Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Nice video Matt, it will surely be helpful to new comers.

Hi,

I think you may have downloaded the retiring ranking csv which would include the same keyword multiple times as historical rankings. Or you are using a program like OpenOffice in which you need to turn off the "space" delimiter and only use the comma delimiter. My new ranking CSV file is downloading just fine.

Hope it helps,

Don

Hello,

You should be able to see results if you use a proxy server located in the city (area) you are researching. But I imagine there is an easier way nowadays.

This post may help over on SearchEngineLand

Good luck,

Don

Hi plinggtre67,

This should have no direct effect on SEO. The reason is, PHP is server sided script, which is usually outputted as HTML anyway. HTML is what the browser actually reads.

If you are referring to some pages having .html extensions and some having .php, then from user's perspective that may have a slight impact on some users not knowing whats going on, but in general it shouldn't matter. If you would like a consistent look on the page extensions you can use an Apache URL re-write to remove the extensions all together (just like Moz does). You should notice no pages on Moz site have an actual .extension appended to them.

Example Code: @ StackOverflow

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.)$ $1.phpRewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.)$ $1.html

I hope this makes sense and helps,

Don

Hi Saijo,

Absolutely! in fact that is exactly what I was looking for in the Information Box, I wanted to see the source of the definition. When citing a source it feels like it would look better to cite Merriam Webster rather then Google, if that makes any sense. But perhaps Google is aware of that perception and this is an effort to change it.

I know there is a difference between Snippets and the Information Box or I think Google calls it "Knowledge Graph", but when I didn't see a source my wheels started turning. I really like the Snippets as you and EGOL point out, they are extremely helpful and can be a valuable source of traffic.

Thanks guys for your thoughts,

Don

So I just had this thought, Google returns information boxes for certain search terms. Recently I noticed one word searches usually return a definition.

For example if you type in the word "occur" or "happenstance" or "frustration" you get a definition information box. But what I didn't see is a reference to where they are getting or have gotten this information.

Now it could very well be they built their own database of definitions, and if they did great, but here is where it seems a bit grey to me... Did Google hire a team of people to populate the database, or did they just write an algorithm to comb a dictionary website and stick the information in their database. The latter seems more likely.

If that is what happened then Google basically stole the information from somebody to claim it as their own, which makes me worry, if you coin a term, lets say "lumpy stumpy" and it goes mainstream which would entail a lot of marketing, and luck. Would Google just add it to its database and forgo giving you credit for its creation?

From a user perspective I love these information boxes, but just like Google expects us webmasters to do, they should be giving credit where credit is due... don't you think?

I'm not plugged in to the happenings of Google so maybe they bought the rights, or maybe they bought or hold a majority of shares in some definition type company (they have the cash) but it just struck me as odd not seeing a reference to a site. What are your thoughts?

Hi Radi,

That is a bit normal.

The reason that it appears to happen is the browser is trying to render HTML data.

If you come across this it could be because of a slow internet connection or a problem with the server hosting content.

I would suggest a force refresh Windows & Mac CTRL+F5.

Usually that fixes the problem.

Good luck,

Don

Hi Thomas

Unless I'm mistaken. If you list multiple user agents before a rule all the users agents are subjected to the rule.

So what you have is a list of 3 user agents allowed "anything" disallowed 4 specific things.

In the end the rules apply to all.

Don

Hi Fraser,

The solution is to use a single website with local options. Yes! I know it is exactly what you said the client doesn't want, but then again, the client came to you for your expertise....

Build a national website with localization focus for each product offered. A company with 25+ locations "SHOULD" be ranking nationally for every product!!!!!!!

As for the localization part, if its a franchise or whatever then let the "main" website feed the locals, who should be on their own ranking.

I'd be happy to expand on my thoughts with more details,

Don

Ben,

I doubt that crawlers are going to access the robots.txt file for each request, but they still have to validate any url they find against the list of the blocked ones.

Glad to help,

Don

On December 30th, 2015 I decided to look at the Moz Community Rankings, I find it fun to do for time to time, and I always like to see how close I am to getting that special dinner with Rand I have heard so much about in the past.

