Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi iHasco

It doesn't only affect this URL. I only quickly looked at the sitemap (https://www.ihasco.co.uk/site-map/google) but found that other one as well. I don't know what the defunct page URL so have no idea why it is listing that but it (Google) is not listing the main one or the one with the slash. The fact is that both work so you need to get rid of one.

I can't possibly explain how your dynamic system has done this I can only illustrate the problem and give you a solution. I hope you deem the solution more than just 'an interesting point'

Regards

Nigel

Hi Niall

It's true that AM pages are served from a different URL than the original page so the best advice is to Canonicalize back to the source page.

Just add this to the Amp page header

This avoids any duplication of content causing issues.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Julie

Yes, add a post and a link. Right click ‘view source’ and find the link. If it doesn’t‘ have rel=nofollow in the ‘a href’ it is do follow.

regards

Nigel

Hi Kevin

If you are talking about Featured Snippets in search results then Google doesn't even know what a PA is. This is an arbitrary number assigned by MOZ to determine the relative strength of the page. It is calculated through analysis of on-page content and backlinks.

If you are after a featured snippet then you need to focus on answering a question - and fulfilling a user's intent. Dr Pete did a great video on recently here:

https://moz.com/blog/content-for-answers-inverted-pyramid

I hope that helps,

Regards

Nigel

Hi Evoe

If the partner is paying you to maintain Website B then it is vitally important that you keep that one alive. In this case, I would canonicalise the other way round so that all of their pages on Website A are canonicalised to Website B. You would need to make the pages different from website A to continue to rank.

However

If you do not do this then Website B will disappear all together form SERPS and the company will not see any activity.

If it was my site I would remove Website B completely and canonicalize their pages to the version on Website A, (as you have suggested) but bear in mind that they will not be able to see Website B. When you canonicalize to A the organic traffic will collapse anyway so you may as well remove it.

Then you can report the stats for their pages on Website A, the primary site.

You cannot keep both with canonicals as you have said and still get organic traffic to Website B!

Regards Nigel

Hi Mouse

DA is only a metric which MOZ came up with - it doesn't exist outside of MOZ and is only a suggestion of the comparative strength of the domain (or page if it's PA). It's a combination of on-page SEO elements, content and backlinks.

If you create the best possible themed content on every page, including the homepage then this is the first part of increasing DA. Acquiring backlinks from high authority sites, the higher DA the better but even sites with a lower DA can help if they are relevant to your industry and are of good quality. (no follow links can also be tracked by Google so don't just discount them - a balance of 75%/25% is recommended so it doesn't look contrived)

If you are chasing a higher DA because a higher manager has instructed you to ask him/her why! lol It doesn't automatically guarantee more visitors! You might be better setting up a content sharing strategy through blogs and Social Media!

Regards

Nigel

The URLs are identical it is just the content that is served that may be slightly different.

Since you can only specify one canonical for each URL it makes no difference. Just self-reference and that is it.

If you had to different URLs then it would be an issue where you woudl need a rel=alternative so there is nothing to worry about.

Regards

Nigel

Hi vtmoz

It's funny you should say "so they started calling themselves on the internet 'Moz SEO' " because Moz used to be called SEOMOZ and they changed to just MOZ so that they could concentrate on building the brand. There is evidence to suggest that if an article is written about a subject and your brand is linked from that article that Google will recognise the contextuality of the article and associate your brand name with that subject.

For example, one would expect that Nike and 'sports', 'sports clothing' etc would occupy the same space. In the same way - if your brand sold Tennis Rackets, for example, Google would begin to associate your brand name with that range of products.

In the same way, when we SEOs are optimising a page we will use Keyword Explorer. The tool would give us contextually relevant keywords to use alongside a brand name in order to strengthen the SEO of a page.

So if I were writing an article on Nike and I hadn't used the words 'sports', 'sports clothing', 'sports footwear' or even 'Phil Knight', then MOZ will suggest these as relevant keywords to use to strengthen the page's SEO.

I wouldn't include them in the brand name but I would use them on a page. In this way, they become kind of 'baby anchor text' in that they surround the brand.

In order to strengthen that further, you might write an article that is submitted to a blog with a specific anchor text backlink which is not your brand name but the most relevant keyword. So if Nike wanted (and it does of course) to be found for the term 'Sports Footwear' then it would link back to its own page with that anchor text.

Very often when I am constructing Meta titles and heading for a brand page then I would use the subject after the brand as that is often the way someone may search for it in Google.

Example: I would title a page 'Clarks Boots' as the opening two words of the title and as the H1 on the page if I wanted that page to rank for the brand and the category. I would then fill the page with boot products along with a good 300 word + description of the types of Clarks boots, the gender, heels, ankle, mid, high and any other contextually relevant keywords.

I hope that goes someway to answering your question,

Regards

Nigel

Hi JH

I'm sure Thomas means well with his multiple complicated posts but all of this is totally unnecessary.

Both sites are serving the same URL

You can't put a rel=alternative because there is nothing to point to.

Just put a self-referencing canonical. I said that 2 hours ago!

That is all.

