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Hi,

Found the source of your issue: this URL (https://www.aerlawgroup.com/sex-crimes.html) has a link pointing to it from a HTTP URL (http://www.aerlawgroup.com/sex-crimes/new-allegations-emerge-in-sexual-misconduct-case.html), which is probably how SF found all the other secure URLs.

All of your HTTPS page return 200. If you want to go back to non-secure, those secure URLs will need to be redirected back to HTTP, the same as you probably did when you went to secure.

Also, looks like you've still got a couple HTTPS pages indexed: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aaerlawgroup.com+inurl%3Ahttps&oq=site%3Aaerlawgroup.com+inurl%3Ahttps&gs_l=serp.3...5577.15088.0.15655.24.24.0.0.0.0.150.1864.19j5.24.0....0...1.1.64.serp..3.0.0.bf5ZiosfHMI

Any good SEO can find a domain based on a specific URI string

I'll DM you a screen shot of what I'm seeing to confirm.

I just found the website to which you are referring. All of your navigational links have HTTPS in them, not sure if that'll fix your entire problem, but it's certainly contributing.

Hi,

Google actually changed how they index back in December. They switched over to indexing HTTPS by default when possible. You can read more about this change here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-now-indexing-https-by-default-21362.html.

Based on that article, it looks like canonical tags will solve your problem. You'll just need to add self-referring HTTP canonical tags site-wide. Where you've already got canonical tags pointing to another page, ensure you have HTTP in the URL and you should be all set.

Hi,

It sounds to me like you might be over-optimizing your site for a single word spread across multiple pages. When you do this, you're doing one of two things; confusing search engines to the point where they don't know which of your pages is the best match therefore they're not showing any, or you're being flagged for being too spammy. Optimizing multiple pages for the same keyword is an old grayish/blackish hat technique that people used to do before algorithms caught up to them.

Might be good to take a few steps back and start at the basics. Have you checked out the Beginners Guide to SEO yet? I highly recommend it as your starting point: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

AHA! I had a feeling is was something like that. Glad to help!

Hi Will,

It's hard to say without seeing exactly what the format of the broken and working URL is. When you click the link and you get the working URL, do you take that exact URL when entering directly? Or are you typing it in?

URI valet might help you troubleshoot this further. Or if you want to DM me the URL, I can take a look and see if I can identify the problem.

Regarding this: ? how do you conclude this a spammy? any better way?

I'm specifically referring to the second instance of the product name. You only need to include the product name one time.

Regarding this: (im trying to build brand, is it not necessary? I see many ecommerce titles?

It's only taking up character space for something that's already visible in the search results. There are better ways to build your brand than this.

Regarding the overstock example: their title tags aren't exactly what I'd call SEO-friendly

With your product titles being so long, your title tag should only be the name of the product, once.

Here's my take on your title tag, broken down by part:

ACDelco 40-count Super Alkaline AA Batteries - this product title is all you need

Buy - the intent of this search already implies a purchase-based query, so 'buy' is unnecessary

ACDelco 40-count Super Alkaline AA Batteries - this is redundant and therefore spammy

online at Best Prices: -'online' isn't necessary, if someone is searching, they're already online

Domain.com - your domain information is already in the URL, not needed in title

A title tag formatted like this is almost certainly going to prevent improved organic visibility. Keep it as concise as you can while still being descriptive.

Hi Astrid,

First things first, it's important to remember that the keywords you track are not the only keywords driving traffic to your site. It's entirely possible that people were finding your site by way of a keyword(s) that has actually dropped in rank that you're not monitoring.

A good way to gain some insight into what's bringing traffic to your site is through Google Search Console. Go to Search Traffic > Search Analytics. From there you can see things like position, CTR, impressions, and clicks based on queries. There are a number of ways you can slice data up here to give you some really good insights.

You can also take a look in Google Analytics at your landing page report for organic traffic and compare dates to see if there is any major differences in entry points to your site. This is a good way to determine topics people were searching to find your site. For example, if they enter from organic search on /blue-widgets they were probably searching for something related to that.

You should get 2 emails when the crawl is complete, one with and issues/errors from the crawl report, and another for rank changes.

It's not recommended to change URLs for the sake of rankings. Check out this article for a comment straight from Google on this topic: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-urls-seo-17889.html.

I'm seeing this same thing, within the same instance of GSC.

I believe the discrepancy between the Sitemap Report and Index Status Report is due to the Sitemap report being strictly based on the URLs submitted in your XML sitemap. The index status report seems to be more inclusive of URLs that don't exist in the XML sitemap - dynamically generated URLs, old 301'd URLs that haven't been dropped yet, paginated URLs, etc.

Regarding the discrepancy between the Index Status Report and the Site: command, I have no clue. I would expect those to be more similar, but I'm seeing similar differences to what you're seeing.

Hi,

According to this article, John Mueller says Google doesn't weigh URLs that heavily when determining rank. I always advise against changing URLs unless it's absolutely necessary, as you'll lose about 15% of the page's current PR when you redirect it.

This article also directly says to not change URLs for SEO purposes: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-urls-seo-17889.html

Hi,

That just means you added those keywords after the most recent crawl on 2/08, therefore Moz has no data for them yet. Crawls happen weekly, so your next crawl should actually be today. You'll see your ranking data for those keywords once today's crawl is complete.

Heyo!

That redirect is most likely causing your problems. If search engines can't access the homepage of that subdomain, it's going to be difficult for them to find other URLs on that subdomain.

Search engines are also going to have a hard time finding the robots.txt and XML sitemap if the homepage of the subdomain is redirecting. Turn that redirect off and make sure you've got a good robots and sitemap file in place and you should be good to go. You'll also want to make sure Google knows about the sitemap by submitting it in Search Console.

Hi,

Your content should be targeted to the geography, especially regarding keywords. One country might call your product one thing, and another country might have another phrase for it, even when translated, i.e. 'biscuits' in the US vs. UK. You might also need to speak more directly to the audience, there could be different ways to connect with each of the audiences for which you are writing. Do some research on each of the markets that will be reading this content and see if there's anything that you can learn to better target the message.

Your country code TLD approach is a great start, as you're already giving search engines information about the location which your sites target. As additional measures, you can set geography in Search Console, and use the hreflang tag. A combination of all of these things will help ensure your content gets indexed in the country-specific Google.

For more information on this topic, check out this international SEO guide.

Hi Melissa,

You actually won't see any benefit simply from having keyword rich domains redirecting to your site. This is a tactic that people used to do in the early days of SEO, and Google has since flagged this as a spam tactic and their algorithm accounts for it now.

For improving your rankings, there are literally hundreds of levers your can pull. Since you're running local SEO, I highly recommend spending time reading everything you can on the topic. A good starting place is the Moz Local Learning Center.

It depends on the type of publication, but it usually works best to pitch it in ways that will benefit them. This post on guest blog outreach should help you formulate a strategy.

Hi,

Since you're already using an SSL, you might as well apply it to the whole site. Here's a great article on all the necessary steps to take to ensure a smooth transition: https://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl

I can't speak much to your second question, but my guess would be as Google continues to focus on overall site quality, this will play a role in rankings to some degree.