Need help with my "ghost" blog...
-
...when I fired my original web designer, did they sabotage coding? I have never checked my Alexa/Google Analytics, or any blog ranking until last night. Subsequently, I have spent the last 24 hours googling away, and finally joining MOZ b/c I'm desperate to find out WHY I'm not ranking. I've googled and found many answers to a problem directly opposite of mine: (How to increase traffic with a high ranking), but I already have quite a bit of traffic (via Wordpress Stats), but can not be found on any ranking system. So, fiddled with some NoFollow/NoIndex boxes in Genesis SEO settings thinking maybe when my domain name changed it messed everything up? Most the boxes HAD been checked, so I unchecked them all. Anyhow, basically signed up for the monthly service so i could ask this question on the forum. My site is hellowhitney.com
**it's so weird---i have a LOT of organic direct hits coming directly to my blog (for instance a celebrity re-posted a post which gained a lot of traffic from Twitter to the page), but Google nor another ranking is seeing it. IN FACT, it stops any and all ranking data back to FEBRUARY 2016 when I changed my domain name from Myscriptedreality.com to HelloWhitney.com
Ignorance is NOT bliss in this case--would appreciate any help! #ForeverGrateful
-
When I go to "myscriptedreality.com", it doesn't redirect to your new site. (No login credentials needed to see that.) Also, social traffic is generally not a ranking signal... so getting traffic from Facebook is great, but it's not going to have a direct impact on how well you rank with search engines. (But it's a great argument in favor of diversifying your traffic sources!)
Here's what I would do first:
- Stop fiddling with boxes in the WP admin if you're not sure what they do. For instance, I can tell you for certain that NOODP and NOYDIR will have zero impact on ranking since they're rather obscure meta description directives that you probably do actually want to keep checked, and which have no impact on Google ranking. But you didn't know that, and some of those other options can affect site indexing. You don't know what you don't know, and that worries me a bit.
- **If you don't still own the old domain, repurchase it immediately. This is absolutely imperative. **
- Apply a 301 redirect** from each page of your old domain to the most relevant page on the new one. You'll probably need to hire someone to do this for you. It may require some time and research to reconstruct the old site enough to pull a complete list of its URLs, which is really what needs to be done. Hard to say how much work that will be without really digging into it.
- It seems like you're getting overwhelmed by a lot of technical details without a good understanding of SEO's most basic concepts. So while your hired gun is working on the 301 issue, read the Beginner's Guide to SEO.
I wouldn't expect this to be a miracle resurrection, but it would be a solid start, and you're about to learn a lot about how this all works. Good luck, and keep us posted.
**In layman's terms, a 301 is basically a signpost that says "the page you're looking for is over here, and now I'm going to take you there." It's the technical name for what happens when you type one URL and it takes you to a different one. A 301 redirect is not just for users, but also for search engines. My guess is that when you moved your site, because the 301 redirects were never set up, it's basically like you left no forwarding address. You didn't get to take any of your backlinks or domain authority with you, and all of that is hugely important for maintaining rankings after a site move.
-
Hello--not sure how to assign your credentials vs giving you my administrative credentials...make sense?
-
I think I would need to look at the backend to help you further. Do you mind sending me your WP credentials to hello@solvid.co.uk?
-
Thank you so much for your in depth explanation. I wanted to further expand on some of your points with some links to social media. AGAIN--I appreciate so much you taking the time to look deeper into my site set up: (let me know if I should post this as a new thread, OR contact MOZ or SEO professional for paid service explanation.
these are all things I did LAST night from the Genesis SEO settings:
1.SITEWIDE SETTINGS: Section Headlines - checked "use semantic HTML5", Document Title-checked "add site name to <title>"</p> <p>2. HOMEPAGE SETTINGS: <strong>Document Title - </strong>field blank, but checked "add site description (tagline)...<strong>Meta Description, Meta Keywords = </strong>nothing. <strong>Robot MetaTags</strong> - I UNCHECKED no-index,no-follow, no-archive (all 3 WERE checked from previous designer set up)</p> <p>3. DOCUMENT HEAD SETTINGS: left <strong>Relationship</strong>, <strong>Windows Live</strong>, and <strong>Shortlink</strong> blank</p> <p>**4. ROBOTS META SETTINGS: <strong>Indexing</strong> were all checked, I CHECKED no index to TAG ARCHIVES per your advice, <strong>Archiving</strong> <strong>all </strong>unchecked, **<strong>DIRECTORIES</strong> were ALL CHECKED, but i unchecked both <em>noodp</em> and <em>noydir </em></p> <p><em>-just set up Google Analytics last night. Not sure why it stopped completely in February, before my site traffic picked up and I was never optimized or changed settings like i just did per your advice. </em></p> <p><em>-What ar H1 and 301? </em>again, sorry for my lack of knowledge, but my blog manager left me high and dry after setting everything up. Hence, me signing up on site, paying, and hoping to get some answers on whats wrong...I've included a screenshot of my WP stats so you can see real time organic traffic. </p> <p>Here's my FB page that shows all the views on posts. I can't attach the image of WP stats, but i have over 5,000 unique visitors thus far in April. Not great, but surely enough to put me on map. Unless sabotage from back end of WP site SEO settings. </p> <p>https://www.facebook.com/hellowhitney1/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel</p> <p> </p></title>
-
Hi,
I did a quick check, your website is indexed by Google and you don't seem to have nofollow/noindex issues nor robots.txt issue with your Home Page. However, I can see that you are using noindex tags on some other pages like life, style and health. This may be the cause.
