Google penalty for SEO Settings?

[Biffy]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

diecastfast, it's not paranoia. The duplicate content is listed in Google Webmaster, page by page. Until now, the only way to deal with it was to eliminate category codes from product links and cripple breadcrumbs and the category tree (which could then be repaired with some scripting).

Even that doesn't address the problem of legacy links in the index creating duplicate content when SEO Links are added to a store.

[morditech.com]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

Google is smarter than this and the algorithms don't need to be told what to do. Basic redirects and good link structure on an established website are never going to be penalized. They're way ahead of us - don't worry about it!

I think this thread has established that Google will not penalize you for duplicate content on your own site. What the canonical links (which Google themselves created for specific situations) mainly do is make sure your internal pages are not competing with themselves for page rank by making sure search engines know which page to credit for content in case it is duplicated on your site.

An example of this would be if someone was recommending a product that you sell on your website and they got to that product by doing a search on your Miva store but you regular product links use short URL's. So on their website they put a link to your product with a long miva link. Now a search engine crawls that other persons website and goes to your product using the long link. That long link will get some type of page rank credit thus not adding page rank to your short link. If that long link has a canonical link element pointing to your short link then your short link gets all the page rank, YAYYY!!!! At this point do not ask me if page rank has any effect on search engine results but as soon as I find out I will post it on my blog.

It is better to find out SEO information directly from the horses mouth (google engineers and others that actually work for google) rather than straight from a horses ass (people or companies that claim to have thoeries and 'secrets' with no supporting information).

I think what diecastfast is saying is true in a way though. In general as long as we take care of the SEO basics and use common sense the Google search engine is usually smart enough to take care of the rest.

Here is another Video from Matt Cutts, Google Engineer, about SEO basics and some misconceptions.
http://www.morditech.com/mivablog/se...of-google.html

[d_host]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

If that long link has a canonical link element pointing to your short link then your short link gets all the page rank, YAYYY!!!! At this point do not ask me if page rank has any effect on search engine results but as soon as I find out I will post it on my blog.

Pardon for jumping in mid-thread on this, but I have a quick question...

If Miva Merchant short links are basically just .htaccess rewrites to the full, long links, the actual "page" is really the same once you get to it (whether from a short or long link). How do you then insert this canonical tag ONLY on pages that were called using the long URL and skip it on pages called using short links? Seems to me like it would be neigh impossible to do, since we are not talking about two different pages here - it's the same page, just with two ways to get to it.

[morditech.com]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

It is ok if canonical links point to themselves. The solution is to put them in the page templates so the canonical are on all pages including the main pages that the links point to. Google says it's OK

If you really wanted to you may be able to create a conditional that recognizes a specified string in a URL such as a question mark or something else in a long Miva link and then include the canonical but it would still be unnecessary.

[Biffy]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

Remik, the only way to accomplish it that I can think of is to eliminate the category code from the canonical link. It seems like this might solve the legacy link problem, too.

It's easy enough to implement and go check it in Google Webmaster to see if the duplicate content listings are eliminated.

[d_host]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

That may perhaps work, but if a site is using breadcrumbs it would lose the option to go back to the category page and the visitor would have to start digging through (often) long list of categories and subcategories to find similar products...

[morditech.com]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

I have noticed that the Ultimate Short links by Sebenza somehow knows what category a product belongs to even if the category is not in the URL. Here is an example of a website that uses that http://www.masterplaques.com
The only stipulation seems to be that product codes and category codes must be unique. What I mean is products can not have the same exact code as a category or it will not know if you are trying to get to the category or the product.

[diecastfast]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

diecastfast, it's not paranoia. The duplicate content is listed in Google Webmaster, page by page. Until now, the only way to deal with it was to eliminate category codes from product links and cripple breadcrumbs and the category tree (which could then be repaired with some scripting).

Even that doesn't address the problem of legacy links in the index creating duplicate content when SEO Links are added to a store.

