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The source code is fine. Exactly how I set it up in the Yoast SEO plugin.

My thought was that there is some other thing in the theme code (for categories) that makes Google skipping the title from the source code.

Otherwise how can Google accept 100% of pages and post titles/description, while ignoring them for all the categories?

I honestly don't know where the problem is. Even worse, I don't know how to go about this issue

Thank you for your reply. Generally I would agree with your statement. This is also d'accord with the explanation of Yoast.

But is it really likely, that Google accepts the title and description for all my pages and blog posts.? And not accepts from all category pages?

I see a pattern here and I don't believe this is the root of the issue.

So far I could only imagine, that it's an issue of the theme and source code problem.

I'm using a WordPress site with the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.

Why Google won’t display the right page title for my CATEGORY pages?

This is s example category page I'm having a problem with: http://bit.ly/1DReQPP 
In the source code of this category page you can see the title is:
<title>Yoga Übungen - Mit visuellen Guides, Videos & viel Inspiration</title>

Now when I check the title in the SERPS it only gives me the the category name 'Yoga Übungen'. See screenshot here: http://awesomescreenshot.com/05942buz60 
This happens with ALL the category pages on my site. Google uses the category name instead of the title provided in the source code.

I found an article from Yoast dealing with this issue: https://yoast.com/google-page-title/ It's correct, that Google sometimes chooses a different page title, but this article doesn't address the exclusive category problem.

For 'normal' pages or posts, Google always shows the title which I've setup in Yoast (and which is in the source code). I don't understand what goes wrong for category pages? Do any of you have a similar problem or experience with that?

Thank you for the time you've invested in this answer. This gives me a good sense on what to do.

I like option 2 the best. But not sure whether I got it right. What do you think of the following scenario (taking the Apple example you provided):

1. I have a category page with notebooks. The title, description and text on this category is focusing on notebooks in general. The products include Dell, HP and Apple.
   => This is basically the setup, which I have in my shop right now.
2. Now I want to create a brand page for Apple. There the title, description and text is focused on Apple in general. The products include Apple Notebooks, iPhones, iPads ect.

Now here's the point: Title, description and text for the notebook category and Apple brand page will be different (unique content). But products are part of content too, aren't they? And since there will be a overlap in products, this would result in duplicate content for featured products.

But I want both pages to rank. One for 'notebook' and the other one for 'apple'.

Is that possible, or are partially overlapping products in those 2 categories a dealbreaker for my SEO?

Hi,

I have a online shop with categories such as:

• Trousers
• Shirts
• Shoes
• etc.

But now I'm having a problem with further development.
I'd like to introduce brand pages. In this case I would create new categories for Brand 1, Brand 2, etc... The text on categories and brand pages would be unique. But there will be an overlap in products.

How do I deal with this from a duplicate content perspective?

I'm appreciate your suggestions.

Best, Robin

No, it was a thought on a fictional experiment.

If you create 2 online shops with the same content, the results would be the same (forget about duplicate content for that thought experiment).

Now will the results still be the same if you have 2 different systems, e.g. Magento and WordPress? Given that URL structure, social shares and other ranking signals are equal.

Thank you for your feedback. He didn't give any specifics, just said that Google puts WordPress sites in the 'blog' category.

Although, I don't know if Google is differentiating between blogs and ecommerce sites in terms of ranking.

The question is: If you have the same content on all pages and one system WooCommerce (WordPress) and one Magento, would that make a difference? My guess is not, but I am not an expert Thanks again for you answer.

Hi,

My online Shop is based on WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin. Now, I have met a SEO guy who told me that's bad in the eyes of Google:

Because Google apparently sees my website as a blog and not as a E-Commerce site.

Wow, this statement really confused my, since I am working so hard on content and good rankings. Any opinions on this would be appreciated.

Best, Robin

Hi,

Google Webmaster Tools tells me, that every blog category and blog post is missing:

• 'updated'
• 'author'

I find this data under 'Structured Data' => The datatype is 'hentry'. Markup is microformats.org.

Is this a problem for SEO? How can I fix this?

Best, Robin

Hi,

sometimes, I just delete a page and not necessarily want to make a 404 to another page.

So Google Webmaster Tools shows me 108 'not found' pages under 'Crawling Errors'.

Is that a problem for my site?
Can I ignore this with good conscience?
Shall I make 404 to my homepage?

I am confused and would like to hear your opinion on this.

Best, Robin

Thanks for your reply.

I don't have too many products. So clear description and encouraging the ready to buy is the highest priority.

I was wondering if there is a best practice for SEO regarding product descriptions, apart from being unique and convincing. E.g. "a product description should be at least 250 words, to perform well in search results" or so... A minimum amount of words would be very helpful for me to start writing

Hi,

I've read articles on the MOZ blog, which stress the point for unique product descriptions. I think this was even mentioned in one White Board Friday.

Now I am in the process of writing them. How many words should they have at least in your opinion?

Best, Robin

Hi,

I am not sure wether I shall rank with a category page, or create a new post. Let me explain...

If I google for 'Basic SEO' I see an article from Rand with Authorship markup. That's cool so I can go straight to this result because I know there might be some good insight. BUT: 'Basic SEO' is also an category at MOZ an it is not ranking.

On the other hand, if I google for 'advanced SEO' then the MOZ category for 'advanced SEO' is ranking. But there is no authorship image, so users are much less likely to click on that result.

Now, I want to rank for a very important keyword for me (content keyword, not transactional). Therefor, I have a category called 'yoga exercises'. But shall I rather create an post about them only to increase CTR due to Google Authorship?

I read in Google guidelines that Authorship on homepage an category pages are not appreciated.

Hope you have some insights that can help me out.

Hm, I admit it's not so easy to explain the topic. Let me summarize it like this:

My site: WordPress
Issue: Regarding comments on a blog post

Comments: Usually WordPress uses it's own commenting system. Google can see the comments and this helps for SEO.

Comments on Facebook: To increase my comment rate, I am using a Facebook commenting plugin.

How does it work: Facebook uses an iFrame for comments, so they are visible in Front-End, but not in source code. But: The plugin is smart and takes those comments and puts them into the WordPress database. So WordPress shows the comments in the source code, but not in the Front-End. Only the Facebook comments are shown in the Front-End, but since it's an iFrame not in the source code.

So from Googles perspective the comments are visible in the source code, but they can't find them displayed in the front-end. The question is if that's a bad thing. The reason for me asking is, that some time back I read that lot's of black hats are using hidden content and that you should not do it.

In this case the hidden text is not inside the iFrame (WordPress comment database), and visible in the source code.

But it's not visible in the front-end.

That's a cool tool, didn't know that yet.

I used it and also checked in the source code. The hidden content is there. But it's not visible on front end side (except the Facebook comment iFrame).

Now is that bad?

I am using this plugin to enable Facebook comments on my blog:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/fatpanda-facebook-comments/

This shows the comment in an Facebook iFrame. The plugin author claims it's SEO friendly, because the comments are also integrated in the WordPress database. The are included in the post but hidden.

Is that bad for SEO?

For anyone searching for a similar topic: The plugin mentioned above is not in sync with Facebooks new developer guidelines.

But I found this is working: https://wordpress.org/plugins/fatpanda-facebook-comments/

Thank you for taking a look and your suggestions.

As you suggested, I will go ahead and increase the signals to the category page. Will try more internal links pointing back from the products and also more meaningful text on the category page.

How long shall I wait to know if Google got the point? Probably hard to say, but a rough timeframe from your experience would help me a lot.

If doesn't work out, I will consider canonicalization.

Thank you again!

Thank you for your reply.

In this case I'm not using canonicals, because I want this page to rank individually for it's specific keyword 'Sport shoes'.

In my point of view the content is quite different. But of course I don't know how Google is understanding it.

