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Hi tcope25,

Thanks for the clarification, that helps me to understand better the end goal. To futher clarify, you say "we want every other visitor in the world to visit our international subdomain." Do you mean "every other [English speaking] visitor in the world." ? If so, I think your proposed code is close. It is now just missing a self-referencing element, so it should be:

Just keep in mind that even if your tags are perfect, if your English US site has significantly more authority, it may show up in international search results anyway as rel="alternate" hreflang is a signal, not a directive.

Hope that helps!

Dana

Hi tcope25,

Implementing rel="alternate" hreflang is likely one of the most complex, and most commonly incorrectly implemented elements for SEO. Just the example you've provided above would take about 30 minutes to talk through, clarify business needs, and then determine a course of action.

I normally don't push off answering a question, but I would highly recommend seeking out an SEO professional to help you sort this out. Tere's just a lot wrong with the proposed code above - sorry, not trying to be insulting, but helpful.

One real standout in your proposed code above that I would not recommend is to set your "x-default" to one of your secondary international sites. The "x-default" if used, should point to your strongest, primary version of your business sites. For example, if your English site in the US is your primary, most important site, then your "x-default" should the English US site URL.

Also based on your code above, it looks like you are serving the same content, via the same URLs to US and Canada searchers. If this is true , meaning you are not localising content for Canada and it is 100% the same page (I hope you aren't showing different content to US and Canada visitors via the same URL by attempting to use geo-location to decide what they see - that's a whole separate SEO issue) - then you don't need "en-us" and "en-ca" you just need "en" - But you would need to be sure that you haven't set your International Targeting in Google Search Console to "United States" - You need to leave the country targeting there unchecked.

This are very high level observations - I would recommend engaging a reliable SEO consultant to help make sure it's all implemented correctly.

Hi QubaSEO,

This is how I would explain this to a client whose knowledge of SEO is limited:

"The way your site is currently set up, all content located on pages that are not 'Page 1' in a series of pages, is not being crawled or indexed by search engines. It is being given zero value. As a result, you are missing out on gaining relevant traffic from searchers looking for the content that you have on pages other than page 1."

If they have spent money and time creating that content on pages 2, 3 etc), or if they are an eCommerce site and they care about selling all of their products (not just products displayed on page 1), then they are significantly inhibiting their return on that investment.

You probably already have this https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en

We are currently implementing the SEO module for Endeca faceted navigation. Our development team has proposed URLs to be structured in this way:

Main category example: https://www.pens.com/c/pens-and-writing/

As soon as a facet is selected, for example "blue ink" - The URL path would change to https://www.pens.com/m/pens-and-writing/blue-ink/_/Nvalue (the "N" value is a unique identifier generated by Endeca that determines what products from the catalog are served as a match for the selected facet and is the same every time that facet is selected, it is not unique per user).

My gut instinct says that this change from "/c/" to "/m/" might be very problematic in terms of search engines understanding that /m/pens-and-writing/blue-ink/ as part of the /c/pens-and-writing/ category.

Wouldn't this also potentially pose a problem for the flow of internal link equity?

Has anyone ever seen a successful implementation using this methodology?

Hi all,

We have an opening for a Senior SEO Associate. Would love to hire someone in the Moz Community. Here are the details: Sr SEO Associate https://g.co/kgs/Ucwzp7

Cheers,

Dana

Martijn is correct. The answer is Yes.

Can you provide a little more information? Where s the Q&A section at the bottom of your product pages redirecting to? Is there any way to update the source of the redirect to be the redirect [end] URL? If so, no redirects would be needed at all. If that's not an option, why not just change all the 302's to 301's? If you really don't want that content crawled or indexed, then yes, you could block via robots.txt or a no index tag, but you may need to use the remove URL feature in Google Search Console to get any URLS that have already been indexed out of Google. If you can provide more details maybe I could answer more completely.

