Questions
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Client wants to rebrand but insists on keeping their old website live as well...
Happy 4th, Bryan, and good luck at your client meeting next week!
Local Website Optimization | | MiriamEllis1 -
I am UNRANKED in the Moz Community... but... but why?
Well... still not ranked. I'll just wait it out a few more days and see what happens, if nothing I'll reach out to Moz and see if they know more about it. Thanks again EGOL! Always a pleasure
Technical Support | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
ReviewInc.com? Anyone have experience or feedbak on them?
Oh nice!! Thanks for sharing Ken! I'll take a look into them for sure.
Reviews and Ratings | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
Page Speed
Thank you Jeff! Your answer is very in depth and helpful.
On-Page / Site Optimization | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
What do you think of this?
I've edited this question to keep it TAGFEE, especially empathetic to both the potential client and to their current SEO company. This can be a good discussion question when talking in general terms, but given how Q&A is visible to everyone and indexed, we need to pull out this type of identifying information.
Inbound Marketing Industry | | KeriMorgret0 -
WBF Videos and transcripts
Hey Bryan! Oren is right! We host with Wistia, because we can still tackle Google video results without diverting our traffic back to YouTube. We like to keep folks on our site. Also, Wistia's embed is fully customizable, so it looks like with any design we push out. Check out this video to learn more about Youtube vs Wistia hosting http://wistia.com/learning/advanced-seo-with-distilled Keep the awesome questions coming!
Moz News | | Nick_Sayers0 -
E-commerce Question
Hey Jeff! Was just going through some old questions I asked and realized I never gave credit for your answer! Thanks again bud, cheers!
Social Media | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
Is there an efficient way to use Open Site Explorer to find unnatural or harmful links
I'm honestly not sure if there's a great way to use that process to drill back into the links to see which ones are low quality - it was intended more as a big picture look at your entire profile. We're actively working on more spam detection metrics, but it's a tricky business and we're really concerned about potentially giving people false alarms, especially with so many people hacking at their links. I know some folks use OSE to export links and pull out specific bits of data, like very low PA pages, pages with exact-match anchor text on keyword-heavy phrases (non-brand), etc., but even then you've got to be a bit careful. A low PA page isn't necessarily "bad", just relatively weak, from a link perspective. One spam marker we've found pretty relevant is sites with a disproportionately low MozTrust to their MozRank (or to their DA). Sites with high authority but low trust may have spammy link profiles in general. These are the kinds of factors that 3rd-party link evaluation tools look at. Some of them are a good starting point, but you still need to fact-check. I'd definitely start with some kind of domain-based analysis. Your 40K links might be coming from 4K domains, or even 400. Getting a broad sense of linking-domain quality will be an easier starting point.
Link Explorer | | Dr-Pete0 -
Meta Title in Google does not match the HTML meta title I have coded in a site
Google came out earlier this year and said that they would change some meta titles and improve them as they see fit. This post from Yoast.com, might help you out: http://yoast.com/google-page-title/
On-Page / Site Optimization | | TheeDigital0 -
When removing a product page from an ecommerce site?
