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Category: Web Design

Talk through the latest in web design and development trends.


  • Hi Guys, I'm creating a new website with a one page checkout that follows the following steps:
    1. Check availability
    2. Select product
    2. Select additional product & Add features
    3. Provide personal information
    4. Order & Pay I'm researching if it is possible to track all these steps (and even steps within the steps) with Google Analytics in order to analyse checkout abandonment. The problem is only that my one-page checkout has only one URL (I want to keep it that way) and therefore can not be differentiated on URL in the Analytics funnel. To continue to the next step also the same button (in a floating cart) in used to advance. The buttons to select/choose something within one step are all different. Do you guys know how I can set this up and how detailed I can make this? For example, is it also possible to test at which field visitors leave when for example filling in their personal information? Would be great if you can help me out!

    | Jerune
    0

  • Hi In my Header.php I have the following php code for my title: <title><br /><?php<br />// Generate Page Title dynamically<br />if (is_home()) {<br />  bloginfo('name'); ?> - <?php bloginfo('description');<br />} elseif (is_category()) {<br />  single_cat_title(); ?> - <?php bloginfo('name');<br />} elseif (is_single()) {<br />  single_post_title();<br />} elseif (is_page()) {<br />  bloginfo('name'); ?>: <?php single_post_title();<br />} elseif (is_404()) {<br />  bloginfo('name'); ?> - <?php _e("Page not found", "fungames");<br />} elseif (is_search()) {<br />   bloginfo('name'); ?> - <?php _e("Search results for", "fungames"); echo esc_html($s, 1);<br />}<br />?><br /></title> This generates a good title different for every page/post I have on my site. But is now H1. I want the same code if, but with H1 tag somewhere in it. Cant figure it out how to do it! Can u help please?

    | Catinas97
    0

  • I saw these meta tags on a site and am trying to figure out their benefit. These meta tags are on the home page, product pages, every page of the site. Will it cause search engine bots to come back and index pages faster? Will it cause slower page loading in browsers if nothing is cached? http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache"/> http-equiv="cache-control" content="no-cache,no-store,must-revalidate"/> http-equiv="expires" content="0"/>

    | CFSSEO
    0

  • For some reason, our title tags have a long space after the beginning title tag and before the text appears. The beginning title tag is on one line, then a break, a tab and then the content of the title tag.  I'm pretty sure this is not good and is affecting optimization of the page.  Am I correct or is this not an issue and does not need to be fixed? Example: | <title></span></p> <p> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="line-number"> </td> <td class="line-content">                       First keyword</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></title> |

    | CFSSEO
    0

  • Hello, can someone please help answer a question about missing elements from Google's text-only cached version.
    When using JavaScript to display an element which is initially styled with display:none, does Google index (and most importantly properly rank) the elements contents? Using Google's "cache:" prefix followed by our pages url we can see the rendered cached page. The contents of the element in question are viewable and you can read the information inside. However, if you click the "Text-only version" link on the top-right of Google’s cached page, the element is missing and cannot be seen. The reason for this is because the element is initially styled with display:none and then JavaScript is used to display the text once some logic is applied. Doing a long-tail Google search for a few sentences from inside the element does find the page in the results, but I am not certain that is it being cached and ranked optimally... would updating the logic so that all the contents are not made visible by JavaScript improve our ranking or can we assume that since Google does return the page in its results that everything is proper? Thank you!

    | cpawsgo
    0

  • I work for an online print company and recently we were considering adding a field titled "industry" so that we could figure out what industry our customers are coming from. Has anyone seen anything either in favor or against adding this field during the customers account registration process. We understand that less is best however feel that it is important to better serve our customers. Any information on this subject would be very useful.

    | PrintPlace.com
    0

  • Hi All, Our designers have come to the SEO team to ask if have a large image across the top of the page taking up a large majority of the above the fold real estate will impact our SEO. Our initial thoughts are no as long as we have an optimised H1 visibal to the user landing there which informs them what the page is about. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

    | J_Sinclair
    1

  • We are thinking of adding ecommerce to our website as a service to our customers. We generate most of our leads through online quote requests but heard that it may be beneficial to our SEO if we add ecommerce for a few products.  Is this true?  Does anyone have tips on best and worst SEO ecommerce practices?

