Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi fellow Mozzers...

I've been asked to increase organic search (SEO) traffic to a news/magazine style website. All the website consists of is regular news articles within a specific niche. It is also already listed on Google News.

I know we can improve any on-page tactics, such as optimising the article webpages, internal linking, improving the navigation and adding breadcrumbs etc. But what about off-page?

They want us to work on backlinks to the site, which we can do for the homepage to improve the domain authority. But there's no point on increasing backlinks to the individual news articles, as they have a very short life span, and are not evergreen. Perhaps it's a good idea to increase backlinks to the category pages? But there are no real keyword opportunites on these pages.

Can anyone recommend a clever SEO strategy to increase SEO traffic to a news style website? The site can be found at https://tinyurl.com/2p9arrwz

Best wishes. Many thanks for any replies in advance

Lee.

Many thanks, Donna.

I'm seeing things completely different to you. Screwfix does use both variations on-page (METAs and content). They also rank #1 for both variations.

Strange! I am searching from the UK, but the ranking Screwfix pages should be the same regardless.

Lee

Fair commments, Egol.. I can certainly see the logic.

The problem is that people use both variants.. so we want to rank for both!

It’s a conundrum

Many thanks, Egol.

Do you think that using both variants on page would cause any issues?

All the best.

Lee

Hi all.

Just wondering what peoples stance is on using multiple variations of keywords on a webpage - those keywords that have the same meaning and search intent, but are just spelt differently.

i.e. 'woodscrews' and 'wood screws' (the latter has a significantly higher search volume)

You could approach the webpage in 4 different ways;

1. Use ONLY 'wood screws' on-page, and in the page <title><br />2. Use ONLY 'woodscrews' on-page, and in the page <title><br />3. Use BOTH 'wood screws' and 'woodscrews' on-page, and BOTH in the page <title><br />4. Use BOTH 'wood screws' and 'woodscrews' on-page, but ONLY one variation in the page <title></p> <p>We've run some tests in the past but there were never any clear takeaways, a mixed bag of results really.</p> <p>Also, If they are considered the same keyword by Google why are the ranking positions always different for each variation?</p> <p>I'm not sure there' a specific answer to this, just interested to hear peoples thoughts really.</p> <p>Many thanks in advance!</p> <p>Lee.</p></title>

Hi,

Our clients are adamant that they have set up 301 permanent redirects on their websites, but when we check using Screaming Frog and various online HTTP status code checkers they are showing as 307 temporary redirects.

Examples;
http://www.lifestylelifts.co.uk/home-lifts/ 
http://www.terrylifts.co.uk/

Again, the client says they are seeing 301 redirects. Why are we seeing 307's? Who is right?

Very puzzling, any theories would be very much appreciated

Thanks in advance.

Lee.

Hi, we have an ecommerce website with facetted navigation for the various options available.

Google has 3.4 million webpages indexed. Many of which are over 90% duplicates.

Due to the low domain authority (15/100) Google is only crawling around 4,500 webpages per day, which we would like to improve/increase.

We know, in order not to waste crawl budget we should use the robots.txt to disallow parameter URL’s (i.e. ?option=, ?search= etc..). This makes sense as it would resolve many of the duplicate content issues and force Google to only crawl the main category, product pages etc.

However, having looked at the Google Search Console these pages are getting a significant amount of organic traffic on a monthly basis.

Is it worth disallowing these parameter URL’s in robots.txt, and hoping that this solves our crawl budget issues, thus helping to index and rank the most important webpages in less time.

Or is there a better solution?

Many thanks in advance.

Lee.

This is more of a ‘gripe’ than a question, but I would love to hear people’s views.

Typically, when you search for a product using the singular and plural versions of the keyword Google delivers different SERPs.

As an example, ‘leather handbag’ and ‘leather handbags’ return different results, but surely the search intent is exactly the same?

You’d have thought Google was now clever enough to work this out.

We tend to optimise our webpages for both the plural and singular variations of the KW’s, but see a mixed bag of results when analysing rankings.

Is Google trying to force us to create a unique webpage for the singular version, and another unique webpage for the plural version? This would confuse the visitor, and make no sense.. the search intent is the same!

How do you combat this problem?

Many thanks in advance.

Lee.

Many thanks Gianluca, think I was looking at it too technically yesterday.. got blind to it!

Think I've sorted it now!

Really appreciate the help, Lee.

