Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Gavsta

What they are offering is essentially a copy of your website on a micro-site within their own framework.

If you are happy with them doing this because you feel it will help generate more business for you then, by all means, go ahead. They must, however, Noindex the entire micro-site so that it does not appear in Google. If they allow it to rank then it will completely destroy all of your SEO efforts and your rankings will plummet. Google does not handle duplicate content well - it would simply not know which version to rank so would end up raking neither.

I suffered a huge penguin penalty in 2012 for trying to rank micro-sites which pre 2012 worked very well - don't fall into that trap. If they say no then you can't allow them to set it up at all.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Summithomes

Just to be clear on Logan's advice:

Go to search console and select Crawl from the left-hand menu.

Then URL Parameters > Configure URL parameters

Look for the parameter that controls pagination, usually 'page'

Click Edit on the right-hand side:

In the drop-down menu click 'Select' and select 'Yes, changes, renders or narrows page content'

From the second menu: Paginates Then select: Every URL (see attachment)

Then you are done. Google will understand that this parameter controls pagination.

The full process is here: https://moz.com/blog/seo-guide-to-google-webmaster-recommendations-for-pagination

Regards

Nigel

cizwrt6

Hi Greenroads

This is a fairly simple thing to do.

1. Go to site:yousiteurl and see how many pages you have in Google - if there are only 100 or so they will all be listed. Put them in to a spreadsheet.

2. Use a backlink checker to identify any other pages that sites may be linking to you from. I use SEMrush but there are plenty of free backlink checkers where you can register and get free info (I just Googled https://monitorbacklinks.com/seo-tools/free-backlink-checker) Note all the backlink destinations.

3. Set up the new site and 301 all the old pages to relevant pages on the new website.There are various plugins that can help or you can edit the htaccess file yourself which is better for site speed. (Generally plugins slow the site)

There are plenty of guides on this but essentially you will just enter lines like this:

Redirect 301 /old page.com/old https://newpage.com/new

The full process is here:

https://wpbuffs.com/301-redirects-wordpress-htaccess/

Regards

Nigel

Hi Meier

It seems odd that you would just suddenly lose indexing to those pages. Please pop the URL in a reply and I'll take a look.

Have you added tag groups or categories in the blog that compete with the indexed pages?
Attachment pages should just be noindexed or not set up in the first place. No point 301ing them

Regards

Nigel

Hi Catherine

The problem with setting up tags and categories within your blog is that the content will likely conflict with the main categories on your website.

Sure, so that from a user point of view but I would advise you noindex/follow them so that you don't have them appear in Google but link juice is allowed to flow through the pages.

When you post it is perfectly OK and good for SEO, to link to internal pages using anchor text. Just be aware that if there is already a link to those pages in the main menu then your efforts will be thwarted as Google only reads the first anchor to a page it comes to. If that is in the menu then your link on the page will be largely ignored.

Backlinks from blog pages and of course other forms of internal linkage strengthens the whole site in term of allowing link juice to flow through all connected pages.

Don't think of it as arbitrary linking or negative for SEO. Do think of linking to pages that are two or more clicks down, so that they will not have a main link in the menu.

I repeat - if you do set up categories and tags in the blog then noindex/follow them as they will produce low grade/skinny pages.

Regards

Nigel

Carousel Projects.

Hi imaterus

You are using a 302 directive (temporary redirect) to forward http to https - this should be changed to a 301 (permanent redirect)

You have a lot of duplicate pages like this specifying a non-www domain as well as a www?

https://www.scottscastles.com/large-holiday-homes/sleeping20.html
https://scottscastles.com/large-holiday-homes/sleeping20.html

Which is weird - you should have only one specified. This is part of the 944 duplicate pages problem!

You need someone to properly work on this site as it's something of a mess,

Apologies - but it is,

Kind Regards

Nigel

Carousel Projects UK

Hi imaterus

I've looked through the robots.txt and there is nothing there.

# robotstxt.org/
Sitemap: https://www.scottscastles.com/sitemap.xml
User-agent: *
Disallow: /error/unsupported-browser.html
Disallow: /search/process.html
Disallow: /my-favourites/add.html
Disallow: /search/quick-search.html
Disallow: /search/property-list.html
Disallow: /my-favourites/toggle.html
Disallow: /my-favourites/remove.html
Disallow: /search/map-markers.html
Disallow: /my-favourites/clear.html

Maybe check through the htaccess and see if there is a directive that is holding up the crawl. If Google insights can't crawl it you may have a problem with the Google bot crawling as well which could negatively impact SEO.

Regards

NIgel

You are 5th for Heavy Duty Dolly

I don't see what the problem is - the page is doing really well??

Regards

Nigel

Hi Becky

I just searched in a normal browser so it could be Google skewing the results for you.

