Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi there,

What you are finding is perfectly normal, as Moz's bot usually takes some time until finding most of the links present on the web. Keep in mind that the internet as a whole is so vast that not even Google can crawl it entirely. 
In some cases, really big/popular websites restrict access to bots, so they will never find what's in their pages.

I'd suggest you wait a little longer.

Also, you can find more information about that in Moz's official resource: Moz Isn’t Finding Your Links - Moz Help Hub.

Hope it helps,
Best luck

Hi Liv,

There aren't quick solutions for these cases. 
My usual approach is to rely on Google, its algorithm will eventually get the canonical tag.

Its pertinent to understand that a canonical tag DOES NOT prevent a page to be indexed. The idea behind this signal is that Google would show the canonical version of the URL when it could have been the actual page.
I need to clarify this case, because when performing a site: search we will often find that canonicalised page there, but it usually does not get any traffic from Google.

Another thing to consider IS UP TO GOOGLE to decide whether to honour and consider your canonical suggestion. I'd try that page in the URL inspection tool to see what Google is considering to be the canonical version. 
And, last but not least, canonical works when two pages are (almost) identical, this is not a simple way to clean pages from google's index or to softly redirect traffic from one page to another without server redirects, I've seen this and many clients were really furious because it didn't work.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.

PS, just in case other users need it, some resources about canonicalization:

• Canonicalization - Moz Learning Center
• Consolidate Duplicate URL, canonicals - Google Search Help

Hi Julio,

As long as you have a cc-TLD will not be able to change its target for country-specific.
Dont worry about that, you are not in any danger or whatsoever.

Best luck
Gaston

You are welcome

Mmm, I'm not sure what do you mean by _developing something like a speed index. _ 
If you are referring to some mechanism to tell Google about your new backlinks so it can take them into consideration faster... I don't think that anything like that would help your website.

That's clearly an attempt to manipulate the way their algorithm works. 
Rest assured that Google will find your backlinks, as long as the page/website where they are is available to google and doesn't have any penalties to the eyes of GoogleBot.

Hope it helps,
Best luck.
Gaston

Hi there,

I'm sorry to hear that your site has taken a hit by latest Google Algo update. That sucks.

I do not think that your drop has anything to do with the spam score Moz'z metrics give you, as Google does not look at private metrics for their rankings.

I'd strongly recommend you to look closer to your website, specifically pages and queries that you are seeing a loss in traffic and rankings. Looking at the pages that now rank where your website used to rank could give you some hints about why you've taken a hit.

Then, I'd take a deep read and try to understand what other factors might be affecting your high spam score website, compared to the ones with low scores.
Here you can find the 27 most important factors for Moz's spam score.

Hope it helps,
Best luck.

Hi there,

Are you sure that you are referring to Google's Search Console? I'm seeing your site indexed, and there are more pages indexed than the one present in the sitemap. Counted roughly 700 and site: search shows over 800, You can see it for yourself with this link to the search or in this link to the image.

I don't really see why your rankings would have decreased because of an existing error in the sitemap. Having a sitemap correctly installed and crawled does not mean better rankings.
I'd suggest you reassess your website and the keywords that are performing poorly, there might be something else causing it.

Best of luck,
Gaston

Hi there,

The fact that your DA did not increase in the last months is not an issue. There might be a lot of reasons why that happened, im listing just a few (it doesn't that's your case):

• No better links added
• The total sum of authority on links added and on links lost is zero
• The entire ecosystem gained authority and there is no net increase

As always, I'd strongly suggest you and everybody to dont worry that much about increasing any private metric (DA, PA, DR, TF or whatever) but focus on creating great content and if linking opportunities come, be sure that those links come from high quality and topic-related websites.

I'd recommend you focus more on other aspects of SEO rather than backlinks and improving private metrics. I guess that taking a deep read to these resources might help:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide - Google Search Console Help
- The Beginner's Guide to SEO - Moz
- A Complete Guide to SEO: What You Need to Know in 2019 - Search Engine Journal
- A Simple 7‐Step SEO Tutorial for Beginners - Ahrefs

Best luck,
Gaston

Hi there,

Well, there is no hard evidence that Google still considers those backlinks after the redirection is gone. Neither that after a year backlinks actually carry value.
If you don't have the urgent need to remove that redirection, I'd keep it for as long as I can. It doesn't hurt more than a few bucks a year its domain renewal.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
Gaston

Hey there,

Moz's metrics are updated almost daily. 
If you don't see any change is because there were no changes on the backlinks that point to that page, or no new backlinks. You have to give it time to Moz's bot to crawl the pages where your backlinks are.
Keep in mind that, there is no difference in Google whether Moz has or hasn't seen your links. 
I'd advise against any of the 'tactics' that are out here to make google recognize faster your links.

If you want more information about Page Authority, here the official Moz's resource:
Domain Authority | Moz resource center.

Hope it helps,
Best luck.
Gaston

Hi Nathan,

You are right. There was a broad algorithm update. Google made it official with a tweet: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1216752087515586560

Yet, I haven't seen any change in my webs nor any comment from my colleagues about big changes.

Hope there is nothing to worry about.
Best of luck to all of us.

Cheers,
Gaston

Hi there,

Nope, highlighting keywords in bold does not have any direct impact on SEO. Google's spokesman (John Mueller) has said that bolding help more humans than bots a few years ago, you can check it here.

