Not showing up in search results for non-branded terms
-
Hello!
Can anyone see any glaring reasons why this post: "98 Book Marketing Ideas That Can Help Authors Increase Sales" isn't on page one of Google — or even page 10! — for the term "book marketing ideas"?
Many other sites with lower domain and page authority — even ones linking to this article — are ranking on the first ten pages for this term, and I can't figure out why we're not appearing anywhere. The same thing is happening for ALL of our other blog posts, and the keywords they're optimized for. According to GA, the only terms we're getting clicks from are branded keywords.
This subdomain is now 2 years old, and the domain bookbub.com has been around for 5 years. Our domain authority is 61. We have the Yoast SEO plugin installed and are following all the standard SEO best practices. We have enough external links to at least be ranking within the first 10 pages of this Google search. I feel like there's something technically wrong, maybe in the code or backend, but nobody here can figure it out, and our hosting provider WP Engine has no ideas.
Moz is returning crawl errors on our site, mainly "Error Code 804: HTTPS (SSL) Error Encountered" and "Error Code 803: Incomplete HTTP Response Received." I have confirmed with WP Engine that everything is set up correctly on our end, and that this is a known Moz issue. I've reached out to Moz's support team about this, and am awaiting a response.
But what else am I missing? There's got to be something — I've been blogging for 10 years for different companies and my own personal websites, and I've never come across anything like this before. I'm completely stuck! I'd appreciate any insights you can offer. Thanks in advance!
EDIT: I heard back from Moz on those errors.
The 804 errors are a Moz-side issue — their crawler isn't equipped to be able to handle SNI. They're looking into a resolution, and this wouldn't affect search engine crawlers.
Regarding the 803 error: "When you see an 803 error, that means your site closed its TCP connection to our crawler before our crawler could read a complete HTTP response. You don't see this error when you go to the page in your browser because content-length is an outdated component for modern browsers and they will disregard this error, but the intention of our crawler is to report any errors that might be occurring. So the crawler is configured to detect and report such errors."
The only thing I can think to do here is go back to WP Engine with this information, but other than that, I'm not sure what this could mean or how to fix it, or if this might be the underlying technical issue keeping us from ranking.
-
Hello, thanks for your suggestion! I've double checked all of these items. The only ones I needed to take action on were:
#4 - some of the internal links in our oldest blog posts were still linking to the http:// version, so I installed https://wordpress.org/plugins/ssl-insecure-content-fixer/ to automatically fix those hyperlinks site-wide.
#6 - I updated a couple URLs in our Twitter bio and Facebook page.
I can see how fixing these two issues could help improve our site's rankings, but I'm still doubtful that these two issue have caused our site to be completely unfindable for non-branded terms on search engines though. Would love to hear any other ideas people have!
-
It would also be worth running through a best practice guide for implementing HTTPS on this site, as this can cause problems with link dilution etc. if not carried out correctly:
- Ensure your HTTPS site version is added in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. In Google Search Console, add both the www and non-www versions. Set your preferred domain under the HTTPS versions.
- 301 redirect HTTP URL versions to their HTTPS versions sitewide.
- Ensure all internal links point to the HTTPS version URLs sitewide.
- Ensure canonical tags point to the HTTPS URL versions.
- Ensure your XML Sitemap includes the HTTPS URL versions.
- Ensure all external links to your site that are under your control, such as social profiles, point to the HTTPS URL versions.
Source: http://searchengineland.com/https-setup-causing-seo-issues-254236
-
Sorry, I was editing my reply to include the 804 stuff when when yours came in.
I understand that your priority is ranking the bookbub version, not your blog. One can't help but suspect that something may be amiss with/on the site, but it's not good practice to speculate too much before we investigate.
Let's see if we can't use the power of Moz and find what the issue is...
-
Well no... that doesn't really count as the post itself ranking. That post on my personal blog is simply a summary and link to the full post. What this indicates to me is that something is technically wrong on https://insights.bookbub.com, since my personal blog summary is ranking, like you pointed out. I'm just not sure what that technical problem is.
Also, I heard back from Moz on those errors. Will edit my original question above with their response.
Thanks for responding!
-
Weil, it is ranking - just not where you want it to - it's 15th on Google.co.uk for "book marketing ideas" - under a domain you may be very familiar with http://dianaurban.com/98-book-marketing-ideas-for-authors - (and 11th for the US).
That may be helpful as it gives something to compare against after all, Google clearly doesn't have any particular issue with the bulk of the content itself.
At a glance, the results in On-Page Grader (https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader give the bookbub page a slight edge - though neither are far off the mark, with both getting A grades.
The URL on your personal site is a little more natural looking whereas the bookbub URL is perhaps a little too sterile (and looks a lot like you're trying a little too hard, perhaps? (However, that's my own take on it, rather than a direct violation of one of Google 200+ commandments)
With regard to your 804 error, this is going to be due to Moz and SSL/SNI not getting along, so it's going to something you're stuck with until Moz resolve this. (I believe they are working on this and have made some progress, but nothing that's ready to go mainstream, yet - You'll see it referenced thought out the forum) : https://moz.com/community/q/high-priority-error-code-804-https-ssl-error-encountered
That should give you something to kick off with for the moment.
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
-
Wrong meta descriptions showing in the SERPS
We recently launched a new site on https, and I'm seeing a few errors in the SERPS with our meta descriptions as our pages are starting to get indexed. We have the correct meta data in our code but it's being output in Google differently. Example: http://imgur.com/ybqxmqg Is this just a glitch on Google's side or is there an obvious issue anyone sees that I'm missing? Thanks guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brian_Owens_10 -
Desktop vs. Mobile Results
When googling on www.google.ca for "wedding invitations" and in my own geo location market of Toronto, my site - www.stephita.com, will show up differently on SERP on desktop (Chrome & IE) vs. mobile (iPad, iPhone, android, etc.). On desktop SERP, I will show up 6/7 position... (which is relatively a new position, the past 3 weeks - I was previously on page 2) (After a bunch of SEO fixes, I've managed to propel my site back to page 1!) On mobile SERP, I only show up on 1/2 position on PAGE 2 😞 As I mentioned above, I did a bunch of SEO fixes that I think were related to Panda/Penguin algos. So I'm wondering why my MOBILE SERP has NOT improved along the way? What should I be looking at to fix this 5-6 position differential? Thanks all!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TysonWong0 -
Is un-searched content worth writing?
Hi, Is every post you write on your site is SERPs worthy? I'll give an example -
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
We often cover industry related news items. It is written very well with personal opinions, comments and detailed explanations. Our readers find it interesting, "like" and "plus" it. However, these items will never appear in the SERPs simply because they won't be searched. Needless to say that these are not ever green pieces. If by chance it lands a subject that may be searched in the future, usually it won't appear because it means that the item was also covered by major sites like CNN, Forbes, Bloomberg etc. Is it worth out time to keep "investing" in these types of articles? Thanks0 -
Customer Experience vs Search Result Optimisation
Yes, I know customer experience is king, however, I have a dilema, my site has been live since June 2013 & we get good feedback on site design & easy to follow navigation, however, our rankings arent as good as they could be? For example, the following 2 pages share v similar URLs, but the pages do 2 different jobs & when you get to the site that is easy to see, but my largest Keyword "Over 50 Life Insurance" becomes difficult to target as google sees both pages and splits the results, so I think i must be losing ranking positions? http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning/Over-50-Life-Insurance.aspx http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning/Over-50-Life-Insurance/Compare-Over-50s-Life-Insurance.aspx The first page explains the product(s) and the 2nd is the Quote & Compare page, which generates the income. I am currently playing with meta tags, but as yet havent found the right combination! Originally the 2nd page meta tags were focussing on "compare over 50s life insurance" but google still sees "over 50 life insurance" in this phrase, so the results get split. I also had internal anchor text supporting this. What do you think is the best strategy for optimising both pages? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
How to rank for difficult terms
I am helping launch a new business venture that sells oak furniture in the UK. The key product terms are along the lines of; oak bed
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pretige12
oak dining table
oak chairs etc which are very popular search terms. Im used to being able to hang of local or branded search which arent available in this project. The domain is around 12 months old, it has few inbound links which we are working on now with an overseas freelancer (keeping an eye on them). The pages of the site are unique-content rich and the titles and other meta boxes are ticked. What else would the experts recommend?0 -
What to do with non-existing products (removed products)?
Hello, I'm selling unique products - only one of a kind of each product.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
This means that whenever a product is sold, it is removed from display. In order not to upset Google by keep removing indexed pages I created a "sold items" page which links to all of the removed products. The problem is (or maybe it's not a problem) is that I got to the point where I have more "sold items" then existing items (and the list keeps adding up). What should I do with the non-existing items?
Was I correct? ---------------------------------------- ADDED INFO --------- The way the site is built is that I have main category pages and each of them is showing a large amount of products. Most of these products got indexed by Google. Each product has its own unique URL (Products do not return...) Once a product is sold it does not come up in the product categories - I only have a general "sold items" in the footer that shows all of them (with a lot of pagination). Since the products are rapidly changing, i thought it would upset Google to have a hundred 301 redirects in each week or two. Since the products are very similar to one another (only different measurements / colors etc.), I thought of having a link from a sold Item to a similar available item so if Google will direct someone it will probably be to the available product. The problem is that the sold items are now 4 times more than the number of available items... I don't think that a store should display 2008's t-shirts on 2012... Another problem that may rise with so many products is that I'm afraid that the one type of product that is being sold much more often will take charge at the end on the entire site since I will end up with 8,000 sold items of this product, 1000 sold items of other products and 1000 available misc products... this might also start causing duplication problems as the products are quite similar. Should I stop with the "Sold" products and use 301's? Thanks0 -
Places ranking for a non-locational phrase?
http://www.google.co.uk/search?ie=UTF-8&q=coach+hire&pws=0&gl=GB The link above takes you to a SERP for a general phrase with no hint of locations involved (Coach Hire). However oddly enough there is a single google places listing that has pooped up at #4. Liverpool Minibus Coach hire <cite>www.localcoachhireuk.co.uk/</cite> Now if this was "Coach Hire London" I would expect places, and indeed there is a list of places. But how do you get a places listing ranking for a phrase without a place name? Also of interest is the fact that this website doesn't even exist! It is a 301 redirect to another site. Google seems to be picking up the 301 since it shows the redirected site in the page snapshot and has no pages indexed for this domain. So an un-indexed site with a 301 redirect is #4 for the top phrase in this industry. I have no doubt that this will only be a temporary thing but it would be interesting to know how it was possible.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PPCnSEO0 -
Block all search results (dynamic) in robots.txt?
I know that google does not want to index "search result" pages for a lot of reasons (dup content, dynamic urls, blah blah). I recently optimized the entire IA of my sites to have search friendly urls, whcih includes search result pages. So, my search result pages changed from: /search?12345&productblue=true&id789 to /product/search/blue_widgets/womens/large As a result, google started indexing these pages thinking they were static (no opposition from me :)), but i started getting WMT messages saying they are finding a "high number of urls being indexed" on these sites. Should I just block them altogether, or let it work itself out?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rhutchings0