Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hey Boris,

The length for meta data remains still the same. However, there can be a reason why your data have been truncated.

Google has a freedom to choose whatever text it wants based on the user's query. That means that if Google thinks there's is a better text for, let's say, meta description, than this text would be chosen from your page content.

Also, Google can compose the description from more pieces of the content so there can be those three dots "..." not only at the end but also in the middle of the description. That doesn't need to mean that it has been truncated but that there's basically no more relevant content on the page which would better match the user's query / intent.

Hope it makes sense. Ready for other questions. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

1) Here is a list of tablet and mobile resolutions for different devices by brand.
http://www.binvisions.com/articles/tablet-smartphone-resolutions-screen-size-list/

2) And here is a list for desktop resolution.
http://www.rapidtables.com/web/dev/screen-resolution-statistics.htm

3) Moreover, if you want to test your website for different screens life, this tool is perfect.
http://quirktools.com/screenfly/

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

It's definitely beneficial for your reputation and traffic to your website. However, from the SEO standpoint, it has very low or no value. Therefore, I'd suggest to make those links nofollow.

Regarding the successful companies mentioned above, such a note in the footer could result in more brand searches. Google then may see that the websites are interesting for the users and could give some bonus points to them. However, those types of links are incomparable to the ones in content through a relevant anchor text.

Hope it helps. Ready for some other questions. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

If you haven't finished your slider yet, just stop working now. There's no such thing as "SEO techniques for sliders".

Sliders are generally not good for SEO and UX, as you can read in all the articles related to this topic, i.e.
https://yoast.com/opinion-on-sliders/
http://searchengineland.com/homepage-sliders-are-bad-for-seo-usability-163496

But if you still want to have one, just make static picture which will change with every page load. I think this should be the golden mean.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

1. Go to MozPro/SEMrush/Majestic/Ahrefs
2. Do the backlink analysis of your competitors (choose 5-10)
3. See from which pages do they have backlinks
4. See the anchor texts, type of content, etc. of those pages
5. To start with, try to build backlinks in the similar way

Cheers,
Martin

Hey Nikki,

That's really weird. We've also noticed drop in rankings in May, however, not so huge.

Last Google update was the "Fred" in March, so I don't think that's the issue.

Maybe this article could help:
https://moz.com/blog/ranking-fluctuations

Make sure, there're no new 404s or any new toxic links. If the content is still of the same quality, it could probably be some tech or linking issue. Let me know if anything helped.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Brad, you can take advantage of it. If you choose to do-follow just the 3 of them which have your product, you pass link juice to them. This could help them to higher ranking and higher sales of your product. As a result you will sell more to the suppliers as well. But check whether they don't have low quality website with no domain authority etc. - otherwise no-follow them all.

Hey Nicola,

I'll share my thought about this issue. However, I'm sure there are many approaches to that.

I would suggest to do firstly the HTTP -> HTTPS migration as far as it's one of the ranking factors according to Google - see the official Google blog here: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html

You'll save the precious time, Google will see that you "upgraded" your website and that you keep pace with the trends. If you would start firstly with the platform migration, you would loose several months waiting for this to be done before starting HTTP -> HTTPS.

Hope you get my idea. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

The short answer is Yes.

However, if the pages are not alike, the tag shouldn't be used then. But anyway, it's not the case here.

Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I don't think it's necessary to 301 redirect the article, otherwise you might lose rankings. Just insert some compelling CTA and internal links into the content to drive traffic to the conversion page.

When you are already #1 with the sub-page, there's is a big traffic potential and therefore you don't want to risk the rankings.

Hope it helps a bit. Cheers, Martin

There's no use in getting backlinks from different languages unless your site talks about languages, travelling, political issues in that particular country etc. The link has to look natural and Google has to make the judgement that it's valuable for your visitor. It also depends on your TLD (.com, .co.uk, .ru). If your visitors are mostly from Pakistan, there is usually no value in backlinks from Mexico for example. Moreover, you risk getting spammy links and thus hurting your rankings.

Hey there,

As you've said - the content is not built just for SEO reasons.