Hi,

We've received the following Href Lang errors in Google Search Console. After much research and playing around with the tags we're still no closer to fixing the issues.

ERRORS; http://prntscr.com/du8ei8 AND http://prntscr.com/du8evi

As you'll see, Google is telling us that some URLs do not have return tags, but they do seem to!

Does anyone know of a pro that can provide a service to fix this for us?

Many thanks in advance, Lee.

That's great, many thanks Emanuele.

Glad to hear that our suggeston of a 'folder' strategy is the best way forward, but as you say there are pros and cons for each solution.

In my opinion, hosting a website 'locally' (i.e. German host for a .de site, US host for .us site) is better from a rankings perspective. I feel that this is not as important as it once was, but it still helps. Would you agree?

Thanks again, much appreciated.

Lee

Hi,

We have been approached by a potential client. They are a UK company whose website is hosted on a .com domain (the .co.uk forwards to the .com).

They also have a German website hosted on a .de domain. Both the .com and the .de are hosted in the UK. We believe that the .de website should be hosted in Germany. You agree?

Anyway, they now need to target the US market.

They are planning on duplicating the UK (.com) website and creating a US version of the site on a .us domain. They would rewrite the content for the US site to avoid duplications, and add Href Lang attributes etc. They are also debating whether the new US site should be hosted in the US or the UK.

We don't think this is the best strategy. Would it not be better to host both the UK and US website on the .com domain. using reginal folders? i.e. example.com/uk, and example.com/us. Obviously we would setup Href Lang accordingly and change the Google Search Console geo targeting options for each of the sub-sites (/uk and /us).

Or we could suggest hosting the UK site on the .co.uk domain, and the US on the .com domain.

So, what is the best strategy to target the US audience, whilst maintaining UK rankings?

Many thanks for your time, hope to hear from you soon

Lee.

Thanks, Tawny. I'll email them now

Hi,

We run MONTHLY Moz custom reports that compares rankings from the previous month, but some of the data just doesn't make sense.

As an example, in the previous month’s report our ranking for “keyword X” was #3, when we look at the current month’s report our ranking for “keyword X” is still #3, but it shows that it’s gone up by 3 positions.

This position change is not true if you compare to the previous month’s report! How can we know what dates we are comparing against?

All the best, Lee.

Nope, still not working! Quite a pain to be honest.

Many thanks for this, Mark.. must have missed this post, explains the reason it wasn't working for me

Hi, I'm using the Moz Bar add-on in Firefox.. but it's suddenly truncated meaning that I can only see half of the toolbar, and I'm unable to use it's features.

Screenshot here; http://prntscr.com/bgm1z2

Does anyone know how to fix this? I've tried removing and re-adding Moz Bar, and installed a new version fo Firefox.

Thanks in advance, Lee.

Many thanks for this, Andy.. appreciated.

The site is; http://bit.ly/1PqGTbS

I look forward to your response, Lee.

Hi,

I've noticed that a competitors Google+ box is appearing on the right hand side of the Google UK SERPs for a non-branded keyword (open air balustrade). Please see attached image.

I've always thought that the Google+ box would only be displayed in the SERPS for branded keywords.

How is this Google+ box appearing for non-branded keywords? How can we improve our chances of our Google+ box being shown instead?

Many thanks in advance, Lee.

vDm914D

Many thanks for the feedback, Miriam. hope all's well.

You make a lot of sense.. my train of thought though is that if you do have varied unique, optimised descriptions you have more chance of a number of different directory profiles ranking in Google for related searches, therefore increasing your 'third-party' search visibility.

Wouldn't Google only rank one of your directory profiles if the content (description) is duplicated?

Thanks again, Lee.

Hello!

As SEO’s we have always understood that it’s best practice to craft a number of unique descriptions when submitting to local directories, rather than using one generic description across all directories.

However, if we look at this logically;

An average business owner (even if Google didn't exist) wouldn't bother to vary descriptions. They would have a generic brand template and simply submit the same description to each directory.

What do you think? Is having unique descriptions a MUST for Local Business Citations, or is it ok to use one generic one?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts, Lee.

That's the answer I was hoping for, thanks Tom!

Sorry Tom, forgot to ask.. will the fact that the website is hosted on a UK server (having a UK IP address) hinder the performance of the US campaign?

We could move it over to a US server however this may effect the (currently very good) UK rankings.

Thanks in advance, Lee.

Many thanks Tom, great answer!

