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To answer your question #2: If you don't have a thank you page, you probably want to track clicks on the "send" button and define them as goals. In order to do that, you have to add analytics javascript to the button so it's defined as an event. Then you go to goal setups as described above by Brian and define those events as goals.
As described here: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/google-analytics-goals-funnels-tips/#Event
Cool, will do. Thanks Dan!
Right? And when googling this it feels like I'm the only one...
In my experience contacting google has usually been a waste of time.. Is there any place you would recommend submitting this?
In my case, the new kw-tool always shows the same numbers for broad, phrase and exact match, no matter what option I chose. Also, these numbers are completely different from what the old kw-tools displays. look here: http://imgur.com/tpAXwVN
For languages that are less used than english, the new kw-tool often displays no traffic at all and becomes virtually useless.
yes, this could be related to the footer. though if you have over 500k pages indexed I assume you do have duplicate content issues anyway.
check your analytics if these category pages bring any traffic. probably you don't want to block them via robots if they reffer traffic. these category urls don't look too bad. i guess your duplication issues are somewhere else. look for dynamic elements in the url for instance.
Make a site:yourdomain.com search on google and see what urls you find that don't need to be indexed.
Hi Sarah
I'm stumbling into the same problems as you - search volumes of the old Keyword Tool and the Keyword Planner vary massively. And for terms that shouldn't have much fluctuation in search volume. Stuff that shows volume in the thousands in the old tool, just indicates search volumes around 50 in the new one.
This looks pretty crappy to me considering that soon this will be my only kw-tool available...
Disallow: /archive/ does not work for urls like archive?page=333
I suggest to block it as Christopher described above or like this:
Disallow: /archive?*
i don't think noindex would help much. which pages would you noindex anyhow?
to me it looks like a lot of links indeed and i would try to find the root since it looks like you have some duplication issues hidden somewhere...
Hi Don
Thanks for your hint. It doesn't look like there are any links to the www1 subdomain. Also, since we've let the www1-Subdomain return 404's and blocked it with robots, the indexed pages increased from 39'300 to 45'100 so this is more than anybody would link to... Really strange why Google just ignores robots and keeps indexing...
Thanks for the resource Chris! The strange thing is that Google keeps indexing new URLs even though it is clearly blocked via robots.txt...
But I guess I'll just wait for these 90 days to pass then...
Hi.
We had some URLs that were indexed in Google from a www1-subdomain. We have now disabled the URLs (returning a 404 - for other reasons we cannot do a redirect from www1 to www) and blocked via robots.txt. But the amount of indexed pages keeps increasing (for 2 weeks now). Unfortunately, I cannot install Webmaster Tools for this subdomain to tell Google to back off...
Any ideas why this could be and whether it's normal?
I can send you more domain infos by personal message if you want to have a look at it.
Just ignore pagerank. seriously! you don't need pagerank, you need to rank for relevant queries. as for not having any backlinks: that's a pity of course. But make sure you don't do any funny stuff like linking to your site in forums and such. Try to get your business partners link to you in a credible way and get your backlink and pagerank back.
I think you should allow general access before beginning to disallow various sections below:
Allow: /
Though semantically, I think your robots.txt is in order. But if Google says they cannot acces robots.txt it seems like they cannot physically access the file itself on yourdomain.com/robots.txt, not that they cannot crawl the page due to your robots.txt.
Hi Marcus
Thanks for your great answer! This makes a lot of sense and I agree that 303 seems to be the suitable response if they were used "semantically"...
I do not agree with the general setup they made with this user detection (particularly since the root URL is not accessible but gets redirected). So I'm just out for a quick fix here for something that is not set up optimally in general.
I think I will stick with the 302 - it's not so easy to decide, but in such cases I think what Google itself does is a good reference. So thanks for pointing that out!
We won't get link juice from the domain's root using 302s (or less), but I will try to solve this otherwise by actually making that URL accessible.
Thanks a lot!
We have a site offering a voip app in 4 languages. Users are currently 302 redirected from the root page to /language subpages, depending on their browser language.
Discussions about the sense of this aside: Is it correct to use a 302 redirect here or should users be 301 redirected to their respective languages? I don't find any guideline on this whatsoever...
