Questions
-
Deleting 301 Redirect URLs from the CMS
If the pages you are deleting do not have a related page, you can just 410 them out. So if a 301 pointed to these pages, you can safely delete these redirects. Should be no SEO issues with minor 4xx's.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KevinBudzynski0 -
Direct To Site Traffic Decline 2
It definitely looks like you've got yourself some bot traffic, my friend. Here are a few examples that stand out to me the most: Over 99% of visitors to your website are considered first-time visitors. Your Bounce Rate is at 99%. Page Sessions are a little over 1 page per session. Avg. Session Duration is 2 seconds. All these reasons listed above are usually tell-tale signs of bot traffic. 99% of new visitors for direct traffic doesn't make much sense. That would mean almost every user is finding you for the first time by typing in your exact URL. Bounce Rate being at 99% also doesn't make much sense unless the page the users are landing on isn't working. Additionally, the average user only stays on the page for 2 seconds and then exits the site. Obviously, this isn't the case. In order to protect yourself against some of the bot traffic, make sure you have “Exclude traffic from known bots and spiders” in the "View Settings" of your Google Analytics. Hope this helps some!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Chris_Devona0 -
US site vs New Canadian site for Brand
Hey Jonathan! Definitely don't recommend blocking your US site in robots.txt--you want to preserve any authority and pass on equity from your US site to your CA site if possible, so let's leave that out of robots. Are you fully deprecating your US site, or will it continue to exist alongside your CA site? If you're deprecating it, I'd recommend 301 redirecting the domain to the new CA one. If not, you should preserve the US site, as-is, set up your CA domain, and implement hreflang tags (information here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en). That'll tell Google that these sites are linked, but that they serve different regions. I do recommend also having a link in your nav or somewhere in your header (like flag icons) that can let users choose which site to navigate to. This will allow for internal linking between both domains.
International Issues | | zeehj0 -
SEO Friendly IFRAMES?
iframes are not seo "unfriendly" - otherwise Google Maps Embeds or youtube embeds would hurt your websites SEO, thats not the truth. Without example I cant say something about your page, but it is "simple" to make sites with iframes visible. Create enaugh visible stuff wich is unique an has a lot value arround your iframe. Do your "normal" SEO Stuff and done... Avoid sites with iframes only Thats not so much content. Maybe you know that all - but someone may not and find that here googling for iframes and SEO. A lot of tools are saying: Your website has a problem, u are using iframes... and less people think about why - they just think: Ok, cut it out.
Search Engine Trends | | paints-n-design0 -
SEO RANKING ISSUE | Category Page Trumping Homepage
The best thing I would do Jonathan, is take a look at this Whiteboard Friday from Rand, because it should answer a lot of questions that you have. It is specifically about what to do when the wrong pages rank. From what you are telling me, it sounds like the category page might be a doorway page, but clearly Google isn't seeing it as such. Would I advise pointing it with a canonical tag? Probably not, but I would work on making your homepage much better. Look to add not only amazing content, but do some keyword research and add in synonyms / LSI / similar keywords to help Google better understand what the page is about. -Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andy.Drinkwater0 -
Affiliate Marketing vs. Remarketing | What are the differences
Hi Jonathan, I can't say I'm very familiar with those particular companies, but generally affiliate marketing is promoting someone else's products or services in exchange for a commission, and remarketing is the practice of serving ads to people who've already visited your site, bought a product from you, etc. It's why ads for certain products can seem to follow you around the internet.
Affiliate Marketing | | MattRoney0 -
Managing 404 Product Pages
The ONLY last thing I would add. I'm sure you will notice a lot of eCommerce websites will keep products that they don't sell anymore, and just keep them as "sold out". People still hit those products and land on those pages. Check and see how often people are hitting these products. If some of these pages have some juice left, it might be worth recreating a page in its place for a product that isn't being sold anymore and up sell for something you are selling. Or as Ricky said above me, 301 them. Don't just prune everything at once. Slow and steady wins the race. Make sure you know what you are cutting before you cut it.
Educational Resources | | HashtagHustler0 -
Avg Page Load Time Increase After Responsive Web Design
I agree, GA can be a little hit and miss but it at least it has given you some reason to look into it further and see if there is actually something wrong. As per Dmitrii, I would suggest running a series of tests to establish if your site is truly running slower. There could be a multitude of reasons as to why it is running slower so eliminating the issues one by one may help. Places to test your site include tools.pingdom.com gtmetrix.com Google page speed test Webpage Test. Also as per Dmitrii, in browser with developer tools As it is a new site, are there any new elements that were not included before? new scripts, images etc. Consider also using CDN's to deliver your content for added speed gains. Check the waterfall tables to see if any elements are struggling. Have you also moved to an SSL when updating redesiging your responsive site, this can also cause a slight reduction in speed. Hope this helps Tim
Web Design | | TimHolmes1 -
Product Performance Alerts in GA?
Yep! You can set all kinds of Custom Alerts in Google Analytics. Go to Admin->Custom Alerts (far right column) and configure them any way you want. Here is an example that might be close to what you are describing above. Alert Name: High Sales Product: This Applies to: Product SKU = Value Alert me when: Product Revenue = Increases by more than = Value % There is some flexibility in the metrics to configure the way you want. You can't do everything but hopefully you find some options that match what you are looking to do.
Search Engine Trends | | anthonydnelson0 -
Rel=Canonical Tag on Homepage
I would suggest having a bit of a read over this old blog post which gives you the necessary info to implement the rel=canonical tag correctly. https://moz.com/blog/rel-confused-answers-to-your-rel-canonical-questions I do not think that having the rel=canonical tag pointing to itself would necessarily harm your site, but it is probably best to avoid this if possible as is redundant code. If you have a dynamic meta / header include this might be the best solution for you if you cannot control it manually or by editing the code. I often have the rel canonical running in numerous pages, especially to help reduce MVT pages from being indexed.
Search Engine Trends | | TimHolmes0 -
Canonical tags being direct to "page=all" pages for an Ecommerce website
Currently my 301's are being directed to relative pages. but for example: www.shoes.com/category/redshoes.do <------ Current Redirect from (www.shoes.com/category/myredshoes.do) www.shoes.com/category/redshoes.do=sortby=page1 www.shoes.com/category/redshoes.do=sortby=page2 www.shoes.com/category/redshoes.do=sortby=page=all <----- **Current Canonical ** www.shoes.com/category/redshoes.do=sortby=page=all <--Should I Redirect from www.shoes.com/category/redshoes.do I basically want to distribute my authority to one page and contemplating if redirecting to a "page=all" along with my canonical will improve the overall performance for that page.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JMSCC0 -
Redirecting 86'd Brand Product Category Page
Question, how are you able to point backlinks to a new page without using a 301 redirect? Because if I use a 301 redirect I'm not going to be able to use a 404 customized page.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JMSCC0