    | TeguarMarketing
    0

  • I would like to know if the use of adding #nameofthesection in a URL with the objective of moving position on a webpage might be somehow harmful? IE. www.mydomain.es/people-and-planet/sustainable-life-at-home/index.html www.mydomain.es/people-and-planet/sustainable-life-at-home/index.html#saving-water Many thanks for your help!

    | victoriaht
    0

  • Hi, I was wondering which you would recommend for a 301 redirect. Should we do a 301 redirect from .htacess or should we do a HTTP DNS 301 redirect. The HTTP redirect, does a redirect from the DNS Provider and doesn't require that we keep hosting the site while the htacess redirect still requires hosting. Thanks!

    | MattJD
    0

  • Trying to ensure crawlers can access all important info on a new responsive website, but it's javascript-heavy. Following Google's advice/best practices, but can't get the Fetch and Render tool to confirm it's working. Anyone dealt with this before? Also posted in Product Forums with more detail: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/PjxtBYClupw/56id80FUQdMJ

    | BoxerPropertyHouston
    0

  • Hi Moz, I'm trying to redirect www.site.com/locations/#!city to www.site.com/locations/city. This seems difficult because anything after the hash character in the URL does not make it to the server thus cannot be parsed for rewriting. Is there an SEO friendly way to implement these redirects? Thanks for reading!

    | DA2013
    0

  • hi i have a blog but i cant seem to see an option where i can add author avatar on the blog post. any idea how to do that? im using a wordpress site.

    | andzon
    0

  • If we "mask" file names for our website but they are left their original name on the server, will Google notice this? Client wants to mask them in order to name them with keywords but not change on the actual server.

    | Atlanta-SMO
    0

  • Google likes fast and clean pages. Pages load better when they are optimized for each platform. With the new Ultra HD resolutions and ultra phones, what is the optimal number of breakpoints for web page with images on them?

    | Atlanta-SMO
    0

  • Hi Moz Community, I have a customer who has a blog that is FULL of great unique content however the blog resides at a URL that differs from the main site.  Eg.  blog.mywebsite.com  Instead of www.mywebsite.com/blog .  With the latest Google updates I fear that this may be hurting our web ranking.  In addition the web blog is a carbon copy of the main URL. My Question:  I am going to schedule a meeting with the web designers,  How vociferously should I argue for having them move the blog onsite and write 301 redirects for the current blog site?

    | CKerr
    0

  • Hello, I am thinking about using SASS for my website, striping the current CSS style sheets and translating it all to SASS.. will this hurt my SEO?

    | DanielBernhardt
    0

  • Just courious to why http://moz.com/learn/seo does not appear to have the meta tag: name="description" content=""> Is this purposely done this way for some reason? Or has it become less important? Just curious.

    | DanielMulderNL
    0

  • Greetings Moz Community: As a commercial real estate broker in Manhattan I run a web site with over 600 pages. Basically the pages are organized in the following categories: 1. Neighborhoods (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/neighborhoods/midtown-manhattan)  25 PAGES Low bounce rate 2. Types of Space (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/loft-space) 
    15 PAGES Low bounce rate. 3. Blog (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/how-long-does-leasing-process-take 
    30 PAGES Medium/high bounce rate 4. Services (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/brokerage-services/relocate-to-new-office-space)  High bounce rate
    3 PAGES 5. About Us (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/about-us/what-we-do
    4 PAGES High bounce rate 6. Listings (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings/305-fifth-avenue-office-suite-1340sf)
    300 PAGES High bounce rate (65%), thin content 7. Buildings (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/928-broadway
    300 PAGES  Very high bounce rate (exceeding 75%) Most of the listing pages do not have more than 100 words.  My SEO firm is advising me to set them "No-Index, Follow". They believe the thin content could be hurting me. Is this an acceptable strategy? I am concerned that when Google detects 300 pages set to "No-Follow" they could interpret this as the site seeking to hide something and penalize us. Also, the building pages have a low click thru rate. Would it make sense to set them to "No-Follow" as well? Basically, would it increase authority in Google's eyes if we set pages that have thin content and/or low click thru rates to "No-Follow"? Any harm in doing this for about half the pages on the site? I might add that while I don't suffer from any manual penalty volume has gone down substantially in the last month. We upgraded the site in early June and somehow 175 pages were submitted to Google  that should not have been indexed. A removal request has been made for those pages. Prior to that we were hit by Panda in April 2012 with search volume dropping from about 7,000 per month to 3,000 per month. Volume had increased back to 4,500 by April this year only to start tanking again. It was down to 3,600 in June. About 30 toxic links were removed in late April and a disavow file was submitted with Google in late April for removal of links from 80 toxic domains. Thanks in advance for your responses!! Alan

