Google is alternating what link it likes to rank on wordpress site and
-
Hi there,
I'm experiencing a problem where google is pick and choosing different links structures to rank my Wordpress site for my main keywords. The site had pretty good #1 rankings for a long time but recently I noticed Google is choosing to rank the page in one of two ways. Let me just say that the original way where it held good rankings looked like this for example: flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/ this is just an example it' is not my site.
And when google decides to switch it up it uses this link structure:flowers.com > weddings (this still points to this link flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets when I hover my mouse over it) however this link structure that never appeared before and now does, usually has much lower rankings. Please note it's not both link structures being ranked at the same time for the keywords. It's one or the other that google is currently alternating in ranking and I believe it's hurting the sites position.
I'm not sure if this is a wordpress settings thats gone wrong or what the problem is but I do know when shows the expanded and descriptive link structure flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets the rankings are higher and in 2nd place. I'm hoping by rectifying this I can regain back my position.I'm very grateful for any insight you could offer on why this is happening and how I could fix it. Thank you.
PS Wordpress site has several SEO plugins
-
Hi Christy, it's not resolved yet, I'm still seeking help. My rankings are going lower because of this daily and I don't know what to do.
-
Hi Tom,
I just noticed your reply here, somehow I didn't get the email update. That would be great if you can find something. I checked my PM box and it's empty as of now.
Thanks
-
Hi Danny,
Thanks for your reply. I checked the SEO plugins Yoast and Seopressor both which are active and they are not set to have anything to do with sitemaps as far as I can tell.
Sitemaps
Google XML sitemaps plugin is handling the sitemaps. I do have two sitemaps submitted for the site however, one in the form sitemap.xml and the other sitemap.xml.gz both of which are identical just in different format. Could the two sitemaps be the cause of this problem? The other competitors are not having this issue, only my site is being affected.
Whenever google shows my site with the shortened form the site shows with substantial loss in rankings, however when it's in the normal descriptive longer form (not that long at all and doesn't require breadcrumbs or anything like that) it ranks well, which is great but it doesn't last long.
Permalinks
The permalinks are set to the correct setting as suchhttp://example.com/sample-post/
CachingCan you elaborate on this and what I should look for?
URL Length
The length is not long and my competitors have the same length or longer without the problem I'm having. This is an example length and it's no longer than this. http://example123.com/test-that-this-the-the-example/
Appreciate your insights and feedback. please let me know
-
Hey Z,
i got your PM just wanted to update you I will run an audit on that for you tonight. Sorry for the delay I've been out of town seeing my family was on a vacation. Please look for my response in the private message tonight around 8 PM Eastern in addition I will update the board here and tell you that there is a letter for you and your private mailbox.
All the best,
tom
-
Hi there, thanks for your question! Were you able to sort this issue out? We'd love an update, thanks!
Christy
-
Hey Z, it looks like SEO plugs ins are conflicting each other, creating several sitemaps for Google and Google doesn't know which links has higher authority, main one or redirect, it could be permalinks as well or cashing.
If url is the same, then most likely is too long and Google is trying to shorter it down with some type of their beta testing.They usually do run tests all the time.
I don't advice several SEO plugins, if not being used.
-
Hi Tom, I sent you a PM with the url and info, please let me know what you think.
-
Oh I see, sorry about the confusion, I made the URL up and I guess it happens to work at the same time. I will PM you now.
-
try http://flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets
I thought you gave a real domain please use example.com so I will know.
without the domain I think it is wordpres adding the / can you PM me the domain?
Thanks,
Tom
-
Hi Tom, thank you for your reply, however please note as I stated the flowers.com reference was just an example, it's not my site. I think that would probably change your advice?
-
Hi
So you know wordpress adds the forward "/" to urls that are categories for have been set up using regex /?$
Or you have it set up the right way
Source: ^/flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/?$
1. Redirect A Page
To redirect one page to another page, just fill in the fields like so:
Name: Redirect my contact page Domain: www.flowers.com Source: ^/flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/?$ Destination: /new-path/contact-us/ with or with out "/" Redirect type: 301 Permanent
NOTE
-
This Redirect Rule will match a URL of http://www.domain.com/old-path/contact-us -or-http://www.domain.com/old-path/contact-us/
-
The variation is because of the Regex Syntax “/?$”
-
The Question Mark “?” makes the Trailing slash Optional
-
It will also only match the Source if it Starts with a “/” (note the carrot “^” ), or ends with either “s” or “/” (note the ending “$” )
-
See
-
check your canonical's
-
use Yoast SEO it will add canonical's for you then the you will not have the tracking added like I see on all pages ?cm_sp=flowers--globalnav--birthday-topcat-D10147
-
| rel="canonical" href="http://www.flowers.com/birthdayflowers" /> |
| | -
Correct this code https://github.com/bunchoup/alert_site/blob/master/tmp/menu_FD4.xml
-
Use Deepcrawl or Screaming Frog to find & fix
I hope this helps,
Tom
-
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My site is not ranking at all.