Bryan, If I were removing 100 product pages from an eCommerce site because they barely convert I would approach it this way: #1. Run the URls through a tool to see which ones have external backlinks. Often times none of the pages will have any external backlinks, and those that do are usually not very good. If this is the case - or if you "really" aren't able to do any 301 redirects (and if so that's something that needs to be fixed) - skip to step #3. Otherwise... #2. 301 redirect those with external backlinks to the most relevant page, be that a similar product or the category page directly above the product to be removed. Try to avoid redirecting them all to the homepage or some other "catch all" page, as these may be treated like a 404 by Google. #3. Simply remove the pages and show the custom 404 page that suggests other products, or whatever messaging you want to show there (e.g. "This product has been removed from our catalog. Please see these other products...") and be sure to check the http header response code (lots of free tools for that) to ensure these URLs actually serve a 404 response (note: This should show up on the removed URL, as opposed to redirecting the visitor to another page like .../404.html). #4. Since the now-removed URLs are not linked to from anywhere, either internally or externally, it could take awhile for Google to recrawl them and see the 404 error. If you need this to happen more quickly, such as when dealing with duplicate manufacturer descriptions and removal of page to recover from Panda, it may be wise to provide some type of html sitemap file listing out the URLs long enough for Google to recrawl them. I would not block them in the robots.txt file, as that could result in Google not seeing the 404 and not removing it from the index (though they will cease to show the meta description).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Everett0 -
301 redirect recommendations
Both Lance and CleverPhD have some good points. Really go page by page and map out the entire domain. Both on the PR4 and PR5 sites. Create excel spreadsheets to align up the location and destination of your 301 redirects. Then, calculate the # of pages you have listed on the PR4 site that need redirecting but really don't have a home. IF the number is small enough, just redirect those pages/URL's for visitors to the homepage. Google doesn't like mass 301 redirects to the homepage, but if those pages have small inbound links, and some value - that will get pushed back to the main index URL. You could also let it 404 as CleverPhD said, but what I would map out, is a kick-ass 404 redirect page. Include elements like a search function for people to look for new content, add a link to a form that people can fill out to advise of the 404 error. Offer up alternatives and/or pages-URL's that might offer something similar. Have fun with it and add some creativity to help convert those almost lost users to possibly visitors and then clients. Don't just let the 404 page be the end all of the site visit. I have found by really focusing on 404 error page improvements, you can improve both the bounce and exit rates of said pages, and as a result retain users that become clients in the end - all because you were able to take the time to build something that caught their attention, and thus - kept them inside the site Some great examples of creative 404 errors might include this or some creatively funny ones like that. This is another one I liked here. Hope some of that helps Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobMay0 -
Facebook Apps
Hello there, I will add just some points to the answer above. Some Facebook apps may create more likes but if you don't promote your app properly and your app is not giving your customers anything valuable I don't think it will help. I'd look at what level of engagement and activity you have on Facebook to evaluate if it is worth creating it. Also ask yourself simple questions such: why would customers use this app? What does this app add to their experience? How many times will they use this app? etc. And yes creating an app takes time and skills, so my suggestion is to evaluate every single aspect before making any decision. Hope it helps.
Social Media | | PremioOscar1 -
Ranking EMD to 301 for branding is it better to leave it as or 301 it?
Hello Bryan, Every page on the 9 old domains should redirect to the same page on on the new domain (.com/301#1/page1 and .com/301#1/page2) instead of redirecting them all to a single page. Yes, the anchor text should carry through and it is worth being concerned about. This is a tough choice to make and I'm afraid I can't say for sure what would happen. I will leave this open as a discussion in case some other folks have experienced this exact scenario. If it were me I would do one domain at a time, leaving a few weeks or months between them just to be sure. I would also make sure the link profiles for the redirecting domains were sparkle-clean.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Everett0 -
A few questions regarding listings in Google Places
yep - so if you have a service location in Dallas, TX, and the location-specific page on your site for that location has a URL of www.YourDomain.com/dallas-cleaning-services (using your cleaning example from earlier) you'd then have the URL for that Places/+ Local listing use that specific URL
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Greg_Gifford0 -
Google + Local Pages
Hmm, what about a G+ business page that is not verified? ie if I want to post something on a G+ community as the service company, I can not do that without a company page... Is it really best to delete the company G+ page? Lets say wee add a G+ button to our site, that links to the G+ page, correct? Do we not have the same privileges other sites do because we are a service?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
Indexed non existent pages, problem appeared after we 301d the url/index to the url.
What are some examples of the "non-existent" URLs that are getting indexed, Bryan? It's going to be pretty hard to diagnose this without actually seeing the site. Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThompsonPaul0 -
SEOmoz report vs. Google's Algo
This is good data, however we are still wondering if the "search engine" will see those pages as mentioned above as duplicates? Does the SEOmoz data reflect the search engines algo? It's too bad GWT does not provide this data...
Moz Tools | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
A bit of a confliction?
Agree with Robert here. I've set up a number of blogs and done them this way.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bradkrussell0