Has anyone ever seen this canonicalization problem with Google?
-
I recently move my site (www.leatherhidestore.com/servlet/StoreFront) off of the ProStores platform because I could never get Google to show my homepage in SERP results - instead always selecting random product pages to rank. However, I never had this problem with Yahoo and Bing as they always defaulted to the homepage except when the category was a better match.
Fast forward and I have just launched the site (www.leatherhidestore) on Magento Community and I STILL CANNOT GET GOOGLE TO USE MY HOMEPAGE FOR SERP RESULTS although I'm getting okay SERPS for random pages.....ERRRRRR! Of course, as if to rub salt in the wound, Yahoo and Bing are behaving just perfect. Still, I must think that if my Google would recognize my homepage (where the PR is and backlinks point to) I would be doing 10x better.
I am showing duplicate page content and title problems which the developer is trying to solve but I do not know if this will fix the homepage Google issue. I feel like I must be in some sort of canonicalization death spiral. Has anybody dealt with this issue before and will mercifully share what I should do to fix it...please!
Hunter
-
Hey Irving,
Thanks for these insights...I have been doing the keyword optimization on the site and perhaps that is not such a great idea. I was happy when the moz page analyzer gave me an A for the homepage but I was looking at keywords and not overall page health.
I think I need a good on-site SEO person who can systematically work through these issues and implement solutions. Naively, I thought my developer of the Magento site would bring these skills to the table but perhaps that is a very different skill set. Do you agree? If so, are there some folks you can recommend (that are reasonable and available....difficult combination I know)?
I really appreciate your time...it is kind of like therapy as I feel like I am on my own out here!
Hunter
-
Removing links may help.
some other tips:
1. add a robots.txt to the site
2. using htaccess force https to redirect to http (perhaps share your the contents of your htaccess for review)
https://www.leatherhidestore.com/ should not resolve ...
3. get rid of the meta name="keywords" tag
4. Some tips from SEO moz report card for your home page.
-
Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Document
Easy fix
<dl>
<dt>Occurrences of Keyword</dt>
<dd>21</dd>
<dt>Explanation</dt>
<dd>We've seen evidence that excessive use of keywords can negatively impact rankings and thus suggest moderation.</dd>
<dt>Recommendation</dt>
<dd>Remove instances of the targeted keyword(s) from the document text of this page to bring it below 15</dd>
</dl>
<a class="more expanded">Minimize</a>
-
Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Page Title
Easy fix
<dl>
<dt>Page title</dt>
<dd>"Upholstery Leather - Buy Wholesale Leather | Leather Hide Store"</dd>
<dt>Explanation</dt>
<dd>Using the targeted keyword(s) more than twice in the title tag may be perceived as keyword stuffing (a form of search engine spam) by the engines, and thus we recommend against it.</dd>
<dt>Recommendation</dt>
<dd>Do not employ more than two instances of the targeted keyword(s) in the title tag.</dd>
</dl>
<a class="more expanded">Minimize</a>
Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization
Easy fix
<dl>
<dt>Cannibalizing link</dt>
<dd>"Leather Buying Guide", "Our Leather Collection", and "Leather Remnants"</dd>
<dt>Explanation</dt>
<dd>It's a best practice in SEO to target each keyword with a single page on your site (sometimes two if you've already achieved high rankings and are seeking a second, indented listing). To prevent engines from potentially seeing a signal that this page is not the intended ranking target and creating additional competition for your page, we suggest staying away from linking internally to another page with the target keyword(s) as the exact anchor text. Note that using modified versions is sometimes fine (for example, if this page targeted the word 'elephants', using 'baby elephants' in anchor text would be just fine).</dd>
<dt>Recommendation</dt>
<dd>Unless there is intent to rank multiple pages for the target keyword, it may be wise to modify the anchor text of this link so it is not an exact match.</dd>
</dl>
Canonical URL Tag Usage
Moderate fix
<dl>
<dt>Number of Canonical tags</dt>
<dd>0</dd>
<dt>Explanation</dt>
<dd>Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic today.</dd>
<dt>Recommendation</dt>
<dd>Add a canonical URL tag referencing this URL to the header of the page</dd>
</dl>
-
-
Hey Irving,
It turned out that the Open site explorer info was erroneous.....errr. My developer spent a couple of hours trying to find something wrong.
