Welcome to the Q&A Forum

My site has many error URLs that Google webmaster has identified as pages without titles. These are URLs such as: www.site.com/page???1234 For these URLs should I: 1. Add them as duplicate canonicals to the correct page (that is being displayed on the error URLs) 2. Add 301 redirect to the correct URL 3. Block the pages in robots.txt Thanks!

Google seems to have discontinued their robots.txt checker. Is there another tool that I can use to check my text instead? Thanks!

my website is translated into 10+ languages, but our news articles are often only published in 1-2 languages.  Currently, URLs are created in the unpublished news languages that then 301 redirect the user to main news page since the content doesnt exist in that language. Is this implementation okay or is there a preferred method we should be using so that we don't have a large number of pages on the site with redirects? Thanks!

For legal reasons my website is going to launch non-branded websites.  We do not have the capacity to make these site sufficiently unique from the main site so we are planning on having them be NoIndex NoFollow. Are there any potential SEO problems here? What will the implication be if in ~1-2 years from launching the NoIndex NoFollow we make the site unique, take away the tag and want to start promoting these sites organically. Thanks!

In the past few weeks I have started getting messages from Google webmasters about an increase in server errors. According to our r&d team these messages come at times our site has been down and Google is not an accurate measure of the site health. 1 - are they correct and is there a better tool to be using? 2 - could be harmed that Google is occasionally running into this problem..that is then fixed within a few hours? Thanks!

My website uses the same anchor text to go to different pages, with section headers indicating where they go. Is this a problem? f so, why? Here is an example of what I mean: Women Shoes - link to women shoes Clothes - link to women clothes Accessories - link to women accessories Men Shoes - link to men shoes Clothes - link to men clothes Accessories - link to men accessories Kids Shoes - link to kids shoes Clothes - link to kids clothes Accessories - link to kids accessories

Is there any problem updating the date and text of a news article if the URL remains the same? For example, if we published a minor sports story on Monday and on Wednesday there was a small update to the story I would like to take my original article and change the date + first paragraph of the text to make it still relevant for my users to read without having to write an entirely new article since this is not a major story and there is not much new content to add. Any SEO issues with take the original article and changing the first paragraph + title?

There was recently a huge increase in 404 errors on Yandex Webmasters corresponding with a drop in rankings. Most of the pages seem to be from my blog (which was updated around the same time). When I click on the links from Yandex the page looks like it is loading normal, expect that it has the following message from the Facebook plugin I am using for commenting Any ideas about what the problem is or how to fix it? Critical Errors That Must Be Fixed | Bad Response Code: | URL returned a bad HTTP response code. | Open Graph Warnings That Should Be Fixed | Inferred Property: | The 'og:url' property should be explicitly provided, even if a value can be inferred from other tags. |
| Inferred Property: | The 'og:title' property should be explicitly provided, even if a value can be inferred from other tags. |
| Small og:image: | All the images referenced by og:image should be at least 200px in both dimensions. Please check all the images with tag og:image in the given url and ensure that it meets the recommended specification. |

Is there a way I can check what are the Keywords that drive traffic to a specific website using SEOMoz?

I am putting together a presentation for my managers about why link building and social media is important for SEO so that we can get more resources allocated to these areas. Does anyone have advice/links of convincing arguments for me to include? Thanks!

In the past month I have seen a huge increase in the visits + conversions from Facebook (which is obviously great).  However, from Google Analytics it appears that most of my visits are not coming from my brand page. Is there an explanation of what these referral paths mean? Top Facebook referral paths: / /l.php /home.php /ajax/emu/end.php /brand - much less visits than above URLs

A section of pages on my site are indexed (I know because they appear in SERPs if I copy and paste a sentence from the content), however according to the text-only cached version of the page they are not being read by Google.Why are they indexed event hough it seems like Google is not reading them..... or is Google in fact reading this text even though it seems like they should not be?Thanks for your assistance.

My Google +'s for my domain were 403 last month and 35 this month.... Based on this I'm assuming OSE's numbers are not cumulative.  Are they based on the previous month or a different time period? Any explanations would be helpful. Thanks!

I currently operate a Facebook page with ~4,000 fans who are fairly active. In the nearby future I am planning on opening up websites in my most important target locations (mostly for legal reasons) We offer several worldwide products that are extremely popular and not all represented on Facebook. Given the above background info, my questions are: Is it worthwhile to open and build up Facebook channels per language Is it worthwhile to open and build up Facebook channels per "product" What are the SEO implications of each in addition to improving our social profile. thanks!

My company often puts out short news bulletins to announce short news updates.  We have to write about these topics for our customers and to remain as an industry leader.  However, there is not much real and interesting content to write about these topics. What is the minimum length you think these articles should consist of so that Google won't see them as weak/useless pages and possibly give us a Panda penalty for them?

I am thinking about launching a website connected to Christmas - which gives me less then 2 months to develop and begin ranking for the site. Is this too short a timeframe and I should put off this plan until next year or can I actually begin ranking for low competitive keywords within my timeframe.

