Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hello,

I'm dealing with spam in google analytics, applying filters (and using segments for historical data)

Does applying a filter in GA affect Moz data, future or historical?

Is there a way of doing this?

Thank you!

Hello,

I'm starting to find some of our sites being heavily affected by spam referral traffic.

I've been doing a bit of research, but it seems advice is changing all the time (or trying to sell me a service)

Does anyone have any suggestions (or links to point me to) on the best way to block spam referral traffic (All our sites are Wordpress).

Is there a way of blocking from past data or only future?

Will blocking affect past moz data or is that permanently contaminated?

I really don't quite understand what is in it for these spammers.

Any advice greatly appreciated

Thanks, great answer - will update the template I think

Hello,

Moz is showing that a site has duplicate content - which appears to be because of tags and categories. It is a relatively new site, with only a few blog publications so far. This means that the same articles are displayed under a number of different tags and categories...

Is this something I should worry about, or just wait until I have more content? The 'tag' and 'category' pages are not really pages I would expect or aim for anyone to find in google results anyway.

Would be glad to here any advice / opinions on this

Thanks!

Hello

I have a campaign in Moz that shows a new site as having no domain authority and no links.

The site does have links to it, but they don't show up on OSE.

Does Moz count links in the comments section of blogs (or is this counted as social, when the commenting system is one that requires facebook login?) I know blog comments are not great for SEO, I just use them when the post/link is 100% genuinely relevant. The site does have actual links on websites not just comment links, so it isn't showing any type of link.

What is the best way to see the links the site has?

Thanks!

Hello

I'm looking to submit a sitemap for a post driven site with over 5000 pages.

The site hasn't got a sitemap but it is indexed by google - will submitting a sitemap make a difference at this stage?

Also, most free sitemap tools only go up to 5000 pages, and I'm thinking I would try a sitemap using a free version of the tool before I buy one - If my site is 5500 pages but I only submit a sitemap for 5000 (I have no control of which pages get included in the sitemap) would this have a negative effect for the pages that didn't get included?

Thanks

Cheers Peter. As usual with the dark arts of SEO, no one size fits all solution That's helpful though - Thanks

Hello!

I have a fair few links on some of the old SEO 'Directory' sites. I've got rid of all the obviously spammy ones - however there are a few that remain which have very low spam scores, and decent page authority, yet they are clearly just SEO directories - I can't believe they service any other purpose.

Should we now just be getting rid of all links like this, or is it worth keeping if the domain authority is decent and spam score low?

Thanks

Sam

Hi there!

It's not uncommon for positions to seem like they are stuck for weeks or even months. We've simplified this step by using open site explorer to study the competition who rank higher than us and see why. We call this a term ceiling and it's based on MANY factors but the good news is one good link can help you break through that ceiling. Hope that helps.

We have a lot sites we've built sitting on the same IP as our web site. Given that a lot of web companies rely quite heavily on the backlinks they get from their clients (some rather dubious footer links are common in this space), are we getting the most out of these valuable backlinks by sharing the same IP?

Hi all,

I've noticed recently a dramatic drop in the number of external links showing in moz across all campaigns (including tracked competitors) Is this to do with the new indexing?

Thanks

Hi, I recall being able to use OSE for Facebook. Take https://www.facebook.com/VICE/ which we know as a URL would have many backlinks. It's not registering any. Has this always been the case?

Hi, I recall being able to use OSE for Facebook. Take https://www.facebook.com/VICE/ which we know as a URL would have many backlinks. It's need registering any. Has this always been the case?

What problem is it causing Wendy?

To make that a little clearer, we've been thinking about tools that show which posts within Facebook are doing well. Videos with most views in a particular niche for example. None of the mentioned tools do that do they?

Hey,

Just wondering what tools people recommend for finding out trending content on social media?

Thanks

Hello

I'd be very grateful for any advice with this:

My insights show I have an 803 error. Now, under "pages with crawl attempt error" the page in question is just an uploaded image to wordpress.