    | Kingalan1
    0

  • Hi All, I'm looking to put pen to paper and design my main structual template for my website. I will be creating the new site in Wordpress. My understanding of Wordpress is broken into the Static Pages, Posts and Portfolio. Static PAGE
    Static one off content.
    No tags, categories or archived Posts
    content entries, which is listed in reverse chronological order.
    Update post entry to maintain overall freshness of your website.
    tags, categories & archived Portfolio
    ????? Question What are the benefits of a portfolio page over Static Pages & Posts When creating feature rich articles should i use static pages, posts or portfolio. Thanks Mark

    | Mark_Ch
    0

  • Hi all, We'd all welcome opinions on our digital agency site http://www.newbrandvision.com/. We are in the planning stage of launching a new site; and we'd welcome any UX or SEO thoughts. It's a strange one but our agency has been around since 2002, and we operate in the heart of London; however we don't rank anywhere near the first page for "digital agency in London" or any long-tail /semantics around this. We feel that it's pretty clear from search and when landing on the site what we are; but would welcome any general thoughts as to why we aren't ranked that highly. Much appreciated!

    | Tangent
    0

  • Right now, I'm working on solving a relatively easy WP issue (easy, because someone told me what to do. Thanks iNetSeo). I have to replace: <span class="post_date"></span class="post_date"> and replace it with <span class="post_date date="" updated"=""></span class="post_date> But, I can't find the "_<span class="post_date">"</span class="post_date">_For a number of my WP problems, the hardest part is just located the code/function/markup I need to replace. Does anyone know where this might usually be stored on a website? Also, does anyone know if there's any tool that would allowed to just put "various function" in a search box, and wordpress take you to where it was on the backend of your site, so you could edit it? I included a screenshot of our editors, but I already opened them all, pasted the code in Ctrl-F to no avail, but maybe I missed something. Thanks for helping with my frustrating scavenger hunt! Ruben ASTPPfA

    | KempRugeLawGroup
    0

  • Hi, we have some articles like this: http://www.schicksal.com/Orakel/Freitag-13 The main image has a width of 100% and a height of 100%. Today, I've discovered that GWT Instant Preview has some troubles with rendering the page. We have CSS rules to deliver the image with the right dimensions. If a bot like google is not sending any screen height / width we assume the screen size is 2560x1440. Does this harm the ranking of the page? (Content starts below the fold/image) What is a "default" screen size for google? How do they determine if something is "above the fold"? Any tips or ideas? Best wishes, Georg.

    | GeorgFranz
    0

  • Is there any way possible to be able to name product urls in website that use ECWID for their ecommerce? They have long and "dirty" urls. For example this running boards site: http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/~/product/category=6593890&id=28043027 Isn't this hurting the overall SEO of the site?  Especially product pages?

    | Atlanta-SMO
    0

  • Hello Geniuses, Prodigies, and Experts of the Field, My website pages for www.1099pro.com have too many links on one page, something like 150-175, and I understand that each page should ideally be under 100.  Most of these links, approx 105, come from dropdown navigation options in the header toolbar or the footer links. It is my take that these links make our site easier to navigate but I'm sure that they are hurting my pagerank / SERPs.  Is there a best way to handle a situation like this?  I'd really prefer not to alter the header/footer layout of the entire site by removing 50-75 navigational links.  The only other idea I have is below but I have no idea if it would work. For any link that I do not care to pass pagerank, institute a "nofollow" parameter.  This would be my favorite option if it is viable.