For indexed pages

site:key.co.uk inurl:http:

Regards

Nigel

Hi Becky

Load Movers - Pos 3
Wooden dollies - Pos 1

Maybe open an incognito browser with history cleared.

I don't see a problem

Regards

Nigel

PS You still have 748 http pages indexed but it's only 10% of the total

Hi Becky

Concentrate on the on-page content.

If H1 and H2 are properly aligned where H1 virtually copies the page title and H2 are reserved for headings just ensure that you write contextually rich content on the page. The more the better but don't keyword stuff or ramble on for nothing. A shorter page which is engaging, with images and maybe video is better than a long rambling piece that people will bounce off.

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 Becky

I have to agree with you there. The H1 should be a header for what is visible in the on-page content. These clearly are not. It won't confuse Google as it takes little notice of H2 but for me it's just a bad use of page elements.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Arun

It's certainly best practice to move to a root directory. As you say visitors are then coming to one domain, not a subdomain. All you need to do is page by page redirect through a 301. When you say they are being 'redirected to 301 code' this is perfectly OK. The 301 code just tells Google that the page has moved permanently.

It takes Google a short while to recognise the new pages as replacing the old ones and for that period you can see old and new in Google, causing a short period of duplication which could affect the rankings.

You just need to sit it out - by all means, do a Fetch in Search Console to help speed up the process.

Search Console>Crawl>Fetch as Google.

Regards

Nigel

Hi xdunningx

The focus keyword is an arbitrary concept made up by Yoast - it forces you to think about what the piece should be ranked for in terms of a single target keyword or phrase. It should be one - three words ideally.

As long as the target keyword you want to rank for is on the page, preferably in the H1 and used as the feature image ALT text you are good to go. Yoast is great but it does have this irritating feature where it fails to recognise the focus keyword on the page.

Regards

Nigel

How long has this been going on?

I would check the verification. Verifying over the phone will not have properly verified the physical address which clearly needs adding to Google maps. If it's the case that Google just doesn't have a road on the map then call them.

https://searchengineland.com/problems-google-business-use-phone-support-221305

Or email - see attachment

Best of luck!

Regards

Nigel

m3nDY

Hi Patrick

If Google can't find the address then add it naturally and when asked you can move the pin to exactly where the business is. When you verify GMB location they will send a card to the address - type in the pin number on the card and Bob's your uncle.

Hope that helps

Regards

Nigel

Hi KMCBRIDE

I work with a lot of UK eCommerce stores and find this a lot. Your 'shop by' pages are created by the shop-by tag. This ski version can be appended to any page so for examples you have:

https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/
https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/gender/womens/
https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/product_category/clothing/
https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/product_types/ski_jackets/
https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/gender/womens/product_types/ski_jackets/
https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/categories/dare2b_womensdare2b_womensjacketsdare2b/
https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/categories/dare2b_womensdare2b_womensfleecemidlayersdare2b/
https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/categories/dare2b_womensdare2b_womenstrousersdare2b/

Then you have

https://www.dare2b.com/womens/jackets-coats/

Which mentions the terms 'ski jackets', 'padded winter coats' and 'waterproof jackets'

The bottom line is that /activity/ski is carved down into

2 genders
3 Department
9 Categories
19 Product types - including ski jackets!

These can then be combined with colour of which there are 12

https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/colour_group/black/

And Price:

https://www.dare2b.com/womens/shop-by/activity/ski/size/m/

The size, colour & price pages don't seem to be ranking even though they have an index/follow on them. They are not being blocked in robots.txt either so you must be controlling them in htaccess or some other way. If they were they would create an even bigger mulit-dimensional matrix.

All of this low-quality content needs to be properly diagnosed and gone through. All tags inherit the highest category on-page content and meta too.  You are doing really well to rank for Ski Jackets to be honest as Google has a big job knowing how to index your site.

It's not just activity/ski either - it is every tag combining with every other tag that is causing you serious headaches.

2420 pages of activity/ski alone.

Happy to chat if you would like to learn more.

Regards

Nigel - Carousel Projects UK

Hi vtmoz

There is not a problem if all the content is different and unique to the sub-domain.The problem only comes when you try and rank for content that you are already ranking for on the main website.

The best way is to pull all content on to the main website as it is far better for SEO.

I can understand your comment about other sites doing it but honestly, in my opinion, that is not a reason to follow them. You will get better ranking, more quickly if you combine the whole site together rather than try and promote subdomains. Which frankly just make for a lot more work.

Regards - happy to look at the site

Hi Vtmoz

In my experience subdomains are a bad way to go and it is invariably better to reincorporate the content on to your main website in a logical directory structure. There is evidence of some link juice being passed back to the main site if all the sub-domains are linked back to the site in a proper structure.

However, if you are merely trying to increase positions in Google by ranking for subdomains which compete for similar terms to your main site then you are doomed to fail.

You basically end up with a link network which can easily be spotted and penalised.

Regards

Nigel