Search bots that use referrers?
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Search results performance affected by similarly named Adult business?!
Hey This is an unusual one I guess and one we've scratched our heads on for ages without reaching any definitive answer, so would be very grateful to the Moz community for some thought and guidance! Client website: https://www.themassagerooms.com This is a professionally run, therapeutic health business offering on-demand ("mobile", ie visiting customers at their homes) massage service. Importantly, please note again (you'll see why in a minute) the exact URL and the fact that this business, our client, is a registered therapeutic health and wellness business (ie it is genuine, real, massage services). The business has been around for about 10 years and used to rank very highly for many dream keywords for their industry. However, several years ago they got approached by a domain reseller offer to sell them "massagerooms.com" (ie the same name but without the "The" at the beginning) for a few thousand pounds. They rejected the offer. Interesting Aside: This happened a short while before the Facebook movie was launched ... if they'd seen that movie perhaps they would have accepted! (Facebook was originally called The Facebook but then one of the key investors advised them to drop the "The"! Anyway, unfortunately for them, that offered domain name (massagerooms.com) was then sold to an online adult video services company. Soon after, themassagerooms.com rankings started to suffer. Today, TheMassageRooms.com have a technically very clean site (great scores on Google LightSpeed etc), with regularly updated relevant health and wellness content. They are doing ok in terms of rankings but no where near as well as many of their competitors who on the face of it seem to have significantly worse on and off-page scores as well as many spammy links. Also, TheMassageRooms.com have a much better Moz DA then those competitors that are ranking better. The big question is whether the existence of an adult services website, MassageRooms.com with such a similar name is causing them issues in search results? Especially since many people (regular customers and even their own staff), do search for TheMassageRooms (ie the therapeutic health and wellness company) by only typing "massage rooms". So, there is a clear argument for saying "The Massage Rooms" = "Massage Rooms" in many respects, even through the two URLs which match these exact terms lead to very different businesses. Of course, one solution, might be to change the URL and 301 redirect everything. But would that actually make a difference if the actual issue is that Google's algorithm is somehow connected "MassageRooms.com" (adult site) with "TheMassageRooms.com" (our client's health and wellness site). Also it seems a bit drastic to ask them to change a 10 year established brand name etc.
Algorithm Updates | | AmerTMR0 -
Meta robots at every page rather than using robots.txt for blocking crawlers? How they'll get indexed if we block crawlers?
Hi all, The suggestion to use meta robots tag rather than robots.txt file is to make sure the pages do not get indexed if their hyperlinks are available anywhere on the internet. I don't understand how the pages will be indexed if the entire site is blocked? Even though there are page links are available, will Google really index those pages? One of our site got blocked from robots file but internal links are available on internet for years which are not been indexed. So technically robots.txt file is quite enough right? Please clarify and guide me if I'm wrong. Thanks
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Googles Search Intent – Plural & Singular KW’s
This is more of a ‘gripe’ than a question, but I would love to hear people’s views. Typically, when you search for a product using the singular and plural versions of the keyword Google delivers different SERPs. As an example, ‘leather handbag’ and ‘leather handbags’ return different results, but surely the search intent is exactly the same? You’d have thought Google was now clever enough to work this out. We tend to optimise our webpages for both the plural and singular variations of the KW’s, but see a mixed bag of results when analysing rankings. Is Google trying to force us to create a unique webpage for the singular version, and another unique webpage for the plural version? This would confuse the visitor, and make no sense.. the search intent is the same! How do you combat this problem? Many thanks in advance. Lee.
Algorithm Updates | | Webpresence0 -
Parallax Scrolling when used with “hash bang” technique is good for SEO or not?