I have the following list of domains to choose from: http://www.xxx.net/ http://www.xxx.uk/ www.es-xxx.com Which of these domain structures seem the best, or are all 3 questionable?

Hi, I am planning on setting up cross domain analytics for my website.  I have found lots of sources about the code to use, but haven't been able to find something about what parameters to consider. Would appreciate my fellow mozzers helping me to put together a list of all the variations of elements I may want to track to ensure I am setting it up correctly. Thanks!

I am planning on launching a local SEO campaign in RU, DE, UK, AU, SW, FR and ES... is using UBL and/or localelize worthwhile for me or are those US focused services?

If I was going to submit to 5 directories where would you recommend?

Does anyone have any recommendations for press release distribution services in RU, DE, UK, DK, AU, ES and/or Hungary? Thanks!

I currently have one main .com site and am planning on launching geo-location subsites .co.uk, .com.au, .ru, etc... Traffic will flow between both sites and some of the content on the subsites will be duplicate and therefore include a canonical tag to the main site. I want to set up GA to capture who is going to the subsites and vice versa and correctly capture crossover traffic.  Any advice on implementing advanced analytics directly (or links to sources that will direct me the right direction for this project)

I am planning on launching white label sites for my company. Obviously they will have unique/valuable content. Is it important for them to have unique IP addresses and/or design templates? If yes - why?

Doe anyone have an email address I can use to contact Google Ireland? One of my competitors posts ads in Australia and I want to see if they would let us also (I work in one of those industries where Google doesn't normally allow PPC) Thanks!

I was looking through the pages indexed by Google (with site:www.mywebsite.com) and one of the results was a page with "noindex, follow" in the code that seems to be a page generated by blog searches. Any ideas why it seems to be indexed or how to de-index it?

Does anyone have suggestions for a better RU keyword tool than Yandex and/or is there a way to see exact searches in Yandex's keyword tool? It seems like the data is not at all accurate.  For example - we are ranked #2 for a keyword which has over 40,000 monthly searches (searches according to Yandex keyword tool and position confirmed with someone doing a manual search in Russia). However, we are not getting any traffic for this keyword and according to Yandex webmaster tools the keyword only got 10 impressions this past month. Any ideas for me... or would using Google be preferable eventhough people in Russia don't really use Google?

Is it possible to change RankTrackers settings to see if my keywords are in the top 500 spots instead of only the top 50?

My site was penalized for specific pages in the UK On July 28 (corresponding with a Panda update). I cleaned up my website and wrote to Google and they responded that "no manual spam actions had been taken". The only other thing I can think of is that we suffered an automatic penalty. I am having problems with my sitemap and it is indexing many error pages, empty pages, etc... According to our index status we have 2,679,794 not selected pages and 36,168 total indexed. Could this have been what caused the error? (If you have any articles to back up your answers that would be greatly appreciate) Thanks!

My website dropped from ~15 to 500 + for our main keywords in target markets (but are still doing okay in other countries and for other keywords) I cleaned my site up and contacted Google who told me no manual spam actions were taken on my site.   The only thing I can think is that we suffered from an automatic penalty (the drop corresponded with a small panda update). If that is in fact what happened, how do we recover? Also feel free to contribute other ideas about what may have occurred.

Hi, I am planning on launching satellite sites. From my understanding I should have unique IP addresses and a different template than my main site to avoid duplication and separate from the main site. Any good articles I could use as documentation to back up what I am saying? (or if people think I should be doing things differently feel free to pitch in with that as well)

2 months ago my site was ranking about 15 for my main KWs in the UK (my main market).  On July 28 we dropped suddenly to ~500 or not in the top 500 at all in the UK for the 3 main keywords.  However, these same terms are still ranking in other markets and we are doing okay in the UK for other terms targeted to the same pages. I cleaned up my links/content and sent a reconsideration request to Google. I then looked closer at my links and realized Google may be counting my affiliate links as if they were mine, so thought maybe that was the problem. I sent Google another reconsideration request and they wrote back the letter pasted below Any ideas about what happened or how I can get my rankings back?  This definitely doesn't seem like it was just a simple algorithm change.  There were no major changes done to our site, and we are still ranking in other markets. Dear site owner or webmaster  
We received a request from a site owner to reconsider your site for compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. 
We reviewed your site and found no manual actions by the webspam team that might affect your site's ranking in Google. There's no need to file a reconsideration request for your site, because any ranking issues you may be experiencing are not related to a manual action taken by the webspam team. 
Of course, there may be other issues with your site that affect your site's ranking. Google's computers determine the order of our search results using a series of formulas known as algorithms. We make hundreds of changes to our search algorithms each year, and we employ more than 200 different signals when ranking pages. As our algorithms change and as the web (including your site) changes, some fluctuation in ranking can happen as we make updates to present the best results to our users. 
If you've experienced a change in ranking which you suspect may be more than a simple algorithm change, there are other things you may want to investigate as possible causes, such as a major change to your site's content, content management system, or server architecture. For example, a site may not rank well if your server stops serving pages to Googlebot, or if you've changed the URLs for a large portion of your site's pages. This article has a list of other potential reasons your site may not be doing well in search. 
If you're still unable to resolve your issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. 
Sincerely, 
Google Search Quality Team

I am launching a series of geographically specific sites to support my main website. Is there any problem with targeting the same keywords on both sites?

