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I ran that page thru screaming frog and it came back with a "blocked by robots" status.

The second tool you suggested is not finding the noindex tag and I don't have an explanation for that, nor am I familiar with the tool.

A site command does not return any results.

Are you sure you have a problem? Is there another example you can provide?

It looks like you have the homepage canonical set as http (vs https). That's probably the problem.

Just updating the URL of the post Miriam mentioned. It's been moved and is returning a 404 error. Try https://www.imprezziomarketing.com/is-permanently-closed-killing-your-ranking-4-case-studies/ instead.

That's a question for your website or theme developer Clay. I don't think anyone here can answer with so little information and no access to your website.

Before you do that, take a look at the source code of your site now to see if you can find an h1 entry title. It might save you unnecessary rework.

As far as I know, only comparing before and after page traffic using Google Analytics.

All those pages that are canonicalized to https://www.scottscastles.com/property/unavailable/ and https://www.scottscastles.com/property/enquire/ are eventually going to get noindexed. There are 335 of them.

Your site is slow. Google's bots might not be allocating enough time to index the entire site.

Were significant changes made to the site around that time? You seem to have a mix of non-html, html, http, https, 301 and 302 (temporary) redirects.

Do Google and Bing have your most up-to-date sitemap?

Have you orphaned any pages?

Have you checked messages in Google Search Console?

Do the dropped pages have healthy link profiles?

Do you have a large amount of duplicate content that has not been accounted for in canonicals?

Pages with 5xx and 4xx errors won't get indexed.

Hosting problems (inaccessible or slow responding host) can prevent pages from being indexed.

If you're using Wordpress, there might be an H1 entry title that's causing the duplication. Some themes add an H1 entry title by default and populate it with the post name.

To get rid of it, you'd have to make a change to your theme template. VIsit the support group for your theme provider and see if they have provided a how-to or can provide that information there.

Hi David,

Is it necessary to redirect ALL old URLs_**? **_

No.

The old URLs will continue to show up in search results for some time. Your global redirect will make sure visitors and link juice gets appropriately routed, but you do want those URLs to eventually get dropped from the index. The best way to encourage search engines to do that is to not create a specific redirect.

Look at your landing page report comparing the before and after time period for organic traffic. Is it specific landing pages that have lost traffic or is the 35% drop roughly consistent across the board?

You have a bunch of pages (787) ending in html that are timing out with a 504 Gateway error.

Here are a few examples.

https://www.scottscastles.com/book/enquire/baronial-castle-54.html
https://www.scottscastles.com/book/enquire/beautiful-historic-mansion-31.html
https://www.scottscastles.com/book/enquire/beautiful-holiday-house-23.html

I sampled a few with a site: command. Many are still indexed so that could be the problem. A few are tagged as no-index, but they're the exception rather than the rule. Many are canonicalized to https://www.scottscastles.com/property/enquire/ or https://www.scottscastles.com/property/unavailable/ but none are redirected.

I'd start there.

How long does it take before it removes most of the duplicated search result pages from the index?

Every site is different but I have seen it take 6 - 9 months for pages to drop out.

Is it still crawling those pages but has not fully decided to remove most of them?

It's possible. As Gaston has already pointed out, search engines will need to access those files again to see you want them noindexed.

How bad is this for SEO?

It temporarily dilutes the amount of SEO equity available to flow to pages you DO want indexed.

Same question but for the www version of the site. Can it route directly to HTTPS without a redirect? Do I just have to delete the existing non-www to www redirect and follow your logic above? It will take care of both www and non-www redirecting to HTTPS?

I have also asked the help desk several times for a solution, although not recently. I was told it wasn't possible.

The quickest, most effective way to improve a website's DA and PA is to produce outstanding content and coupled with link building and outreach. It is not, by any means, quick and (as James has noted) will (by itself) only get you so far. The only realistic way in my mind you can speed it up is to (a) commit to exceeding expectations at every turn; and (b) hire more top-notch content, content promotion, and SEO people.

A meta refresh can be used as a back-handed way to redirect one page to another. It works but causes a delay in the page rendering which is considered a poor user experience and therefore typically tagged as a warning.