The content is just the opportunity to write more KW's but it has to look natural in the end. The main purpose of your website is to sell so adjust the content according to UX with an appealing CTA. The more content is not always better as far as it could drive attention the wrong direction.

If you look at the articles here at MOZ, most of them are about 1.200 words which wouldn't make much sense for an e-commerce site. Just look at Amazon and do the same in the better way.

This article might also help you.

Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

It's natural that most of the back links will get the homepage. However, there should be some diversity as well. I would recommend to look closely on the relevance of the page you are going to get the link from. If some of your articles would be more relevant than the homepage, I'd definitely go for the article. Also, make sure that the anchor texts naturally differ. Sometimes the anchor text could be the link itself, sometimes name of your domain but I'd try to get link through a keyword rich anchor text within the content.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Which domain do you think is better and why?

(1) surnamename.com or (2) surname.me?

Since Google treats both the same in terms of the rankings, my biggest concern is about the branding. (1) is longer but is .com (people usually see .com as more trusted one). (2) is shorter, easier to remember, but less tech savvy people might be confused with .me.

Purpose of the site is personal/freelance profile. Other domain versions are already taken.

Shoot the ideas! Cheers, Martin

Hey Matt,

I'd test performance of both versions and then decide which one you will stick to.

Since you have been publishing the short posts so far, you can try to publish the long versions in the upcoming weeks. If you will have better results (divided by the amount of weeks you won't be publishing), then you can decide which version to chose.

However, I'd recommend the longer version of a blog post once in 14 days and in the meantime, you can provide some different kind of content such as video, podcast or email newsletter.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey Judd,

I would't bother with this in 2017. Most of the people comment on the bigger sites anyway so you can just turn it off.

Cheers, Martin

Hi Shahzad,

Here is the complete process of cleaning your website from "URL injection" by Google:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/hacked/docs/clean_site?visit_id=1-636299342838938883-1291367479&rd=1

And here is some more information in case you'd like to read more about it:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/3311329?hl=en

As far as there is all the information needed on the links, I will keep the answer as simple as that

Cheers,
Martin

Hello, from my experience, I'd recommend the case 3. It is quite usual that the sitemaps are divided by categories, topics of articles, months etc. so you can actually divide the sitemap by language as well. It's actually a good idea to have multiple shorter sitemaps for keeping them updated and easier to manage.

Hey there, I wouldn't be concerned about this too much. Google is not a dummy software anymore and knows from all the articles, links and context about your company that it's actually a brand. Just go for what you like more. I personally like BetterWidget as it gives an impression of young and high-tech company. Just compare: Facebook is not Face Book, YouTube is not You Tube etc...

Hey there,

Sorry for the late reply. For some reason, I don't receive email updates, even if it's ticked.

Anyway, you're right that search engines will pass the link juice to the new domain. Regarding the old domains, Google Search Console will show you all the link as long as the domains are still being set up there. Therefore, I'd recommend to keep all the domains in GSC for the future.

Regarding the strategy, the best way would be the 1:1 permanent redirects 301. This means that you redirect every unique page from the old domain to another unique page from the new domain. You can create Google Spreadsheet where the first column would represent the old URLs and the second column the new URLs. In this case, you have higher chance not to miss anything.

Hope this is the answer you're looking for. Otherwise, feel free to shoot some other questions.

Cheers, Martin

Hi there,

The less 301's from external sources the better. The situation with 301's is like this: Page A links to page B but page B is redirected to page C (your page). If you reduce the second step (page B), you won't be losing as much link juice and you will make it easier for crawler as well. Reach out to the webmasters of websites which you have the back links from (pages A) try to convince them to link directly to the page C instead of page B.

Hope it helps. If you have any other questions, let me know. Cheers, Martin

Ranking fluctuations are quite common and there's not much you can do about it specifically. However, if it's every day like this, there could be some crawling issue every time Google tries to crawl the page. Try and look into it deeper in Google Search Console.

In general, the best way would be to build domain authority by creating quality content and acquiring backlinks to get your website to #1 position. It'll be more important to Google and won't be messing with your site as much as now.

