Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Keri,

Just wanted to check on this and make sure you got everything worked out.

Thanks!

Anthony

Hi Christine,

It could be an issue with the toolbar that's causing the PA of 1 to show up for the first (UK) url you mentioned, but the other two are likely correct.

At the moment you have two distinct pages:

www.ldnwicklesscandles.com/scentsy-uk

and

www.ldnwicklesscandles.com/scentsy-uk/

that have the exact same (duplicate) content, and both of which likely have links pointing to them. The same goes for every page on your site, so you're definitely losing some ranking power.

All of your pages should either end with a slash or not end with a slash... it doesn't really matter which one you choose, it just needs to be constant throughout the site. I checked your HTML and there are no Canonical tags, so I'd recommend asking SquareSpace to go ahead and add the first Rewrite I posted earlier to your .htaccess file. I'm sure they've had many similar requests, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Once that's finished you should be good to go!

Let me know if you have any other questions.

-Anthony

SEOmoz updates it's Linkscape index approximately every thirty days. The last update was finalized on May 31, so if you made changes since then, you won't see that data in any SEOmoz tools/reports that pull from the the index.

You're in luck though, the next index update is scheduled for Wednesday (June 27), so you should have a clearer picture of your site's inbound links then.

FYI:

The SEOmoz API / Linkscape Schedule

Google can take quite a while to update it's index, and sometimes four months or more to reassess penalties for violation of their policies (spam / paid links). You might consider filling out this form, which could possibly give you a "fresh start" by devaluing the numerous inbound links w/ identical anchor text. I haven't had any experience with the results, but I've read it can expedite a return to Pre-Penguin organic rankings and traffic. It's just an option, I'm not suggesting that you submit the feedback form without further research.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Anthony

Hi Nick,

I agree with you, deleting the pages and starting fresh is probably the best bet. Once they've been deleted and return a 404 code, I'd go ahead and have Google remove them from the index via the GWT URL removal tool.

I'd say the risk of having those in-bound links sticking around outweighs the reward that 301s might yield.

Good luck.

-Anthony

If you're site is still serving both the URL with a trailing slash and a duplicate URL without it, that is definitely something that should be remedied as soon as possible, as your authority from external links is likely being split between the two URLS.

There's two ways to do this... 301 redirection and rel canonical tags. In my opinion a site-wide 301 redirect rule is absolutely the best solution to this problem. The code below will uses Apache's Rewrite Engine to redirect traffic and "linkjuice" to the URL with a trailing slash, which is what I would suggest.

Just add this to the .htaccess file located in the root directory of your domain.

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1/ [L,R=301]

_It's possible that the first two lines are already present, in which case you should paste lines 3 - 5 as they are above. _*****Replace 'yourdomain.com' with your domain.

You can be sure that the rule is working correctly by going to 'yourdomain.com/page' and confirming that you're redirected to 'yourdomain.com/page/'.

I also noticed in your question that you used both 'WWW.yourdomain.com' and 'yourdomain.com' when describing your issue. If you're seeing both WWW and non-WWW versions of your pages in search results, it's possible that you have another duplicate content issue, potentially allowing Google to index 4 duplicate versions of the same page... looks like you're good to go though ... I just checked and all non-WWW URLs are redirecting to the WWW versions, so just make sure you add the WWW to the last line of code above (**www.**yourdomain.com).

For other potential readers:

Site-wide non-WWW to WWW 301 redirects can be implemented by adding:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

The opposite (WWW to non-WWW) can be implemented by adding:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

*****Replace **'yourdomain.com' **with your domain and omit Line 1 if it is already present.

It'll take a little time for Google to account for the changes, but if you're redirected when you do the test I mentioned, you can sit back and relax.

Hope this helps and good luck!

