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Hi guys and girls, With regards to this, ss there any problem for SEO that you can see with banning spam refers through Htaccess? So in these instances when a spam bots comes to the site, we throw a "Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server.", so basically a 403 error? We're considering this as a more permanent solution to using filters in GA. What do you think? Thanks, Gill.

First and foremost, you want to avoid SEOs who don't understand Google's Webmaster Guidelines.   Now, that might sound like a stupid requirement because "doesn't every SEO understand the webmaster guidelines?"  Fact is, they don't and that is why huge numbers of websites are suffering from Panda, Penguin and other penalties.  In many cases their SEOs did that to them because they built spammy links, made spammy content, etc.  Hiring an SEO is like picking up a snake and hoping that it isn't a rattler.  Be careful and know your snakes and understand webmaster guidelines so you can look at the work that the SEO is doing for you and determining if it is going to get you into trouble. Next, there are lots of SEOs who will take on any job at any budget.  You might go to one of them unknowing the competitive level of your websites niche and tell the SEO that you have $5000 per month to spend.... and your niche is "digital cameras".   Your SEO needs to gauge the cost and methods of becoming competitive in that niche and bring your site into the money and earn a positive return sometime before your funeral.  Digital cameras?  Is that a $500 per month or a $5,000 per month or a $50,000 per month or a $500,000 per month attack?   If the SEO accepts you at $500 or $5000 per month then that SEO probably doesn't know what it is really going to take to become competitive in that niche, or he just cares about milking you for your money month after month and just stinging you along for as long as he can.   Here you have ignorant SEOs who will take your money and work for you not knowing that the amount you are paying isn't enough to fund a proper attack.  Then you have the ones you don't have the integrity or the courage to turn down paying work even if they know that the budget isn't enough to move the needle.  They just want your money.

If you wanna take it safe, promote both pages and apply the canonical in few weeks if you see that the product page has not managed to over rank the category page. Also note that internal penalisation is only to the newly added page and not to all the website.

Hi there There's a great URL structure resource from Moz located here, as well as a great information architecture resource here. I suggest checking it out. Generally it's better to be shorter with your URL structure. I would use option B if it were my choosing, because you could easily making it... www.domain.com/italian-recipes/chicken-parmesan Otherwise you are doing... www.domain.com/recipes/italian/chicken-parmesan You create a deeper page level with option A, making pages "less" important and farther away from the domain, which is the most important aspect of your URL. Keep pages and crawl depth as shallow as possible so that pages don't get buried and lost in the crawl. My opinion, go option B, but also review the resources above. Hope this helps! Good luck! Patrick

Hi there When you did these redirects, did you properly map them and follow migration best practices? Failing to do so can lead to a major drop. I would also make sure that you are following international SEO best practices and making sure you are taking advantage of proper indicators for country / language specific websites and content. I would also follow up on backlinks, citations, and listings, and make sure that they are properly pointing to their new URLs and structure, that way you are getting the full effect of you backlinks. Following the resources above and these backlink strategies should help you get back on track. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns! Good luck! Patrick

Hi Francisco, Google suggest to do the sitemap as your third option. Check this article: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2620865?hl=en My way of doing it, is creating a sitemap for every language, uploaded all of them to the root of the site and create a sitemap stating the latter sitemaps. This is an example: <sitemapindex<span class="html-attribute"> xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"</sitemapindex<span>><sitemap></sitemap>https://www.domain.com/sitemap-en.xml<sitemap></sitemap>https://www.domain.com/sitemap-pt.xml<sitemap></sitemap>https://www.domain.com/sitemap-es.xml Hope it helps. GR.

Everett, thanks so much. Also the link for the quality rater guidelines was very interesting and useful.

Hi there! Tawny from Moz's Help Team here. First off, I highly recommend checking out this great post from Rand about how to interpret fluctuations in Domain and Page Authority - it also does a really good job of explaining the size and shape of our index, and some of our limitations: https://moz.com/community/q/da-pa-fluctuations-how-to-interpret-apply-understand-these-ml-based-scores The short version is that we're always working to make our Mozscape Index as Google-like as possible, including growing the index's size, but we're limited by how much time it takes to process all the metrics we return for the links in our index. We're working on improving our crawlers, and thus our index, all the time! I don't have a good ETA for a bigger, badder, more expansive index, but rest assured that it's on our roadmap and something we're actively working on.

Hi Dan, Thank you so very much!!  I think things have caught up...I chatted with Google a few days ago and they said everything is ok.  I am starting to see some keywords surface; it probably will kick in shortly, as I did quite a bit of SEO work with the new site. I very much appreciate your help! Best, Sharon

Thanks for your thoughts. That's my position on it at the moment, so I'll continue to wait J

Hi John, So, what you are talking about is called Containment Information. Google says: Containment information indicating that your business is located inside another business (whether or not the businesses are part of the same organization). Not acceptable: "Chase ATM (in Duane Reade)", "Apple Store at Stanford Shopping Center", "Benefit Brow Bar - Bloomingdales", "Sam’s Club Tire & Battery (part of Sam’s Club)", "Geek Squad (inside Best Buy)" Acceptable: "Chase ATM", "Apple Store", "Benefit Brow Bar", "Sam’s Club Tire & Battery", "Geek Squad" See the full guidelines here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en Regarding your URLs, I would go with domain.com/city-street Regarding keywords, this is tough because you are talking about so many locations. Typical advice looks like this ...but only if you have the resources to build a good, high quality page for each of the 1700 locations. If you do, I'd focus on service + city + regional terms and synonyms on the pages. I might suggest, given the size of this client, that you hire a good Local SEO to consult with you, to whom you can show the actual business in confidence. The goal would be to have them confirm GMB eligibility, actually looking at your client. There can be nuances to that our community might miss, not looking at the actual business model. Investment in an hour or two of consulting with a top notch Local SEO would seem a wise investment to me, given the very big scope of the project. We have a list of trusted Local SEOs here: https://moz.com/learn/local/trusted-providers Hope this helps!