What causes a meta refresh? You probably have a meta refresh tag in the header section of your code. It would look something like this - . "30" means wait 30 seconds before doing anything. The URL listed after that is the page you want the website visitor redirected to.

How to fix? Get rid of the meta refresh tag and replace it with a 301 redirect. Here's Moz's help page on 301 redirects. https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection

Does that answer your question?

geanmitch,

You have two problems:

(1) Your home page (https://www.jasperartisanjewelry.com) is canonicalized to http://jasperartisanjewelry.com/home. Change the canonical tag so the home page points to itself. In other words, your home page canonical tag should read as rel="canonical" href="https://www.jasperartisanjewelry.com"/>.

(2) http://jasperartisanjewelry.com/home redirects to https://www.jasperartisanjewelry.com/home which turns a 404 (page not found error). Create a new 301 redirect that points (A) http://jasperartisanjewelry.com/home to (D) https://www.jasperartisanjewelry.com/. Do NOT point (A) http://jasperartisanjewelry.com/home to (B) http://www.jasperartisanjewelry.com/home and then to (C) http://www.jasperartisanjewelry.com/ and then to (D) https://www.jasperartisanjewelry.com/. Go directly from (A) to (D). Get rid of any intermediary redirects.

That should take care of it.

Not sure if you're asking EGOL, me, or both of us but yes, I do share this type of content on my own site. I also look for other venues and opportunities to get more eyeballs on my content. For example, you could search Q&A sites for people asking related questions and offer specific advice and include your post so long as it's helpful.

Not surprisingly, Moz has some additional suggestions on ways you can promote your content.

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-content-marketing/content-promotion

Hi Mike,

Here's a Whiteboard Friday that talks about absolute vs relative URLs. It should answer your questions.

I'll provide a quick example. A relative URL is any URL that DOES NOT explicitly specify the protocol (e.g., "http:// " or "https:// ") and/or domain ( promierproducts.com ) and subdomain (www), which forces the visitor's web browser (or the search engine bots) to assume it refers to the same domain or site on which the URL appears. An example would be the way your logo file is referenced on your home page - /assets/images/Promier-Logo-250-Egnyte.jpg.

An absolute URL is the opposite, a URL that DOES explicitly specify the protocol, domain, and subdomain. Using the same logo file as an example, your absolute logo file would appear as www.promierproducts.com/assets/images/Promier-Logo-250-Egnyte.jpg in the code.

The Whiteboard Friday explains why, from an SEO perspective, it is good to use absolute vs relative URLs.

You said "I am trying to decide where to put my offsite SEO efforts". That starts with having high-quality content. EGOL's suggestion is an excellent one.

I'd also consider investing in some high-quality video content to complement and enrich the written. It could potentially appeal to a wider or different audience.

In deciding where to focus your efforts first, in addition to EGOL's screening suggestions above, I'd do some searching for things like "How to choose an office chair", "How to prevent light weight Dolly accidents" and look for venues with no or outdated content you could offer to help out by having them link to your own.

Check with your hosting company as well. Asking Google to deindex the pages will be a temporary fix if the files still physically reside on your website. A reputable hosting company will secure their servers so content like this is less likely to be added.

Hi liamvansteps,

Switching your domain is equivalent to moving your business from one physical location to another. If you don't tell people you've moved, they'll show up at the old address and not find you. Your SEO equity (like your mail) won't be forwarded.

You need to provide human and robotic site visitors with the equivalent of a "change of address" in the form of 301 redirects and updated sitemaps. And just like you'd probably want to tell your friends and best customers directly about the move (and not just rely on a change of address), you will want to update some accounts like social media, Moz (of course), Google My Business, and others.

What are the repercussions of not doing this? You'll lose credit for any accumulated link equity and domain reputation metrics gathered by search engines. You'll effectively be wiping the slate clean and starting over from scratch.

How do you switch domains and maintain the status quo?

Search the Moz site for phrases like "how to switch domains" and you'll find lots of helpful step-by-step information shared by others. I don't want to repeat any of that here.