You can also read more information in this thread (especially in the Takeshi's answer):
https://moz.com/community/q/why-keyword-ranking-fluctuate

Is the blog on the same domain as the store? If it is and there is no match between the topics of the blog and the store, I'd consider to move the store to a separate domain as far as it is still new. Otherwise try to write some topical articles with internal linking to relevant products of the store. But definitely don't delete the blog because there's a lot of potential for spreading the link juice to the store. I'd be also very careful with 301 because its purpose is to navigate user to a page with similar content, which won't be the case.

Hey Surendra,

I'd definitely recommend **xyz.blogspot.com **so that people can visually connect the third party blog with your brand.

Regarding the backlinks from those sites, it won't have much SEO value (compared to driving traffic through those links). Backlinks should be from topic related websites which blogging sites are obviously not. Therefore, focus mainly on your blog which will help you gain links naturally.

Hope it helps a bit. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Rather than taking care of indexing your back links, focus on creating high quality content with great potential to get links naturally.

Regarding the back links, the rule is quality over quantity. Especially now, when Google sees primarily the amount of domains and doesn't care about how many other back links are pointing from each of them.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I don't think the .global TLD has any major implications in SEO directly. However, people who are not familiar with those new TLD types might get confused. This can cause higher bounce rate and consequently lower rankings. Also, the URLs will be longer compared to .com which might have some UX implications as well.

For more information, see this article where the issue is covered in more detail:

https://www.hover.com/blog/do-new-top-level-domains-affect-seo/

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hi Logan,

but what about the loading speed and UX? The 301 redirect is still one step more and takes time to load. This could lead for example to higher bounce rate and thus lower rankings. Do you think it's worth reaching the site owners because of this if not because of the link juice? I'm just curious

Thanks for the answer. Cheers, Martin

Hey Julie,

Uploading your presentation on Slideshare won't give you much SEO juice directly (links on your Slideshare profile are either in text format only or in JavaScript which Google give lesser value), however, could be beneficial for link building purposes.

In terms of driving traffic to your website, Slideshare is great way to bring relevant audience.

I'd keep uploading the presentation for the traffic rather then for SEO.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

It won't be much beneficial.

The "Powered by XYZ" tends to be in the footer which has no value as a back link. Also, it doesn't seem to be the relevant anchor text for your business. If all of your back links are through the same anchor text, it could hurt your page as there's no diversification.

I guess the websites are off-topic as well (your customers are probably from many fields). Link has a value if there's a context and the website is about a similar topic. Otherwise, it will seem weird to Google that they point back to your site if it makes actually no sense to them.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey Christopher,

I'd suggest 2) page by page. It'll take you more time but it's worth it. If you would redirect all pages to homepage, it might look unnatural to Google.

However, it depends how many pages are on the site. If there are thousands of pages, just redirect the categories. I believe there's value in dividing the redirects in "smaller pieces".

If you have no time, just redirect the site to the most relevant page of your web. It doesn't need to be necessarily the homepage.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Thanks for the answer, Logan. Now it's much clearer.

Occurrence of a certain keyword in URL is not a strong ranking signal any more. So it wouldn't help much.

The long term solution is to set up a blog named after your brand (xyz.blogspot.com) and drive traffic from there to your website. However, mainly focus on the blog on your domain (xyz.com/blog) since the high quality content is one of the most crucial things for the rankings.

Feel free to shoot any other questions. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

I'd recommend going with the last option.

Google will understand from the existing content what is your site about. You don't need to include the word "snowboard" in every URL. If you do so, it may hurt your site instead for trying to "fool" the search engines. On top of that, KWs in URLs are not a strong ranking signal anymore.

Also, the shorter link the better not only for Google but for the user experience as well.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Have you tried uploading the URL's to the Google Search Console and "S_ubmitting to Index_"? 
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url?continue=/addurl

Also, upload the Sitemap.xml and make sure you have proper internal linking so all the pages are easy to get found and crawled.