No use in having a blank robots.txt. Minimum requirement if you want to have your site crawled is this:
User-agent: * Allow: /
Note that Gagans example above will block the entire site.
Personally, I don't think it's a google dance but there's no way I could know this... I think the main question is: Should something like this affect your overall SEO strategy? If you react to ranking changes too intensely, this looks like you are over-optimizing your site which will result in a further ranking drop. So I think you should follow a consistent SEO strategy (build good content, build strong & trustworthy links with authoritative partner etc.).
But as I said: Most importantly you should check in Analytics whether your main keywords refer the same amount of traffic or change as well. If they are stable, then this is a non-issue IMO.
Don't worry too much about rankings. Since they are very personalized & localized they hardly matter. What you want is traffic. And unless you see some major shift in traffic of these referring keywords, worrying about a Google dance and such is futile.
Hmm, this might actually be a non-issue. I used http://tools.seobook.com/server-header-checker/, but if I check it with Firebug it correctly returns a 404...
Hi
We need to block some www1-pages from being indexed. Now IT has resolved this but pages like http://www1.swisscom.ch/fr/business/pme.html return a 405 status instead of a 404. The pages are currently still indexed in Google. Must the status be changed to 404 or should I just wait and see if Google de-indexes them anyhow?
If the links are legit and connect to good sources I wouldn't nofollow them. Personally, I only use nofollow for paid ads (if they don't run via an adserver) and user generated content.
If you have those 25 links on a single page, it might be a bit too much - unless it's a link page or such. If the are spread on your entire domain, it's no problem.
Don't worry too much about the page rank and think about content and topic relation. If the sites you link to are topically closely related to your own content, then it can actually help your own rankings if they are of high quality. For instance, if your site is about rocket science, it makes good sense to link to nasa.gov (it would actually look strange if there is no link to this rocket-related authority). Not that I want to sound like matt cutts, but if these links add value to your users, then they deserve to be followed:)
The links are not related to your IP, but to the URL. If images are available on both img.domain and www.domain, then you have a duplication issue. Best practice is to 301 redirect from the old to the new URL to give a clear indication of the unique location they are on.
Indeed, an IP change shouldn't have any impact. What do you mean by "the old IP are still accessible"? You routed the DNS to the new IP, right?
A possible reason I might see is that you may have changed your images to a new subdomain - img.domain.com). Did you redirect from where the old images were placed? If not, this might explain for part of the traffic drop since the new images have to be re-indexed.
I basically agree with Cesar's opinion. But if your brands have a close relation to each other I think it's okay to link to those - from header or footer. Header links will look less spammy since they are well visible for users. If your brands have a legit connection to each other there should be no riks - at least that is my experience with well-established brands that belong to the same company.
But linking from related content always has some benefits compared to sitewide linking - at least for seo. If you want to push cross-selling, linking from a header meta navigation makes sense.
Not easy to do such a list in general. I've made many attempts at this and didn't really get to a list thats more comprehensive than yours... IMO this has to be done specifically for each business segment.
hmm, is there a source for the 15% statement? I never found anything clear about it, but here matt cutts seems to say that the pagerank dilution is a myth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Filv4pP-1nw
ah okay, then i wouldn't worry about it too much. two 301s is definitely no problem.
just give it a few days of weeks until google recrawls the page. or alternatively. if you dont' want to wait, you can submit the url again via webmaster tools. i think here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url?pli=1&hl=en
but with such a minor fix there's no hurry IMO
two redirects are no problem, though you could redirect both these pages to the final /page instead of going through the intermediary /page.html
here is matt cutts about how many 301 you can chain together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1lVPrYoBkA
if you 301 redirected you should be fine. I find http://www.marthecarrara.no/ in the SERPso its indexed (thoug not yet ranking first - build some links to the new domain!)
Hej Johan!
Ah okay, then the answer is easier: If your visitors won't be able to see those sites, Google must not access them either.
I also suggest not to list them in an XML-Sitemap since only pages with value for users should be listed there. As you asked above, IMO these 3600 low quality pages would not have a positive impact - they might even hurt you.
