SEO Detectives: WordPress Site Not Ranking for Exact Title Match Queries

[AaronFletcher49]

This post is deleted!

[MattAntonino]

I'm confused - isn't the second result the "article itself?"

I see:

1. The archive result for "The Geek Free Guide to Analytics"

2. The actual post for "The Geek Free Guide to Analytics"

The main problem is that you have a lot of duplicate content in archives, tags, etc. so having them all index, dofollow means Google picks which to display.

The main thing I would do is fix your Yoast settings - only keep one thing open (archives, categories, tags - I usually do archives because each article is only posted one time but may have multiple tags and/or categories.)

But I'm confused as to which isn't ranking that you want to see.

[AaronFletcher49]

This post is deleted!

[MoosaHemani]

I agree with Matt here!

When you have tags and categories do follow you will definitely going to have lot of duplications within the blog..i think you should read some guide to wordpress SEO (available on SEOmoz) and go though it accordingly in order to kill the duplicate content and this will finished...

At the other hand it take almost a day or 2 to crawl the post page for Google so give some time until it get crawled by Google.

[MattAntonino]

Ok, so technically the "NetworkedBlogs.com" is a redirect directly to the text of your article.  For all intents, networkedblogs.com is ranking higher than you for your own content.  If you want your own to rank, you can't have it directly competing with itself.  There are a number of articles on SEOMoz about competing with yourself.  I was trying to find one I answered not too long ago but can't seem to find it.

(It took awhile - http://www.seomoz.org/q/searching-for-my-post-titles-nothing-in-serp)

Basically, your result IS showing up - just on a site other than your own.  It's the same article so Google is just picking one.

[AaronFletcher49]

Matt,

Your response here and on the other post are both extremely helpful.

So syndication is a very important mechanism for referral traffic, but if I waited a few days for the original content to get indexed first before syndicating. I increase chances of Google associating acknowledging the original article.

What still strikes me as strange here is that the syndicated posts contain very small snippets. But you are saying the DA of these sites carries that much power.

In terms of the categories and tags issue, I guess this depends on how the site uses taxonomies: some sites use multiple categories and tags for a post, while others are more strict, using one category and/or tag per article.

I understand the logic behind no-indexing tags and categories vs. archives, but is there a use case for no indexing archives and tags, leaving categories?

Thanks much!

Aaron

[MattAntonino]

If you are strict about categories - 1 category per post, no exceptions, then yes, that should work.  It's when you tick two boxes that you get into trouble.

As far as the syndication issue, it's not so much the "syndicated posts contain very small snippets" that is getting you.  Perform that search again:

"Website Analytics 101: The 4 Web Metrics You Must Master"

Click on the networkedblogs.com link.  It takes you directly to your site.  It's acting like a redirect (not sure it's technically a 301, but it's at least an instant meta-refresh.)

So the way Google sees it, that is your link.  Look at the link when you get forwarded. It's your link + UTM info.  That's the "first time" your link is in Google - and yes, the redirect must have more juice than the original.