• Anthony

I've been developing in Magento for several years, and I can tell you without a doubt that it's better to keep the H1 tag wrapped around the actual product name on your product pages. This should be default on all pages except the home page, where the H1 is wrapped around the IMG ALT for the logo in the header. I prefer to move the H1 on the main page so that it wraps actual relevant text, but it requires a little bit of editing of the Magento core, and like everyone has said, heading hierarchy doesn't count for much in Google's algorithm these days.

The best way to add specific keywords for product-level pages in Magento is via the Short Description, General Description, and the Product Tags. Tags are likely the most effective solution, as this functionality was designed for customers to make notes about products, so "White Business Shirt" would look natural there and make perfect sense.

You might also try very minimal internal linking from your homepage if you have a specific product you're attempting to boost your SERP ranking for. Something like "Our best selling <  a h r e f = product url  >business shirt<  /  a >."

To be honest, there's so many factors involved in correctly optimizing a Magento-based site, I'd recommend not wasting your time with H tags at all, especially masking and duplicating them.

You'll be much better off if you concentrate on optimizing your category hierarchy, writing unique product descriptions, dealing with duplicate content, configuring robot instructions, decreasing load times, etc...

Plenty to do... no need to mess w/ the H1 tag.

Hope this helps & good luck!

-Anthony

Me three...

Thinking out loud: Should he 301 a few of the existing pages with higher authority to the consolidated site, or do you guys think that would send an unnatural signal?

Totally forgot about the index updates! (Gotta learn to finish reading posts.)

Edit "argentdata.com/css/main.css" (changes in italics):

Line 107

#header #site-name a, #header #site-name a:link, #header #site-name a:visited,

#header #site-name a:hover, #header #site-name a:active {

text-decoration: none;

color: #CCC;

position: relative;

_ left: 100px; _}

Line 111

#nav {

font: bold 96% arial;

height: 2.09em;

margin: 0 105px 0 40px;

position: relative;

_left: 100px; _}

Line 151

#wrap {

min-width: 770px;

max-width:none !important;

margin: 0 auto;

position: relative; }

Line 152

#content-wrap {

position: relative;

max-width: 1200px;

_left: 100px; _}

This should match the root pages to the osCommerce pages.

-Anthony

Hi Keri,

This isn't a perfect fix but it should do the trick.

On line 377 of "argentdata.com/catalog/stylesheet.css" change

max-width: 1200px   to   max-width: none !important

#wrap {

min-width: 770px;

_max-width: none !important; _

margin: 0 auto;

position: relative;

}

You could also just delete the max-width value altogether, but just in case there's another width value somewhere else... might as well change it.

On line 348 add

position: relative; left: 100px;

#header #site-name a, #header #site-name a:link, #header #site-name a:visited,

#header #site-name a:hover, #header #site-name a:active {

text-decoration: none;

color: #CCC;

_position: relative; _

left: 100px;

}

Same thing on line 352... add** position: relative;left: 100px;**

#nav {

font: bold 96% arial;

height: 2.09em;

font: bold 96% arial;

margin: 0 105px 0 40px;

position: relative;

_ left: 100px;_

}

/* Hope this helps!

• Anthony */

Hi Zmbmatt,

Looks like you do have a Canonical URL tag on your page, likely from an SEO extension you're using. It's on line 12 of your index's HTML:

href='http://pcpowerspeed.blogspot.com/' rel='canonical'/>

It points to http://pcpowerspeed.blogspot.com**/ **(notice the trailing slash).

The reason for this is that the version of the URL with the trailing slash and the version of the URL without the trailing slash are technically two distinct URLs, and this tag indicates to search engines that the preferred version is the URL with the trailing slash. This is a common usage of the canonical tag, and is appropriate.

If you add a slash to the end of the target URL when you run the On-Page Optimization report, it should do away with the error.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Thanks,

Anthony

I'd recommend using a Javascript Lightbox extension to display the certificate in JPG format. That will keep your users on the same page and allow them to zoom and pan over the COA without opening a new window. Free Lightbox extensions are available for most eCommerce platforms, and aren't too hard to implement.

