Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks for the update Ian!

Also read something in Twitter from Rand about this issue.

Its great to hear that Moz keeps track on the bugs and when they screw up, embrace the problem, do the best to solve it, even rolling back.
Keep up like this!

Best wishes.
GR

Hi there,

What you are needing is to implement Hreflang tags and, just to make sure Google comprehends it, set the geo targetting in each of the Search Console properties.
Remember always to have both tags in both sites (as you are only woking woth 2 sites). Hreflang tags MUST be self referential and point to the other versions of the web.

Here some useful resources, specially the ones from Aleyda Solis:

Hreflang generator - Aleyda Solis International SEO - Moz Learning Center The Guide to International Website Expansion: Hreflang, ccTLDs, & More! - Moz Blog The International SEO Checklist - Moz Blog Using the correct hreglang tag - Moz Blog Tool for checking hreflang anotations - Moz Blog

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi there!

Canonical tags aren´t that immediate and automatic as its considered.
This happens because google needs to recrawl all your site, more precisely, every of that URL that have been canonicalized.
In my experience with XXL sites when canonicalizing, it takes arround 6 weeks to move arround 60% of the URLs. This checked with Traffic in Search console (most of the cases were when moving to https in the last 12 months)
Also, there are some little to nothing in traffic from those already canonicalized pages, 12 month ago!

Yes its reasonable to expect that all those canonicalized URLs to be changed for the correct URL. Even, in some cases when searching for that exact URL the result shows the canonicalized one.
The thing about ranking worse.. its not that simple, because you are telling google to switch URLs.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi Yaroslav,

On one hand, there is a limit in redirect chains where GoogleBot is capable of handling: Up to 5 redirects.
Matt Cutts said it in these videos:
Can too many redirects from a single URL have a negative effect on crawling? Is there a limit to how many 301 (Permanent) redirects I can do on a site?

On the other hand, being under that 5 redirects, I do believe that the authority is passed through redirections. Also believe that there is some minimum loss there, as always the best case scenario is to not have any redirection, arround 5-10% in the whole chain.

There are two discussions here.

1. Google saying that Any 30x redirect pass the whole authority, just another way of saying that redirects dont lose PageRank.
2. Some studies and experts confirming that there is some lost in authority/PageRank in any redirect.

As this is an old discussion, I do recommend you to read the post from the greatest Cyrus Sheperd about those two arguments:
301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know for SEO - Moz Blog

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi Caro,

First of all, you should not consider **ANY METRIC **as a ranking factor. This said, generically speaking, there is no guaratee that a page/domain that has a higher PA/DA/TF/CF or whatever metric, will rank better than other with lower scores. 
Those metrics try to simulate what googles consider as authority and measure how likely is that page to get higher rankings.

Secondly, you should stick with one version, the best that you and your marketing niche consider is the best (could be www or non-www or even a subdomain). Then just setting the 301 redirection corretly you will not have any SEO issue, and eventually those metrics will be passed to the selected version.
In the case that you dont have the R301 set up correctly (or it isnt possible) you can use canonicals as well.

Thirdly, In my experience, google does not like changing frequently the prefered version of a web. I'd advise you to stick with it now, for some reason you've moved it anyway.

To citate the same resource as the question es nearly the same:
There is also a great post from Cyrus Sheperd, stating that redirects do pass authority correctly:
301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know for SEO - Moz Blog

Hope it helps.
Best luck
GR

Hi Liz,

What you are trying to check is easily checkeable with Search Console (the old version).
There is an option in: Crawl ->Fetch as Google -> {enter URL} then fetch and render

There you will see what google sees in that page.

Hope it helps.
Best luck
GR

Hi there!

Its completely correct that all those different variations have different metrics.

The advice here should be:

• Choose the preferred version and sitck with it.
• Once chosen that version, redirect 301 all other variations to the other. If redirection is not possible, then use canonical tags

Google does understand that you might have different versions and that you should select one and say to Google that.
Authority and linkpowerness will be taken into account by google.
There is also a great post from Cyrus Sheperd, stating that redirects do pass authority correctly:
301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know for SEO - Moz Blog

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi there!

Yes, it could cause short term issues. Google will not understand which version you want to be shown in the results even though the user experience is the correct.
There is not that much work to update the canonical tags in order to be the same version.

Best luck.
GR

Hello there!

You should not think as: "what google wants?", think in what is best for users. 
If you are using a site, what could be your more usefull structure for your understanding.

In my opinion and my experience, works better this structure: website.com/word1-word2 WRONG

--EDIT--
Didn´t read the /folder/ in the first option. 
So, then my advise is that to make a mix of both structures, something like this:
website.com/folder1/folder2/word1-word2,

This helps you a lot to better structure the site, as Martjin said, to create silos and even more to create categories for different niches or contents in the site

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi there!

I do not have any resource or study for those statements.