    | Stew222
    0

  • I’m looking for ways of using schema.org with products that have pricing options. There appear to be two main problems 1)      Whilst colour, width, height and depth are all catered for, size appears to be missing – how can we mark up products that are available in sizes that aren’t necessarily covered by width/height/depth (e.g. shoe size). Also, what if the product is available in different finishes – technically, these could not properly be described as colours so how could we mark them up? 2)      There doesn’t seem to be any particularly good way of marking up pricing options that are displayed on the same product detail page. For e.g. if a pricing option table is used like this: | ID | Colour | Price 001-red | Red | £3.99 001-green | Green | £4.49 001-blue | Blue | £4.99 | I can mark up each row as an offer, and give each offer a price and sku or mpn, but then I can’t use itemprop=”color” to describe exactly what the option is. Would I just use itemprop=”name” in this case and abandon color altogether (even though it’s technically supposed to be describing the colour of the product and not the name of the offer)? I suppose another way I could approach it would be to mark up each row as an individual product, and assign each one an offer with the details as described above but then the containing page would effectively look like a separate product – which it isn’t. Any help or advice on this would be very much appreciated

    | paulbaguley
    0

  • What's the best way to make a site retina ready? Just code one site with retina resolution graphics or rather serve up two different sets of graphics depending on what comp is being used on the other end? Thanks in advance. I appreciate the input. Stephan

    | stephanwb
    0

  • Ex. OLD URL - http://www.mysite.com/shoes/red/description NEW URL - http://www.mysite.com/shoes/red#desc Thanks in advance!

    | esiow2013
    0

  • We are working on optimizing a client's website and asked the client's webmaster to change a handful of H1 tags. The webmaster said they could not do to the existing names being pre-set in the design. The website is built in Wordpress. The client has repeating H1 tags due to the 'design'. I have attached a snapshot of the backend. Is there a rule around Wordpress site structure where this doesn't happen? Is it worth changing? If so,what is the best solution. Thank you ahead of time. ylAMvNg.jpg

    | seoessentials
    0

  • For a new site we're building, the Products team wants the header (let's call this Product-Header) to have links to every subsection of every section on every page.  Since this is a bad idea, I want Product-Header to be coded in such a way that it doesn't appear in the code or the links are nofollow, noindex. I want to instead create static versions of these pages without the Product-Header. The homepage links to the static URL section pages, those main section pages link to static subsection pages, and so on. It's one nice silo. I am concerned though that Google won't like this due to these static pages are being created specifically for search engines.  Users could click through to this static parallel site from the homepage, or they could use the dynamic URL site. This is similar to what etsy.com is doing where you can search Google for "mermaid bridal" and get this page https://www.etsy.com/market/mermaid_bridal but the dynamic version of the page does not show up.  However you can search on etsy.com for " mermaid bridal" and get https://www.etsy.com/search?q=mermaid bridal&ship_to=US. Could these static versions that show up in search engines be seen as doorway pages? I know ebay.com got spanked for doorway pages and I don't want to do anything that would get this site penalized.

    | CFSSEO
    0

  • We launched a new Bootstrap 3.0 site template 2 weeks ago.  The site loads 5x faster and has a much improved layout (utilizing most common above the fold recommendations ).  It's only been two weeks, but our bounce rate has increased 5-10% and our avg time on site decreased by 10-18%.  Here is the page for one of our most common products so you can see the general experience: <a>http://www.jwsuretybonds.com/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.htm</a> (here is the old version: <a>http://199.119.123.134/surety-bonds/commercial-bonds/auto_dealer_bond.htm</a>) We spent two months implementing the new design and working on a speedy load time.  We had anticipated a drastic improvement, not mild downturn in user behavior. I'm hopeful that the Analytics metrics aren't showing the true picture on the keywords we care about (can't see anymore due to "Not Provided" listed as most keywords now.  Argh!) and perhaps some of the more important/accurate user behavior metrics that we can't see are improving. We know our industry and our clients needs VERY well.  We THOUGHT our new content/layout was perfect so it will be tough for us to try to make improvements at this point.  We believe our best plan of action now is to add more content on each page and A/B test it along with other subtle changes.  The problem is that our new content is very concise and hits on all of the primary visitor intentions, so additions of content could be redundant and making concise answers more "fluffy", which is what we tried to get away from. What do you think?  Is there reason for panic?  What would your plan of attack be if your "sure shot" new design didn't provide the improvements you "knew" it would?  🙂

    | TheDude
    0

  • Until recently I have enjoyed a great deal of success with SEO on my websites and clients websites. SEO is more of a hobby than a profession for me however I am really struggling with my latest website www.securityjobsuk.co.uk - The keywords are easy, 1. security jobs and 2. security vacancies. The site has vanished off radar completely since I used the jobify theme.  Has anyone had similar experience with job boards? Do they require more TLC / expert attention?

