Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Csaba

No you cannot pause your account but you can cancel and restart. In that case Moz archives your data and brings out of cold storage so to speak when you resubscribe.

You can see someone asked the same question a little while back: http://moz.com/community/q/can-i-pause-my-monthly-subscription

Peter

Hi Kade

I think it depends on the two words really. There was an example the other day of a company called ConvertMedia that didn't rank in the search results for Convert Media for the reason that the intent of a search like that is to find answers to how to convert media. So in that case the one word brand name worked against them, but the very fact of having a one word name identified them as that brand.

The brand name of my business however is two words: Cracking Media. If however you search for CrackingMedia we still turn up top in the search results, but it does ask do you mean "Cracking Media".

In terms of what your SEO friend has said I am not sure that gives you a conclusion, but I hope the thoughts above may help.

Peter

Hi David

I'm not sure there is a way to give visibility to your blog fast unless it is remarkable and, for example, you get PR through the media picking up on it.

Apart from being fortunate to get the above, I would give one word for my recommendation: Google+, but, with a big caveat..

Getting people to engage with your blog content through social media, and in particular Google+ starts when you engage with their content. Just turning up on to Google+ and posting your blog will not work. Instead, seek out communities that would fit the target market you want to reach, and join them. But again, don't push your own content to start with. Instead get to know the people there and allow them to get to know and trust you. They you will have earned the right to share what you have to say.

In truth, unless you are fortunate as I said above, I don't think there is a quick way to get your blog content out fast. As good as your content may be, your best route to success will be to put give time to doing so - which sometimes requires putting into some hard miles to get there.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Dustin

You don't say what you have been doing to raise domain authority for these sites. I assume you are referring to Moz's Domain Authority metric.

Moz states: "Domain Authority is Moz's calculated metric for how well a given domain is likely to rank in Google's search results. It is based off data from the Mozscape web index and includes link counts, MozRank and MozTrust scores, and dozens of other factors. It uses a machine learning model to predictively find an algorithm that best correlates with rankings across thousands of search results that we predict against."

Whilst links to your sites will have an effect in raising domain authority providing the linking sites themselves are trusted, the single most important factor in improving the authority of a domain in my opinion is to build quality content on the domain site itself.

With search changing then the measurement of a domain's authority is also likely to change. As Moz states in the first sentence above: _"Domain Authority is Moz's calculated metric for how well a given domain is likely to rank in Google's search results." _ By increasing the quality of content on a site by creating content that answers the intent of people's searches it will mean that pages on that domain are more likely to rank well in Google's search results.

I am not saying offsite optimisation is no longer important but growing the authority of a domain has to start with what you do on the domain's site.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi, if possible I would change the **product-320 **to something more human and search engine understandable.

I would suggest something like: www.example.com/casual-shoes/plimsolls where plimsolls is product-320.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Christopher

Any alternative analytics tool you use will report the same "(not provided)" result. That is because the issue is not with Google Analytics but with Google search not providing the search phrase as part of the data passed to the analytics tool.

It may be worth you having a look in the Google Webmaster tool for the same site though as some data is available to view with that, but not as useful as it would be for tracking a search visit as it would be in Google Analytics.

Peter

Hi Kim

Moz's On-page grader tool is used to give you an understanding of how well optimised the page is for SEO. As you will have seen, it covers a range of different tests checking each one against the keyword you have told the tool you are optimising that page for, and gives it a score A to F based on how well optimised it is for the technical on-page SEO factors.

However, a grade A score does not give you any guarantees of how well that page ranks on Google. What it means is that most if not all things on page that are set up correctly for SEO. How highly a page ranks in Google is based on over 200 elements some of which are covered by the on-page grader but many won't be such as off-page ranking factors including back links, social etc. Consider the on-page grader as one of the tools in your SEO toolkit.

In terms of worse pages than yours that rank higher, it can be confusing and frustrating, but there is no simple answer. However, I recommend looking at doing a competitor analysis for the keyword to compare your page with what competing pages are doing. Look at the keyword difficulty tool to do this: https://moz.com/researchtools/keyword-difficulty.

You may also find this Whiteboard Friday by Rand Fishkin useful: Why You Might Be Losing Rankings to Pages with Fewer Links, Worse Targeting, and Poor Content.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Linck

I think it is extremely unlikely that doing this would have killed your rankings in two days.

It's more likely a coincidence with something else that has happened. Think through anything you have done in the last 2-3 weeks that could have had an impact, check your Webmaster Tools Reports and make sure Google are not reporting any issues.

Peter

Hi Bob

Looking at the page on your site, my first thought is that there is far too much text and information at this initial stage of your conversation with your potential customer for them to be able to process.

I would look at breaking down the page into a series of simpler bullet points outlining what you provide and avoid going into lots of detail.

Whilst I appreciate your motive for doing this will be the desire to be transparent with your potential customer, I think in many cases, they will neither understand or be concerned with how you are going to do their SEO (including the details of how many hours you will be spending), but will be more concerned with the benefits you will provide them with and the outcomes of your work for them.

I'm not sure that is what you want to hear and others may disagree with my thoughts, but I hope my thoughts are helpful.

All the best to you. Peter

Hi Catherine

I am really sorry to hear this and it's obviously been very distressing to yourself and your family.

If you go to the user's profile page there is a little down arrow underneath their picture which allows you to Report/Block them and then gives you a range of options to say why. That may be a start and hopefully Google will be able to respond to you.

But if you think the approach was possibly a criminal offence I would also take it up with your local police

I hope that helps - a little.

Peter

Hi Sarah

I would always be concerned at hearing a company dissing another company in a public event. I have never used Wordtracker personally, but with a long track record as it has I wouldn't dismiss it. Also, in the latest search environment I think information giving you insight and context would probably be quite useful.

What examples did the company who hosted the event give that their tool was better?

The problem with any keyword research tool for search now, the data is not going to be as rich as it was. Also, with personalised search how do you measure what is 'normal'? Bing will give you search data yes, and most tools I think use that data. So if you keep in mind that the numbers are not the same as you will get with Google they will at least give you an idea of the higher volume keywords in proportion to those that are likely to be less. By using that data alongside other metrics and competitive analysis, you have a better chance than having none.

If there is a silver bullet tool out there I would be delighted to know about it.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Tom

Along similar lines to Shane's answer but the critical questions is do you own the current domain?

If you do, then you can change the nameservers for that domain to your where your new website will be hosted once that website is ready to go live.

If you are keeping the same domain for your new site, that will be even easier, because your new developers will be able to capture a sitemap of your current site with your current developer and create a list of 301 redirections needed to point the current URL to the new URL for each page. Then, prior to the new site going live when the nameservers are switched to your new host, as long as the 301 redirections are active on the server where your new site is hosted, everything should work smoothly.

I hope that helps based on the info you have given, but do post back if you have more info or need more explanation.

Peter

PS. And as far as I know there is no legal requirement for a developer to provide 301 redirects.

Hi Julian

I would use whichever tagline reads and sounds the best for your website visitors.

Whilst the proximity of keywords does have an impact on the SEO value of those words in page Title tags, I don't think proximity makes a difference in H1 or other heading tags. If it does, the impact is likely to be negligible. Go with what works for your brand and your target market.

By optimising the content of your pages for people first you will create more relevant and therefore more important content for search engines.

Hi Bob

Is it black hat to encourage +1s in return for a voucher? These are Google's thoughts on what a +1 is for:

+1 is how you signal your appreciation for anything that grabs your attention on Google+ or on your favorite websites. When you read a post that makes you want to cheer, +1 is your applause; when you watch a video that has you in stitches, +1 is your laughter; when you see a photo that perfectly captures that special moment, +1 is your 5-star review.

I guess on that basis that technique is not exactly white hat but perhaps more grey hat!

To answer your question re white hat tips, it is producing anything that fits Google's definition of a +1. I remember 10 years or so now Seth Godin wrote a book called The Purple Cow. The story is that when you see a field of cows you might mention it as you drive past the cows are soon forgotten. But as you drove by if you saw in the middle there was stood a purple cow, you would stop your car, jump out take a photo or a video to tell your friends and the world about it (also via likes, tweets and +1s) because a purple cow is remark-able!

So I'm not sure there are any tips other than that. It's finding the purple cow in your business, in the products or services you sell, in the way you treat your customers or the great information you provide on your blog. If you do then people will want to "remark" about it and tell their friends and the world!

So I don't think there is any secret sauce. Just be remarkable!

I hope that helps,

Peter

I think people are more likely to search for Red Armani Jeans Coat than Armani Jeans Coat Red, but I don't think that means you should necessarily structure your Title tag as "Red Armani Jeans Coat" - but I am more than happy to hear otherwise.

Google is always trying to understand the searcher's intent and the question they are asking irrespective of whether they write their search short or long. The question the person is asking in this example is "Where can I buy a red Armani Jeans Coat?", but that doesn't mean a web page with the Title tag "Armani Jeans Coat - Red" will not rank well for that search.

Google will understand that first and foremost they are looking for an Armani Jeans coat and not a red coat. So, by structuring a Title as "Armani Jeans Coat - Red" makes the title unique and makes it clear that the page and ultimately your site (because you will have other Armani Jeans pages) sells Armani Jeans clothing. That also fits with Google's Hummingbird update as that is looking at the breadth of the site for a search and not just individual pages that they list in their results.

I'm not sure how much my ramblings above makes sense, but I hope it helps.

Peter

Hi Jorg

As the old site has URLs with .aspx I assume that was using a Windows server. Is the new site also on a Windows server.

I don't work on Windows server sites myself but I believe you can set up 301 redirects on your server using IIS.

For each old URL you would need to set up a 301 redirect to point it to the new URL. By doing that, bookmarked pages and links on the Internet to your site will resolve to the right page on the new site, plus search engines will also be redirected to the correct page and at the same time you will retain some but not all of any SEO value links to those pages are passing to your site.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Ron

I like the page a lot and the graphics look really good. There's a good amount of content which is good for indexing of course.

From a readability point of view, I think it needs some work though. You make a good point at the start that people are not that motivated to read about insurance and you are absolutely correct. But I don't think you need to say that - especially in the opening sentence. For me it's a negative start. I would lose that first sentence completely.

To make the page more readable I think you need to break it up a bit. You have done that well with the sub-headings, but I think you need to condense the paragraphs or split them to make them more bite size. Consider using bullet points in places to cover the points you want to make in some paragraphs - and use bolded text where you want to emphasise something - it will give the page a bit of a lift visually.

Having said there is a good amount of content which is great for indexing, it may be worth reading through and seeing if there is anything you can cut out. I know that sounds counter-intuitive from an SEO indexing point of view, but sometimes less is more even for search engines. More text, doesn't mean more relevance for Google, but clearer more understandable sentences would do.

All in though, good job. I hope my comments are helpful.

All the best to you with this,
Peter

Hi Bryan

Have you tried reporting through Google's web spam report?

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport

It's not quite the issue you have but it may at least bring the issue to Google's attention.

Peter

Hi and welcome to the Moz Q&A forum,

In this case I would recommend that you don't go and buy an additional exact match domains for your SEO.

It's not that exact match domains are necessarily bad, but there has been some tweaking by Google against their effectiveness in the last couple of years. Your existing domain is a couple of years old, so that gives you some advantage over a new domain. As you have already invested in the site at this domain and are aiming to create good content for it, then I would recommend you continue to focus on improving your existing site. Just buying and pointing other keyword domains at this site will not be effective. Focussed pages on those keywords on your existing site will be more so.

If you haven't done so already, I would suggest you do some keyword research and check volumes for any suggestions you discover. Then build good content around those keywords. Remember that people search on Google for answers to questions or problems they may have. If you can answer those questions and provide helpful unique content then you have a good chance of ranking (especially for local searches) and getting traffic to your site.

I hope that helps,
Peter

Hi Muhammad,

An exact match or partial match domain can help yes, but it is not such an effective strategy as it once was because Google has tweaked its algorithm against it a little, plus people tend to be a little bit suspicious of those type of domains these days.

If you have an older domain for your business then you are better off using and optimising a site with that which can include using search engine friendly URLs which can be just as effective and of course can be different.

I hope that helps,

Peter