Hi Steve,

This appears to be schema used to help search engines understand the nature of content in objects containing "stuff" that search engines have trouble completely understanding. For example, I found keywords as possible markup element for a Video: http://schema.org/VideoObject

I don't think this plays into rankings at all. Google is so over that kind of easy manipulation. However, I DO think that when these are marked up in conjunction with ALT attributes for images, or transcriptions for videos, they can help Google understand the semantic relevance of that content. For example (and I am totally making this up), imagine a video of a veterinarian administering vaccines to an animal. During the video the vet keeps referring to the animal as "the patient." So from the transcript, a search engine (or someone who's visually impaired) wouldn't know that this video is about medicine for animals instead of humans. Using the schema.org markup for keywords would allow terms like "animal vaccine best practices" to be included to help search engines understand better what the content is really about.

That's my 2 cents. Hope it helps!

Dana

I agree with Christian. In the example you give above, the article is in Hindi. That being the case, a translated URL using Hindi would be the one I would choose.

Hi Steve,

This is a great question. I think it depends entirely on how much search volume there is surrounding the other variants for "refurbished" parts. If there's a reasonable amount, I'd recommend giving them their own URLs. I know this is harder because if they are substantively similar, producing unique content could be more difficult. I believe you can use schema.org markup to indicate "condition" [http://schema.org/OfferItemCondition] - This would help search engines understand that these items are unique from each other in important ways.

As long as it was clear to both humans and search engines that these power tools are uniquely different from each other in some way, I'd opt for the separate URLs and optimize them for long-tail terms.

If the only difference were color, say a power tool came in red or black, then maybe I would consider making these attributes that didn't necessarily influence the URL. Again there would be the caveat of search volume. If there was significant search volume for different colors, than having separate URLs and schema markup for each would be the way to go.

This is a similar type of question eCommerce site merchandisers (and SEOs!) ask themselves when strategizing how to handle faceted navigation. What combinations of facets warrant their own URLs and which ones do not? I would let search demand guide your answer.

As a SEO who also manages Adwords campaigns in-house, I totally disagree with the idea that Adwords campaigns are "very easy to set up and administer yourself." Sure, anybody with a Google log-in and a credit card can set up an Adwords campaign...and go broke really quickly. It takes months if not years of research to successfully administer Adwords campaigns. I'd hate for any newbie to read this post and think "Right, then I'll just go set up some Adwords campaigns and be done with it."

As someone who does both paid and organic search optimization I also completely disagree with the argument that there is no value in pure organic traffic. Really? Do you want your business to be relying for the majority of its business traffic and revenue by renting traffic from Google? What happens when that goes South?

75% of our online revenue comes from organic/direct traffic and sources outside of Google. We do have Adwords campaigns...very tightly targeted, highly optimized and purposeful Adwords campaigns....not campaigns that are just pissing in the wind hoping to grab traffic.

I understand the provocative intention of the question, but I don't think it acknowledges the true depth of what it is to create and successfully promote a business online. I do agree with your hat tip to Wordstream though, love them!

Dana

Hi Ilka,

Unfortunately, it's probably now more important that you initially realized. This past week, Google announced that mobile usability will be a ranking factor in their algorithm beginning April 12th of this year. On the up side, there may be ways to maintain the design elements of your site that you like while maintaining mobile usability, you just might need a little help.  Remember, no matter how much in love you are with your design, if it's not serving your end users, and the devices that they are accessing your site from....the design is not serving your business goals.

Think of it more like this: Google is saying you have to change your site. Google is trying to tell you that your visitors want you to change your site...that's a whole different thing.

Here's a link to the Google announcement: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html

That's probably not exactly what you wanted to hear, but it is important to know where things are headed. If 25% of your site traffic is currently coming from mobile it might be safe to say that will double to 50% over the next year.

Cheers,

Dana

Hi Tian,

I have tthree suggestions, one of which may get me impaled here, but I'm going to say it anyway. The first thing I would do is search in Google for blogs related to your product line. I imagine there could be a pretty broad spectrum ranging from daycare centers, parenting coops, parenting bloggers, anyone who is writing about kids, playground safety, etc. Make a list and then visit these blogs looking for posts that might make good places for you to post relevant, well-thought-out comments. Don't worry whether or not some are no follow, just get in a groove of writing 2-3 comments a day.

The second is to do a bonafide, real press release for your new business, announcing the launch or opening of your English Web site. I know people poo poo press releases. But IMHO, I believe a press release that is real news (which I believe yours would be), is still valid and valuable. Press releases that just regurgitate ad copy or announce every time a CEO sneezes are not news worthy, and it's those kinds of press releases that have given PRs a bad name. If you can find a Press Release service that is more focused on your niche, then that's even better. Our niche is with Christian church products so we opted for a press release with Christian News Wire and it was very effective.

