Linda.

Do you know of a fast way to add a rel=canonical tag to all the pages, the website is quite large, and it would likely take months over months to do it manually.

Hello,

I have a very large website that has a good amount of "Duplicate Content" issues according to MOZ. In reality though, it is not a problem with duplicate content, but rather a problem with URLs. For example: http://acme.com/product/features    and    http://acme.com/Product/Features both land on the same page, but MOZ is seeing them as separate pages, therefor assuming they are duplicates.

We have recently implemented a solution to automatically de-captialize all characters in the URL, so when you type acme.com/Products, the URL will automatically change to acme.com/products – but MOZ continues to flag multiple "Duplicate Content" issues. I noticed that many of the links on the website still have the uppercase letters in the URL even though when clicked, the URL changes to all lower case. Could this be causing the issue?

What is the best way to remove the "Duplicate Content" issues that are not actually duplicate content?

Do the title tags have to be exactly the same, or can they have some of the same keywords but different context?

Hypothetical example:

• Home Page = Raising a Kitten, Tips & Tricks for a Healthy Cat
• Sub-Page = How to Cat-Proof your Home when Raising a Kitten

Since both title tags has "raising a kitten," "cat" and "tips" would this be considered a "Duplicate Title Tag" even though the pages have completely different content in them?

Thanks in advance!

Hi Andy,

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

For example: On a website there are items in the news listing that point to articles about a company that appear on online news sites; items that point to collateral hosted by vendors we use, etc.

What tool can be used to provide a list of these links?

Do you know of any free alternatives?

I used to use Google Adwords to find broad, phrase and exact search volumes, but now Google only provides exact. Does anyone have any tools or other ways to find phrase search volume?

Sorry for the delay - I couldn't log into my account yesterday to respond.

The multiple locations are in different states within the New England area (New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont). They are in the fire safety systems industry and provide products such as sprinkler systems for businesses.

Based on the first response, I am leaning towards recommending the following:

1. Create a specific page for each location
2. Optimize each location page for Meta Description, H1, Title Tag, etc.
3. Create a different user experience on every location page, ie - directions to each location.

If anyone has any other thoughts on how to go about optimizing that would be greatly appreciated.

I have a client that operates in multiple states. I am trying to find a way to best optimize their website, but all of the best practices for "local SEO" seem to be for things such as restaurants, small businesses, etc. I am looking for a way to optimize for the industry keywords as well as location. Any best practices/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

The organization I am working with has multiple versions of its website geared towards the different regions.

• US - http://www.orionhealth.com/
• CA - http://www.orionhealth.com/ca/
• DE - http://www.orionhealth.com/de/
• UK - http://www.orionhealth.com/uk/
• AU - http://www.orionhealth.com/au/
• NZ - http://www.orionhealth.com/nz/

Some of these sites have very similar pages which are registering as duplicate content, meta descriptions and titles. Two examples are:

1. http://www.orionhealth.com/terms-and-conditions
2. http://www.orionhealth.com/uk/terms-and-conditions

Now even though the content is the same, the navigation is different since each region has different product options / services, so a redirect won't work since the navigation on the main US site is different from the navigation for the UK site. A rel=canonical seems like a viable option, but (correct me if I'm wrong) it tells search engines to only index the main page, in this case, it would be the US version, but I still want the UK site to appear to search engines. So what is the proper way of treating similar pages accross different regional directories?

Any insight would be GREATLY appreciated! Thank you!

We are going through a clients blog history as they are entering a redesign phase for the blogs.

We are trying to determine how far back we need to optimize past blog posts so that they can be found easier on search engines.

Is it better to optimize the past years? 2 years? 6 months? only the top posts?

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hi there,

I have often heard that you cannot have multiple pages rank for the same keyword. My question here is more about long tail keywords who have the same keyword phrase repeated on different pages.

For Example:

I have two webpages with different content.

I want to have one page (Homepage) rank for the more generic term such as "innovation management" and another supporting page rank for "innovation management software".

Will Google see these two different webpages as competing? Should I avoid repeating the more general term in the phrase?

Has anyone ever seen your SEO results decline when doing this? I don't  believe this is duplicate content since the pages hold completely different copy and assets but I am not sure if the repeating phrase in the title tags will flag anything to the search engines.

I have a global client who just launched new sub domains of their site in new languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese).

Example:

es.client.com

pt.client.com

ru.amdocs.com

ja.amdocs.com

How long does it take for Google to recognize these new subdomains? Would submitting an XML sitemap be helpful? If so how long can we see them pick up the site?

What is the best way to check that your new subdomains are showing in each countries SERPs?

Thanks for your help!

A client of mine creates thought leadership articles and pitches multiple sites to host the article on their site to reach different audiences.

The sites that pick it up are places such as AdAge and MarketingProfs and we do get link juice from these sources most of the time.

Does having the same article on these sites as well as your own hurt your SEO efforts in any way? Could it be recognized as duplicate content?

I know the links are great just wondering if there is any other side effects especially when there are no links provided!

Thank you!

Currently, my client's blog makes a duplicate page every time someone comments on a post. The previous SEO consultant told the developer to not put a canonical link directing it to the main blog post. Did taking out the canonical link result in these duplicate pages?

My question is why would she recommend this action?

Is it best to now add in the canonical link in or should we implement a 301 redirect or insert a index: no follow?

Would adding a canonical link keep duplicate pages from happening in the future?