He sink me these links to third party redirect verifications that don’t show anything like what seo moz is saying.
http://www.seologic.com/webmaster-tools/url-redirect?utf8=✓&url=www.leatherhidestore.com
http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/
Any other advice regarding the homepage not ranking for keywords? Pretty frustrating when even the moz tools are working as they should. I did disavow some of those link exchanges per your advice.
Happy Holidays!
-
Hey Irving,
Thanks for responding and I have forwarded the info to my developer (who also host the site). Open site explorer can lag behind so I am not sure if it is picking up something that is no longer there. I do know that my old URL is of course no longer indexed in Google so I am not sure how my new URL could redirect to it and it not throw some sort of page not found error? Do you think duplicate content could be playing a role or is that incidental to this issue? Lastly, I wouldn't know the problem with the htaccess is I was looking right at it. Can you recommend someone who would be especially capable at resolving such an issue?
Thanks again!
Hunter
-
Something very screwy with your URL. Open site explorer says its redirecting back to the old URL - The URL you've entered redirects to another URL. We're showing results for www.leatherhidestore.com/servlet/StoreFront since it is likely to have more accurate link metrics. See data for www.leatherhidestore.com instead? I would look into htaccess settings and your configuration settings on magento and your hosting provider.
Also, I would disavow your links from the link exchanges.
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
-
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Reporting Webspam to Google
We are in ecommerce, and there are a few review sites that are dominating the rankings for our products. The sites are very good - very well written content (2000+ words) and visually appealing sites. The 2 main culprits are clearly black hat. One site's backlinks are pure spam, and the other is buying footer and sidebar links. Will ratting them to Google have any impact? If not, any suggestions on how to compete? Our competing pages are product descriptions, and creating a 2000 word product description seems inappropriate. Also, all of these products are brand new, and due to extensive media spends, the search volume is very high. Since they are beating us to the punch by getting good content posted first, they are proving difficult to displace.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
Does anyone have any experience with DakWak?
We are looking at using it as a translation service but I have SEO concerns. Does anyone have any experience or see any potential problems?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite1 -
Potential problems with my site
Dear Mozzers I hope you can help me with the following problems: My site is up and running for a year now and may be there has been problem with the homepage, because it ranks on first page for a competitive keyword on Google.com and Google.com.au only, however in other countries it just shows up as internal page and does not rank well. google.com/Google.com.au: homepage ranks top 10 (example.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveTran2013
Other countries (.co.uk, .ca..ect) an internal page shows up, example.com/internalpage.html - shows on page 3-4. I can not find the homepage of example.com anywhere around top 1000. Can you please tell me what are the potential problems. Thank you very much. BR/Tran0 -
Google drop down - keyword gone, why?
Hi guys, i received traffic off a yearly based term, this year for '2013' i noticed it is nowhere near what the yearly term was for the year before. I believe that Google has stopped the yearly term appearing in a drop-down menu from a big volume related term, my question is how do they determine what goes in the drop down menu for related/relevant searches?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Google Penguin Winners and Losers?
Hi All, Just wondering out of the SEOmoz community who has come out on top after Penguin and who has been hit and why. Personally my site has come out on top. I started workig on the site back in December and NOTHING had been done, no link development, no onpage, nothing, a virginal website. The site was chock-a-block with issues both technically and in content. After 4 months of hard work, we have climbed from 100+ to top ten on most of our phrases and post Penguin we have climbed even higher as some of our competitors were dragged down into the murky depths. So I think thats a win (for now). My focus has been on Guest posting, social outreach, reviews and getting my on page right (still a ways to go, but our CMS is clunky to say the least). A little humour attached 😉 (Why has no one yet stuck Matt Cutts head on a Penguin?) Are you a Penguin Winner or have you experienced the wrath of the penguin. keep-calm-and-deoptimise.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Aran_Smithson0 -
Domain Favoured by Google
Hi there, We have just launched our website in Ireland .ie and was wondering would the .ie website be favoured by Google over a competitor with a .co.uk or .com domain? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
Removing a Page From Google index
We accidentally generated some pages on our site that ended up getting indexed by google. We have corrected the issue on the site and we 404 all of those pages. Should we manually delete the extra pages from Google's index or should we just let Google figure out that they are 404'd? What the best practice here?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbuckles0