Repairing SEO issues on Different Platforms
-
I work for a car dealership in Southern California and have been tasked with a seemingly impossible task. They would like for me to remove Title Tags, Duplicate Content, Descriptions, and get all other SEO issues in order.
The concerns I have rank in this order:
1. Remove Duplicate Metadata: When the platform spits out new pages they use template Title/Description/Keywords and we are not always informed of their addition. There are also somewhere near 1K vehicles in the inventory that are being accused of duplicate content/Metadata.
The fix that I have been spit balling is adding canonical - No Follow to these pages. I am not sure that this is the best way forward, but would appreciate the feedback
2. Duplicate Content: Most of the information is supplied from the manufacturer so we have been sourcing the information back to the manufacturers site. They are showing up on random "SEO Tools" pulls as harmful to the site. Although we use the Dealers name and local area, the only way I can assume to get the heat off and possibly fix any negative ramifications is to once again use a Canonical Tag - No Follow to these pages.
3. Clean up Issues: Most of the other issues I am finding is when the website platform dumps new pages to the site without notice and creates more then 1k pages that are coming with duplicate everything.
Please provide with any assistance you can.
-
Hi BBsmyth! Are you able to provide any examples for Kate?
-
Cody has some good resources. I'll follow that up with asking for specific instances of pages that are autocreated. It sounds like the way they are made doesn't add anything to the site, so rather than using a canonical, I'd go the noindex route first, but I'd need to see these pages to be sure.
I don't think they mean removing the duplicates, but make them unique instead. What CMS are you on? Who makes these pages? And again (sorry), can we have some examples?
-
Thanks Cody. It was actually supposed to say Duplicate Title Tags and other Duplicate metadata. They grab hold of 1 part of the process and drive it home as the issue. So that is why we would be removing that information.
-
Hello! Sounds like you've got a pretty big project ahead of you. First question, why do they want you to remove title tags, descriptions, etc? I wouldn't remove them, I would do some keyword research and target local keywords specific to your geographic area. For example, 2016 Honda Civic Orange County.
What pages are showing up as duplicate? Are they specific vehicle pages? How are they duplicate? There are better options than rel canonical in many cases. Read this article and it should provide some insight. https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/complete-guide-to-rel-canonical-how-to-and-why-not
Sometimes there is no way to avoid duplicate content, especially on a dealership site. Check out DriveTime's website, they do a good job on their SEO. If you filter for a specific make and model and look at the vehicle descriptions, you will find duplicate content. Compare two cars with the same make and model, but that are different colors and you will see what I mean. This type of duplicate content usually won't hurt your SEO, especially on a dealership site where your pages are constantly changing as you receive and sell vehicles.
You can always tell Google not to index specific portions of your page if you have duplicate content that provide no SEO benefit like disclaimers, warnings, etc. https://perishablepress.com/tell-google-to-not-index-certain-parts-of-your-page/
Also, check out this video by Google Webmasters. The speaker makes it pretty clear that you won't be penalized for duplicate content unless it is spammy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxWo4ttPgAc
If you can be a bit more specific with the duplicate content issues, I'll see what I can do to help.
Good luck!
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
-
Even after doing every possible thing required for SEO my client's website is not coming on top.can you tell me where i am lacking?
_ Hi team_ I have been working on a website called signboards.co.in since 4 months.it was not in top 100 but now below 50 for 2-3 keywords.even after submitting in many directories after competitor analysis moz shows only one external link in its link metrics.apart from this every possible thing required for SEO is done in a proper way,but still it is not giving results.can you help me out?all my other clients work is going good except this one.can you please let me know what is going wrong with my project?As the project submission date is near i need your help as soon as possible. Thanks Najia jehan
Local Website Optimization | | Najia-ali0 -
Multiple My Business pages affecting local SEO?