Once the user purchases a product, I'd send the certificate to the buyer in PDF format so it can be easily printed, which I'm sure most customers would appreciate.

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

Anthony

Hello again,

I don't have much insight on this one, but I can share a personal experience that I think is relevant. I launched an Atlanta, GA based printing website about three months ago, and due to some pre-launch SEO efforts, ranked fairly well after the initial index.

Approximately six weeks later, after a "live beta test," my team decided to upgrade the CMS (Magento), and redesign the site to add some functionalities that were missing or buggy. The site was "Under Construction" for about three days, and our rankings increased slightly after the new site was indexed, despite it having less content (products) than the previous version of the site.

Recently (about three weeks ago), we added several more products, and our rankings increased dramatically (Google - 52 improved, 0 declined in SEOMoz rank tracking, 4x increase in queries, 2.5x increase in traffic).

These updates did however coincide with other SEO efforts, so it's hard to nail down what cause the improved metrics.

But... I definitely think that the addition of new content helped. In my market (Atlanta Printing) many of my competitor's websites have been updated very little over the last several months or even years, so it doesn't require much to win that battle. In other markets, this will of course be a different story. I do think freshness of content will impact any search result, like you said, and it absolutely can't hurt to have the "freshest" site in any given market. Again, depending on the search term, fresh content could mean three days old, or it could mean 3 months old, but I advise my clients to publish new or updated content at least every 30 days.

I think it all boils down to the competitiveness of the query and the rate at which other pages competing for that query are publishing fresh content.

Thanks!

Anthony

Exceptional answer from Ryan, as always. Just wanted to add that freshness of content is an important factor that now has an increased effect on how your site ranks in Google. This could partially explain why your site maintained it's position for several weeks after you made the updates you mentioned, and then recently dropped.

Hope this helps.

-Anthony

Hi Tom,

It looks like Google is serving a default or script produced version of your Meta Description in result pages which is this:

Music Degree and Performing Art Degree from Authentic University. Several Dozen Majors to choose from Bachelor, Master and PHD levels.

However, the meta description for _http://www.registereddegree.com/music-degree_ is indeed "Registered Degree" as the On-Page tool reported.

Below is the Meta data pulled from the raw HTML on the page you mentioned:

name="description" content="Registered Degree" />

name="keywords" content="music degree" />

Looks like you're using Wordpress as a CMS (could be mistaken) but there is likely a setting on the page itself to enter a unique Meta Description, and depending on what SEO plugins / configuration you're using, there should also be a "Default Meta Description" setting. It's possible the you have two plugins that are conflicting, and causing duplicate Meta Descriptions to be be served.

Hope this helps!

Anthony

I agree with iPositions on this one, I don't think you'll be penalized for keyword stuffing in this case. A page about branding will obviously contain the word "branding" more than three times, and it's not a long-tail keyword. If you were to repeat something like "Branding Agency in Salt Lake City Utah" three times, you may have something to be concerned about.

Remember you're writing for your audience, and the repetitive use of "branding" in this case is a creative mechanism to portray a sense of importance, like the often used "Location. Location. Location." Keep writing for human readers and not Google's Robots and I think you'll be fine.

Hope this helps!

Anthony Holcombe
NorthSEO

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking if you should use a subdomain or a path for a particular set of pages or subsite, like a blog. I would recommend using a path (yourdomain.com/blog) over a subdomain (blog.yourdomain.com) because Google treats subdomains almost like entirely different domains, and the subdomain will only benefit slightly from the root domain's authority. Pages that are inside a path however will benefit more greatly from the root domain's inbound links and authority.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Anthony Holcombe

Hi again Egol,

The site that the links are pointing to is actually my own site and the linking domain is my friend / business associate's. I do know about Penguin and Panda, and my link profile is pretty clean. I haven't employed any black-hat methods. When I launched the site, about six weeks ago, I needed to compete quickly, and having the only external site-wide link on a high trust domain seemed like it would help. That was pre-Penguin though, and I can see how it would look unnatural. My traffic has gone up since the 24th, so I don't think I was penalized, though some of my competitors were.

