Hi James,

So far as I can see you have the following architecture:

• job posting: https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/job/post-name/
• jobs listing page: https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/jobs/

Since from the robots.txt the listing page pagination is blocked, the crawler can access only the first 15 job postings are available to crawl via a normal crawl.

I would say, you should remove the blocking from the robots.txt and focus on implementing a correct pagination. *which method you choose is your decision, but allow the crawler to access all of your job posts. Check https://yoast.com/pagination-seo-best-practices/

Another thing I would change is to make the job post title an anchor text for the job posting. (every single job is linked with "Find out more").

Also if possible, create a separate sitemap.xml for your job posts and submit it in Search Console, this way you can keep track of any anomaly with indexation.

Last, and not least, focus on the quality of your content (just as Matt proposed in the first answer).

Good luck!

The idea is (which we both highlighted), that blocking your listing page from robots.txt is wrong, for pagination you have several methods to deal with (how you deal with it, it really depends on the technical possibilities that you have on the project).

Regarding James' original question, my feeling is, that he is somehow blocking their posting pages. Cutting the access to these pages makes it really hard for Google, or any other search engine to index it. But without a URL in front of us, we cannot really answer his question, we can only create theories that he can test

Hi Rachel,

Regarding the language code in the URL, you can leave it (page**-uk**.html,page**-es**.html, etc.), but maybe it would be an idea of having a translated page url for each language. For example:

• domain.com/uk/example
• domain.com/de/beispiel
• domain.com/hu/pelda

This would serve a little bit better than the previous version, where you would have:

• domain.com/uk/example
• domain.com/de/example
• domain.com/hu/example

Sorry Richard, but using noindex with canonical link is not quite a good practice.

It's an old entry, but still true: https://www.seroundtable.com/noindex-canonical-google-18274.html

Hi James,

Regarding the robots.txt syntax:

Disallow: /jobs/? which basically blocks every single URL that contains /jobs/**? **

For example: domain.com**/jobs/?**sort-by=... will be blocked

If you want to disallow query parameters from URL, the correct implementation would be Disallow: /jobs/*? or even specify which query parameter you want to block. For example Disallow: /jobs/*?page=

My question to you, if these jobs are linked from any other page and/or sitemap? Or only from the listing page, which has it's pagination, sorting, etc. is blocked by robots.txt? If they are not linked, it could be a simple case of orphan pages, where basically the crawler cannot access the job posting pages, because there is no actual link to it. I know it is an old rule, but it is still true: Crawl > Index > Rank.

BTW. I don't know why you would block your pagination. There are other optimal implementations.

And there is always the scenario, that was already described by Matt. But I believe in that case you would have at least some of the pages indexed even if they are not going to get ranked well.

Also, make sure other technical implementations are not stopping your job posting pages from being indexed.

Let me know how it turns out. If the problem persist, I'm glad to help good luck!

Hey,

Can you point out an example URL? (if you don't want to disclose the website URL in here, you can do it via a personal message). This way we can debug an exact URL and not just a theory.

Regarding blocking via robots.txt: it is never a good idea to block a search engine from URLs you want to deindex. This way the Google crawlers won't grab and process the data, and you will have your URLs in the search index.

Just check: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?hl=en

"While Google won't crawl or index the content blocked by robots.txt, we might still find and index a disallowed URL if it is linked from other places on the web. As a result, the URL address and, potentially, other publicly available information such as anchor text in links to the page can still appear in Google search results."

In case of 301 redirects (make sure you are not using 302), if the crawler can access the page, you should have the old URL removed from the index.

Hi,

Yesterday there was a Mozscape Index update. (https://moz.com/products/api/updates)

More than possible you can see the effect of that update. It is enough if your current linking domains have their DA drop, and it can effect your DA value. But as John mentioned above, if the rankings have not been effected, I would not worry about it.

Keep up the good job!

Keszi

I would terminate with them. (even I would use those 6 weeks to have them clean up the stuff they have done).

Shaq, the reason it is not higher is, because it wasn't updated at all since 2013.

Regarding DA, check again the http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority link that I have provided in my previous answer.

Moz clearly states, that you can not directly(or it can be a hard task to) influence this metric (check the SEO best practices part in the bottom of the article).

Quote:
"Unlike other SEO metrics, Domain Authority is difficult to influence directly. It is made up of an aggregate of metrics (MozRank, MozTrust, link profile, and more) that each have an impact on this score. This was done intentionally; this metric is meant to approximate how competitive a given site is in Google.com. Since Google takes a lot of factors into account, a metric that tries to calculate it must incorporate a lot of factors, as well.

The best way to influence this metric is to improve your overall SEO. In particular, you should focus on your link profile—which influences MozRank and MozTrust—by getting more links from other well-linked-to pages."

Hi Jackie,

What I'd advise you to do, is to create a Screaming Frog Crawl so you can compare the two crawl data. If both show missing meta descriptions on the same pages, then there might be something on your side.

It is always good to double-check the information you are provided. So you are sure that the issue isn't a bug.

Gr., Keszi

P.S. I made a quick crawl with Screaming Frog on the first domain: sundancevacationsblog.com and found quite a big number of Missing Meta Titles.

Hi,

I'd quote from Moz: http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority

"How do I influence this metric?

