Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi,

From an SEO perspective I don't think you need to worry.

However, from a UX & CRO point of view, descriptions is something you may want to consider.

Would your users benefit from having a description? If so, it's worth adding. You can do this after launch though.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks

SilverDoor

Hi Maia,

Sorry to hear this has happened.

What was the reason for changing the URL in the first place?

This will determine if you redirect the old ones or revert back.

Could you possible specify why the change was made?

Thanks

SilverDoor

Hi Christian,

Did you get a chance to read this over?

If so, what do you think? Have any further questions?

Hopefully hear from you soon.

Thanks

SilverDoor

Great answer with some quality humour. Love it!

Thumbs up for you sir!

I think you might just be being slightly paranoid.

I really wouldn't worry about things like that.

There's no evidence to support that search engines currently or will ever take things like that into account. I think it would really skew the results if they did.

Just ensure that your cleaning your link profile and disavowing anything that would be considered unrelated, spammy or manipulative.

If your trying to clean things up from a brand perspective then it can sometimes be worth attempting to get rid of no-follow links that look spammy or are in bad reference etc. But to be honest, that's normally only necessary for well established brands.

Hope this answers your question.

Thanks

SilverDoor

Another good one is https://monitorbacklinks.com/overview

Cheap and extremely easy to use. It offers a 30-day free trial as well.

From my experience it's by far the easiest to use.

Thanks

SilverDoor

Love the Moz team.

Always quick to respond and happy to help.

Agreed,

Everything seems to be working for me.

Hi TheDude,

In short.....no!

This is an extremely poor way to build trust. It's manipulative, underhand and will inevitably just end badly.

All it takes is for one person to find this out and before you know it, your brand is tarnished.

In my opinion, how Google views this behaviour is completely irrelevant. Even if they won't penalise you for this, it is still bad business practice. I advise you stay well away from things like this.

Instead, put your efforts into long-term strategies that will help you naturally build consumer trust and with it your consumer base.

The right way is often the harder, but it always pays off in the long term.

Thanks,

SilverDoor

Hi Francois,

Hope you're having a nice day.

Did you manage to solve the issue in the end?

If so, what was the conclusion?

Thanks

SilverDoor

Hi,

External Followed Links: means that the links are "followed" by search engines and pass SEO value to the site they are pointing to.

Total External Links: includes links that are both "follow" and "no-follow". No-follow links pass no SEO value onto the sites they are pointing to.

Read this blog for a bit more info on the above.

Hope this helps

Hi,

I'd advise switching your whole site across.

It's not necessary to do so, but with the way things are going, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Since Google have decided that it is important and will have an impact on rankings, there is no harm doing it on every page. They aren't going to penalise you in any way for doing so.

The change is only affecting 1% of all global search terms at the moment so I wouldn't panic yet. However, if they find this to be a very successful way of ranking, it could rapidly be spread across a much higher percentage.

We are in the process of implementing the change ourselves and are going to do it sitewide.

Hi Ash,

The best way to work out where you should point the backlink to is by asking yourself this question:

What is the most related and useful page on my website for the article I have written?

Take it from a readers perspective. Would they prefer to go to your homepage or a more specific internal page?

Once you can answer that question then you know where to link to.

Make sure to not over-optimise the keywords you use for your anchor text.Just put them on the most natural, relevant word in your article.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

In short yes.

No-follow links should always be used on any form of advertising across the web. Especially when they are sitewide.

Google have a page set-up specifically for this question

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=en

You will want to implement this as soon as possible to prevent any negative impact on your website.

Good luck.

Hi,

Domain age can have an impact on Domain Authority.

However, it is generally considered to be fairly minimal and there are plenty of other elements that will impact domain authority on a much larger scale.

Take a look at the following resources on Moz for more information.

Search Engine Ranking Factors

Domain Authority

Page Authority

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks

SilverDoor

Hi,

Without knowing the URL you are trying to use or being able to see the process makes answering this question very difficult.

I'd advise you to get in touch with someone from Moz at Help@Moz.com

They will be able to advise you on this issue and hopefully fix it.

Hope this helps

Absolutely!

I advise you do this as soon as possible as this will be seen as a black-hat technique by search-engines.

No matter how high the domain authority of those websites, it will be seen as highly irrelevant and will be recognised as a technique to manipulate search.

I would also look at getting in touch with the webmasters of the websites and trying to get them removed entirely before disavowing them. It takes more time and effort but disavowing can take up to 3 months (sometimes longer) and that is a long time in the world of SEO.

Let me know how you get on.

Totally agree.

Really well explained.

Just wanted to expand and point you in the direction of this article on Moz about "The Hidden Power of Nofollow Links".

It's well worth a read. Enjoy!

Hi Francois,

Is it possible if you could attach a screenshot of the issue occurring?

It's a bit difficult to help you without being able to see the problem.

Alternativley, if you don't want to do the above, you can get in touch with a member of the Moz help team at Help@Moz.com

They're really helpful and will be able to resolve this issue for you.

Thanks

SilverDoor

Hi Dan,

I think that people often get too tied up with things like keyword stuffing.

In the way that I see it, if you write, unique, interesting, natural, content then you won't need to worry about things like keyword stuffing.

The only time keyword stuffing occurs is when people have tried to write for search engines and not for the user. It wouldn't be natural to have the name of your company in the body copy lots of times.

If you read the content and it flows naturally then don't change anything. However, if it reads unnaturally then change it and make it natural.

Hope this helps

Thanks

SilverDoor