Steve, yes duplicate content penalties exist. For true duplicate content. My point is that Google is smart enough to know the difference between funny business and duplicate URLs. A simple 302 redirect for a site that already ranks well is sufficient IMO. The over-analyzation of Google blog posts is paranoia.

[diecastfast]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

I think this thread has established that Google will not penalize you for duplicate content on your own site. What the canonical links (which Google themselves created for specific situations) mainly do is make sure your internal pages are not competing with themselves for page rank by making sure search engines know which page to credit for content in case it is duplicated on your site.

An example of this would be if someone was recommending a product that you sell on your website and they got to that product by doing a search on your Miva store but you regular product links use short URL's. So on their website they put a link to your product with a long miva link. Now a search engine crawls that other persons website and goes to your product using the long link. That long link will get some type of page rank credit thus not adding page rank to your short link. If that long link has a canonical link element pointing to your short link then your short link gets all the page rank, YAYYY!!!! At this point do not ask me if page rank has any effect on search engine results but as soon as I find out I will post it on my blog.

It is better to find out SEO information directly from the horses mouth (google engineers and others that actually work for google) rather than straight from a horses ass (people or companies that claim to have thoeries and 'secrets' with no supporting information).

I think what diecastfast is saying is true in a way though. In general as long as we take care of the SEO basics and use common sense the Google search engine is usually smart enough to take care of the rest.

Here is another Video from Matt Cutts, Google Engineer, about SEO basics and some misconceptions.
http://www.morditech.com/mivablog/se...of-google.html

That's exactly my point. Google is interested in quality results. They are not going to suddenly penalize your rank because of a change in link structure. Instead, even in the absence of being told what to do (simple 301 redirect), Google will quickly figure out what's going on and get their index updated. It started happening for us literally in a matter of hours.

Interestingly, our Google PR increased from a years-long PR3 to a PR4 after going to MM5.5. Probably un-related but nonetheless noteworthy!

[morditech.com]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

There is definitely a paranoia about what they (Google and other "reliable" resources) do NOT tell us but I think when we discuss what they do tell us in great detail we are just being cautious. There is a fine line between cautious and paranoia which reminds me of a saying I heard someplace: "Just becuase I'm paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get me"

[Biffy]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

When it's listed in Google Webmaster and Google calls it "Duplicate Content" I wouldn't know whether it was "true" duplicate content or not, and Google certainly does not use any nomenclature that would indicate whether it was true or not. All I'm trying to do is eliminate the errors listed in Google Webmaster under the Duplicate Content section.

Whether it's called a penalty, a deprecation, a secret conspiracy, paranoia, or shooting yourself in the foot matters not one whit. The only thing that matters is eliminating the duplicate content errors that Google is reporting.

I also would not know why Google would bother reporting these errors if they don't matter. I feel it's best to eliminate all the reported errors.

[diecastfast]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

When it's listed in Google Webmaster and Google calls it "Duplicate Content" I wouldn't know whether it was "true" duplicate content or not, and Google certainly does not use any nomenclature that would indicate whether it was true or not. All I'm trying to do is eliminate the errors listed in Google Webmaster under the Duplicate Content section.

Whether it's called a penalty, a deprecation, a secret conspiracy, paranoia, or shooting yourself in the foot matters not one whit. The only thing that matters is eliminating the duplicate content errors that Google is reporting.

I also would not know why Google would bother reporting these errors if they don't matter. I feel it's best to eliminate all the reported errors.

Steve, let me put it even plainer: Google knows the difference between duplicate URLs and duplicate content intended to skew search results. MM stores are not going to be penalized for link structure. I remember in 2003 being told over and over again that Google hated the MM link structure with all its operators. But, at least in my case, it simply wasn't true. Google couldn't gobble up my content fast enough! This discussion is essentially the same redundant conversation that's been raging for years and will never die down as long as Google is #1 and continues to innovate.

A steady stream of fresh, unique content is Rule #1. All the rest don't really matter if you get that one down.

[Pete McNamara]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

As far as I can see in this thread, no-one is claiming that Google penalizes you for duplicate content on your own site. You penalize yourself. How? By wasting link juice (I hate that term but since gmanning used it, I will follow his/her example). gmanning covered the waste of external link juice but it is the internal link juice that is wasted that penalizes you the most.

Despite all the "Matt Cutts says" past posts in this forum about internal duplicate pages and Google penalties, (and as I have pointed out on many occasions in respect of this particular issue, it was what Matt Cutts wasn't saying that was more important rather than what he actually said) Google was sufficiently concerned about the "non existent" problem that it has created the new canonical tag.

This is a great solution for sites with dynamically generated pages albeit not so good news for my SEO clients who were making hay while the "non existent" problem existed.

[gmanning]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

As far as I can see in this thread, no-one is claiming that Google penalizes you for duplicate content on your own site. You penalize yourself. How? By wasting link juice (I hate that term but since gmanning used it, I will follow his/her example). gmanning covered the waste of external link juice but it is the internal link juice that is wasted that penalizes you the most.

I am not actually fond of that term either, what would you call it?

Also I'd like to hear more about how that internal link "juice" being wasted is impacting you more? I figure if you are splitting inbound links between two nearly identical pages you aren't harnessing the full inbound link value for that keyword.

For internal links split in the same fashion you are certainly preventing the flow of the link "juice". But it would seem that the former is a greater concern.

I am certainly new to this (relatively) so let me know if my thinking is wrong.

Thanks1

[Biffy]

Re: Google penalty for SEO Settings?

Steve, let me put it even plainer: Google knows the difference between duplicate URLs and duplicate content intended to skew search results. MM stores are not going to be penalized for link structure. I remember in 2003 being told over and over again that Google hated the MM link structure with all its operators. But, at least in my case, it simply wasn't true. Google couldn't gobble up my content fast enough! This discussion is essentially the same redundant conversation that's been raging for years and will never die down as long as Google is #1 and continues to innovate.

A steady stream of fresh, unique content is Rule #1. All the rest don't really matter if you get that one down.

You're talking about an indexing problem. Canonical links is not related to that problem. The problem canonical links addresses is indexing a page multiple times. Over-indexing, if you will.

I use the phrase "link juice" myself. It's perfectly descriptive. In one mental model link juice behaves remarkably like a hydrodynamic fluid in a gravity field. On a carefully engineered site you can pump the link juice over to 1 page and boost it's score quite a bit. In a typical Miva store this isn't possible because the category tree makes the store fully cross-linked, or very nearly so, so that the link juice is spread nearly evenly throughout the store and all pages have similar site score.

A problem arises when a single page is indexed multiple times. That page's score gets spread amongst all the copies. Each score is reduced by a considerable amount and this damages the SERP of the page.

There are two main ways a page can get multiply-indexed. It happens when a product is assigned to more than 1 category. It also happens when you convert a store to SEO Links while the legacy backlinks don't change. A less common method is to employ inconsistant internal linking technique.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all recognize the problem and have all adopted canonical links as a solution. Deploying canonical links on a site that meets the two main conditions will result in an improvement in SERPs for all of the multiply-indexed pages, for sites where you haven't already employed the more complex legacy solutions we've been using.

It's rare when something this simple and low cost will boost your SERPs. The ROI for installing canonical links is probably quite excellent.

A related problem is solved by using the nofollow attribute on links to pages you don't want indexed, such as login, error and checkout screens. No sense in pumping valuable link juice away from your money pages.

Now that we've talked it through I am convinced canonical links is an excellent solution that's well worth using.

There's another reason to use them. My customers really don't like Google telling them their store is screwed up. It'll be a pleasure to eliminate the duplicate content errors reported in Google Webmaster.