Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
You could just exempt Googlebot's user-agent from your paywalling mechanism. Theoretically users could use Chrome extensions to alter their own user-agent to 'Googlebot' and thereby evade your paywall, but Joe average user isn't going to do this (Ad-blocker usage is far more common than user-agent evasion)
It really depends what the use-case of your keyword research is. Maybe it's to inform what types of websites you will gain links or editorial placements on / from. Maybe it's to inform which content, that doesn't exist now (on your or your client's site) should be created. Maybe it's to inform the tweaking of content or Meta data on existing pages
What you really need is a spreadsheet that lists and groups all the keywords (along with search volumes, your search rankings and the search rankings of some key competitors). You need to work out where you have strong visibility already, where you are weak or average (in terms of rankings or KG panel placements). Once that's done, you can begin having ideas (e.g: "we're ranking at 67 for this keyword, but our competitor is #3 and also holds the knowledge graph panel. I notice that we have placed the keyword on a page which is really about something else, whilst our competitor has a dedicated URL and some great content for this keyword. We should do something similar, but even better - here is my plan...")
You can add your ideas per keyword (or per keyword group, if you assign each keyword a thematic group in your spreadsheet) into a new column. Once your sheet is finished, you can create an actions summary. Some stuff you can do, some stuff that may require design / dev support (like building a micro-site for careers at your company, or something). If you work on behalf of clients, some actions may be for the client (e.g: "send us more business-insider info and stats on X topic, so we can create a page or sub-site about it")
Once you have your actions list, deliver it to your audience (internal or external) via a simple email or a PowerPoint presentation - if some of your ideas are larger and need supporting diagrams
The weighting of internal links is vastly inferior to the weighting of external links. I guess if you had no (or very few) external links hitting your site, the internal links might skew Google's view a little. But if some of your pages had even a few robust links coming from off-site (which are perceived as less biased links) then the internal linking wouldn't create any drastic movements. Footer links are often largely discounted, anyway - as they are not prominent and web-users don't often use them
1.) It depends on Google's perception of what has happened, you may or may not get those rankings back (ever)
i. If Google applied 'active' ranking reductions (usually signified by a penalty message in Google Search Console) then the disavow work alone wouldn't work, you'd also need to submit a reconsideration request. For a recon request to go through, especially a links one, it ranges from 2 weeks to 4 months for them to even respond to it (the higher range is usually for repeat offenders)
ii. If Google applied active ranking reductions without serving you a penalty notice, the disavow on its own should be processed relatively quickly and rankings should begin returning a week or two after the disavow is processed. Note that this is the rarest circumstance, Google almost never apply active ranking reductions without also sending a penalty notification
iii. If Google didn't apply any active ranking reductions, it simply means that links which used to count - no longer pass SEO authority. Doing a disavow doesn't magically bring the authority back (so in this situation you don't see ranking gains from disavow work, this would be called an algorithmic devaluation - not a penalty)
Items (i) and (iii) are infinitely more commonplace than (ii), which is extremely rare
2.) Build good links to replace the crappy ones you have lost
I'm pretty sure it's variable and depends on Google's perceived severity of infraction. I've seen disavow lists that never make a difference one way or the other, and ones where the list has been digested and I'm seeing movements within the next few days. Usually speaking, I find that if there's absolute zero impact for a couple of weeks, it's time to stop waiting as the list has probably been rejected, discarded or the work was incorrect and thus it had no impact. It's fairly unusual to submit a disavow, wait for weeks or months and then suddenly it kicks in. In my experience, they're relatively quick-acting! If you have waited nearly half a year I'd say that more waiting isn't going to help
Yeah Google is perfectly able to interpret an H2 as a sub-heading. It's more of a directive than an absolute rule, for example if you crammed loads of H2s into your footer and made them really small, Google would be able to tell that the H2 was being deployed illegitimately
In your case you seem to be using the H2 correctly. I think it adds some space to add a little extra context to your pages, I think that's a really good idea! I might use the space a little differently though
This is what you have:
H1: Flavour & Chidinma – 40 Yrs
H2: 40 Yrs by Flavour & Chidinma - Mp3 Download
They essentially say exactly the same thing just with the difference of "MP3 Download"
I might use the H1 more as the news heading and the H2 for the additional context of what exactly the reader will be getting
H1: Flavour and Chidinma Release 40yrs Everlasting EP
H2: 40 Yrs by Flavour & Chidinma - Mp3 Download & Video
I gave the page a schema scan:
Nice usage of Article schema. You could also think about using AudioObject schema for the MP3 download. Google have recently come out and said that whilst some schemas don't result in visual changes in the SERPs, they're still a good structural framework for Google to work with (in terms of contextualising information) so usually I always push for the maximum Schema.org implementation possible
Did you know that MP3 files also contain their own Meta data, inside of the file? You can inspect and modify the Meta data with industry-standard audio-editing software, or simple applications such as MP3Tag
This is what your MP3 file looks like in terms of the internal MP3-tagging Meta:
Screenshot: https://d.pr/i/iUxtv0.png
I have boxed in red the field "Album Artist" which has not been filled out. Most media players and media apps, actually categorise music into artists by the "Album Artist" field and not by the "Artist" field (makes no sense, I know!)