• for the extra clic, it a well known fact that, for any extra clic that the user does, the conversion rate decreases.
• On how usefull is that landing hub, it is something to be experimented in your case. Theoretically it helps, but its really difficult to estimate how much.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi there,

On one hand, my opinion, its a little helpful to GoogleBot, having that folder stating that you have several stores.
So I'd go with A: ourbusiness.com/stores/location

On the other hand, there is no need to increase an extra click to users, all links could be directly to the stores and not making the users to choose. Also, that extra folder, could be used as an internal link page (also called, landing HUB) were you link all your stores. This would also help a little to GoogleBot.

On a third hand, there is no way to forecast how much your traffic will improve. So analyze and take into consideration how much time and effort you and your dev team need for this improvement.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi Aleksandra,

Yes, its completely possible to keep the traffic when migrations. Of course YOU MUST BE REALLY CAREFULL when migrating.

In my experience, i and my team hace succesfully performed site migrations with millions of visits per month and we only saw a drop in visits the first 3-4 weeks right after the migration.

There is a lot of information about successful migrations. If you are not in a hurry to migrate, take a look at these resources.
Even, if you are in a hurry to migrate, please, pretty please **TAKE YOUR TIME TO ANALYZE, **so nothing gets lost in the middle.
It happend to me and my team that migrations were done taking just a few considerations and we are facing a 10% lost in organic traffic in the last 3 months.

Here those resources:
The Website Migration Guide: SEO Strategy, Process, & Checklist - Moz Blog
The Ultimate SEO Guide for Successful Web Migrations at #DigitalOlympus - AleydaSolis
Migration Best Practices - SMX London 2018 <- backedup by JohnMu in this tweet

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi All!

Have anyone seen any pattern in those shifts?
Categories? Niches? Increments in SEM?

Yeah, of course I can explain more.

HTTP 410 status code tells google that you've eliminated that page and will never be live again.
So google will kill that URL in its database and never ever crawl it again. Thus said, GoogleBot follows assumptions that site is working poorly or that there is some big problem.
How can this happen? when you have a massive amount of 404, 301 redirects, 410, 5xx you might have your site downgraded, possible deindexed, reduced bot crawling frequency or any other penalty you might imagine.

Some info about 410 status code:
HTTP/1.1 status code definitions

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi Fubra!

There are some things to say here:

• Google can handle up to 5 redirects, so if you are under that number, you are fine.
• Serving 404's to google is not wrong neither will impact negatively in your rankings. But only give google a 404 only if that's the correct answer to the user.
• GoogleBot re-crawls from time to time every URL that has discovered in your website lifetime. The only URLs that will not re-crawl are those that you served a 410. HANDLE WITH CARE, 410 are too powerful.
• Redirects and DA are differents things. Dont know the new Mozscape Algorithm, I do not think that redirects would impact negatively in your DA. Focus in trying not to get GoogleBot angry or close some doors.

That said, my advice is: Crawl, scrape or manually get all those old URLs and analyze them. Then decide, whether to: 301, 404 or 410. Also, I'd give a little time to create a really powerful, interesting and userfriendly 404 page, so if some user land there they can keep being in your site and there is no bonces.

To back what i'm saying about how many redirections, Matt Cutts said it in these videos:
Can too many redirects from a single URL have a negative effect on crawling? Is there a limit to how many 301 (Permanent) redirects I can do on a site?

Hope it helps.
Best Luck.
GR

Hello Daniel,

What Casey is correct.
Also, keep in mind 2 things:

1. If your site has a ccTLD, there is no need to do nothing.
2. Not having a ccTLD, you can set the preferred country+Language in Search Console.

Here some really useful resources about that:
Multi-regional and multilingual sites - Google Search Console
International checklist - Moz Blog
Using the correct hreglang tag - Moz Blog
Guide to international website expansion - Moz Blog
Tool for checking hreflang anotations - Moz Blog

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR

Hi Frederik!

What "necessary" checks have you done?
There are tons of issues that might trigger a bad indexation.

Also, where are you checking this indexation status?

GR

Hi Fubra!

First of all, you should consider the intent of those 404 pages. What were their goals? Conversion? Completion of a form?
Then, as you said that some are being R301, anlayze if those redirection are being taken well by Google and the rankings for those URLs are improving and/or started appearing in the searches that used to lead to a 404.

Secondly, in my opinion, the two more improtant metric to always consider are:

• Rankings, if you do not improve rankings or, in the case of being in a high traffic and too competitive search, do not maintain the ranking, then you might be doing something wrong.
• Conversions, always, the main goal is to convert more and/or more efficiently. Of course this meas that you MUST understand what a conversion is for every site and for every part of the site. Then, set up the correct triggers in your analytics tool and measure the improvement.

And last but not least, Google doesnt like 404s, unless that is what the user is intended to get, so its an always on taks in any SEO project.

Hope it helps.
Best Luck.
GR

What about through an app like TapaTalk??

Hi there!

There is no correct information about the harm that it would cause you. It is know that Google considers the best Title and the best description that matches the user intent. Try your best to correct those issues, google will treat you better.
There are some theories that considers Google uses the first of those tags.

Also, if those tags have the same content, there is no big issue, Google will understand that it could be a problem or something for different optiones of the page.
That said, it is common to have several H1 as it could change whether in mobile, tablet or desktop, or even when selecting some options.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR