Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
What Tools Should I Use To Investigate Damage to my website
-
I would like to know what tools I should use and how to investigate damage to my website in2town.co.uk I hired a person to do some work to my website but they damaged it. That person was on a freelance platform and was removed because of all the complaints made about them. They also put in backdoors on websites including mine and added content.
I also had a second problem where my content was being stolen.
My site always did well and had lots of keywords in the top five and ten, but now they are not even in the top 200. This happened in January and feb.
When I write unique articles, they are not showing in Google and need to find what the problem is and how to fix it. Can anyone please help
-
Repairing website damage requires a structured approach. Start by assessing any issues caused by the freelancer using tools like Wordfence for WordPress to detect backdoors or malicious changes. It’s possible Google penalized you for whatever work the freelancer did. You might need to disavow toxic links they built, for example, or address other issues. Tools such as Google Alerts can help identify content duplicates for action.
For future reference, regular monitoring helps prevent unauthorized changes and stay informed about industry trends. If you monitor a web page for changes, you will ensure no unauthorized adjustments are made on your site. There are several ways to approach this, and several tools you can use; some will notify you when your webpage changes. Monitoring competitors for content trends can also guide your strategy and reveal potential areas for improvement.
-
use google search console and screaming frog
-
The best tool that i used to diagnose problems in my office interior designs service based website is the Google search console GSC. You can also use screaming frog or also use moz to analyze and solve issues
-
Page Freezer: Instantly preserve web pages and social media profiles to capture evidence of website damage
-
To investigate damage to your website, you should consider using tools like Google Search Console for monitoring search performance and detecting issues, website security scanners like Word fence to check for malware or vulnerabilities, and website auditing tools such as SEMrush or Screaming Frog for comprehensive analysis of technical SEO issues and website health.
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
-
Only my homepage ranks for my keywords, should I delete my other pages?
I am an independent artist and all of my business inquiries come through my website (www.ChrisCarlsonArt.com). Over the last 6 months I have been trying to get pages other than my homepage to rank for my keywords, but I haven't made any progress. I worry that I am cannibalizing my keywords since my pages all have similar information. Should I just delete my other pages and focus on ranking my homepage? Also, if I delete my other pages will that have a negative impact on my rankings?
SEO Tactics | | PunchyMcSkeletor0 -
Best SEO Structure For E-Commerce With Products Using Multiple Categories
Hi all, I am in the process of re-structuring my e-commerce website for better SEO and user experience. I have done some keyword research and would like some advice on how best to structure my site around those keywords. For example, my site (All Things Nature) sells a brand of wooden sculptures (Woodsculp) and I would like to rank for keywords related to that brand, the brand by animal, the brand by collection and the brand by release date.
Content Development | | nb2e4fg
Examples of keywords could be: Brand by Animal: Woodsculp Dogs, Woodsculp Cats, Woodsculp Elephants
Brand by Collection: Woodsculp Pets, Woodsculp Safari
Brand by Release Date: Woodsculp Christmas 2023, Woodsculp Summer 2022 I would create each of these keywords as a category so that they can be found by a search engine and by users. I would then structure as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Pets
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Summer 2022 The only problem with this structure is it would take more than 3 clicks (4) for the user to reach a product. How critical is this for good SEO and user experience? Would I be better off getting rid of the ‘Woodsculp by Animal’, ‘Woodsculp by Collection’ and ‘Woodsculp by Release Date’ categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The only thing with this is there would be a lot of categories under the brand name which might make it more difficult for search engines and users to logically follow. Would I be better off getting rid of the brand category and replace them with the keyword categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 This would organise things more logically but I would then lose the brand category (and the potential of the brand keyword ranking?) Would I be better off choosing one main keyword to use as a category and then use tags for the other categories? Categories: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants Tags: Woodsculp Safari
Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The next issue I have is that I have products which could fall under several different categories. A product called Elijah Elephant, for example could fall under Woodsculp Elephants, Woodsculp Safari and Woodsculp Summer 2022. In previous e-commerce sites I have never assigned multiple categories to one product (I instead have used tags). Is it good practice to organise products under multiple categories for an e-commerce site? Thanks in advance for any help and advice.0 -
English pages given preference over local language
We recently launched a new design of our website and for SEO purposes we decided to have our website both in English and in Dutch. However, when I look at the rankings in MOZ for many of our keywords, it seems the English pages are being preferred over the Dutch ones. That never used to be the case when we had our website in the old design. It mainly is for pages that have an English keyword attached to them, but even then the Dutch page would just rank. I'm trying to figure out why English pages are being preferred now and whether that could actually damage our rankings, as search engines would prefer copy in the local language. An example is this page: https://www.bluebillywig.com/nl/html5-video-player/ for the keywords "HTML5 player" and "HTML5 video player".
Local SEO | | Billywig0 -
How to get rid of bad backlinks
So I noticed my rankings going down and spam score going up. So under my spam score there are over 100 links for different websites but ALL redirect to semalt.com I researched it and it says they hijacked a bunched of backlinks but don't know much more. How can I get rid of all those backlinks? I was told I could use the disavow tool but apparently that can hurt my ranking as well. The semalt.com site has no backlink to me - it looks like the pages that have/had my backlinks, they've redirected to them. For instance this is one of the links http://www.oxvideos.xyz/indianantyphotoxxx 422005fb-9240-40a4-8b65-f5b1f5079dea-image.png
Link Building | | landlwoof40 -
Unsolved SEO And Digital Marketing Training
Hi Everyone, I have a basic SEO and Digital Marketing knowledge and looking for a course /training which will teach me step by step SEO and tools need to use with hand on training. I have a website (https://gemslearninginstitute.com/) which I need bring in Google Packs and on the first page of Google. I have attended a few courses but none of them offered in depth knowledge with hands on training so whatever I do it is not producing results. Thanks
SEO Tactics | | fslpso0 -
Merge 2 websites into one, using a non-existing, new domain.
I need to merge https://www.WebsiteA.com and https://www.WebsiteB.com to a fresh new domain (with no content) https://www.WebsiteC.com. I want to do it the best way to keep existing SEO juice. Website A is the companies home page and built with Wordpress Website B is the company product page and built with Wordpress Website C will be the new site containing both website A and B, utilizing Wordpress also. What is the best way to do this? I have research a lot and keep hitting walls on how to do it. It's a little trickier because it's two different domains going to a brand new domain. Thanks
Technical SEO | | jarydcat10 -
Using a non-visible H1
I have a developer that wants to use style="text-indent:-9999px" to make the H1 non-visible to the user. Being the conservative person I am, I've never tried this before and worry that Search Engines may think this is a form of cloaking. Am I worrying about nothing? And apologies if it's already been covered here. I couldn't find it. Thanks in advance!!!!
Technical SEO | | elytical0