Also, I can see that your website isn't really optimised, that includes page titles (they are too short and don't target specific keywords), some pages have very short meta descriptions and is missing on some pages, you have multiple H1 on some pages, etc.
Also, I can't see Google Analytics set-up on this new website. Did you or your developer put 301 redirect from the old site to the new one?
I would advise you to remove noindex tags, configure your GA, optimise your site internally and you should be good to go.
Please read Moz's beginners guide to SEO
I hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Help! Need to Get Traffic Back Up in Saturated Market
I was looking in one of my client's Google Analytics profiles, and noticed that they had two major drops in traffic before we started working with them—and they've never really recovered. The first, and most significant drop was around January 2015. And then the again, but not as drastic of a drop, was around September 2015. They are a heating and cooling company, but they are located out west so this shouldn't be a seasonality thing. Here is a link to what the BIG drop is traffic looks like in January 2015: http://imgur.com/a/Y1s8U To get a clearer picture, here are the numbers for the overall website traffic:
Reporting & Analytics | | BlueCorona
September 1, 2015 - September 30, 2015: 30,923 sessions
September 1, 2015 - September 30, 2016: 13,768 sessions Year over year traffic to the website dropped by 55%. Here is a link to what year over year looks like in Google Analytics: http://imgur.com/a/TPdJQ Like I said, we weren't working with them at the time so I don't know specifics about what might have caused this, but their numbers have never even come close to reaching what they used to be prior to the noticeable drop after September 2015. Does anyone have any insights into why this might be? Was there an algorithm change back then that could still be impacting them? Any ideas how to get them back to where they once were? Any input is greatly appreciated! Thanks.1 -
Funnel Problem in Google Analytics - Please help
Hello, I did set up a several funnel steps in my analytics account to get the funnel visualization report. But it's look fishy, something's clearly wrong that it shows only 10 visitors at the first step but actually more than 5k visitors has visited first goal page and followed through the another all steps. Everyday we are receiving 5k to 10k goal conversions but it not showing in the entire funnel steps through first step to last step. Please see the attached screenshot URL for funnel setup (Admin) and funnel visualization report comparing last two months traffic. Total goal conversions received 3,605 in last two months but in funnel chart (report) it showing only 2% conversions in last step. Anybody can tell me what is the problem with that or analytics not tracking properly?si65Y
Reporting & Analytics | | flightcentre200 -
How to interpret search "clicks" in GA?
I am trying to make some sense of the data in the "Landing Pages" report under "Search Engine Optimization" in GA versus the data under the "Landing Pages" report in "Behavior | Site Content". For example, the SEO report says my page http://www.asiantraveltips.com/blog/bangkok-skytrain-bts-mrt-lines/ received 22,000 search impressions in the past 30 days and 900 "clicks" (12.42%). What are these "clicks" when the Content "Landing Pages" report says the same page only got 382 "sessions" in the same period??? What are these "clicks" if not clicks on the search results link that should be reflected in landing page sessions on the corresponding page?
Reporting & Analytics | | Gavin.Atkinson0 -
What's the new "Value" column in GWT about?
I was checking out our GWT this morning and noticed a new column on the far right that was labeled "Value". Currently, there isn't anything of value (no pun intended) listed just $Nan. Anyone else see this or know what it might be? 014pThY
Reporting & Analytics | | Shawn_Huber0 -
Hi all I want some help
Hi all I want some help can some one help what google dont like on this web site http://www.escort-munich.net/ [staff disclaimer: site is not safe for most workplaces] Escort München ist my keyowrds thancky very mutch all regards jivko
Reporting & Analytics | | jivkojelazkov0 -
Blog Analytics broke for two weeks. How do I account for these hits in my monthly report?
The Analytics on my blog broke for about two weeks before I realized it. I need to come up with some estimated numbers for total pageviews, referrals, direct hits, etc to add to my monthly SEM report. I took the average of the past four 2 week periods to come up with the number of hits. Should I just add this number to the total hits on my site? Or are these hits being counted twice if they went on to the main site? http://www.howlatthemoon.com
Reporting & Analytics | | howlusa0 -
Google analytics for mobile apps - do we need different id's?
Dear all, if I want to implement Google Analytics for my mobile apps: Do I need different accounts or id's to ensure separate tracking of my website and mobile apps? How did you do it? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | HMK-NL0 -
How to Setup New Domain in Webmaster Tools? Can Anybody HELP?
I, I have a new domain, and a new account is now created in webmatser tools. Is there anythings I should know about using or setting up webmaster tools? For example, the geographic target, I'm in Canada our web site, a local Pilates studio, is a commercial web site to provides informations about our services. Should I select Canada? One thing about this, I have another domain, http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com/ and in the setiing, I have select geographic target to: Canada. When using google.ca result are better then when using google.com! I think must Canadian user are using google.com Does this ''Geographic Target'' setting has anythings to do with search results in Goolge.ca versus Google.com? Thank you for your help, BigBlaze
Reporting & Analytics | | BigBlaze2050