Focus on pushing those sites for search engines that are of value to users.
Cheers,
Phil
That amount is probably a bit too much. I guess you want to bundle your efforts more into top-hierarchy overview pages. Keep in mind that users hardly will perform specific searches for something like "log house wood beam 400x400mm"...
Usually it's a better choice to have one landing page for the product and let users customize via dropdown (to chose 400mm, 600mm, etc.). This will reduce your amount of pages and probably leads to a better user experience too.
I agree with Tom. Using images several times is quite common on the web and penalizing for this wouldn't make any sense.
But I disagree with the fact that Googlebot cannot see images. Google's image detection is quite advanced by now and they can definitely see if an image has already been indexed (even just comparing the checksum already gives good hints). Also, Google's "search by image" shows us that this is technically possible.
I see nofollowed links as well. Maybe a bug in OSE? Probably best wait for the next crawl, see if this persists and contact SEOMoz support otherwise.
IMO keyword research is only possible by someone that understands the language. Otherwise you might run the risk of picking keywords that promise lot of traffic but are not related to your product (i.e. not used in the context of your website). you need to cooperate with the translator. here's a suggestion how to proceed:
1. create a list with the main keywords you target in english
2. send the list to your translator, ask to translate these words, but including synonyms and further keyword ideas
3. research those in the keywordtool (or let your translator do this) and define the ones you want to target to be included in the content.
This is the simplest way. If you want to do a thorough market research you'll have to work with someone who not only speaks the language but also knows the local market and culture.
oh yes, that one definitely has to go! not only is the page full with spammy looking links, the content is also not original but copied or scraped...
That's a tough one, especially since I have no clue what your clients business is...
My rule of thumb: Any link and comment that is obviously made for seo and/or marketing one's own site must go (since it's also bad rep for a company). Everything that doesn't add any value to the content: go!
If the links are situated okay and not obviously spammy you could leave them unless you get a penalty. Same for exact match anchor: if you haven't been penalised there's probably no need to remove them now, but take care not to build more links with the same anchor text.
just type this into google's search field:
cache:www.yourwebsite.com
and you'll see the cached version with the date of last indexation. Make sure not to insert a space after the colon.
cheerio!
I started loving joomla because now it's really easy to set up. It gives you more possibilities for customization and hosting I think. Also, you have full control over templates. In WP, this is sometimes limited (not sure, wordpress.com and wordress.org makes the difference I think). Now, while Joomla is fully open source, I think you have to pay to be able to fully customize WP (correct me if i'm wrong).
But just looking at the nature of your site I think WP is probably a really good choice and you'll have better performance and less maintenance trouble if you go for dedicated hosting.
Did you already set up this keyword in your Adwords campaign? Possibly, this keyword has too little traffic, so it's not possible to target it (it would then indicate "not enough traffi" or something).
But you're right, I don't see any paid ads for tobacco-related searches as you see here: http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/176038?hl=en
hard to tell... the central flaw in this huge amount of links is that each link that you put in the content will carry less value. Also, from a user perspective it's impossible to get an overview of +400 links on a page. So for both usability and seo i'd suggest to get the amount down to max. 150. less than 100 would be even better though.
as to how detrimental it is, i couldn't really tell. If you have a really strong domain with good content it might not be a huge drawback. but on a small site with little backlinks, it just dilutes the content quite a bit: the less links you have, the more relevant they will become.
Hi Niamh
No, it's not the tags, but the top navigation and the quick menu. Even if you don't see it on page, there are lots of subnavigations in lists that are present in the source code.
Use the developer toolbar plugin, disable CSS and you will see all those links listed.
Hmm, this is strange indeed. Google should follow the links on the home page and index the available subpages. 2 months should be plenty of time too. Maybe try these two things:
Allow: /
```Even though the current robots looks in order, this specifically tells search engines to index all except the /wp-pages you excluded.
This might speed it up. BTW, the site is correctly indexed in Bing.
True, I put the closing div in the wrong way. I updated it correctly above now. Drop me a line how it turned out and whether this solved it! cheers
actually, when putting the closing itemprop div to the end, the testing tool returns the correct values.