Strange Keywords Google Webmaster Tools
-
Hey, I have a website about "coffee machines". Since a few months I added a vBulletin forum with vbSEO installed. The keywords Google found before I added the forum where highly related to the topic of my website (e.g. "coffee", "machine" etc), which I checked through the webmaster tools.
However, I recently checked again and noticed that Google finds mostly keywords like "post", "forum", "thread", "share" etc. with high significance. Those "keywords" only appear on the forum.
Now I'm a bit worried since Google states "These should reflect the subject matter of your site."
Any advice how to solve that issue?
Thanks!
-
But still it's kinda confusing if Google sees keywords like "digg", "share" etc. as more significant as the actual topic ("coffee"). Also vBulletin is a well known forum software. I checked the vBSEO settings again and here is everything fine as well.
-
With the addition of the forum Google is telling you that you're still a site about "coffee machines" but you're also a "forum" about "coffee machines". Still to reinforce the strength of your core content try linking back to pages on your original site from your forum. Also check for categorization issues in the sitemap and structure of the forum. You can also do goofy stuff like changing a thumbs up system to a "roasted beans" "raw beans" system. Things along those lines.
The main thing is that you're not seeing a reduction in rank like Dejan asked. If you're worried about advertisers missing out on your site being about coffee machines you can address this via the DoubleClick AdPlanner Publisher Center.
-
Most of the posts are already in the index. I also added a sitemap and all posts are accessible by all users. You only have to be a logged in when viewing a user profile or submitting a post. There are only a few 404 errors because of threads which have been deleted. Besided that there are no crawl errors stated.
-
At 1200 posts it should have equalized already. I would check to see that Google can crawl forum content properly - what if it cannot due to technical issue or perhaps need to login to see posts and replies?
-
Hey, I think as the forum fills up with content, these words will be less and less important and as Dejan SEO mentions, these are likely to be noise words and ignored to some extent.
Concentrate on stimulating active, on topic discussion in the forum and you should be okay.
Cheers
Marcus -
The rankings remained the same since then... I just checked Webmaster Tools again and the keyword with the highest significance is "post"... Rreally really strange.
-
Are you seeing any considerable changes in your rankings since forum went live?
-
Hey Dejan, thanks for your reply. I'm thinking the same, but somehow Google doesn't. The forum is quite new but we have around 1200 posts which are all about the same "coffee machine" topic.
I really don't get why Google takes those "keywords" under consideration. The forum is installed under a subfolder "/forum". -
I see what you're saying I would be concerned too. Google is pretty good at figuring out what's a forum and what's main site content and will separate those two for different types of searches (though occasionally blending them). What I am saying is that your normal pages will rank for usual terms and your forum content for different type of search query. One thing strikes me though... is your forum empty? If not, then its topic should reflect the topic of the website - right? So that should not be a problem.
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
-
Keyword Stuffing
Working on optimizing my e-commerce website. We have managed to obtain very good ranking on most keywords that we use directing to different products. However, there is one that ranks very low, and Moz alerts that keyword stuffing might be one of the reasons. While I have edited the content to include less of the same keyword on that particular page, the links to different products that contain the same keyword from the same page (accessories and related products) I believe are increasing my count and it seems to be working against me. \ Should I start eliminating some of these links so as to eventually obtain a better ranking? any help would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | NewVape0 -
Google changing my Title
I noticed today that Google is showing a different Title in searches for the homepage. It is showing a title which I believe was active as of late last year or early January. The new title is in the title tag, in Google cache and in MOZ crawls as well. Not sure why it would still be showing a different title in the search and wanted to see if anyone can explain the reason. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | campaigneast0 -
Keyword Stuffing unintentionally
I have a situation and would love some options. We have a site where we sell a product and lets cal it dog collars. The home page will not rank for its main term. Renetly the site was redesigned and the Url structure was re-optimized so that it was not so complex. However, we have 500 products and a dozen categories which all include dog collars as keyword. The products are all dog collar singular or collars plural in the url. So lets say ".com/red-dog-collar" and ".com/blue-dog-collar" then ".com/large-dog-collar" and the categoreies like "classic-dog-collars" and etc. So its very hard to not put the word dog collar into every single product because thats what it is. Whats hapening is that the menu is linking to each of these categories and the home page is linking to a dozen or more products which all include the word dog collar or dog collars in the URL. The actual text/content is a good ration. But the source code as stated above shows the main term 150 times. Not exact, but phrase match for those adwords gurus out there. Thus the page does not rank for its terms and instead google is choosing another internal pages which is relevant. Atleast i think thats why the page does not rank for its term, which it once ranked very high against some major competitors. How on earth do i fix this without removing products and tags and all these links from the home page? Or should i not worry about this and find another reason why this page is not ranking for the term it should be ranking for. The backlink profile is not over optmized by the way. Either is internal anchor text links. Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | waqid0 -
Google indexing page differently
Does google index an interal page differently depending on whether you are using a FULL url (including domain) or just a relative link? Also, is it possible that using a full URL (http://mysite.com/page.html) causes the browser to "ping" the server differently than just having the href linked to using relative links (/page.html) Could this cause server or firewall perfomance issues?
On-Page Optimization | | WebRiverGroup0 -
SEOmoz Says 530 - Google Webmaster Tools Says 16
A SEOmoz crawl report on 1/20/2013 says we have 530 duplicate page titles most of which are pages like this these two: http://www.audiobooksonline.com/reviews/review.php/details/38 http://www.audiobooksonline.com/reviews/review.php/details/104 These pages are the result of allowing visitors to post their opinions and ratings about specific audio books. Google Webmaster Tools reports we have 16 duplicate page titles none of which are a review page. Why is SEOmoz reporting duplicate page titles? Should SEOmoz be reporting these pages as having duplicate page titles? Why isn't Google Webmaster Tools reporting the review pages as having duplicate titles?
On-Page Optimization | | lbohen0 -
Plagiarism or duplicate checker tool?
Do you know a plagiarism or duplicate checker tool where I can receive an email alert if someone copies my content? I know there's a tool like this (similar to http://www.tynt.com/ though people can still remove the link from the original source) but I forgot the name or site. It's like a source code that you must insert in each of your webpage. Thanks in advanced!
On-Page Optimization | | esiow20131 -
When Adding content to the site. Should I use the same keyword term on each page or select a secondary keyword to focus on?
I have created a site www.autoinsurancefremontca.com. The index page is SEO for the key term auto insurance fremont ca. I want to add more content on another page of this site. Should I have that page also SEO'd for the same keyword or should I pick another keyword to focus on?
On-Page Optimization | | Greenpeak0 -
Google Sitemap
Does adding a Google Sitemap to webmaster tools REALLY help SEO? If so, are there any resources for help creating one? Here is my site: http://www.petmedicalcenter.com Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | PMC-312087
Brant0