My company sells very geographically specific products online.  We have local offices in cities connected to the product and they are labeled with terms such as "florida widget". Could I use local SEO and add my website link to Google maps, etc... with the local address or is that not allowed since the products are not sold in the physical local office but rather online?

My company is planning "white label" subsites with unique URLs. Should these sites be unique IPs in order to use them for link building?

I think my site is being spammed by someone using adf.ly to direct crappy links to my site. Does anyone have experience with them and how to find out who could possibly be harming my site through them?

How do I change the code in my URL to search in Google by specific location?

I want to find out keyword research about a specific US State but Google's tool only gives me data by Country. Is there something else I can use?

For the past 2 days Google Webmaster has recorded 0 search queries to my site, but traffic seems stable. Any ideas about why this is happening and what I should do about it? Or is it a Google glitch I should not be concerned about (hoping for this option)

My website published about 3 news articles a day and is set up so that old news articles can be accessed through a "back" button with articles going to page 2 then page 3 then page 4, etc... as new articles push them down.  The pages include a link to the article and a short snippet. I was thinking I would want Google to index the first 3 pages of articles, but after that the pages are not worthwhile.  Could these pages harm me and should they be noindexed and/or added as a canonical URL to the main news page - or is leaving them as is fine because they are so deep into the site that Google won't see them, but I also won't be penalized for having week content? Thanks for the help!

When I add an image to a Facebook post (for a FanPage) does it need to be something I own or have credited, or can I use whatever images I like? Is this something that is at all monitored? Thanks!

Guest blogging seems to be one of the few legit linking methods left these days. My problem is that I work for a company in the gaming industry niche. All of the blogs directly connected are either spam, competitors or affiliates. I have been doing some guest blogging with connected articles on non-related blogs such as "financial advice if you win big" or a recent news story for a general blog. However, these sites are not connected and I cannot get the more quality general sites interested in these topics. Any advice for me?

I have affiliate websites that are harming for one of 2 reasons: 1. They are on adult websites (and I don't want to be in a bad neighborhood) or 2. They are using a Frameset (so their content appears identical to mine and I am getting "credit" for all their junk links) I cannot get these websites to remove our links so I have blocked their IPs on our production firewall. Is this an effective method or should I do something else with these links?

I have a very strong affiliate network. Currently all my affiliate links go to a subdomain with a 301 redirect to my site. I have somewhat of a linking profile besides affiliates, but it is not as strong as the affiliate site. Are my affiliates enhancing my linking profile and helping me? Or Does it look to Google like I am benefiting from "paid links" and they would prefer I add NOFOLLOW or a 302 to my affiliate links? Thanks for your help!

I emailed a directory asking to have my link removed and they responded that it costs $20. Does anyone have experience paying to remove links? I would never do this on a mass scale, but for individual links is it worthwhile or a waste of money?

A few years ago someone started a Facebook page for my company. It has about 15 fans and is not active, however it is ranking in Google because of it's age. I want to delete the page (so that the real official Facebook page will rank instead). However, I do not have access to the original admin account and Facebook is not responding to my removal requests. Any suggestions for what I should do? Thanks!

I am working on redoing my blog and there are many posts that fit into two categories.  Should I keep them in only one? or place them in both? For example- Category 1 - Gucci Category 2 - Shirts Should a post about "Gucci shirts" go in both places or only the "Gucci" category and the "shirts" category would then only include posts about my more minor brands. Thanks!

I want to know the top trending words in countries other than USA. Any suggestions for an alternative to Google "Hot Searches" in Australia, Germany, Russia and Sweden? Thanks!

My Facebook page does not show up within the first 50 results of a search for my brand.  I have over 3,000 fans and am relatively active so it should be there. On the second page of SERPs for my brand there is a Facebook page of a spammy looking affiliate with 15 fans.  On the third page my Facebook test page appears. Any ideas about what happened with my page? Is it possible Google penalized my Facebook page - and if so, how do I fix that? I checked the admin again and the page is open to the public and when I do a search for "brand facebook" it appears. Thanks for your help!

When running my website on link detective I found that 40% of my links were unknown and 41% were dead. I have a very strong affiliate network and it seems like most of the unknown are from affiliates.  How should I interpret the dead links - is this harming my site? Thanks!

I work in a field similar to casinos, which obviously makes standard link building practices more difficult.   Also, my company cannot operate in the US. Any SEOMozzers who work in similar fields and have ideas for creative link building to successfully build a robost (and white hat) link profile for marginal industries? Thanks!