Hey Moz! We have a situation with a dentist firm with multiple doctors at the same address. They have two locations for their dental offices, and each of the dentists operate at both offices. The issue: Each doctor insists on having their own by business page for each location and i'm afraid this is hurting their local SEO. We've been tracking keywords by week and we've seen some big fluctuations in ratings and i'm looking into why this is happening. The office in location 1 has it's own Google My Business page and the three dentists have their own my business page set up at the exact same address. The office in location 2 has it's own Google My Business page as well and the three dentists have their own my business page there also. This leads the two addresses of the main offices having multiple My Business pages at the same address competing against eachother since they are all are registered with similar names and specialties. Could this be hurting our local SEO? Thanks! -Z
Local Website Optimization | | zacgarrison_700 -
Can PPC harm SEO results, even if it's off-domain?
Here's the scenario. We're doing SEO for a national franchise business. We have over 60 location pages on the same domain, that we control. Another agency is doing PPC for the same business, except they're leading people to un-indexable landing pages off domain. Apparently they're also using location extensions for the businesses that have been set up improperly, at least according to the Account Strategists at Google that we work with. We're having a real issue with these businesses ranking in the multi-point markets (where they have multiple locations in a city). See, the client wants all their location landing pages to rank organically for geolocated service queries in those cities (we'll say the query is "fridge repair"). We're trying to tell them that the PPC is having a negative effect on our SEO efforts, even though there shouldn't be any correlation between the two. I still think the PPC should be focused on their on-domain location landing pages (and so does our Google rep), because it shows consistency of brand, etc. I'm getting a lot of pushback from the client and the other agency, of course. They say it shouldn't matter. Has anyone here run into this? Any ammo to offer up to convince the client that having us work at "cross-purposes" is a bad idea? Thanks so much for any advice!
Local Website Optimization | | Treefrog_SEO0 -
Recommended blogs and sites about local seo
HI.
Local Website Optimization | | corn2015
Can you please tell me some great blogs/sites to read daily about local seo? I'm really wanting to beef up my knowledge in this area to assist local businesses. Corn1 -
Local SEO for National Brands
Hi all, When it comes to local SEO in 2015, I appreciate that having a physical location in the town/city you wish to rank is a major factor. However, if you're a national brand is it still possible to rank for local searches when you're based in one location? The reason I ask is that, although our service is national, the nature of what we offer means that it is not inconceivable that people would search for a local variation of our top keywords. Other than the standard things - location in the content, the H1/H2s, title tag, meta description, url etc. - is there anything national businesses can do to help? Thanks in advance. John
Local Website Optimization | | NAHL-14300 -
Server response time: restructure the site or create the new one? SEO opinions needed.
Hi everyone, The internal structure of our existing site increase server response time (6 sec) which is way below Google 0.2sec standards and also make prospects leave the site before it's loaded. Now we have two options (same price): restructure the site's modules, panels etc create new site (recommended by developers)
Local Website Optimization | | Ryan_V
Both options will extend the same design and functionality. I just wanted to know which option SEO community will recommend?0 -
Different page for each service at each location? Where does it end!
If we have 15 different locations and 10 different services, do we need to make keyword targeted landing pages for each combination? Is that actually the best method or is there some alternative? For example, if we are a law office specializing in slip and falls and car accidents, do we need a page for EACH location for each service (ie. Miami Car Accident Lawyer, Miami Slip and Fall Lawyer, Orlando Slip and Fall Lawyer, Orlando Car Accident Lawyer) etc. to maximize our ranking potential in each location? Is there a better way or are we left with this until Google gets "smarter"?
Local Website Optimization | | RickyShockley0 -
Local Area SEO - Directions Page and Multiple Use of Direction pages
Hello, We are looking to focus on multiple local areas and it has been suggested one way to mention lots of different locations on pages without doing lists or using grey SEO practices is to create directions pages. We are trying this with a client who has 2 business at the same address. The layout is:- Introduction - 2-3 sentences Directions by Car Park Parking info Directions by Public Transports Closing - 3-4 sentences - using clients keywords The hope is the having locations/areas and the clients keywords on the same page will capture some of the local areas with the clients keywords. I have some questions:- 1. If we use the same directions text and just change the opening and closing paragraphs on the different website will this be enough to not have a duplicate content issue. 2. Are the directions pages the best way to capture keywords and local area/locations on the same page. 3. Is there anything I am missing or could do instead? Looking forward to everyone's input....
Local Website Optimization | | JohnW-UK0