If that website ranks high is because they are offering great content and experience to users and they might be getting great backlinks. 
We could argue if that seems natural for a common reader (not an SEO minded like us). It might seem a little off to be highlighted just right away, but still, it is a great piece of content.

My experience points out that internal linking with rich keyword focus helps Google a lot on understanding its content and on targetting a specific search phrase.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
Gaston

Hi Ryan,

In 2019 already, EMD domains didn't help at all. I wouldn't expect that this will help you rank better.
Google also said it almost 3 years ago (well it was John Mueller, not Google in its resources): Exact Match Domains Don't Get Magic Ranking Bonus.

My advice to you is that you focus on creating good content and help it with good user experience. Some topic related backlinks could probably help.
Don't leave out of sight what your competitors are doing and their overall site and SEO performance on that searches.

Hope it helps,
Best luck.
Gaston

Hi there,

If you haven't done anything wrong or spammy in an SEO matter, then you shouldn't worry that much.
The first thing that I'd advise you to look for answers is in the previous history of your domain. It's common that old domains have a history of being used in spammy tactics.
The second thing to consider is that this is just a private metric, it DOES NOT MEAN that you will have problems or going to be penalized in google search.

Then, I'd take a deep read and try to understand what other factors could be impacting your really high spam socre.
Here you can find the 27 most important factors for Moz's spam score.

Hope it helps,
Best luck.

Hi there,

The fact that your DA did not increase in the last months is not an issue. There might be a lot of reasons why that happened, im listing just a few (it doesn't that's your case):

• No better links added
• The total sum of authority on links added and on links lost is zero
• The entire ecosystem gained authority and there is no net increase

As always, I'd strongly suggest you and everybody to dont worry that much about increasing any private metric (DA, PA, DR, TF or whatever) but focus on creating great content and if linking opportunities come, be sure that those links come from high quality and topic-related websites.

Regarding linking to the first or to other pages, I did not fully understand the questions. But if you meant about pointing links ONLY TO THE HOMEPAGE, you shouldnt do that unless that's your only important page. 
In an ideal scenario, you should have external incoming links to almost every page in your website.

Hope it helps,
best luck.
Gaston

Hi there,

I need to clarify that 301 redirections, definitely pass authority. That's not even a discussion.

As you are asking about merging (I guess) 3 smalls websites into a fourth and big one, that's a really tricky question. It depends on many other factors, some are:

• Content matching
• Answering user questions
• Brand relationship

In my experience, doing this kind of merging is a messy process and in many cases, it ends up losing some of the previous rankings/traffic already gained by the small websites.
I'd suggest you focus on improving the main website and, if applicable link to that page from the small websites.
If that overlap is harming your sales, your brand strategy or other marketing efforts, then you should act accordingly. But if these websites are different identities and by themselves bring sales, that overlapping might be beneficial for you in not letting competitors rank there ;).

Hope it helps,
Best luck!

Hi everyone,

I'm replying just to add that, improving your PA/DA metrics wont assure you better rankings. Moz's metrics are mostly calculated through link metrics. I'd suggest you, as Mª Verónica did, to focus more on improving your onpage, content and technical stuff rather than some private metrics.

That's one of the main reason, I guess, why Mª Verónica gave you some advises looking at your website.

If you want to know more about how to think and understand better what offer users for better rankings, these resources might help:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide - Google Search Console Help
- The Beginner's Guide to SEO - Moz
- A Complete Guide to SEO: What You Need to Know in 2019 - Search Engine Journal
- A Simple 7‐Step SEO Tutorial for Beginners - Ahrefs

Best luck,
Gaston

Hi Akiedo.

To my knowledge, there is no difference. Links will appear in your website's backlink profile once Moz's bot has crawled that pages and understands those links.
I'd worry that much, eventually will be discovered.

Hope it helps. Best luck.
Gaston

Hi Marin,

I'll try to keep the answer short:

1, Voting page and its canonicals ARE NOT DUPLICATE, so those canonicals are useless. Google might honour some of them, but mostly wont carry any "authority".
2, Noindex is the play you should be pursuing here. Keep in mind that if you add a noindex in a page that has a canonical pointing out to other page, Google might end up noindexing the canonical target too.
3, I'd suggest you look at what is indexed in google, you are letting google index what should not be indexed.

• I've found quite a few 404 pages that are HTTP200. An example from https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atopg.org%2Fminecraft: https://topg.org/Minecraft/28801/. Here it should be a HTTP404.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.

Hi there,

It depends a lot on what you define as "credibility".

In my opinion, we shouldn't be talking about credibility, but about relevancy.
From a Google standpoint, at least what we know and what experiments have proven, these might be some key points to increase relevancy:

1. Create usefull and user-targeted content
2. Being an expert and authority in the field. This is what's called EAT. More to know here: How to create content that Google wants - Moz
3. Make sure your content is out there so other people can share and link to it.
4. Keep your content updated and relevant.
5. A fast and mobile-friendly website, that gives users a great experience.

As you see, it is mostly focused on users and the content you offer.
On a second level, you can influence a little bit more by getting links, but as their impact has been slowly decreasing in the last years, I'd advise against relying on links.

A great place to read about more about creating a relevant website is Google's quality raters guidelines and I also found helpful the Whiteboard friday with Marie Haynes about E-A-T and the Quality Raters' Guidelines.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.