One thing I noticed right away is that Moz ranks members just on MozPoints, and not on other factors like, how helpful they tend to be. This means had I joined in a few years earlier, I could be at the top.. or could I be???

Again, it is just something I did for fun, but I decided to look at a few additional factors to get my True MozRank

By examining just the top 50 active members I added some additional ranking factors and aggregated them to find a true Rank. The ranking factors are..

• Moz Points Per Month (Using the users points divided by months they have been a member)
• Thumbs Up percentage (Using the percentage of Thumbs Up they receive per point)
• Good Answer percentage (Using the percentage of Good Answers they receive per point)
• Endorsed Answer percentage (Using the percentage of Endorsed Answers they receive per point)

After that I gave each of the top 50 a rank in each category based on their respective scores. I then totaled the ranks, and assigned a new final rank based on the lowest totals (which means they ranked the best).
Edit (01/18/2016): With the help of Peter Nikolow I aggregated all active users as per this post.
Link to all 4291 active users ranks

For example EGOL category ranks:

• MozPoint Rank (1)
• Points Per Month Rank (2)
• Percent of Thumbs Up Rank (27)
• Percent of Good Answers Rank (29)
• Percent of Endorsed Answers Rank (23)

Total = 82
Final Rank = 5

His closest competitor RyanKent MozPoint Points rank 2

• MozPoint Rank (2)
• Points Per Month Rank (3)
• Percent of Thumbs Up Rank (39)
• Percent of Good Answers Rank (9)
• Percent of Endorsed Answers Rank (20)

Total = 73
Final Rank = 2

Well it was a fun experiment for me, a couple people are out of place in the rankings based on other factors but for the most part MozPoints are pretty accurate.

You can view the spread sheet on Google Docs and play around with the data as you wish.

Don

EDIT: After looking at the document again I noticed an error with rank assignments I have since fixed it.

Edit (01/18/2016): With the help of Peter Nikolow I aggregated all active users as per this post. Link to all 4291 active users ranks

I've been a member for almost 10 months and last month was the first time anything happened that concerned me with the service. Which from what I understand they are still working on..here is a link to the last blog post.

I certainly understand your concerns and would hope that a well written and understanding email sent to the staff would extend your trial to include some up time on the tools you find the most valuable.

Personally, I spent my first month checking our main pages using the On-page optimization tool, followed by setting up campaigns.

The forums are actually a huge value if you use them. There are some extremely knowledgeable people who continue to post on these forums, this knowledge usually comes at a high price.

The short answer is yes in my experience SEOmoz has worked 90% of the time (10 months -1 month)

Hope that helps and good luck Ian.

Hi Doron,

I see 2 problems. 1 your title tag is located in the of the page when it should be in the . 2 you actually have 2 titles on the page one of which is blank.

1.) <title>שמלות כלה נפוחות - סלון כלות - נעמה ניומןtitle>

2.) <title>title>

While I'm guessing Moz can deal with the title in the Body (it should still be fixed), you defiantly don't want 2 of them on the page, especially if one is blank!

Hope that helps,

Don

Hi Dan,

I have seen this question a few times, and Matt Cutts even took a stab at answering it.

I'll cut to the quick and then give you a link if you want to follow up about the information I am providing. The notion of 100 links per page started years back when Google and other Search Engines didn't have the ability / power to follow all the links, they instead just suggested, to ensure sites get proper attention limit yourself to about 100 links per page. Nowadays search engines can follow kabillion links, but keep in mind the more links a page has the less juice each one is worth. So the rule while not set in stone still seems to apply.

The truth is having more then 100 links is okay.. but be aware of the above information.

Ref: Seo Moz Post

Ref: Matt Cutts (Google)

Hope that helps

Only thing I saw straight away was you are using a canonical tag to point to a different domain...

http://www.turnstile-factory.com which then is redirected back to you.

Your canonical tag if needed at all should point to your domain & page root.

You should also deal with root/index.php 301 it to just root

Hope that helps,

Don

Hi Lewis,

Rand just posted about DA/PA with their recent huge crawl update. Here

"..This means that DA and PA scores may fluctuate more than usual, as link diversity are big parts of those calculations and we've crawled a much larger swath of the deep, dark corners of the web (and non-US/non-.com domains, too)..."

