Questions tagged [seo]

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of web content in search engines using an understanding of search engines' processes and algorithms. Also known as "natural" or "organic" search, it is distinct from paid web advertising.

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293 votes
26 answers
61k views

What are the best ways to improve a site's position in Google?

What are the best ways to improve a site's position in the Google search results?
131 votes
8 answers
40k views

How should I structure my URLs for both SEO and localization?

When I set up a site in multiple languages, how should I set up my URLs for search engines and usability? Let's say my site is www.example.com, and I'm translating into French and Spanish. What is ...
artlung's user avatar
  • 8,638
69 votes
6 answers
7k views

What are the most important things I need to do to encourage Google Sitelinks?

My website used to have sitelinks and now it doesn't. It's very possible that it's due to changing the website to a sidebar design instead of having an "interstitial" type landing page which limited ...
cgp's user avatar
  • 893
27 votes
4 answers
7k views

Well structured URLs vs. URLs optimized for SEO

Let’s take an example of a movie site. So a well structured set of URLs for this site can be: Movie page - example.com/movies/the-matrix Review for movie - example.com/movies/the-matrix/reviews ...
Terminal's user avatar
  • 373
37 votes
4 answers
10k views

Do subdomains help/hurt SEO?

If I have example.com, and blog.example.com, do search engines see those as one site or two? Will using subdomains hurt SEO? I have some technical reasons why I can't use example.com/blog.
NotDan's user avatar
  • 533
23 votes
5 answers
2k views

How to diagnose a search engine ranking drop?

There has been a significant drop (90%) in traffic from Google to one of my well-established sites (6+ years) in the last week. Searches show that the top 3 wide keywords all dropped 4 spots. Searches ...
Itai's user avatar
  • 6,007
61 votes
7 answers
30k views

Will having multiple domains improve my seo?

Lets say I have a domain already, for example www.automobile4u.com (not mine), with a website fully running and all. The title of my "Website" says: <title>Used cars - buy and sell your used ...
Anonymous12345's user avatar
26 votes
4 answers
20k views

Are keywords in URLs good SEO or needlessly redundant?

A coworker and I are locked in a debate over the value of SEO keywords in the URL of a page. She wants to change all the filenames of the HTML pages of a fencing company so they look like residential-...
Blazemonger's user avatar
80 votes
8 answers
34k views

How bad is it to use display: none in CSS?

I've heard many times that it's bad to use display: none for SEO reasons, as it could be an attempt to push in irrelevant popular keywords. A few questions: Is that still received wisdom? Does it ...
Andy's user avatar
  • 1,481
11 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why would a website with keyword stuffing rank higher than one without in google search results?

Like some other websites, I try to maintain a balance in keywords in comparison to other words. I ran tests of my (optimized) website as well as a (keyword stuffed) competitor website via this SEO ...
Mike -- No longer here's user avatar
15 votes
3 answers
3k views

What is the best file extension for an SEO friendly URL?

I'm working for a website to convert the website URL to an SEO friendly URL. I plan to use this: example.com/category-name/pageid-123-page-name I looked at some similarly categorized, highly ranked ...
Aajahid's user avatar
  • 265
11 votes
2 answers
2k views

Does Google use the Meta Description Tag for Description of Page?

When you do a Google search, there is typically a snippet of sample content from the page. I seem to recall that the Meta Tags can influence this choice of descriptive sentences. Is that correct(?) ...
John R's user avatar
  • 443
129 votes
5 answers
247k views

Moving from HTTP to HTTPS in Google Search Console

I'm moving from HTTP to HTTPS for my entire site. The site is currently added to Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) as www.example.com and all the pages are indexed without using ...
user2240778's user avatar
  • 1,501
55 votes
9 answers
3k views

Do meta keywords have any impact on ranking algorithms?

From what I have read, Google no longer uses meta keywords in it's ranking algorithm. Is it worth the effort to maintain meta keywords?
10 votes
6 answers
2k views

How to Remove URLs from Google Search Engine

I have used so many things like url removal request and deleted the pages etc., but still the errors are shown in my webmaster tools. How can I remove the urls completely from Google?
user avatar
61 votes
3 answers
5k views

How do I rename a domain and preserve SEO?

As part of graduating from Area51 and becoming a full fledged site we sometimes change domain names from http://topic.stackexchange.com to http://example.com. Aside from the obvious 301 redirect rules ...
Geoff Dalgas's user avatar
36 votes
5 answers
3k views

Is it better to put hyphens in a domain name?