Hi there Honestly, people want content. Especially when it comes to something like a mortgage or an "embarrassing" service. Regardless of industry or service, people need information to make decisions, compare choices, understand issues, have incentive to reach out, and more. Never think that content isn't something people want or need - it's up to you to research and understand the "why". For instance, ask yourself these questions: Who is your audience? Why do they need this service? Do they have other options? Why is your option better than others? What kind of questions do they have? How do you compare against competitors? What are you competitors doing content / marketing wise? Can you explain parts of your service in more detail? Are there any followup services your audiences may need? etc. Content is everywhere and you'd be surprised at how much your audience wants and needs it. Industries and audiences are ever changing, so make sure you are staying on top of the trends and you'll be surprised at how many content ideas show themselves. Beyond that, look into link building and social media strategies. You could also try partnership / certifications that are applicable to your industry. Hope this helps! Good luck! Patrick

While we'd all prefer a world in which there weren't messy parameters everywhere, they're often necessary for all kinds of reasons — tracking being a good example. So: Take a note of each of the parameters. Go to the 'Crawl' section in Google Search Console and then to 'URL Parameters'. Enter each of your tracking parameters there. When asked whether the parameter changes the page content seen by the user, answer honestly. If these are just tracking parameters, you should be OK to answer "No" in every case. Make sure that there is a canonical tag in place (which it sounds like there is, from your question). The canonical version shouldn't have any parameters. If you have a feature for users to share a page — "share this page on Facebook", for example — try and ensure that the shared URL is the canonical version. You have a bigger issue with duplicate URLs. These pages should not co-exist: sitename.com/productname-xyz/ sitename.com/productname-xy-z/ If I understand your question correctly, these pages are both of the same product. Pick a preferred URL and stick with it. Permanently redirect the other URL. A canonical tag will deal with the parameters, but you can't rely on it to solve duplicate page paths like this.

Hi Guillaume I would use the questions / answers you have as a chance to build out robust help and support sections for your products. Not only will this help you from a search standpoint with long tail queries, but it will also help you from a user standpoint as they will have a point of reference to help them with issues, answer questions as they decide if they want to buy your product, and also help with brand equity as you build more content that details answers more. What I would suggest, pay attention to the following: What questions are users asking? What issues are they having most with your product? How does your product compare against other products in the industry? What does yours do that competitor products don't? What new features are you adding? Are there any features that are underutilized by users? Are there any integrations you may have? What's the history of the product? What are competitors doing from a promotion standpoint that you're not? When it comes to keyword cannibalization, that's not an issue. Two different pages can overlap in keywords so long as those pages have unique content regarding a particular keyword. To me, the two examples you listed above are two different ideas, as long as the general idea is different than the software idea and contains different steps. What matters is that each page has it's own unique topic to the keyword and does not share content with another page. You'll find that as you are focused on a particular industry and product, that these things happen, but it's relatively easy to keep pages specific to an idea regarding a keyword. Also look for opportunities to repurpose content: Images Video Articles Gated content Etc. Opportunities are limitless when it comes to content, even for a boring industry. It just takes time and digging. Let me know if this helps and if this answers your question. You have more than enough to make robust pages of content, and should have no idea to nodinex or canonicalize pages to one general FAQ page. Build more content, internally link in a smart way, and keep your eyes / ears peeled. Good luck! Patrick

School boy error! I put http: version into the crawler so it assumes www. is a subdomain of that. Therefore naturally at level 1. By crawling www.version it shows that to be level 0

In my personal life? Hate Live Chat Pop Ups If i'm on a site browsing or planning out a purchase, the last thing I need is a chat box to pop up multiple times during my visit trying to get me to convert better or speak with a specialist. If I wanted to speak with Cutomer Service, I will click your wonderful Contact Us button. If I wanted to speak live with a person, you have your phone number right there on the page. If i'm trying to do some pre-purchase research or plan out spending, and you pop up a live chat box every time I come to the site and possibly 2 or 3 times a visit on occasion... I will close that box, get frustrated the next time i pops up, and eventually choose to go back to the site less because its the one with that annoying Chat Pop Up. Now, I completely understand the business reason behind them and how they can help improve customer relations and increase conversions. I'm all for including them on client sites (where sensible) and ensuring they aren't intrusive. I'm just personally not the customer that will convert off of that. You need to find the right balance. If they come up too often, you'll be pushing people away. But if they come up too infrequently, you may have jut lost a customer who needed a bit of help and a small push to finish converting.

We've took the date out of the code. I think it might have an indirect effect on the ranking, but off course we're also focussing on content and authority. Thanks for the reply