Often a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO) has to employ his best discretion when faced with basic functional errors or decisions. Here at Convonix Inc, we found a few commonly faced queries by clients for SEOs:
1. Indexing barriers: Often an SEO faces the question that asks why a link is not being indexed. Sometimes there are issues that prevent the search engines from crawling and indexing a website properly. One reason is that the link you are trying to get indexed is buried deep within the site. As a general rule, an important link must be placed not more than three levels from the home page. This way the search engine crawler is more likely to spot the link. Another reason why links are often not indexed is because low-quality/low-authority links have been pointed towards this page. When you assign links from high authority sites for the task of re-direction that is when search engines assigns appropriate value to the link in question and indexes it. It is also important to ensure that the link one is trying to index is itself high in quality and authority. This refers to checking a link’s click-ability factor. The more a link is likely to be clinked, the higher the probability that a search engine will index it.
2. www v/s non-www domain: Domain name is a lot like personal identification. Without proper spotting advantage, there is a possibility of getting lost in the virtual crowd. Most people often consider www.xyz.com, xyz.com/, www.xyz.com/index.html, etc., to be the same when in fact a search engine spider treats them as separate addresses all together.. Whichever be the choice of url, it is advisable to use it consistently across your entire site. Do not let half of the links go to a ‘www’ when you are a non-www domain. 301redirects may be used to point all the non www URLs to the respective www URLs. One may also make the “pretty” URL canonical to ensure the page with better URL gets precedence. While solving the issue of www & non-www, we are also effectively solving the problem of duplicate content as both the www & non – www URLs essentially have the same data.
3. The 404 error: A 404 error arises when an incoming link or an internal link directs to a page that may have been taken off or discontinued. When dealing with a 404 error, it is important to know where the error is coming from. For this, Google Webmaster tool can be put to use for generating data about the concerned page and the source of the error on the page. Once the source of the error has been identified, it can be fixed by deploying 301 re-directs, by adding some information on the page or by using soft 404. A soft 404 will ensure that a visitor or a bot does not bounce off the site on reaching a 404 error. This is also a place where people can use a lot of creativity and create a customized 404 for their web site pages. A good (and a very popular) example of this is the Twitter Whale.
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