That's what's confusing me a little bit about Penguin Advertising is natural in business, and companies that are affiliated often "refer" potential clients to the each other. That's basically what I did. I help him with SEO and marketing, and he didn't mind that I added a link to my new site in the footer to help me out. There's nothing unnatural or dishonest about it, but it does make me nervous. It's not like a blogroll or link bank though, there are no other outbound links on the site, and we're both Atlanta based businesses, so there's some contextual similarity, and it doesn't look spammy.

Still, I think I'll play it safe and just add two or three links w/ a little graphic on the home page of the linking site. Do you agree that's a better/safer idea?

I agree, Google is being even more vague than usual on this one. Funny that you mention the Journeyman link... I posted this question right before reading yours. I'll think you'll get a kick out of it. Same basic premise... WTF do we now? The answer is always the same though, in a couple of months we'll have enough research and analysis to have a good understanding of the update, at which point Google will change it again. Gotta love gettin paid to play a game

I've been reading about and helping a lot of people who were hit by the Penguin update over the last couple of days, and the update seems to be accomplishing what Google intended it to accomplish... it's scaring people straight.

I've picked up two new clients this week who now only want to practice "Good SEO" and "Do it the right way." This is a good thing for me and for the quality of the net, don't get me wrong. It does make me a little nervous though that the SEO industry is going to be tarnished a bit. Google is making a pretty clear statement with Penguin, which I think boils down to "Don't do anything other than create good content, provide accurate descriptions, and establish good connections to SEO your site... or beware ." (other than technical stuff - 301/ canonical / crawler management / etc).

So riddle me this Batman...

As a proud Journeyman, how is the followed backlink on my SEOMoz profile page going to appear to Google? This is an SEO site with SEO content and SEO tools and SEO in the URL. The site listed below the first followed URL on my profile is an SEO site that's in development. So there's a link to my site and every bit of context around it screams SEO.

But... it is a very nice link indeed, I really do like it, and this is a white-hat kind of place. Do you think Google will start penalizing sites with inbound links from pages that are related to SEO, even if the page promotes respectable tactics?

If so, I'll be having nightmares about a very round Danny DeVito with a pointy nose and creepy hands chasing me through the sewers for weeks to come...

Hi Guys,

I've got a friend / client / business associate who's website I helped develop. It's a three letter dot-com, so good trust, and an eCommerce site, so lot's of pages.

When I launched my new site about 6 weeks ago I put "Official IT Partner of MySite.com" in the footer. No keywords in the anchor text, just the domain URL...

There are no other external links like that on the site whatsoever, and I haven't been hit by Penguin. I'm ranking well for local targeted keywords a few weeks after launch, and traffic continues to increase...

I am worried that Google will see this is unnatural, but I've received no warning or experienced any decline in rankings. There's about 2800 pages linking from the site to my site, all in the footer of course.

Would it be better to remove the link from the footer and add it just to the home page and a couple of other high authority pages, or should I leave it be. It's not "unnatural", I am affiliated with the site and work in partnership with the site, but it does fit that profile.

I'm thinking about removing the footer link and adding a small graphic on the home page of the linking site which links to my root domain, with a couple of broad keyword anchored links in a description underneath that also link to relevant pages on my site...

What do you think?

2800 links w/ my URL as anchor text  from high Domain Authority / Low Page Authority pages (the homepage and a few other pages have decent authority) to my root domain

OR

Three different links from one High DA/ High PA homepage (one image alt, two anchored w/ broad keywords) to three different pages on my site.

Again, there are no other site-wide external links on the domain, and I'm pretty sure I escaped the Penguin.

Looking forward to hearing the different points of view.

Thanks,

Anthony