Yes, the client would like to rank in both UK and US.. so your suggestions sound ideal, and pretty easy to implement.

I'll read Aleyda's article tonight, sounds interesting.

Thanks again Tom, much appreciated.

Lee.

Hi, I've done some research on this but couldn't find any definitive answer I can trust!

We have a client who resides in the UK. They have '.com' domain, hosted on a UK server, using UK spelling.

Their business objective for this year is to expand in the USA, including the opening of a warehouse over there.

They are wanting us to rank their website on both Google.co.uk and Google.com (North America); besides changing the geolocation settings in GWT's, and building links from .com websites is there anything else we can do to increase their visibility on Google.com?

Many thanks in advance, appreciated!
Lee.

Well that explains that then Marie! Many thanks

I have read your article (impressive!) and everything now makes sense, we can stop wandering!

I'll share your article on Twitter shortly (@webpresenceUK).. the least we can do.

Thanks again, you really have helped.

Lee.

Thanks again Karl,

Their backlink profile now looks limited, but natural if the disavowed links are taken away.

We are outreaching to build quality links to address the balance, and participating on social media etc.

It wasn't an alogorithmic penalty as it was listed in the 'manual sections' of WMT's.. and there's no duplicate content.

It's all guess work at the moment, we have no idea if our disavow file has been considered, or if the penalty still exists! Organic traffic has increased slightly but that may just be down to our recent on-page and off-page work.

All the best, Lee.

Many thanks for the response Karl, appreciated!

No such message, no. I thought that google would have sent us this kind of message too, they have in the past.

The last response we received from them was in April saying that the reconsideration request had failed as there were still artificial links pointing to the site. We've spent a lot of time and money trying to get them removed since, but are now unable to send a new reconsideration request.

The only thing I can think of is that Google are eventually taking notice of our disavow file, but that's only a guess.

If anyone else can shed some light on this that would be great, we're just not sure if it's worth spending more resources on the link audit and removal process.. if the penalty has been lifted there isn't much point.

Very confused!

Lee.

Hi,

We have been trying to remove a ‘partial’ google penalty for a new client by the way of removing unnatural backlinks over a period of time and then submitting a reconsideration request, and uploading a disavow file etc.

Previously Google listed the partial penalty in the ‘manual actions’ section of webmaster tools, making it possible for us to submit a reconsideration request.

Having just logged in however we get the message ‘no manual webspam actions found’. So there isn’t any way we can submit a reconsideration request.

Does this mean that the penalty has been lifted? Or could it still exist? If the latter is there any other way to submit a reconsideration request?

Many thanks in advance, Lee.

Thanks for this Jane, good to know that we're doing it right.. am still a little unsure why the metrics are identical but as you say it's better to be safe than sorry

Hi, our client has switched from a non-secure server to a secure (SSL) server.. but the non secure pages still exist, i.e.

http://www.stainlesshandrailsystems.co.uk/balustrade-systems.html (non-secure)
https://www.stainlesshandrailsystems.co.uk/balustrade-systems.html (secure)

We assumed that we should 301 redirect the http pages to the new https pages using the following htaccess rule;

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R,L]

HOWEVER! both of the above pages show the same Page Authority (PA) and Pagerank (PR).. does this mean that they are being seen as the same page, do we really need to employ 301 redirects?

Many thanks in advance, much appreciated.

Lee

Thanks Rand.. have just re-read this response and I totally agree with the SEO tactics you have mentioned.. but in my opinion you are assuming that the client has an endless budget for SEO.

Unfortunately this isn’t the case for a lot of ‘smaller’ clients, they have limited budgets in comparison to their nationwide ‘bigger’ competitors.. Creating videos isn’t cheap, hosting events isn’t cheap etc..

Google favours big brands who have the resources to make them happy.. it’s a lose lose situation for smaller companies.. how can they compete?

Thanks kerry, appreciate the feedback.

Do you not think that links within an author bio may be a target for upcoming google updates? They seem too easy to get, and therefore could be classed as spam!

Thanks in advance, Lee.

Many thanks for this Rand.. certainly makes sense!

Can't wait for the upcoming Whiteboard Friday you mentioned.. the sooner the better

Hi, have just watched the latest Whiteboard Friday entitled 'Why Guest Posting and Blogging is a Slippery Slope'. Rand mentions '"guest posting at scale", but what does he actually mean?