Try this and let me know if it works. Cheers, Martin

Hey Becky,

Those pages will be found by Google if you have links pointing to them somewhere on your site. In terms of crawl budget, the more page depth the more time does Google need to spend on crawling your site.

However, with proper internal linking you should be able to significantly lower the amount of clicks. So the next step would be adding some links through relevant anchor texts. After you do this, watch the analytics and let me know if it had any impact.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey,

the decision is rather subjective so the people's recommendations may differ...

However, I personally like the green one but I'd delete the color transitions as far as it's a bit outdated now. Also, if you plan to print business cards and posters, the colors may be inconsistent because of the transition.

Consider some kind of a less-detailed flat logo instead. Especially for the internet based service.

Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

the sooner you'll redirect HTTP to HTTPS the better. You are going to have more backlinks and rankings in time so it would be definitely harder in the future.

Also, try to convince the 6 websites which already point to HTTP to change their links to HTTPS.

And then, of course, redirect each page individually, as you said.

Hope it helps, Martin

Hey there,

Your issue is very well explained in this thread.

The only difference is that the other questioner has more pages in GWT that in "site:" search. But it shouldn't effect relevancy for your question.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey Michael,

I've found some other threads about the same issue. You can check them, maybe it could help:
https://moz.com/community/q/how-long-will-404-errors-show-in-webmaster-tools-search-console https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/hupstYVfBzo

Best, Martin

Yes, you're right. The best way is to host website in China on a CN domain. Hong Kong counts as well. Taiwan doesn't.

According to Search Engine Land: "Aside from preferring Chinese domains, Baidu also prefers websites to be hosted in China. This will also help improve page load speed."

Hey there,

I've found this article full of alternatives for sliders. I hope this might help you.

https://managewp.com/slider-alternatives

Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Yes, the link juice still get passed on 301 redirects. Try to split the redirects in some time range so the new website doesn't have suddenly a lot of new back links. It could appear unnatural to Google.

I'm ready for any other questions. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Those "Cons" you named are basically your options. Either add rel canonical or create unique content. Technically, you can delete the page as well, but I guess it's not the option you're considering.

It's true that it takes time and effort so this would be probably your decisive factor. Just decide what take less time and is more convenient. I vote for adding the canonical tag.

Regarding the _low search volume, _every visitor is valuable as long as he/she converts. It might be 1 visit a day through that KW but (depending on your conversion rate and the price of what you're selling) I think it's worth it.

If you add "noindex" to your page, Google will still be able to crawl your page and see the duplicate content. So I'd choose one of the two options mentioned above.

Hope it helps.
Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

there's nothing wrong with having more sitemaps than one. In some cases it's even better because it's easier for Google to crawl them. You can divide the sitemaps by categories, months, types of content etc.

However, as mentioned in the following thread, HTML sitemaps are supposed to help primarily people in navigating in the website, whereas XML sitemaps serves for helping the crawler. Therefore, I'd give priority to the XML sitemap in this case.

For more information, read this thread:
https://moz.com/community/q/sitemaps-html-and-or-xml

Cheers, Martin

Hey Nikki,

It depends how the file was created. If you exported it manually it won't change by itself. Especially, if you changed URL structure, added some redirects and some new pages.

I'd recommend to resubmit new Sitemap.xml to Google Search Console because the new one will probably differ quite a bit.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Unicode characters are exactly like any other character in any other encoding. It won't hurt your ranking in any way.

However, make sure that it actually help you somehow. I guess that most people don't even know how to write the "degree" symbol. Maybe you can make some space in the title by replacing this character with a different keyword?

Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

Those links are absolutely considered as back links by Google and are able to accumulate PR / link juice, as long as they are FOLLOW. It doesn't make a difference if they're indexed or not.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

Hey there,

If it's done correctly, you shouldn't see any ranking drops for longer period of time.

Of course, there's always risk when you're playing with the redirecting but I'd follow the Google guidelines (as you correctly mentioned) and it should work smoothly.

Let me know how it worked.

Cheers, Martin

Hey Nikki,

Yes, those are correct.

Cheers, Martin