Third, okay people, try not to throw things...I still believe that presence in some directories can be a very good and valuable thing, especially for a brand new site. We too recently launched a niche site. We launched in January 2012. The first thing I did was #1 and #2 above, and I made a list and budget for which directories we were going to submit to, starting with Yahoo.dir  I'm not advocating going crazy and submitting to 100's of directories, just be selective. For example, there were some smaller directories focused around our niche [religious products]. They weren't big directories, but they were very relevant, USA-based and their editors responded to direct emails. Business.com, Joeant.com, Exactseek.com and several other directories are excellent and worth the expense. Here's SEOMoz's list of directories: http://www.seomoz.org/directories  Just be careful to research the directory before submitting for some key things:

1. Age - How long has the directory existed?
2. Country - Where is the domain registered?
3. MozRank and PageRank
4. How many inbound links does the directory have, where are they from (.edu, .goc?)
5. Browse through the directory - If you see a lot of garbage & or links, move on

Using these three strategies, we are in the top 5 of page one in all three SERPs for every single one of our targeted keywords. Of course, being in a niche where not very many competitors are doing a good job helps too! Good luck. I hope this is helpful.

Dana

Hi sirana, Keyword Difficulty is a calculation done by the SEOMoz research tool that takes into account a number of things including: competition (how many pages are currently ranking for that particular term), how many people are bidding on the term in paid search, how expensive are the clicks and how many people are actually searching for the term online.

I'm not quite sure mathematically how SEOMoz puts all these things together, but it calculates a percentage score that gives you an indication of how hard it's going to be to rank highly for any given term. Obviously, the ideal scenario would be to find keywords with a lot of searches, but low competition. In that case, it would be much easier to compete and rise to the top. The worst scenario is if you have keywords with very few searches being done for those terms, but with a lot of competition.

In SEOMoz, the higher the percentage for Keyword Difficulty, the harder it could be to rank well for that term. The lower the percentage, the easier it might be to rank for that term. That being said, depending on the quality of your site and your content, it could be that you rank really well for a highly competitive, difficult keyword, but maybe not so well for a keyword that SEOMoz identified as easier.

I hope this helps!

Dana

Hi Punit. If you get anyone answering answering your question with a concrete number, be suspicious.  There are just too many variable factors in ranking to give you any kind of concrete number answer to your question. For example. say you are a newer site competing against an older site and you gain a great PR5 inbound link...Well, say your competitor gains a PR7 inbound link the same day. Guess what? You are still behind. You see, it's not just about what your are doing. iI's about what your competitors are doing at the same time.

Ok. So that might leave you feeling a bit hopeless. Don't despair!

What makes you different from your competitors? Who could you pursue to ear na link from that your competitors most likely couldnt' get? Bammo. That's who you need to pursue.

And, IMHO, forget the PageRank. Go after well-written, relevant sites, regardless of PR. Why? Because that's where your people (you know, the people who are most likely to love your site and its products), that's where they are most likely hanging out. Create relationships with THEM and then you got something.

I hope this is helpful!

Dana

Whimsical Answer: If Search Engine's penalized for this then Christina Aguilera's videos from the first two seasons of The Voice would be de-indexed for the phrase "I mean...you know" [To her credit she must have spent some time watching those playbacks because she's much better this season]

Plain old ordinary answer: To my knowledge, search engines (Google included) do not impose a "keyword stuffing penalty" per se. However, it's entirely possible that the content could be devalued based on quality. Any one of a number of things can indicate to a search engine that visitors found the content uninteresting or useless or even redundant. If social signals are poor, bounce rate is high, time spent on the page is poor, and the depth to which visitors went (i.e. how far down the page did they scroll) is poor, the SERPs are most likely going to reflect that. If the content isn't substantially unique, doesn't add anything new or interesting to already existing content on the WEB and it's uber spammy, Google may just decide not to index it at all. I suppose you could call that a penalty, however, I highly doubt that it would be removed from the index if it received any social signals indicating that someone found it to be of value....even if it just irritated the heck out of them.

