Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting your example or intent, but in my mind, the ideal situation would be where Google ranks the category page that lists and links to all the different color options. The specific black, red, and blue goggle pages would be canonicaled back to the main category page, allowing you to consolidate SEO equity there.
Matt Cutts recommends a strategy based on the size of your product inventory. For large sites (like yours), he recommends configuring an unavailable_after meta tag when the page is created. The tag will effectively provide Google with a page expiry date which will be treated the same as a removal request. The page will be removed from search results about a day after the expiry date.
That solution doesn't help folks who have bookmarked the expired product page or sent there from one of your referral partners. For those, you'll still need to create a custom (redirected-to) page that explains what's happened - the product has been discontinued, is no longer available, and showcase similar products, if applicable. As you said, it will provide a much better user experience.
I agree with Matt and Robert. You can have a Google My Business listing that will show up in search results using a service-area-business designation and hidden home address.Where you will run into trouble is if you want to rank well in local search results and you have citation-rich competitors.
I say that b/c even though (as Matt points out) there are hidden-address citation sources, they are few and far between. You will have a hard time accumulating enough of those to outrank the competition.
If you're not worried about rankings and you just want visibility with people who already know your brand, you'll be fine.
It sounds like it might be a theme setting. Some themes come with their own baked-in SEO functionality that can be turned off or on. I'd check that first.
I've seen a lot of rankings flux (up and down) over the last week. You can also see that reflected in the Mozcast. MozCast is a weather report showing turbulence in the Google algorithm over past 30 days. The hotter and stormier the weather, the more Google's rankings changed. It's been 90 degrees or hotter all week.
I wouldn't react. Just wait for the dust to settle.
That link was helpful and from only a few days ago. It confirms your suspicion.
Thank you. I'd still use those other tools though, to gauge whether your efforts are paying off.
Hi Taylor,
Here's a Moz post that discusses possible reasons (and remedies) for the 902 error.
Your domain authority might be stuck at 1 for a couple of reasons:
Are you using other sources to check your backlink profile? Maybe Google Search Console, Majestic SEO and/or Ahrefs? Are they showing progress and improvement? If yes, you're likely on a good path and need to resolve the crawl problem to see that reflected on Moz.
YES you can continue to benefit from additional links from the same source provided the source has a higher domain authority than you and link sources, destinations, and anchor text vary.
This should also not comprise your entire link building strategy. You need links from other reputable sources as well.
"We hope to get the link back up asap." It's more than a year later and the link is still not live. Can you re-enable it please? I'm glad Jen Keller asked the question so I was able to find your link (above), but it would be far better (and save time for your visitors) if you would re-enable it.
Thanks!
_"The issue is we can’t seem to find the link on any of the pages listed or even in our primary navigation." _
What link are you referring to? Do you mean the URL? Is it possible it's in a test region?
I also agree with your recommended approach.
I use Moz to easily and affordably acquire a well-rounded base of worthwhile citations that includes data aggregators and supplement with (as you and Miriam suggest) hand-picked industry and geographically relevant additions.
I don't use Yext because it is more expensive and doesn't feed all the data aggregators. If speed was a concern - if it was important to have the citations built as quickly as possible - or the business wanted to update it's information frequently, then I might reconsider.
Have you seen the Moz local search ecosystem visual? It helps convey the difference between the reach of the two tools.
What differentiates the 6 GMB pages from one another? You said you have two locations, so it can't just be location.
You're going to have to standardize on a single name / address / phone number (NAP) combination for each of your two different locations. Then you'll need to inventory all the incoming citations you have to all 6 GMB listings and update or delete the ones that are inaccurate. Lastly, you'll need to remove the obsolete GMB pages. It's tedious and time consuming, but it needs to be done.
Whitespark offers a highly effective citation audit and cleanup service with a couple of different price points if you don't have the time but do have funding.
Small business owners' frustration will grow as Google continues to add layers and nuances to an already crowded and overly-complex process making it harder for them to allocate the time and resources needed to compete.
I agree with your observations. I don't see why you'd suffer a Panda penalty and your competition wouldn't.
My only other observation (again, not Panda related) is 8notes have made much more extensive use of link title and alt tags to reinforce their keywords and subject matter.
"_Could it be dupe content from the W_ikipedia pages we imported and indexed?"
That's not a good idea. I'd either point to the Wikipedia pages themselves, noindex or canonical them (back to their source).
Also, agree with Clayton John. It could be any number and/or combination of factors. Glenn Gabe, president of G-Squared Interactive, watches website traffic trends and fluctuations and comments upon possible root causes. He remarked back in November that "The fall of 2016 has been one of the most volatile ones I have seen in a long time algorithm update-wise" and observed that Google is testing its new mobile-first ranking algorithm. Check out that article to get some other suggestions as to possible root causes.
Yes, I see what you've done with genres, specials, etc. That looks good.
If I compare you to 8notes, you've got a lot more segmentation when it comes to instruments and those pages are NOT noindexed.
For example, you have 29 different versions of the "Dust in the Wind" sheet music page, all very similar. Here are a few:
NOT noindexed doesn't mean they're getting indexed by Google. When I did a site command for http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/score/HL-328387.html (Dust in the Wind sheet music for trumpet solo), it wasn't returned as a search result. When I searched for ""dust in the wind" trumpet solo virtualsheetmusic" it was not returned as a search result.
So maybe you need to consider noindexing all the instrument variations as well, but still offer them up on the site for visitors. I'd check analytics to see if anyone's landing on those pages from search. As I said earlier, I can understand why you'd want them indexed but if they're causing you more harm than good, you might have to balance that out.
I love a challenge but that's the best I can come up with Fabrizo.
"I'd really like to know from you if you see anything on my website that could trigger a "Panda" kind of penalization, compared to my mentioned competitor above (8nots.com)."
_Key phrase being "compared to my mentioned competitor". Cause yes, I can see things that might trigger a Panda penalization. You have a lot of overlapping / duplicate content but so do your competitors. _
The only thing that comes to mind is if there's a threshold you're exceeding that your competitors aren't by virtue of the fact that you many (and more) ways to tag/filter your content, for example, genres, specials, and ensembles.
I wonder if "indexed URLs" is an accurate label. I looked at the URLs Majestic found, and a significant number are redirected files, images, and mp3s.
You have a perplexing problem Fabrizo...
You're right. Your site and 8notes seem to be guilty of the same practices, assuming there's anything wrong with them, and yet it is ranking well. Although according to MajesticSEO, it has half the pages you have indexed (520,439 vs 944,432).
Your link profiles are significantly different. Again according to Majestic, you have way more backlinks (649,076 vs 234,122) but from half as many referring domains, IPs and subnets. You have 1/10th of the educational backlinks of 8notes. And the majority of your backlinks, roughly 55%, are nofollow whereas 90% of 8notes are the opposite (follow). 8notes seems to have more deep links as well.
Maybe it's worth looking a little more closely at your link profile?
8notes is also https. That might also have a bearing given you're both ecommerce.