However, above the graph it says: "We were unable to access your homepage, which prevented us from crawling the rest of your site. It is likely that other browsers as well as search engines may encounter this problem and abort their sessions."

Does this really mean my homepage? or is the only issue with the image?

I have noticed for the past 8 weeks I'm getting 1 crawl attempt error every 2 weeks (so when viewed weekly I have 1 error one week, 0 error the next week etc) Is this normal?

Since receiving this 803 error, I have significantly dropped in SERPS for 3 key terms I was on page 1 for (now dropped to pages 3-4). Could this be related?

I realise this is a bit specific, but thanks in advance.

Cheers

Hi, It could be hard to organically rank for that term because of all the real estate sites. It may take some work to organically rank there

Thanks Matt and Erica. I think we'll have to take the band aid approach at first, but it's definitely something I'll now think about with future updates and developments

Hello,

I'm managing a site which shows as having duplicate page issues (in the crawl analyser) for 3 pages. Basically the site is offering 3 different options of the same product so depending on which size you select, you are directed to the relevant page. These 3 pages are basically identical apart from a slight difference in copy regarding the size (small, medium, large)

Is this likely to be a big issue regarding SEO, and what would the moz community suggest re this?

Thank you!

Great thanks. Is that confirmed then? It wouldn't be possible to see 0 shares for the home page, and then a large number of shares for a blog post from that domain?

Thanks

We have a client who has asked us to talk to link brokers to speed up the back linking process. Although I've been aware of them for ages I have never openly discussed the possible use of 'buying' links or engaging in that part of the industry. Do they have a place in SEO and if so what is the MOZ communities thoughts?

Hello!

When I'm looking at a SERP analysis for a keyword, I'm able to see the social metric, showing the amount of social shares - Would this include social shares in general for posts from that domain or is it just the specific URL?

Thank You

Thanks Tom, how does this compare with http://www.linkdetox.com/ have you used them before?

Checking the health of a back links especially on new accounts is crucial. MOZ wants to be a one stop SEO tool shop and I think this would certainly go a long way in cementing that.

We used to do a lot of infographics, which were very often found through image search, so we found it very important then

I'm interested to know the answer to this also, but I think it depends on the keyword, as the page is graded relatively.

Hi Alick,

So with the most important keyword, would you only use in the meta title, and not bother using in other areas because the meta title in a sense 'overrides' all the others? (ie is it overkill to use the your main keyword in more than the title tag?) I guess it depends on what the keyword is your trying to rank for?

Thanks

Hi Stacy, I was in a similar position not long ago, but this community and the Moz videos have been particularly helpful. A a fellow amateur I can't really add anything to donford's post but all I can stay is stick with this lot - there is hope! (Moz guide to the basics is a great place to start)

So you've been MOZing and SEOing for years and we're all convinced of the 10x factor when it comes to content and ranking for certain search terms... right? So what do you do when some older sites that don't even produce content dominate the first page of a very important search term? They're home pages with very little content and have clearly all dabbled in pre Panda SEO. Surely people are still seeing this and wondering why?

Yes you can and I've seen this many times. I'm not that a multitude of TLDs is the right way to go about it however and would suggest sub-domains. Don't forget to use an IP blocker like HMA to test search results from various proxy locations. This has been a life saver many times for us!

For quite some time now Google and other search engines has cared way less about the domain and focused a lot more on brand integrity. That's why MOZ exists!! Because so many of the other factors rate so much higher than your domain. I have found that with a solid brand and good content the most obscure domain can rank.

Completely drop the whole URL / mirror idea and focus on what matters most: branding / UX and content.

Any thoughts on why there would be an across the board drop in keyword ranking for a site that hasn't changed any of it's content marketing strategies? All above board and DA continues to be strong. All indicators that the site is healthy. Many competitors in the space (in Australia) continue to rank in the top pages with little change.