    | SJUK
    0

  • SEO Consulting for a HUGE Website. Their h1 tags have instagram/twitter, h2 have their menu/what's trending and h3 is the article title. Here's what I want to do... MY MAIN QUESTION: This site has tens of thousands of pages, all articles beyond the few dozen category/tag pages they have. If I change the structure to the following, will it be too much of a system shock to Google? Will this actually HURT them? Currently on the site: - h1 tags point to Twitter/Instagram sidebar widgets
    h2 tags point to the menu/what’s trending section (which is the same on every page)
    h3 points to the Title of the Article I want to change it to this: - h1 tags should delineate the article's name. That's all they should really be used for.
    h2-4 should be reserved for article subheadings to be used by the editorial staff. EDIT: 30% of their >11 million monthly uniques come from search. I don't want to eff with that, but the way that NONE of their pages have optimized words, they have no sitemap, webmaster tools and are still doing this well makes me think that even putting in minimal changes to tidy things up will help them bring it to 70% organic search.

    | BrianGilmore
    0

  • Greetings MOZ Community: My real estate website www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, originally designed in Drupal, was relaunched using Wordpress in 2013. The code for all URLs validates. The relaunch was performed by developers in Argentina. As part of an SEO campaign, I very reputable design/coding company in the has provided new wire frames to correct useability issues holding back conversions. In the course of the design adjustments they inspected the code and have told me that it is inefficient, that a number of shortcuts were taken and that the code does not conform to Wordpress best practices. What concerns me most is their  claim that the quality of coding makes it more difficult for Google to index the site and this may be detrimental to ranking. Is it possible for the original developers to clean up this code if the deficiencies are pointed out to them? Or once coding shortcuts are taken are they impossible to fix? Would it make sense for me to request that the new design team put together a list of HTML deficiencies and provide to the original developers and ask them to correct? I am spending tens of thousands of dollars on content optimization, content marketing. It would be absurd if these coding issues would ultimately prevent improvement in ranking and traffic. At the same time, I hate to be a cynic but the domestic design/coding firm, while being very professional, does have an incentive in getting me to ditch the original design so I commit to an costly rebranding. If these issues are really minor maybe it is not worth making the effort to clean  up the code (assuming that is even possible) and focus the budget on content marketing. Any thoughts?

    | Kingalan1
    0

  • I'm working with a site that is built completely in Drupal - including the blog. As we begin on a content strategy initiative the blog is vitally important but lacks core SEO functionality and is cumbersome for the content teams to work with as they have no technical background. While there will be more work required (moving the blog to a sub-domain or separate URL) to play nice with the broader drupal environment I believe it may be the better choice to move over to Wordpress and port over any existing content worth keeping. Has anyone encountered a similar scenario or have an opinion on either platform? Love to hear your thoughts both pros and cons. Thanks in advance.

    | JonClark15
    0

  • Hi, So I am curious if there is a tool to see if a site is coed properly for Google? I am running Avada, a standalone theme, yet I am also using a cache plugin. But when I search my code, its all like on one huge line. So I am curious if there is a way to verify or check if a theme is coded correctly? Thank you

    | Berner
    1

  • Good Morning Mozers, I am currently working with a developer on a new website and they've recently sent me some mock-ups. When I viewed the source, however, the  order of the 'META' attributes was much different than any web page I've seen before. From what it appears, the developer had placed 'mobile', 'cache expiration' and a number of other attributes much more highly than what I'm used to seeing the portion lead with, i.e. META description, META keywords, etc. With that, my question for the community is: does the order of the META 'attributes' matter when developing a new website? If you have (what appear to be) less important attributes placed closer to the beginning tag, does it make (what were previously considered the most 'relevant attributes) less important to the spiders when they come crawl the site? Finally, what are the best META attributes and best method for constructing the meta portion of the code on a web page?