What I did a few weeks back: From the product 'Sport shoes' I set an internal link with the anchor text 'Shoes' back to the category page. Unfortunately, this didn't work either.

I have an E-Commerce store and to make things easy, let's say I am selling shoes. There is:

• Category named 'Shoes'
• and 3 products 'Sport shoes', 'Hiking shoes' and 'Dancing shoes'

My problem: For the keyword 'Shoes' Google is showing the product result 'Sport shoes'. This makes no sense from user perspective. (It's like searching for 'iPhone' and getting a result for 'iPhone 4s' instead of a general overview.)

Now what are the specifics of my category page (Which I want Google to rank):

• It has more external links with higher quality
• It has more internal links
• It has much higher page authority
• It has useful text to guide the user for the keyword
• It is a category instead of a product

All this given, I just don't know how I can signal Google that this page makes sense to show in SERPs? Hope you can help with this!

I am using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. They have a site analysis, once you enter a keyword for optimize it for.

Now I found that this plugin doesn't count in the text from bullet point (or numbered lists) as text. Now that made me curios...Does Google see bullet points text as text or not?

As far as I know internal anchor text can't be 'over-optimized'. This only is the case for external sites linking to you.

I found this plugin for WordPress:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-facebook-comments/

Does anyone has experience with it?

As far as I know, Google recognizes 301 and follows them. So your new URL should rank automatically after some time in the SERPs. Also the link juice from the old URL will follow to the new one, if you choose a 301 redirect.

I found the posts with comments are ranking much better for my blog.

But most of the users are commenting on Facebook, when I share my content. Thats bad, because I don't have this discussion on my site. I am using the standard WordPress commenting system.

No a good commenting option for my would be Facebook comments (or Comments Evolved is also a quite nice plugin for FB, G+ and WP comments). The question is? Does Google still give these Facebook comments on my site as much value as 'native' WordPress comments. Or are they discounted in some way?

The second question of course would be, if it is wise to hand over all of the comments to Facebook and loosing control over them. But I think I could dramatically increase comments if I switch to Facebook commenting system...

Hi,

I have some keywords (2-5 words) which I would like to rank for (and use them for AdWords campaigns). Also, I have some great and helpful content for those user queries to share. Now what is the better strategy?:

1. Create a blog post for AdWords and later SEO rankings?
2. Create a landing page for AdWords and later SEO rankings?

Would love to here your thoughts and experiences on this issue...

Best, Robin

I am trying to rank with my page on a major keyword for my E-Commerce store. Currently, I am ranking on page 4 in SERP:
mydomain.com/category-for-major-keyword

Now when people like to link to me, what should I do? Shall they link to:

1. mydomain.com or
2. mydomain.com/category-for-major-keyword

What brings me more in terms of ranking for that keyword with my category?

Thanks, Robin

Hi Andy and Danny,

thank you both for your answers, very helpful indeed. You have given me some confidence on continuing to build my content marketing efforts. Thanks

With the updates of Googles algorithm, it has been pointed many times, that over-optimization of anchor text is not good. As I understand, always the same anchor text (e.g. "Marketing Agency in Seattle") draws suspicion.

Now what to do with internal link building? Is there any (recent) best practice on using anchor text for internal links?

So far I am using always the same keyword(s) for internal links, I want the other page to rank for. Is that still a good method?

Thanks, Robin

Hi Steffany,

thanks for your reply, indeed I didn't know the competitive link metrics in my campaign yet.
The thing is, that my campaign is very new (same as my website). So I don't have historical link data. But is there a way I can see (on a time graph) when my competitors have started to build links? This would help me to see their pace and effort in a visual way.

Best, Robin

Hi,

Where in the MOZ toolbox can I see the links my competitor has on a time graph?

I tried googling it for the last hour, but I must be using the wrong keywords. I am searching for something similar the the functionality of Majestic: http://awesomescreenshot.com/0562febba6

Thanks, Robin