Both in terms of SEO and user friendliness, is it better to put hyphens in a multi-words domain name or not ? For example, is www.stackoverflow.com better than www.stack-overflow.com ?
Wookai's user avatar
  • 1,607
26 votes
5 answers
6k views

Does the Google spider render JavaScript?

Does the Google spider knows how to render JavaScript, or only HTML?
user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
9k views

Title in Google does not match <title> of document [duplicate]

One of my project's title tag doesn't appear to be getting crawled by Google properly. The title tag of the home page reads: <title>Grande Prairie Jobs | Job Board for Grande Prairie, Alberta ...
ToddSmithSalter's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
14k views

SEO preference: does a site with WWW rank better than without WWW?

After having read various articles on this site about WWW or Non-WWW website setup, here, here and here, and after having setup a correct redirection rule in .Htaccess to at least eliminate duplicate ...
Sam's user avatar
  • 847
8 votes
3 answers
985 views

My title tag doesn't appear to be getting crawled by Google properly [duplicate]

My title is: <title>School Management Software, College & University Management Software, Cloud ERP Software</title> However it's showing up like this in Google: Is there something ...
Satya Pal Negi's user avatar
55 votes
4 answers
32k views

Does it make a difference if your URL path ends in a trailing slash or not?

Does it make any difference to SEO ratings what-so-ever if your url has a trailing slash: http://www.example.com/some/slug/paths/ as opposed to one that does not: http://www.example.com/some/slug/...
mar10's user avatar
  • 1,368
48 votes
4 answers
39k views

How can I prevent Google mistakenly offering to translate a page to English when it already is in English?

Several of my site's pages are appearing in search results with [Translate this page] next to it. When I click that it takes me to Google Translate and translates my page "from Catalan to English". ...
DisgruntledGoat's user avatar
27 votes
7 answers
12k views

Should I use a file extension or not?

I've always wondered about this and never found a good solution. But this question reminded me of it. When I have a URL on my website it can be displayed and accessed any of the following ways: ...
Talvi Watia's user avatar
23 votes
5 answers
13k views

Do we still need to avoid using frames and iframes for SEO?

I thought frame and iframe were bad for SEO, but today I was doing a search for "numismatica" on Google.it. The 3rd site is lemonete.com which is all made with frames. A competitor site (nummus.com) ...
Marco Demaio's user avatar
  • 6,470
121 votes
13 answers
14k views

URLs: Should I use hyphens, underscores or plus symbols?

Which is better for search engines? example.com/my_cool_page.html example.com/my-cool-page.html example.com/my+cool+page.html
user avatar
30 votes
6 answers
2k views

How can I increase the traffic to my site?

I don't want to do link exchanges or anything shady. I just want some legitimate ways that I can direct a little bit more traffic to my site. How do I do that?
17 votes
1 answer
5k views

Canonical URL for a home page and trailing slashes

My home page could be potentially linked as: http://example.com http://example.com/ http://example.com/?ref=1 http://example.com/index.html http://example.com/index.html?ref=2 (the same page is ...
serg's user avatar
  • 2,353
8 votes
2 answers
800 views

How can I get search engines to crawl my site and see a localised view of my data?

(I hope I asked the question right..) Fake site Our site lists products for sale. eg : http://www.myWebSite.com/products/some-drink-we-love-to-guzzle Each product page has been translated into a few ...
Pure.Krome's user avatar
149 votes
2 answers
20k views

Does the order of keywords matter in a page title?

Stack Overflow has made a change to their page titles such that the most popular tag for a question appears at the start of the title. The change is being deployed across the network, so check out ...
Rebecca Chernoff's user avatar
29 votes
2 answers
22k views

Is a URL with a query string better or worse for SEO then one without one?

I want to know, is there a huge difference in terms of SEO between these URLs: example.com/ontario/toronto/listings or example.com/listings.php?p=ontario&c=toronto Will one URL rank higher ...
scarhand's user avatar
  • 437
15 votes
5 answers
7k views

Does changing web hosting affect search engine rankings?

I have been hosting in a server from last 2 years. I am planning to change the hosting server. Before I change the hosting server I would like to know whether it affects my site's rankings or not?
KoolKabin's user avatar
  • 1,658
11 votes
6 answers
939 views

Is word count a large ranking factor for Google?

If I read 10 SEO articles, 9 out of 10 have said that you should have 1000 -3000 words. That is huge. Generally it takes more than 3 -5 hours to write a well researched 2000+ word article. Does it ...
Nimalka's user avatar
  • 111
10 votes
1 answer
755 views

How to effectively close a page?