    | NiallSmith
    0

  • Hey Moz'erz Working on a 1 page website (+ customer login and backend). The home page is done in an infinite-scroll type design where fixed side bar links will take you to the ID on page. There are 4 sections (4 ID links) on the page. In your experience would it still be best to recommend the best practice from the webmaster tools blog here; and have each ID appear as an index-able page? Just curious is there would be a big impact positive or negative or if the above mentioned pertains more so to longer infinite scroll pages. Comments and experiences are greatly welcomed!!

    | paul-bold
    0

  • I need some advice, please. My cousin wants to take his site; http://www.gaport.com/ and move it to this wordpress theme http://themeforest.net/item/elvyre-retina-ready-html5-template/6639095. I have two reservations about this, but before I say anything I'd like the community's feedback, please. 1. It's a brand new theme. It's not even out for two weeks. That strikes me as a giant red flag. ** Just to clarify, i's not a new theme; it's new for WP. 2. It only costs $15. I can't tell what's wrong with this theme, but "you get what you paid for" is a cliche for a reason, and that price seems way too low for something quality. Are these legitimate concerns? Do you all have any recommendations for a theme that might suit him better? I'd appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks, Ruben

    | KempRugeLawGroup
    0

  • For some reason IE 7, 8, & 9 do not display the following page: https://www.jwsuretybonds.com/protools.htm All they show is the Norton seal.  It shows properly in all other browsers without issue (including IE 10+), but the earlier versions flash the page for a split second, then hides everything. Can someone shed some light on this?  This is a new live site we just launched minutes ago and these browsers account for 12% of our overall traffic. UGH I hate you microsoft!!! Thanks all 🙂

    | TheDude
    0

  • I was wondering about moving the site and rebranding. If one was to move their site with a good Google Page Rank, how long should you take before doing the updated redesign, cms update and url restructuring? I know that Matt Cutts has said that you should move BEFORE doing your redesign but I don't remember him saying how long you should take for each step. Thanks!

    | Therealmattyd
    0

  • Hi Great community and hope you guys can help! I have just started on a SEO project for http://bit.ly/clientsite , the clients required initial KPI is Search Engine Rankings at a fairly low budget. The term I use for the site is a "blurb site", the content is thin and the initial strategy I want to employ to get the keyword rankings is to utilize content. The plan is to: add targeted, quality (user experience & useful) and SEO content on the page itself by adding a "read more" link/button to the "blurb" on the right of the page (see pink text in image) when someone clicks on the "read more", a box of content will slide out styled much the same as the blurb itself and appear next to and/or overlay over the blurb and most of the page (see pink rectangle in image) Question: Is this layer of targeted , quality (user experience & useful) and SEO content (which requires an extra click to get to it) going to get the same SEO power/value as if it were displayed traditionally on the initial display? If not, would it be better to create a second page (2<sup>nd</sup> layer) and have the read more link to that and then rel-canonical the blurb to that 2<sup>nd</sup> page, so that all the SEO passes to this expanded content and the second page/layer is what will show up in the rankings? Thanks in advance qvDgZNE

    | Torean
    0

  • Hi all, A category page on my site http://www.porcelainsuperstore.co.uk/wood-effect.html currently ranks number 3 on Google for the keyword "Wood Effect Tiles" We're currently reorganising some of our product and I would like to know if this is going to affect the SEO and ranking for the above page and keyword. The majority of products on that page are magento grouped products. I would like to change the page so that it displays only the different constituent simple products rather than the grouped products on the category page. My question is, will this have any impact on SEO? I intend on leaving all other data on the category page the same - so the metadata and the description/title etc. Any help/comments would be much appreciated! Ben

    | piazza
    0

  • all the page titles  in my site have hyphens between the words like this: http://texas.com/texas-plumbers.html I have seen tests where hyphenated domain names ranked lower than non hyphenated domain names.  Does this mean my pages are being penalized for hyphens or is this only in the domain that it is penalized? If I create new pages should I not use hyphens in the page titles when there are two or more words in the title? If I changed all my page titles to eliminate the hyphens, I would lose all my rankings correct?  My site is 12 years old and if I changed all these titles I'm guessing that each page would be thrown in the google sandbox for several months, is this true? Thanks mozzers!

    | Ron10
    0

  • Hello, We are working on a complete site redesign.  One of the mock-ups that are being reviewed is of a page that encompasses and entire category of products, but the only way the user can see the products is to fill out several drop down menus, and then a subset of products that match that criteria will appear. Once that list appears, the user will then be able to click on each of the products and will then be taken to the product page. I'm concerned that this layout will pose a crawlability issue since click activity and drop down menus have always been a problem for bots in the past, has anything changed?  Will the bot be able to follow the links to these product pages if it can't see them since it can't fill out the form? Also, depending on the functionality of this 'form', I'm assuming the product listing will be populated dynamically and pulled from another source, which means that the product links will not live in the html of the page, and hence cannot be crawled.  Does anyone know how this is normally handled?  Do the actual results usually live elsewhere or does it live in the html of that page? Any thoughts or clarity around this would be appreciated.

    | Colbys
    0

  • I managed an old (2006 design) ticket site that was hosted and run by the same company that handled our point of sale. (Think, really crappy, customer had to click through three pages to get to the tickets, etc.) In Mid February, we migrated that old site to a new, more powerful site, built by a company that handles sites exclusively for ticket brokers. (My site: TheTicketKing. - dot - com) Before migration, I set up 301's for all the pages that we had currently ranked for, and had inbound links pointing to, etc. The CMS allowed me to set every one of those landing pages up with fresh content, so I created unique content for all of them, ran them through the Moz grader before launch, etc. We launched the site in Mid February, and it seemed like Google responded well. All the pages that we had 301's set up for stayed up fairly well in rank, and some even reached higher positions, while some took a few weeks to get back up to where they were before.  Google was also giving us an average of 8-10K impressions per day, compared to 3000 per day with the old site.  I started to notice a slow drop in impressions in mid April (after two months of love from Google,) and we lost rank on all our non branded pages around 4/23. Our branded terms are still fine, we didn't get a message from Google, and I reached out to the company that manages our site, asking if they had any issues with their other clients. They suggested that I resubmit our sitemaps.  I did, and saw everything bump back up (impressions and rank) for just one week. Now we're back in the basement with all the non branded terms once again. I realize that Google could have penalized us without giving us a message, but what got me somewhat optimistic was the fact that resubmitting our sitemaps did bring us back up for around a week. One other thing that I was working on with the site just before the drop was Google's data highlighter. I submitted a set of pages that now come back with errors, after Google seemed to be fine with the data set before I submitted it.  So now I'm looking at over 300 data highlighter errors when I'm in WMT.  I deleted that set, but I still get the error listings in WMT, as if Google is still trying to understand those pages.  Would that have an effect on our rank? Finally I do see that our 404's have risen steadily since the migration, to over 1000 now, and the people who manage the CMS tell me that it would have no effect on rank overall. And we're going to continue to get 404's as the nature of a ticket site would dictate? (Not sure on that, but that's what I was told.)  Would anyone care to chime in on these thoughts, or any other clues as to my drop?

    | Ticket_King
    0

  • Hi all! I'm moving a blog from a subdomain to a folder on my root domain and want to make sure I am properly implementing 301's. Is there a code or method for making specific pages 301 to the corresponding new URL without having to manually 301 each? For example, a current blog may exist at blog.website.com/3-tips-for-selling-your-home and, since we are moving the blog, will now exist at website.com/3-tips-for-selling-your-home. We obviously want to implement 301's to ensure any link equity carries over to the new url. Anyone know how to implement these in scale to without having to set up each manually? Thanks!

    | RickyShockley
    0

  • Hello, I installed this plugin and I'm having trouble making it work. I'm new to WordPress so was hoping someone can help me out. I'm looking to set up the following pages for example
    http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services1
    http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services2 I do the following steps Add New Page Enter the following title "Services1" Enter the following text in the Permalink textbox "Services/Services1" replacing the default text "?page_id=140" Then I publish the page. This automatically updates the "Custom Fields" section below. The name is set to "custom_permalink" and the value is set to "Services/Services1". Then I "view page" but get a 404 error. The url is "http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services1" Some additional info 1. WordPress version 9.8.3 Settings - Permalinks is set to "post name" Custom Permalinks version 0.7.18 Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

    | ec1976
    0

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