Even with that, I really try to pay more attention to what you mentioned, user engagement, click-through, in-bound links, organic traffic and on our retail site; SALES! Google has really been shaking things up, I've seen more often then not lower pa/da pages higher in SERPS then ever before. While I don't have anything to point to prove this is true, we all know Google's goal is to provide the best possible pages for a users search.

Just because a domain / page has been around since Al Gore invented the internet and has a high da/pa doesn't mean it is the most relevant for today's Googlers.

The basic question (correct me if I'm wrong) is how to rank better for Image searches.
The answer, has little to do with the options you listed.

The best way to achieve this

• Name the image appropriately (example Red-Ford-Mustang-Convertiable-2014.jpg not rfmc2014.jpg)
• Use appropriate image alt text (example "Car's Side View 2014 Mustang Convertible")
• Place images on appropriate pages, meaning you wouldn't want to show a red ford mustang on a page about staplers (the content of the page helps the image

Hope this helps

Hello Leonard and welcome to SEO, and Moz.com

1. _"Page Authority via backlinks and social media..."_It is true getting links (aka backlinks) from high authoritative sites will bump up your page and domain authority. A key to remember here is you don't just want a link, you want a relevant link. That is to say, ideal links would be found on pages with minimal links to other sites and in a natural way and on pages with high authority. Read more about link dilution for more information.

1b. Social media, shares likes pluses help best when associated with specific content. Example, like this article, this tool, this service etc.. It is also a good thing to for brands (homepages).

2. "Making a Insurance Jargon Dictionary Guide.." Great idea, even better if the industry doesn't have a good one that is referenced on other sites. This is content marketing at its best, BETTER CONTENT IS ALWAYS A GOOD THING!

Part three like this last paragraph is a wrap up of the above, and yes again on the right track. I would also add don't be afraid to give follow links to pages / sites that deserve it. It isn't a one way street. If somebody is a recognized authority it will not hurt to give them credit, in fact it makes your page more relevant. An example from our site would be we make NSF certified compound, but we are not an authority on it, we happily give NSF.org credit for their work and point users to their site if they want to learn more about it.

Sounds like you're on the right track, remember patience, great content, and proper monitoring (tracking > traffic > keywords) will go a long way in your success.

Hope this helps,

Don

Taken and suggestions submitted!

HI Luke,

Having dealt with unique but thin content in the past, there are a couple things that come to mind.

First we would start by understanding the goal of this tool. Yes, some people make handy tools for themselves or friends or just to see if they can do it (I made a site that tracks the heat/frequency of Ohio Keno numbers), but usually the purpose is to generate brand recognition or customers; ultimately meaning money.

Once we know the goal of the page we can now move onto how we can use SEO best practice to achieve this goal.

I see two viable options here. The first would be to focus the page on a broad term like "energy comparisons" and possibly throw in the areas that are serviced for localization purposes. To do this you would build the page based on this broad term detail the tool, the use, add videos, help files, pdfs, reports and then rel=canonical the generated URLs back to the main page.

The second option would be to go aggressive and not only target the main page for the broad terms and areas but also target the long tail address's for energy comparisons.

Examples:

• 120 White Elk Lane Energy Use
• 120 White Elk Lane Average Energy Cost
• 120 White Elk Lane Energy Rates

To do this you would have to add more dynamic elements to the code that returns results. That maybe difficult or it maybe extremely easy if the database has more information.

I could easily in-vision this tool returning X rate vs. Y vs. Z company rates, but also returning neighbor's rates 122 White Elk Lane, 123 White Elk Lane, Average Block Rates, Average Community Rates, and compare them to the entered address, adding charts, rate trends, and maps will all be a boon to make the content for 120 White Elk Lane's page be unique. This method removes the thin content and adds tremendous value to anybody looking at buying or selling a home.. just imagine how many real estate companies would link to this page to help sell their listings!

In short you can take one of two approaches, target the broad keywords on the main tool page and canonical the generated urls back to the main page, or add in some dynamic but very helpful content to make the urls unique. You could also start by using the first approach while building the code for the second approach, once finished just remove the canonicals and let the pages rank.

My thoughts and I really hope this helps,

Don