You might consider copying the Artist text into the Album Artist field and re-saving the file, then re-uploading it. There are a lot of sites that illegally rip music and upload it in hopes of search rankings and ad-revenue. Much of the time, those sites fail to correctly fill out their MP3 file Meta (sometimes everything is 100% blank) and that's often a piracy signal
I don't think that's what your doing, but it might pay to verify you have correctly amended MP3 Meta before uploading the files to your site (especially as a UX thing, if people download the MP3 and then can't find it on their media player then it won't get many listens)
Fun track by the way, thanks for the listen 
This is the estimated performance and authority for the /faculties path and all of its contained sub-folders and pages:
https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/v2/prefix/live?target=www.griffith.ie%2Ffaculties
Screenshot: https://d.pr/i/D9gFrv.png
Here's the same thing for find a course:
https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/v2/prefix/live?target=www.griffith.ie%2Ffind-a-course
Screenshot: https://d.pr/i/t88UIa.png
Your faculties section has way more linking domains, organic keywords ranking on Google and has better SEO performance (generally). If you were to change the architecture so that our courses sit under the course finder, instead of under the faculties section (which is best-performing of the two) which links and pages might be impacted?
Here you can see the top pages listed inside of the /faculties section:
Screenshot: https://d.pr/i/LAa2dJ.png (I highlighted 'courses' related URLs with red boxes)
CSV Download: https://d.pr/f/Haz8WS.csv
It looks as if a lot of the top content is course related, so changing the URL architecture could potentially unseat a lot of powerful links and cause you some problems. Links to redirects, often aren't as powerful as directly connected links
Here are some of the best backlinks to the /faculties site section:
Screenshot: https://d.pr/i/nv3EWH.png (I highlighted 'courses' related backlinks with red boxes)
CVS Download: https://d.pr/f/JdJAPx.csv
Again, it seems that lots of decent links are actually hitting individual course URLs, which would make me feel uneasy about 'unseating' those links, by changing the URLs which they are supposed to land upon
In SEO, large architectural changes often do result in a short term dip and loss. By doing what you are proposing, you will cause short term disruption which could see lower results. Your hope would be that in the medium to long term, performance would increase beyond what you would have gained without the changes
A crude example would be something like this:
https://d.pr/i/f8HRub.png (this is a hypothetical line-chart, I'm not actually doing your forecasting for you based on external data only - that would be crazy!)
Your disruption will, in all likelihood disconnect some links and SEO authority from your site whilst making other links connect indirectly rather than directly (passing through 301 redirects). There's an efficiency loss here which means you're likely to see a dip. The question is, do you think that dip is worth it and how confident are you about achieving more than before - after the dip has run its course?
You could be lucky and not even see a dip if the contents of the pages will be exactly the same and it's (pretty much) only the URL which is changing. Google do check to see if the (last cached) origin URL for redirects, and the redirect destinations are similar - before allowing full SEO authority to flow through a 301 redirect (so even the mighty 301 is subject to checks, balances, and some degree of equity loss)
If you are really good at your 301s, harvesting all the legacy URLs with links (in addition to your live pages) then you can avoid a dip - but you have to be pretty pro with your data-sourcing, data aggregation and crawling skills. If that's not you, expect to encounter a small to medium dip - and to require more budget later for clean-up
I think your project would require a moderate amount of dev work, but even that can be expensive when trying to win budget from another department. Before you move ahead with this, you'll have to be very confident of the long-term gains with some data-led reasoning and insights
I can't make this decision for you, but hopefully some of my data will help you
Popularity and off-site factors, e.g: backlinks which have a high degree of association with the key term. What other people think about you online (and how they reference you) often matters more than how you shout about yourself (through your own content, which is biased)
I really like this response. I was thinking, fully with my SEO-head, but from a business POV this answer is right on the money
If other images are not via CDN, then you can probably also deploy WebP images without the CDN. I would convert your on-site images to WebP and recode your site / theme to serve your WebP images instead, and then code in some fall-backs for browsers which still don't support WebP. What I'm not seeing, is why a CDN is fundamentally required. Adding more unnecessary calls and connections to your pages can slow it down. For large sites with huge traffic-loads, CDNs are perfectly appropriate. With some smaller sites, I have seen CDNs implemented which actually make the pages take longer to load (a CDN isn't always needed). Myself I'd experiment on a couple of pages, replacing all their embedded images with WebP versions and see what difference it makes. If it met with success, I'd then roll the change out across the site (with in-code fall-backs for older or disruptive browsers). But I don't think I'd adopt a CDN at the same time I was trialing WebP, I'd keep it separate (for now). Then I'd try a CDN after and see if that resulted in further uplift or not!