Regards Nigel

Hi Conversal

I remember you asking this before. It's common for Google to take time to rank new websites. It can take a year to fully optimise all of your search positions so I am not surprised at all. Even scanning the site with SEMrusg give sthis information:

"Sorry, we haven't found any information related to your request in the google.co.uk database.

There are some reasons why this could occur:

• 1. The domain name was mistyped. Please make sure it is spelt** correctly.**
• 2. The website with this domain name does not exist.
• 3. This is a new website and we don't have it in our databases yet.
• 4. We haven't noticed this domain rank in Google's top 100 organic or paid search results for keywords from our databases."

You really need to be patient and in the meantime maybe use pay per click or other means to get traffic.

Some sites can get lucky but they are few and far between:

https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank/

Just make sure your site is the best it can be and be patient. Follow every SEO tip you can, meta titles, descriptions, images, H1, H2s, on page content and make sure each page has its own unique theme and user intent and the traffic will come.

Regards NIgel

Hi Kingsplan

The problem here is that you would still have them pointing at your domain. Even if they 404'd, the links would still be hitting your site.

I would:

1. Ascertain if they are actually toxic - look at SEMrush or similar (anything over 65 toxicity is worth removing) - we have had a lot from 'the globe' recently. I have disavowed them for some sites but honestly, they don't appear to have done any harm to others.

2. Email the 4 or 5 domains and ask them to remove the links.

3. If you don't get a response after 2 weeks or so simply add those domains to the disavow file.

Regards Nigel

Hi Kuldeep,

It is there. It was 6th for the search Blinds Online Shop and 10th for blinds UK. I agree that searching site:blinds4uk.co.uk doesn't bring the site up for some reason but for many other searches it is there.

There are a lot of short titles at product level which won't be doing the site much good. Around 40% of the site, some duplicate & missing descriptions

Some weird duplicate 'pages'

https://www.blinds4uk.co.uk/pages/about-us
https://www.blinds4uk.co.uk/about-us

You also have a slew of non-secure PDFs indexed - 162 of them

http://www.blinds4uk.co.uk/static/images/products/guide_temp/1427212718Traditions Aluminium Venetian fitting instructions.pdf

The site needs a full site audit.

Regards

Nigel

undefined.jpg

Hi MSG

You should not have to fetch as Google to get your pages indexed and please with deference to Paul, above, posting on Google+ will not speed up indexing. If it did then people would be all over it and they are not. You also can only apply to Google news if you have a newsworthy site and I can tell you right now that 90+% of sites are rejected because what they post is not news.

The fact that a page is posted puts it in the sitemap which is picked up by Google. Also depending on the size of your site some of it is crawled by Google every day. Just go to Google Seach Console Crawl Stats to see that.

I have seen pages indexed in under a minute (none news sites - yes seriously) and others take a week. What is of major concern is how you say that these pages are not linked from anywhere because there lies a large part of your problem. You need a proper site structure so that link juice passes from the main menu down through all the pages of your website. The more 'shallow' this is, the better as the pages are closer to the top.

If you are burying pages deep in your website with no logical route to them then they are just not going to rank quickly.

Read more on site architecture here: https://moz.com/blog/site-architecture-for-seo It's old but still very relevant.

You need a solid site structure which starts with the main menu with proper departments, categories and if necessary, sub-categories.

Sort that out and you will see your pages indexed much quicker.

If you can get do-follow backlinks then this will help, but certainly not from Facebook and G+ as they are all nofollow.

Regards

Nigel

This is one of the biggest problems for eCommerce stores like yours. I have worked with a lot and it is almost impossible to achieve a high ranking on a product where you have colour in the URL. This is because most of the descriptive content is the same, the only difference being the colour.

What you would be better doing here is to have one page for 'bike model X' - then have a drop down for colour, i.e 'pink' bike model X and 'red' bike model X. The drop down can be done as Ajax so that the page content and URL stays the same, the only thing that happens is that the image changes between colours.Some sites have colour as an attribute which appends to the end of the URL i.e

store/bike-model-x/#pink
store/bike-model-x/#red

in both cases the canonical is just 'store/bike-model-x' with the characters after the # not read or indexed by Google.

Canonicalizing, whilst offering a sticking plaster job is not correct because if the user is looking for pink, they will be presented with the red. It's not the right experience for the user.

Also if Google deems the two items to be markedly different they could show both colours in SERPS regardless, which defeats the object.

Most eCommerce solutions allow you to set up a core product, then add variations like colour and size. You will achieve much higher results in search by doing it this way.

Other Solutions:

1. Make the page content, Meta and H1s completely different - an onerous task as you would need to do this for every product in more than one colour - not ideal

2. Set up a tag of bike model x and canonicalize both colours to that - also far from ideal.

I hope this helps.

Nigel - Carousel Projects

Hi Andy

There is no problem using tags and categroies on a Wordpress site as long as they are handled correctly with whichever SEO plugin you are using.

Categories - Should be seen as a natural hierarchy for the site so I would fill in the Meta titles and description and add some fleshy text to those page so that the you are describing the content for the user. It's also great for SEO and sets those pages aside from others on the site as the content is unique - 300 words plus, (preferably a single line of text at the top and a beefier section below)

Tags - these are a pain in the butt and I would simply noindex/follow them so that they do not show up in SERPS. I see these as simply an extra form of grouping for the user. They generally create skinny content pages of little value and should be completely downgraded.