Unlike other SEO metrics, Domain Authority is difficult to influence directly. It is made up of an aggregate of metrics (MozRank, MozTrust, link profile, and more) that each have an impact on this score. This was done intentionally; this metric is meant to approximate how competitive a given site is in Google.com. Since Google takes a lot of factors into account, a metric that tries to calculate it must incorporate a lot of factors, as well.

The best way to influence this metric is to improve your overall SEO. In particular, you should focus on your link profile—which influences MozRank and MozTrust—by getting more links from other well-linked-to pages."

So answering your question, Yes, you can improve the DA, while working on your SEO.

In general, in my belief, the 301 redirect could have influenced the score, but I would rather check the rankings and organic evolution of the website after the redirect instead of checking only the DA. If the organic results improved, I wouldn't worry to much about the DA itself. (maybe it is just only a temporary glitch until Moz recalculates it's value based on the new information they get).

Keszi

Hi Geraldine,

So, meanwhile just jumped in what would be most cost efficient implementation for the HREFLANG on your website.

Give the following article to your developer: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2620865?hl=en

Basically he will create a sitemap for each of the websites, which will indicate what is the alternate version of every single page in other languages.

You will then submit this sitemap to EACH of the Google Webmaster Tools accounts for the websites (.fr, .de, .com, etc.)

This should be the fastest and most cost efficient in your case.

Reminder: Remove the Hreflang link from current versions. It is the best to indicate alternate via only once channel.

Gr., Keszi

Hi!

Like Jamie has mentioned it, you have a HREFLANG issue on the site.

Try implementing for each of the domains the following code:

<- default for international
                  <- default for US
              <- default for Aus
                             <- default for italian language!
                             <- default for french language
                          <- default for german language!

I would implement it like this.

The difference is compared to Jamie's implementation idea, is that I wouldn't put the .com version as the x-default.

All of the hreflang markups have to appear on each of the pages! For example:

Read through the articles Jamie provided, they will be a huge help to kick-start the implementation.

Gr., Keszi

As Alick300 has mentioned, Pagerank is a metric that we do not use anymore.

I would advise you to check the metrics that Moz is using: PA, DA, mR, DmR, and in case you are a Pro member, you could also check mT and DmT:

1. PA: Page authority: http://moz.com/learn/seo/page-authority
2. DA: Domain authority: http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority
3. mR&DmR: mozRank and domain mozRank: http://moz.com/learn/seo/mozrank
4. mT&DmT: mozTrust and domain level mozTrust: http://moz.com/learn/seo/moztrust
5. spam score: http://moz.com/blog/spam-score-mozs-new-metric-to-measure-penalization-risk

Be aware that these are only metrics and in some cases increasing these metrics doesn't necessarily mean that you will rank better: Correlation <> Causation (check the article I have linked into the spam score, by Rand).

Also you could check the whiteboard Friday: http://moz.com/blog/understanding-and-applying-mozs-spam-score-metric-whiteboard-friday

I hope this will be helpful to you.

Keszi

Hi Remko,

First of all I would check for the domains that I want to buy and redirect for relevancy and their backlink profile.

The example you gave:

Fietstassen.eu - > Loodgieter.nl for me it was a little strange. (Correct me, if I am wrong, but Fietstassen is bicycle bags? and Loodgieter is repair/handy man?).

I did not check in details what kind of link profile Fietstassen has, but if my dutch isn't cheating on me, I might have a feeling that it has collected non-relevant links to your target website.

As for your first example: Glaspunt.nl -> Glas.nl if I get it right, these two seem to be in the same industry, so buying glaspunt.nl could be an idea.

As in general:

If you buy a domain, just to redirect and gather their link juice:

1. look for relevancy first.
2. check that domains backlink profile (just to be safe. if it only has a spammy link profile, I do not know if it would be a good idea to point it towards your project)
3. if the domain that you are buying would be more relevant to a category of your website, I'd redirect it towards there instead of homepage.

I hope this helped.

Gr., Keszi

Hi Emmanuel,

If you want to have a quick crawl then maybe it would be smart to use: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/crawl-test

I am not aware of starting a new crawl faster with the campaign which you already set up.

Gr.,

Istvan

Hi TBiz,

The fact with these website is the following: they have a lot of sitewide links (link that appear on more then one page of the linking website). For ex, footer links (such as "created by" or "designed by", etc.), advertising which appears on each page, etc.

Although it can drive a big number of inbound links, I would still go and ask the question of quantity vs. quality? Which one is better for a website? (If it would be me, I would choose quality).

I hope that helped,

Istvan

Hey there!

I think I have found what your problem is with you canonical link

In your code you have:

And probably you are somewhere forcing the URls to have a / at the end.

So basically you are confusing browsers and search engine bots, because they now cannot tell which is the real version:

SE enters the page. Then it sees that the right version should be the one WITHOUT a "/" at the end, then that pages has a 301 redirect to the version which HAS a "/" at the end of the URL (but that has a canonical which points out that the preffered version should be ). So it is a non-ending circle.

So if you add a / to the end of your URl, your problem should be solved.

Final thought: Screaming Frog is working well.

I hope this was a solution.

Cheers,

Istvan

Hi David,

There is a really good mozinar about Advanced Wordpress SEO: http://moz.com/webinars/advanced-wordpress-seo

I know it is from 2013, and it might not look fresh, but I remember listening it and getting a lot of good tips on how to handle your wordpress website. (Also tags, archive pages, etc.)

It is less than one hour, and it does worth watching it.

I hope it will help you identify and resolve these issues on your website.

Good luck! Keszi