For the purpose of building website authority and brand awareness we post around 1-4 blog posts per month for our clients, all on authoirty sites, some of which accept guest posts with little editorial restriction, some we have to jump through hoops for.

We don't use KW specific anchor text, instead we link to the clients site with semantically related, varied anchor text, as well as linking to other useful third party sources. We also publish regular useful content on our clients blogs in the hope of getting natural backlinks.

Would this be classed as 'guest posting at scale'? Do you think we could we be targeted and penalised by the upcoming guest post algorithm?

Many thanks in advance, Lee.

Wow, what a great response Oli, many thanks!

There are certainly some things we can do from this list, but others require additional budget which the client doesn't have.

Just one last question if you don't mind?

2. Have all of the ebooks for this client live on a subdomain such as get.clientsite.com/ebook1/  get.clientsite.com/ebook2/ - We currently use www.domain.com/ebooks, is there a particular reason you suggest using a sub-domain?

Thanks again, have a great weekend.

Lee.

Many thanks Ocelot, it's not possible to 'frame' or embed Unbounce landing pages within an external webpage.. looked into this yesterday! It would be the ideal solution too.

Hi, am hoping someone can give me a little advice..

We have created an Ebook for a client, which we will ‘hide’ behind a landing page for the purpose of collecting email addresses in return for a link to the Ebook.

We are thinking of using Unbounce landing pages, integrated with Mailchimp. The problem however is that I’m assuming it will not be possible for Unbounce landing pages to rank well in the SERPs.. which is essential.

The obvious solution would be to write a blog post detailing the contents of the Ebook, and then to ‘SEO’ this post.. this however will not provide a positive user experience as below;

1. Visitor lands on blog post
2. Visitor then has to click through to Ubounce landing page (very similar content)
3. Visitor completes form to download Ebook

My question is; What’s the best way to rank a direct landing page in the SERP’s, whilst providing the best possible user experience (less steps)?

Many thanks in advance, your time is appreciated

Lee.

Thanks Martin, not 301'd the pages before so it's still a mystery why this has happened! They're not new pages, been around for years without this problem!

We're aware of the underscore issue, this is how we found the URL's when we took over SEO, as the pages are ranking well I feel it best to leave as is.

Thanks again, Lee

Many thanks Martin, appreciate the feedback!

We've 301'd the following trailing slash pages to the non-slash pages so hopefully this should resolve the problem.

http://www.kingstoncabinets.co.uk/wooden_white_oak_radiator_covers.php/
http://www.kingstoncabinets.co.uk/designer_radiator_covers_designs.php/

In answer to your questions;

1. No cononicals on the issue pages

2. No problems with the .htaccess file.

Am just confused why this has happened!

Thanks again, Lee

Hi, have never seen this before so am hoping soemone can shed some light!

Google seems to be forcing a trailing slash at the end of our php pages within the search results.

For example, Google is indexing http://www.kingstoncabinets.co.uk/heat-convection.php/ (trailing slash) rather than http://www.kingstoncabinets.co.uk/heat-convection.php (without slash).

The trailing slash page doesn't display properly and has no page authority.

I've ran the site through Screaming Frog and there are no internal links the the trailing slash URL's, nor does there seem to be any external links to these pages.

Why is Google forcing the slash?

Am confused

Still waiting John.. as expected!

Hi Mark, although I don't have any conclusive evidence I would say that Google does index hashtag URLS.

Think of it this way; when you link within a page using an anchor (#), Google see's the '#' and 'non-# URLS' as unique URLS so logically this does suggest that they do index the full URL.

Hooe that's helped, Lee.

A response from Google Thomas, like your optimism!!

Many thanks Thomas, interesting to hear that it may mean that the penalty has been lifted!

No 301's were done, am not sure if any third party site cleaned up their act and by the looks of it no backlinks have been removed, unless of course they simply weren't picked up by Majestic and OSE and we weren't aware of them.

Am still swaying towards the idea of the message simply expiring, but your theory has a lot of legs.. still confused!!!

Lee

Webresence.

Hi, just a quick one.

We had an unnatural link warning for one of our test sites, the message appeared on the WMT's dashboard.

The message is no longer there, has it simply expired or could this mean that Google no longer sees an unatural backlink profile? Hoping it's the latter but doubtful as we haven't tried to remove any links.. as I say it's just a test site.

Thanks in advance!

Many thanks Pete, will see what we can do and take action. Appreciate the advice