As an example take the term "web design sydney" the leading pack here have ranked for 3+ years with very little change and rather consistent questionable tactics. It's a mystery.

Is this different to their disavow feature? We use that quite regularly.

Would love to hear people's thoughts on this. Have seen it before but never looked much deeper because it was so much more important for us to rank our client on Google.

Re-reading your question it sounds like the URL will change.

So lets say you have funstuff.co.uk and your new site is funstuff.com.au the best stepn is to 301 re-direct the .co.uk to the new geo-targeted site and it will transfer 90% of the existing link juice.

We've done this many times and it works just fine.

Hi,

Will the URL change?

Because 202 is nor an error, it's an 'accepted' code. Also, where are you seeing these?

Hi Ben are they 202 or 404?

Hi, has anyone noticed across the board drops in DA in specific industries lately? If you're tracking 5 companies in one industry it seems odd that all five would drop 2-3 DA points all at once don't you think? Just peculiar I think and would love some insight if there is some to be had / shared.

Why do you want to delete them? Not sure how this is a Moz related questions to be honest. Might be better for a web dev forum.

We worked with a local blog once trying to get into Google news and one of  the biggest sticking points is the authenticity of the articles coming from journalists. A list of who is writing and their Google + details helped a lot. Until you get accepted no point in updating the Yoast plugin from our experience.

This is probably the most basic of SEO questions which no SEO I've yet met can answer. Analyzing a keyword for a client with the Basic SERP report reveals a lot but at the same time not enough. The term Logo Design (yes bad I know) shows at least 50 companies spending hard on SEO but there is no too in MOZ that can actually tell you why someone with less PA, less links, less DA actually ranks higher than someone else.

Surely you guys out there face this quandary all the time. The why? When you've exhausted everything what do you tell a client? Your numbers and your authority is better than the competition but they still rank higher!

The best approach would be to treat your site like a blog so that each video has the opportunity to be found on it's own merit. you can setup catagories of course so that people can search and filter that way too. Without seeing the site the question is a little too simplistic I could be easily missing something here but I can't imagine a huge home page with hundreds of videos being very user friendly. UX is a crucial part of good SEO.

Is the permalink / URL changing for the product?

Thanks guys I'll wait until the month cycles through and see if anything has changed.

It sounds like you might be getting a little overwhelmed which can cause a lack of focus. Try to go a page at a time starting with as little as 3-5 key words per page and using On Page Grader make sure you're scoring an A. From there it's time to start some strategic link building. The 2nd video down on this page is a great place to start http://moz.com/blog/2012-mozcon-videos-are-here. Hope that helps.

I'm not sure how Apartment Therapy would feel about you sharing that information but that aside, given your name I assume your NZ based? If that's the case I'd get some metrics on subscriber numbers in New Zealand for Apartment Therapy (I know they're huge in Australia). I'd then weigh that up against 10K worth of SEM that is focused and targeted. We do a hell of a lot for 10K for a client (that's not a pitch btw). And finally one of their strongest assets is their EDM so if you do go that way, ensure you're in a prime position on the EDM. Hope that helps but for whatever it's worth, it sounds very expensive.

We recently discovered a problem with our MOZ account which led to checking our host's settings. Turns out that WP Engine (who we love to death) automatically BLOCK Rogerbot and Dotbot from crawling sites they host. What? Yeah exactly expect I was cursing a little too. So we went through the steps of getting that sorted one bot at a time but a week on and we're still getting 403 returns via OSE. This is more of a discussion than a question expect what I would like to see is a force crawl button so that we can test that we're no longer serving a 403 error from our host MOZ. I thought WP Engine were huge and I'm surprised this has not come up before but there's no info on it anywhere. Is there a way to force a mozbots crawl??

Do you mean automatically? If you're on a site checking links you can see where they are. Perhaps I misunderstood the question?