Change of language
-
Hi everyone,
We bought a domain which had content in German for over 8 years. So the rankings it had were in another search engine aswell.
So i've changed the language of the content + targetting in webmaster tools to Dutch. (i've created unique content, in case your wondering)
Now we don't rank in the targetted search engine, nor in the search engine the website was previously ranked.My question is how can we fix this so we are going to get indexed and ranked for the targetted search engine.
Thanks in advance.
-
Hi Gianluca,
Thanks for your answer. And sorry for the delayed response.
I'll ask John Mueller for an answer.Thanks again.
-
If the links where totally unrelated to the actual site, what I would probably do should be to check in webmaster help forum a direct answer from John Mueller (or, better, asking him directly on Google+).
In fact, once there was an option for "disavowing" the links a domain just bought had, but since almost one year the link to that option has disappeared from GWT.
The use of the disavow tool usually is for site that have been penalized.
-
Hi Gianluca,
Thanks for yet another answer.
I did consider it, however i taught it wouldn't influence the rankings.
Which leads me to a follow up question, if you dont mind?
Should i disavow those old links to help rank for the correct Google.Thanks again for taking the time to answer the question.
-
HI and sorry for the delay...
haven't you considered that that domain is still ranking in Google.de because of its old link profile?
In fact, it can be possible that links it earned in its past existence as a German website may be the cause of its still good rankings in .de.
On the contrary, the percentage of links from dutch sites may be too small to allow the site to rank properly in google.nl.
That's all I can tell you, without knowing the site name.
-
Hi Gianluca,
Thank you for your response!
It is ranking but in the German index. That could be because it is an old domain?
-
Hi Stefan,
what I don't understand is if your site, now in dutch and targeting Netherlands, is actually indexed but not ranking, or if it also not indexed at all.
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
-
Domain Change Before or After Site Revamp?
In the last year traffic to our site has dropped in half and ranking has dropped significantly. Very little no content has been added in that time. We would now like to improve ranking by adding new content. 2 domains effectively exist for the site. The existing domain is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. But www.metro-manhattan.com redirects to www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. Our company is Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc.. We registered www.metro-manhattan.com and created the redirect to www.nyc-officespace-leader.com in 2012. www.nyc-officespace-leader.com was registered in 2006. Many links to the site show www.metro-manhattan.com and I believe this may be a source of confusion for Google. Would it be best to make the domain consistent at this time by redirecting it once and for all and to do so before adding new content? If this is done correctly can we avoid taking a hit on ranking? Note: -www.nyc-officespace-leader.com is the old domain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
-www.metro-manhattan is the new domain but has existed since 2012 and has been redirecting to the old domain since then
-The company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space (similar in branding to the new domain) Am I correct in assuming that having the 2 domains may be causing issues with Google involving domain authority? Change the domain before adding content or add content before?0 -
Does Google index language flags/links in header, even if only 1 is visible at a time?
Hi, I want to pass link juice from my English website to my other languages. Does Google index language flags/links in header? Only 1 flag is visible at a time, and from what i´ve read, Google does not index content that is not visible to the user without clicks, like content behind tabs. I´m guessing language drop downs could fall under the same category as well...? Any knowledge on this... thank you for your time!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | guidetoiceland0 -
Google Change of Address for previously penalised website?
Hey guys Would you use the 'change of address' tool (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en) for a site that was previously penalised, pointing it to the new URL? Cheers Jeremy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jeremycabral0 -
How to implement three languages with a subfolder /blog on a .com domain?