My educated guess is that the worse that would happen is that it might not rank very well for the overly repeated term.

Hope that's helfpul!

I agree with Peter. This is an interesting question and one that many brands face. It reminds me a little of a similar question that was asked recently here in Q&A regarding ampersands in brand names.

Here's my advice. Part of writing your business plan should include determining certain "branding" rules and guidelines. These should include official logos, colors, fonts, style sheets, etc. Make all of that play into your branding. Then, stick to it like glue unless there's some earth-shattering, mind-warping reason to rock boat and change it.

Like Peter, our brand name is two words "CCI Solutions." Our brand name is further complicated by the fact that there are probably a dozen or so other "CCI Solutions" in the world, spanning industries from HR, to healthcare to online learning. We've suffered difficulty giving our brand an "identity" because of our own inconsistencies and ambivalence towards what we call ourselves and how we present ourselves. If your presentation is inconsistent, your potential loyal fans are going to be confused and confusion is something you never want when carving out a place for yourself.

Choose one or the other using careful consideration and common sense, and then relentlessly stick to it and drive it home.

I agree completely with Marie. However, I do think that Google Adwords ads can have a positive impact on how much revenue your good organic rankings produce. In terms of dominating Page 1 results, if you have good organic ranking (say, in the top 5) and you also have excellent paid placement (in the top 3 od paid ads), and you are ranking for images, and you are ranking for videos, and you are ranking in Google shopping....all of this is going to have a collective effect.

If you have that kind of presence, you are bound to gain aggregate value for your organic listings because, if you are marketing well, your traffic will go up, click-through rate will go up and your conversion rate will go up. I firmly believe that if you are improving those things, your rankings will improve also.

That being said, PPC, if it's really well done, can augment your results and could possibly have a residual effect that does benefit your SEO

One other consideration is that any advertising you do, whether it's PPC or print or radio or TV ads, it augments Direct traffic. Direct traffic, in my mind is the golden ticket. Anyone directly typing your URL into their search bar is already your friend. If you can increase your direct traffic pool via PPC, then it's worth every penny.

Hope this is helpful!

Dana

P.S. My statements are based on years of observation. When we've advertised on Google Adwords our visits from organic and direct traffic increased. When we didn't, it decreased....Keep in mind, this was for keywords for which we ranked on the same page for organic and paid results.  Sounds like fuel for a future blog post for me!

Robert, I have thought the same thing many, many times. I mean, how can you thumbs down a post by Phil Nottingham on Video SEO...really? Or better, yet, an announcement of a feature improvement, new tool, or conference discount? Crazy people!

P.S. I was tempted to thumbs down this question just to mess with you, lol. Undoubtedly some negative Nelly out there will do it anyway...but it ain't gonna be me!

I have seen this scenario. In fact, on some level, it's playing out for me very personally. That being said, I haven't ever had white hat SEO produce zero results. It has always produced some positive results. Sometimes the results are awesome. Sometimes they are "ok." I have been (and currently am) in a situation where, at least for right now, it appears that a competitor using black hat SEO (I know because I used to work for them), is out-ranking us (we are using strictly white hat) for several key terms.

Frustrating? Yes, of course...and hard to explain to a CEO.

What I will say is this, focus on how the business is doing instead of obsessing over keyword rankings. Why? Because of this: Just because your competitor is outranking you using black hat techniques does not mean their business as a whole is succeeding.

You see, what I also know about this competitor is that they are maybe one bad sales month away from going belly up. All those black hat techniques aren't going to do diddly if they go under....and us? We'll still be here. We'll still be here because we focus on sound, solid business strategies.

The other thing you need to consider is how you are defining "results." For us, results are a combination of higher traffic, better conversation rates, higher AOV, and ultimately higher profit. Do you know that your compay "A" that's using black hat is actually beating you out on the bottom line of revenue? Unless you know for sure, don't assume that they are.

If I were company B, I'd put my blinders on, continue with white hat and make darn sure my business model and marketing plans were rock solid. These are the things that make it possible for businesses to survive long-term. Company A is going to have a lot of cleaning up and 'splaynin to do when they get de-indexed out of Google. If they've hung their hat on that, they won't be around long and Company B will still be standing.

That's my two cents!

Dana