There is often confusion between functionality and SEO as they rarely go hand in hand. You need to present the best view for your reader, user, customer - that is the priority. At the same time you have tools like noindex and canonicals to get you round the problems of skinny content and duplication.

If you stick to the one page/one keyword (or tight, contextually similar group of keywords) then you will be fine.

When it comes to author archives I noindex them and when it comes to article snippets then the shortest one available or none at all - as every line of text that is repeated on different pages is duplication.

Regards Nigel

Hi Andy

Personally I wouldn't worry about this being considered duplicate content - there are plenty of sites I work with who present sizing and pricing tables on multiple pages and they don't fall in to any difficulty. It's true you cannot and shouldn't have to canonicalize part of a page, that is silly.

Concentrate on presenting the best experience for the user with keyword rich content and highly contextual writing about your products and services. Wax lyrical about what you do and why the customer should work with you and make the pages deep and interesting.

People get so worried about a possible 'duplicate content penalty' (which doesn't exist by the way - Google just chooses the best 'version') they forget what is the correct and best user experience.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Kingalan

We offer PPC services and it really depends on whether the client signs a monthly contract or not.

In your example, if a client is spending $3000 a month or $100 a day and achieving an ROI of 400% so each $100 generated $500 of revenue, at a decent margin of 50% they will make $200 a day profit ($500-$100) less any taxes. So $6000 a month.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to take 10% of that - so $600/month. You can bet your life that that is the way the client will measure it!

Margin is the biggest driving factor in any online sellers decision making - so pick a figure which is reasonable from a margin point of view. (Ask the client what his or her margin is by product group or service). Google Adwords doesn't have a margin metric but we measure every campaign in margin, not ROI. It gives us a better fix on whether the campaign is working.

Then if you can get a 6 month or 1 year contract from them either swallow the cost - which we sometimes do - or charge 1 month 'set up fee' which is perfectly reasonable.

I hope that helps.

Regards Nigel

Hi SDavis11

The main point here is that each page should focus on a particular theme or subject, If you start overlapping then you will dilute any link juice between pages. Taking your points one by one:

1. If you have an article which is unrelated to your website topic then consider noindexing - or just leaving it alone. If you 301 to the main site then you are telling Google that the page has moved and that the main site is the new version. It is not. Any backlinks you do have are linking to that page because they feel that it is relevant to them. If they are suddenly linking back to the home page which is not relevant you end up:

a. Upsetting those who link to you as they are not now connected to relevant content.
b. Having a toxic backlink to your home page from non-relevant content.

2. If the article (I assume this in ON your site and not _TO) _has more irrelevant content - first I would question why you keep producing irrelevant articles then I would remove any site related keywords. Then treat it like point 2. Retitle it and let it breathe on its own. this will benefit the article and the site as you have removed overlapping themes from the title.

3. If you have a relevant topic in an article on the site then beef it up. If it's a 300-word article and it's ranking reasonably well then it is likely that the content is not enough to fully satisfy a user's query and that is why the engagement is low.. Extend the article, serve the answers as quickly as you can, above the fold and internally link to pages that will lead to a conversion.

Write semantically connected and strong content written around your theme which invariably will be a medium to long length keyword or phrase. Make the writing rich without overstuffing.

I hope that helps

Regards

Nigel

Hi

I agree that you need to do some keyword research as it's a lot of characters to use up if people do not search for it. I disagree however that you would put 'buy online' at the front of the title. I work with a lot of online retailers and the correct way is to put the main keyword first. Also 'Buy online blue flowers' just doesn't read correctly so it looks spammy.

Far better to put the types of blue flowers you sell and in what format.

Blue Flowers, Bouquets & Displays - Buy Online | Flower Palace

Something like this.

Then write a really compelling description up to 315 characters.With the description, you could be really florid, ahem pulling people in with a very strong call to action which could include a 'from' price, 'free delivery', 'up to x miles' from... Flowers are rarely sold just as they are and are almost always part of a bouquet or a display, hence my advice.

I hope that helps,

Regards

Nigel

Hi Harshal

I have a lot of experience working with sites that have become bloated with blog posts which cannibalise internal content. They say, 'we used to rank well for xxx keyword, but for some reason, it's all fallen off a cliff. Well, the answer is invariably that they have published content which duplicates the theme/intent of the main money page.

If you have a page which is doing well for 'Outsourcing Engineering Design Services' then beef up that page rather than adding more posts which cover the same topic.

Stick to one page-one theme and you will not go wrong. By adding additional content to this page including images and possibly self-hosted or CDN hosted video you will see the [age gradually increase in rank.

Make sure that the title tag is concise following - Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Company Name and that the on page is strong with H1, Image Alts and semantically connected contextually written content which is separated by H2 If you do this and don't use copied content or start writing blog posts which cover the same theme then you will shine! If you have related themes which have their own pages then cross-link to this one using a variety of semantically connected anchor texts.

Best Regards

Nigel