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Hmmm, is it a case of Google simply feels the homepage is not as engaging and relevant in terms of search to your users and they put more emphasis on product pages which it choose to feature instead.

I often find that for key terms our product pages almost always rank higher then the homepage unless a brand only search.

Secondly, is this a recent change? Could the most recent Penguin update have simply resulted in your competitors getting a boost where as before the previous algo was holding them back which has resulted in your position slide.

UGC or User Generated Content can be extremely powerful and add huge weighting to your sites SEO value, but it also has a another effect  that helps with customer credibility.

As users come along and see real comments that are related to the topic, offer advice, show valued reviews etc it will then results in your content becoming potentially becoming an authority on specific subjects. Take these Moz Questions for example - some of the questions can be very small and to the point, but it is often the huge number of user generated responses that propels the questions up the search result page.

So in essence UGC is extremely valuable - just ensure you lock down the bots and spammers and some types of user data (e.g. links, html etc) which can do the reverse and make you less credible as a source.

I think they "Cod" be a bit of a "flounder" in my opinion, but could have the client "Hooked" with these claims

I very much doubt they have replicated anything of Google's at all and are simply using this as a selling technique to entice those whom do not have the required knowledge to dismiss such claims. The clients may lap it up thinking they will be getting the best deal and will shoot up the rankings.

They are like Egol stated probably just using numerous tools and techniques and saying they have insider secrets etc.

You now have to convince the client that you are the best "Captain to steer the Ship" so to speak!

You could use a tool like Buffer which will help you to auto generate a schedule based on your post / page activity and engagement. Alternatively you could delve in to your data a bit more to see when followers are online. By understanding when the majority are online you can then try establish the greatest reach,

Go to
Insights>>Posts>>When Your Fans Are Online

It can be a bit sporadic, sometimes I see data and sometimes I don't I recently reported an error for the page.

So far very little change, in terms of positions and organic traffic. I however, expect more volatility in the coming weeks as things start to bed down.

I too have been having this for a while now... I tweeted Moz about it a couple of weeks back... personally I don't mind I'd be happy to be aboard

Not for myself in the UK as yet... I was reading a post from Barry Schwartz on SEO Round Table earlier who thinks it may not have fully rolled out just yet.

Hi Usnseomoz,

1. Maybe perform a deeper search via a bit of kit like ScreamingFrog. This should help to further highlight any missing pages / errors etc

2. I would always be concerned with any problem until you have either been able to resolve it or discount it. Sounds like it could be the URL tracking parameters which are causing you some issues, especially if you are tracking users for multiple sources / sales affiliates. If they are solely used for tracking and no other purpose I would consider adding these parameter vairables to the crawl filters.

Side menu >> Crawl >> Url Parameters
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6080548?rd=1

Hope this is of some use

Cheers

Tim

Cheers Tom, this does look like what I am after - will feedback if I get it going

Cheers Guys, i've looked into the methods before, just always struggled integrating into the sites poor architecture. Will try again. Much appreciated.

Tim

Hey all,

I have GTM set up on a site and I am trying to enable the Ecommerce tracking functionality.

My problem is this, I have access to the basket variables all they way through the checkout funnel to the payment page, but they are then lost on the payment completed page. Does anyone know how I can pass the value of the basket across to the payment completed page so I can mark the transaction completed with an actual value present. I cannot post hidden input fields or change the url get variables as the third party system that us used fails.

I have thought maybe javascript calls, but not managed to get to work as yet. Can the Google session pass and hold them in the cookies that are set?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Tim

I would recommend taking a look at the following if you are struggling with ghost referral type traffic. Its a great post that was touted around last year when referral traffic spiked for a lot of people. - Hopefully this is what you are after.

https://moz.com/blog/stop-ghost-spam-in-google-analytics-with-one-filter

I use MaxCDN at my place of work, it has proved itself to be very good, easy to set up and relatively inexpensive depending on the plan. As per Thomas and Thomas - CloudFlare is great as a free version.

it still looks to be rolling out, lots of turbulence still. I have been lucky so far to only be seeing small movements and not the big drops some have seen. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

I don't think you are the only one.... it would seem that there has been a core major Google update. See here from SEO Round Table. and it is still rumbling on...

All of the major search watch sites are also reporting a lot activity, some showing gains/recoveries, some showing massive drops.

• Algaroo
• MozCast
• Serpwatch

OK Moz peeps...

Right then, I have just been reading an article over on SEO RoundTable from Barry Schwartz.

NEW Local review guidelines for businesses - take a look.

It in effect alludes to Google stamping all over review schema and snippets, third party review solutions/providers and really trying to limit how they are used. I have interpreted the new guidelines to say that you can no longer mark up and use external stats on your own site in the form of aggregate ratings from the likes of TrustPilot, Feefo, Revoo (some uk review sites) and more....

These were the two key lines for more

• Only include reviews that have been directly produced by your site, not reviews from third-party sites or syndicated reviews.
• Aggregators or content providers must have no commercial agreements paid or otherwise with businesses to provide reviews.

What does everyone else think? and how soon before people get penalised (if ever) for marking up external stats to make your own site and services look more favourable...

Could definately be a slap in the face for Serp CTR and onpage conversion optimisation.

Also how do people expect this to affect PPC review rating going forward. Will Partner sites become a thing of the past?

Looking forward to a good discussion here

PS - I am not staff at Moz just have a t-shirt which is my avatar. I am not sure why below my avatar it suggests I am Staff due to the tag added to it. Is anyone else getting that on their profile too?

This has been banded around so many times, in general I would advocate a sub folder as opposed to sub domain. purely due to the value it adds to your sites main chosen domain, if it were on a sub domain this is where the value would sit and it would not pass any value around as well as it could a sub folder. It is only potentially a small benefit, but a benefit none the less.

A good recent on it was had back on Jan https://moz.com/community/q/the-great-subdomain-vs-subfolder-debate-what-is-the-best-answer

Personally, I find it easy enough - simple as a couple of quick clicks. The homepage of Moz.com is in my opinion more of a landing page aimed at attracting new clients and is about their products than existing users. Login and other elements are where I would expect them to be placed on the screen / menu. I would imagine most people are also advanced web users and have bookmarks and alike to make it a one click process as opposed to two/three.

How would you improve on them? Surely that is more constructive

I agree with both Dan and Linda on this - hot linking in general is not the way to go. However, like Linda mentioned they may own both domains and be using the second like a content delivery network to enable them to parallelise there requests helping to speed up the site as multiple browser requests can take place at the same time and reduce load time. You could also use a third party CDN for greater speed if you are a global brand.

Hope the below helps.

30x in .HTACCESS #PERMANENT REDIRECT
redirect 301 /url-linked-to.html /new-page-you-want-to-link-to.html

#TEMPORARY REDIRECT FOR SHORT TERM CHANGES
redirect 302 /url-linked-to.html /temporary-page-you-want-to-link-to.html

Canonical Tag

Cheers

Tim