Can anybody check it what is the main culprit behind my website's growth?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anshu14320 -
Can I rank without links
Let's say I have great content. I have a great website design (easy to navigate for user) that answers their questions but I have no links. Can I still rank on on a keyword that has a difficulty score of 24. I imagine that I can that google can't penalise me for not having links. Does it mean that without links it will take longer to rank than with links but that google with rank me at some point ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Indexed Pages Different when I perform a "site:Google.com" site search - why?
My client has an ecommerce website with approx. 300,000 URLs (a lot of these are parameters blocked by the spiders thru meta robots tag). There are 9,000 "true" URLs being submitted to Google Search Console, Google says they are indexing 8,000 of them. Here's the weird part - When I do a "site:website" function search in Google, it says Google is indexing 2.2 million pages on the URL, but I am unable to view past page 14 of the SERPs. It just stops showing results and I don't even get a "the next results are duplicate results" message." What is happening? Why does Google say they are indexing 2.2 million URLs, but then won't show me more than 140 pages they are indexing? Thank you so much for your help, I tried looking for the answer and I know this is the best place to ask!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | accpar0 -
Joomla to Wordpress site migration - thousands of 404s
I recently migrated a site from Joomla to Wordpress. In advance I exported the HTML pages from Joomla using Screaming Frog and did 301 redirects on all those pages. However Webmaster Tools is now telling me (a week after putting the redirects in place) that there are >7k 404s. Many of them aren't HTML pages, just index.php files but I didn't think I would have to export these in my Screaming Frog crawl. We have since done a blanket 301 redirect for anything with index.php in it but Webmaster Tools is still picking them up as 404s. So my question is, what should I have done with Screaming Frog re exporting to ensure I captured all pages to redirect and what should I now do to fix the 404s that Webmaster Tools is picking up?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bua0 -
My site still out of rank
Hello, I am working on a site for past 3 months, here are the problems with this site, 1. It had a forum full of spam becuase initially captcha was not included, 10000 spam backlinks 2. Affiliate page was also hit by spam about 4000 spam backlinks which were either not existing or porn etc.... 3. Too many internal links which were indexed, these additional links were generated due to tags, ids, filters etc. Existing SEO team decided to remove the forum and after 30 days they blocked it in robots. But within 30 days the site moved from 3rd page to no where. Now after few days lator internal links are also cleaned by putting following in the robots, Dissallow: / *? Dissallow: / *id Dissallow: / *tag Links are now cleaning up, all the spam and bad links are now put into disavow file and sent to google via disavow tool. On daily bases good quality links are been produced such as through content, article submission, profile linking, Bookmarks etc. The site is still not any where on top 50 results. The impressions are decreasing, traffic also do not rise as much. How do you see all this situation. What do you suggest and how long do you think it will take to return to top 10 when good linking is being done and all preventive measures are being taken. I would appreciate any feedback on it. Thank you. Site URL: http://www.creativethemes.net keywords: magento themes, magento templates
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MozAddict0 -
Why am I not ranking in Google, but I am in Yahoo and Bing?
The website in question is: www.stbarthexclusives.com Our keywords are currently ranking for both Bing and Yahoo, but we're not appearing anywhere on Google. The website is being crawled successfully, but we still don't have any results. I hoping somebody can point me in the general right direction to fix/correct this problem. Additionally, there's a decent amount of "rel=canonical tags" on the website. If that helps your evaluation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Endora0 -
How to promote some links on google
Hi our site is http://www.mycarhelpline.com If people search on our site in Google by typing - Mycarhelpline they see links - why mycarhelpline, contact us and about us how can we put some other key pages by replacing above pages
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
Sitewide Vs HomePage Links For Network of Sites
I wanted to site wide link a few sites together as they are sort of in the same network of ownership and wanted some advice. 1X PR1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | upick-162391
2X PR2
2x PR3 Would it be best to just get home page links before the footer, the links will be within a paragraph of text OR Just site wide link them in the footer with a heading of "Our Shopping Network"0