Before asking my question, I'll use an example to clarify the idea. Say that a company used to sell horses and then they turn into a sheeps business. While some of the old pages can be mapped to the ...
Aurelio De Rosa's user avatar
8 votes
4 answers
6k views

How to SEO a Single-Page website

I am creating a new website for a client, and I think a single page website / layout will be pretty neat. There is not that much detailed content, it is a company that imports a lot of products from ...
Saif Bechan's user avatar
  • 1,590
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

What is a toxic link?

I asked a similar question a few months back about when does a good link become toxic? but this time I'm asking "what is a toxic link?". You read all over the internet that you should disavow your ...
Simon Hayter's user avatar
31 votes
6 answers
5k views

How do StackOverflow questions appear in Google search results so quickly?

How is it that questions posted to the Stack Overflow show up as #1 in Google search results just minutes after being submitted? What SEO practices are being used to generate this sort of up-to-the-...
Scott Schluer's user avatar
23 votes
2 answers
14k views

Do search engines index text contained in SVG elements?

Example: <svg><text>Hello World</text></svg>?
paragooon's user avatar
  • 415
17 votes
2 answers
4k views

What is the best placement for the ID in a URL for SEO?

I would like to know what's the best location for an ID in a SEO optimized URL: http://www.example.com/123/slug-title http://www.example.com/slug-title-123
mnml's user avatar
  • 303
7 votes
2 answers
6k views

SEO for pages that load from a database?

I developed a website that has only one page in the public html directory (index.php). All content is dynamically loaded as different pages. I believe that what we type into this site is stored in a ...
S L's user avatar
  • 177
6 votes
2 answers
3k views

GoDaddy's 301 redirect/forwarding has some weird random middleman URL, kills link juice?

I'm trying to use GoDaddy's 301 redirect, which is named as domain forwarding. I set up forwarding DomainA.example to DomainB.example as 301 "type". I noticed DomainA.example is still indexed in ...
Gintas_'s user avatar
  • 171
3 votes
1 answer
533 views

Improve Google ranking for general vs. specific keywords

If a keyword phrase contains another keyword phrase (eg. "one two three four five" → "one two three"), does improving SERP ranking for the shorter phrase "one two three" (using backlinks) ...
tonytz's user avatar
  • 33
34 votes
6 answers
1k views

SEO: How to Separate Fact from Fiction?

I am interested in learning about SEO, as many of you may already know. I am by far not a pro, but would love to learn. I currently own a number of domains etc that I am playing around with content ...
Melanie Palen's user avatar
31 votes
2 answers
2k views

How to use rel='canonical' properly

I have 3 URLS that serve the same data: www.example.com/product/foo www.example.com/product/foo?id=1 www.example.com?product=foo For Google's sake I want the URL www.example.com/product/foo to be ...
Ben Hoffman's user avatar
  • 12.8k
30 votes
3 answers
2k views

What are the SEO rules for HTML 5?

What are the rules of engagement with respect to SEO in HTML 5? Examples of things we have been mulling over with no conclusion: Are you penalised for not using <head> and <body> tags? ...
Metalshark's user avatar
  • 3,683
27 votes
10 answers
11k views

SEO regarding using separate <h1> tags for the logo and website name

Is is true <h1> tag should not have more than 1 on every page for SEO? Every pages on the header, it includes and <h1> tag. Website Name which show an image from logo class, like this: &...
user avatar
14 votes
4 answers
28k views

Sitemaps - one per subdomain or one for the base domain?

I have more than 5 subdomains on a project, say developer, www, staff and some more, what is the best practice in creating sitemaps? All subdomains that share a same sitemap at base domain (example....
x0x's user avatar
  • 255
10 votes
3 answers
448 views

Local SEO Strategies

What are your strategies for local SEO? For example, if you had a web design company in Lincoln, Nebraska, what would you do for your website from an SEO perspective?
Virtuosi Media's user avatar
9 votes
4 answers
11k views

Google doesn't seem to update the description or title of my homepage

Before we launched our website, we had set up a "coming soon" page and google picked up the title and description from its contents. So the description in the search results said: Coming soon! ...
epicwhale's user avatar
  • 191
7 votes
2 answers
2k views

Effect on Google rankings if my site is down?

What happens to my Google rankings when my site goes down for a short or long period of time?
Virendar's user avatar
  • 273

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