Hi, I'm setting up a blog for a client that has a .com domain. The client is targeting three languages with the subfolder /de, /nl and /en. We've also established that a blog rather be used in a subfolder than subdomain. My question: How should we implement the three languages? Is this gonna be a domain.com/blog/en or domain.com/en/blog or would you maybe don't use subfolders for language at all but let a hreflang do the job?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dexport0 -
Image URL Change Catastrophe
We have a site with over 3mm pages indexed, and an XML sitemap with over 12mm images (312k indexed at peak). Last week our traffic dropped off a cliff. The only major change we made to the site in that time period was adding a DNS record for all of our images that moved them from a SoftLayer Object Storage domain to a subdomain of our site. The old URLs still work, but we changed all the links from across our site to the new subdomain. The big mistake we made was that we didn't update our XML sitemap to the new URLs until almost a week after the switch (totally forgot that they were served from a process with a different config file). We believe this was the cause of the issue because: The pages that dropped in traffic were the ones where the images moved, while other pages stayed more or less the same. We have some sections of our property where the images are, and have always been, hosted by Amazon and their rankings didn't crater. Same with pages that do not have images in the XML sitemap (like list pages). There wasn't a change in geographic breakdown of our traffic, which we looked at because the timing was around the same time as Pigeon. There were no warnings or messages in Webmaster Tools, to indicate a manual action around something unrelated. The number of images indexed in our sitemap according Webmaster Tools dropped from 312k to 10k over the past week. The gap between the change and the drop was 5 days. It takes Google >10 to crawl our entire site, so the timing seems plausible. Of course, it could be something totally unrelated and just coincidence, but we can't come up with any other plausible theory that makes sense given the timing and pages affected. The XML sitemap was updated last Thursday, and we resubmitted it to Google, but still no real change. Anyone had a similar experience? Any way to expedite the climb back to normal traffic levels? Screen%20Shot%202014-07-29%20at%203.38.34%20PM.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wantering0 -
Hit By Penguin...Wait for recovery or do i change domains?
Hey Guys Would very much appreciate all opinions on our following situation, we have an .uk based ecommerce sports nutrition site www.cardiffsportsnutrition.co.uk Previously we worked with an SEO, that to put it simply did not follow webmaster guidelines(money anchor heavy, bad links etc), we reached some very good ranks too quickly and subsequently after the first penguin we where hit. We didn't receive any link warning or manual penalties just what i am assuming algorithmic...Rankings and traffic drop significantly, but not business ending. Since the first penguin we have done very little to no SEO, some unique content, re-writing of product pages, lots of social activity and didnt really lose much traffic after that, some small ups and down after refresh s and a slight slow decline on some keywords. Come Penguin 2.0...things that where still ranking for have now dropped even further, impressions in webmasters is now down over 50% and we have a had a wkly but not drastic drop in traffic since then. Over the last couple of months we have obtained some good quality links, have added lots of great unique content that has been shared significantly and generated some great traffic to our blog, added more unique product pages and category pages. But organically things are starting to look pretty grim apart from our brand keywords and everything is still in a slow decline and no increase in impressions in webmasters either jsut small drops We have been working to remove the poor quality and toxic links that the previous SEO built,getting anchor text corrected and collating information on the whole process ready to submit a file of links to disavow tool. which we are planning to do within the next couple of wks. Now i have read some successful stories and some not so successful one, so im starting to think of how to deal with this worse case scenario, If our domain is too damaged by the previous SEO guys We have the same domain name but on the .com that will help us carry over our brand name directly, but my concern is even though we have not had any manual penalty and not 301'd the .com back to the .co.uk or any other form of link will the penalties be carried over to the new domain just on the basis of brand association. We wouldn't plan to redirect any of the .co.uk traffic back to the .com but rather focus on our already strong ablate less converting traffic from the likes of twitter and facebook and run a small PPC campaign for some brand keyword to help buffer the traffic loss. While we focus on building good quality links and putting up plenty of new quality content on the site on the new domain that does not have any poor quality links back to it. What im trying to avoid is carry on spending time money and effort on the .co.uk domain for the next 3/4 months and continue to lose traffic slowly and then have to switch the domain anyway. I plan to wait and see for the next 4-6wks after we run the dissavow to but October time would be time i would have to make a decision and go for it. Any advice or opinions would be appreciated marc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CSN0 -
How fast to change non-branded anchor text
A client has most of his links from sitewide partnership links with non-branded anchor text. One we changed to nofollow and one partnership we're ending next month, but the rest he wants to change to branded anchor text There's 7 sitewides and a bunch more single links. Should we change the anchor text all at once or space it out to one major change per month?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Dynamically change anchor text and URLs remotely
Hey i'm looking to create a widget in javascript which i dynamically change the urls and anchor text which link the widget back to my site remotely (via php) once it spreads. I have heard peopled doing this before, but i can't seem to find a example. Does anyone know of any examples/widgets or anything which can do this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | monster990