Hello friends, One of my client’s website http://chakracentral.com/ is using Parallax scrolling with most of the URLs containing hash “#” tag. Please see few sample URLs below: http://chakracentral.com/#panelBlock4 (service page)
Algorithm Updates | | chakraseo
http://chakracentral.com/#panelBlock3 (about-us page) I am planning to use “hash bang” technique on this website so that Google can read all the internal pages (containing hash “#” tag) with the current site architecture as the client is not comfortable in changing it. Reference: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/getting-started#2-set-up-your-server-to-handle-requests-for-urls-that-contain-escaped_fragment But the problem that I am facing is that, lots of industry experts do not consider parallax websites (even with hash bang technique) good for SEO especially for mobile devices. See some references below: http://searchengineland.com/the-perils-of-parallax-design-for-seo-164919
https://moz.com/blog/parallax-scrolling-websites-and-seo-a-collection-of-solutions-and-examples So please find my queries below for which I need help: 1. Will it be good to use the “hash bang” technique on this website and perform SEO to improve the rankings on desktop as well as mobile devices?
2. Is using “hash bang” technique for a parallax scrolling website good for only desktop and not recommended for mobile devices and that we should have a separate mobile version (without parallax scrolling) of the website for mobile SEO?
3. Parallax scrolling technique (even with "hash bang") is not at all good for SEO for both desktop as well as mobile devices and should be avoided if we want to have a good SEO friendly website?
4. Any issue with Google Analytics tracking for the same website? Regards,
Sarmad Javed0 -
50% drop in search, no changes to site over 2 days, no notifications, A rank...
My URL is: http://applianceassistant.com
Algorithm Updates | | applianceassistant
With no changes to my site, I suddenly experienced a huge drop in search queries on Aug1. Your company has still given me an overall rating of A. I just thought you may be able to help or be interested in my case due to it's strange nature. Due to some suggestions on the webmaster forums, I have disavowed all low quality back links to the site, and I am currently working through each page trying to make the key words a little less spammy. Here are some screen shots of the action...
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-WgXUf-lvUyg/U-nrWNgspPI/AAAAAAAAAEI/imoI190LUns/s1600/Analytics_081214.tiff
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-srmvn288rr0/U-pxlwoycVI/AAAAAAAAAEg/ckmyX_2Sl_Y/s1600/PAGES_AUG.tiff
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DVCYxhkutbQ/U-pxpQVfYfI/AAAAAAAAAEo/MN9PiLFT-zs/s1600/pages_july.tiff This appears to be almost a 50% 2 year set back. Any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated0 -
Using the canonical tag across multiple domains...
Hi guys I am looking for some help in regards to using canonical tags in other domains that have similar content to our main site. Would this be the right way to go about it? For example www.main.com is the website i would like to achieve best ranking with, but i also have other websites, www.secondary.com and www.somethingelse.com which have similar content and all link back to www.main.com So in order to make sure the google bot knows these other pages are a reference to the main.com page can i put a canonical tag in secondary.com that goes like this: rel="canonical" href="www.main.com" /> and put that same tag in somethingelse.com Would i achieve a better ranking for doing so on main.com or am i on the wrong track and will doing so not change a thing? I hope I'm making sense 😉 Best regards, Manny
Algorithm Updates | | Manny20000 -
How do search engines calculate ranking?
On SEOMoz, I can see that when people type in X keyword, my website comes up at Y place. For example, if someone googles "Mobile Productivity", a page on my website comes up at #10. How is that #10 ranking calculated? I would've guessed it's based on some combination of linking root domain and page authority, but I see sites that rank below mine that have higher scores on both. For example, on the aforementioned 'Mobile Productivity' search, my site comes up #10 with a Linking Root Domain score of 2, and a Page Authority of 29. But Honeywell Products and Services comes up #13 on the same "Mobile Productivity" search (ie, BELOW my site), even though they have a Linking Root Domain score of 40 and a Page Authority of 72. Similarly, Mobileproductivity.com comes in at #1 for that search with scores of 7 and 31 respectively, but mpifix.com comes in at #2 with scores of 61 and 47 respectively. How are the search engine rankings calculated? Thanks in advance, Julian
Algorithm Updates | | MobileDay0 -
"Revisit-after" Metatag = Why use it?
Hi Mozfans, Just been thinking about the robots revisit metatag, all pages on my website (200+ pages) have the following tag on them; name="revisit-after" content="7 days" /> I'm wondering what is the purpose of the tag? Surely isn't it best to allow robots (such as Googlebot or Bingbot) to crawl your site as often as possible so the index and rankings get updated as quickly as possible? Thanks in advance everyone! Ash
Algorithm Updates | | AshSEO20110