As long as the URL of the product itself doesn't change (different category references in the URL string) then it's not going to cause any serious harm
Ah that's pretty interesting. Is it a positive or a negative review? Negative reviews tend to have prominence over positive ones (which is why people often engage in reputation management attempts). If both sets of reviews (partner vs firm) are positive then it could just be, they're such a big name that they disrupt the SERPs (as people search more for them than for the firm, yet both are intrinsically connected)
What do you mean by partner?
A business partner commercially (another company?)
A partner of your business (like a General Practitioner, a partner of the practice in a medical profession - a person?)
An affiliate partner? A stockist?
There are so many types of business partnership that I believe we need just a smidge more info here, to help properly
It's still quite important and helps Google to contextualize a page effectively. If you try to have an H1 without giving it the proper / normal prominence, Google will be wise to that and they will simply devalue your H1. Either have one loud and proud, or don't bother
"1. how would a company this reputable with a DA 90+ be building pages like this without major penalties? (i realize it is from .au (australia) but from research they own that site too)" - actually being a reputable site makes you less likelyto gain penalties rather than more likely. A smaller less reputable site doing the same thing, would be more likely to garner devaluations and / or penalties. When you become authoritative and reputable, you gain 'trust' with Google. That's a barrier which you can eat into, instead of losing performance. Imagine two people in a friendship who really trust each other, yet one betrays the other. In all likelihood, that trust will be consumed but the friendship will survive. Now imagine the same situation between two people who don't trust each other, since there's no love lost - they will say goodbye and part ways. It may be difficult for a moral, human mind to accept - but trust is a consumable resource and businesses use it as such (just how it is I'm afraid)
"2. how exactly does this work? are they selling links to people? did my competitor pay them to replace my link with theirs? why create a page that sounds like robots wrote it" - Ask them. Find your old link using Wayback Machine, show them your link existed and that it was removed and replaced with a terrible quality link. Maybe they have a rogue editor on the inside and you could bring them to justice. Maybe (instead) they'll refuse to care and they will wall up (to protect themselves). In any case, you could at least ask (without getting nasty about it, don't pick larger battles than you can win)
"3. would it be a good idea for me to try to get the link back? it certainly was helping considering i lost 5 DA points when i lost the link, but it goes against everything that makes sense in what I've read about toxic links and keeping things clean" - I'd certainly try to get it restored. Wayback Machine might be able to help you prove your case and disparage a rogue editor for illegitimate linking practices
Yeah I'd say it is worthwhile. WebP images can look great at a fraction of the file-size of the equivalent PNG / JPG / JPEG files
I don't know about having a CDN specifically to supply WebP images. Are your normal images (currently) supplied via a CDN? If they are not, why would you complicate things? You can serve the WebP images from your own site with fall-backs to PNG / JPG images as required
If your current images are served via CDN, then maybe serving the WebP images via CDN is a good idea. Just try not to change too many things at once, always take the simplest and most elegant solution
I'd keep the old site for a good 6 months just to ensure all the redirects are digested. I would ask if you used the change of address tool in search console, but I don't think that's relevant if you didn't move domain
The reason that the old URLs when listen on Google, take you to the right place on the new site - is that you have 301 redirects in place. Really you want to wait until Google removes all of your old URLs from their listings, replacing them with the new URLs. At that point it's pretty safe to kill the 301s
Even if it's a static site you should still be able to utilise a .htaccess file, NginX redirects or web.config depending on your server configuration - to redirect certain URLs to other addresses. Just because a site is static, that doesn't mean that .htaccess (Apache) or web.config (IIS) will not intercept and rewrite
Just stick a '.htaccess' (extension only, no filename) in your site's root and edit to suit. Most apache sites will adhere to a .htaccess file, placed in the root. Be sure to use the 301 (permanent) redirect status
