Biggest site architecture SEO mistakes you see?

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In terms of overall site architecture, what are the biggest mistakes you see when it comes to SEO?
#architecture #biggest #mistakes #seo #site
  • Profile picture of the author AskAnAffiliate
    Hey,

    There are a whole bunch like not adding the right "tags" on the page your trying to rank for. However, even more bigger then that would be the quality of content people are writing. In order fro you to rank your page/content, you need to make sure that it resonates with your readers. You'd be surprised how often people write awesome content that people then automatically link to because it provides additional resources to the reader.

    Another mistake is not learning from experienced bloggers online. We are lucky that we have a "information" system known as the "internet" with FREE resources available. However its so funny that even with all these resources we still see people making common mistakes like poor quality content, black-hat link building, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    A few that I see all the time...

    WWW vs. non-WWW... On many sites, both are accessible. They do not have the proper 301 redirect setup to the preferred version.

    No canonical tags.

    Poor image optimization.

    Poor internal linking.

    Awful use of scripts that slows down load time.

    Reducing image sizes with HTML and CSS coding instead of just using the properly sized image from the beginning. Problem with that, is the browser loads the full size image. So if you have an image that is 1500 x 1500 pixels, but you have in your HTML to just display a 325 x 325 pixel image, the browser is still loading the larger image and then resizing it. Slows down load times.

    Nofollow tags on internal links.

    Important content embedded within Flash or iFrames.

    Those are a few of the more common screw ups I see from web designers.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Tons of duplicate pages created by the search function from eCommerce sites.

      Duplicate content created by author/date archives when using CMS like Wordpress.

      Duplicate content due to read more snippets instead of using excerpts (this one seems to be a part of the Panda 3.0 update).
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      • Profile picture of the author Varz
        Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

        Duplicate content due to read more snippets instead of using excerpts (this one seems to be a part of the Panda 3.0 update).
        Is this really an issue? Wordpress powers something like 20% of websites and just about all of them use either:

        - full content of 10 posts on the homepage
        - read more snippet of 10 posts on the homepage

        Are you telling me that Google is hitting virtually all Wordpress sites with a duplicate content penalty? Have you done tests to confirm this?

        My sites rank pretty well and I use read more snippets on all of them. You're telling me they will rank even better if I just write an excerpt for each post?
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Varz View Post

          Is this really an issue? Wordpress powers something like 20% of websites and just about all of them use either:

          - full content of 10 posts on the homepage
          - read more snippet of 10 posts on the homepage

          Are you telling me that Google is hitting virtually all Wordpress sites with a duplicate content penalty? Have you done tests to confirm this?

          My sites rank pretty well and I use read more snippets on all of them. You're telling me they will rank even better if I just write an excerpt for each post?
          It seems to be an issue since Panda 4.0 and in combination with affiliate links.

          I run 20 Amazon sites with different type of pages.

          The pages with affiliate links and read more snippets dropped HARD

          The pages with affiliate links and only unique content dropped a LITTLE

          The pages with no affiliate links and only unique content remained stable or went up.

          I have not tested pages with read more snippets that didn't have affiliate links on them (simply cause I don't have such pages), could be that those remained unaffected, it's always a combination of things and we know what Google thinks of most affiliate sites.

          Did have a few cases of pages with an 800 word article first followed by read more snippets and affiliate links, these remained stable, while the one with only read more snippets and affiliate links dropped hard.

          I'm talking about rankings based on page level, not site level.
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          • Profile picture of the author raitoavi
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            It seems to be an issue since Panda 4.0 and in combination with affiliate links.

            I run 20 Amazon sites with different type of pages.

            The pages with affiliate links and read more snippets dropped HARD

            The pages with affiliate links and only unique content dropped a LITTLE

            The pages with no affiliate links and only unique content remained stable or went up.

            I have not tested pages with read more snippets that didn't have affiliate links on them (simply cause I don't have such pages), could be that those remained unaffected, it's always a combination of things and we know what Google thinks of most affiliate sites.

            Did have a few cases of pages with an 800 word article first followed by read more snippets and affiliate links, these remained stable, while the one with only read more snippets and affiliate links dropped hard.

            I'm talking about rankings based on page level, not site level.
            I've actually experienced the same issue. Though I only use unique content on the product descriptions, I believe the structure of the read more generated product descriptions for all my products did damage to both the homepage and individual categories which used to rank great before panda 4.0.

            nik0, I'm wondering how to address this. What I've done so far is create a static homepage with unique text which I've written myself (currently 400, but gonna develop it into 1000+). Second, I'm expanding the text for the categories themselves to be an article in and of itself.

            However, there are still generated product read more all over the site as that's an amazon type theme, I wonder if I should switch to a different theme.

            Thanks.
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            • Profile picture of the author dadamson
              The biggest I see are the most obvious ones, keyword meta tags.

              You would be surprised how many people just can't string their keywords together with commas, so many people are losing out by simply not writing their keywords correctly, often resulting in canonical issues on their site.
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              • Profile picture of the author Electrical
                Originally Posted by dadamson View Post

                The biggest I see are the most obvious ones, keyword meta tags.

                You would be surprised how many people just can't string their keywords together with commas, so many people are losing out by simply not writing their keywords correctly, often resulting in canonical issues on their site.
                I thought the keyword meta tag was pretty much ignored?
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            • Profile picture of the author nik0
              Banned
              Originally Posted by raitoavi View Post

              I've actually experienced the same issue. Though I only use unique content on the product descriptions, I believe the structure of the read more generated product descriptions for all my products did damage to both the homepage and individual categories which used to rank great before panda 4.0.

              nik0, I'm wondering how to address this. What I've done so far is create a static homepage with unique text which I've written myself (currently 400, but gonna develop it into 1000+). Second, I'm expanding the text for the categories themselves to be an article in and of itself.

              However, there are still generated product read more all over the site as that's an amazon type theme, I wonder if I should switch to a different theme.

              Thanks.
              I think it has to do with not just read more snippets but in combo with affiliate links high on the page, at least all my affected pages were setup like that.

              However I dropped a little on the 15th and came back on the 22th (bit less then the drop), so it was a bit of a turbulent week and not exactly on the 20th, the day that Panda4.0 was released so I'm a little confused.

              Anyway, I not only make my homepage static but my category as well by removing all the php code that displays the post loop.

              Then i use the category description field with some plugin that changes it to normal posting format (so that it doesn't look ugly) and just place unique content there, few affiliate links and link out the individual product reviews in list format, but all together just make a nice long post of it.

              I did switch themes yes, got so sick of how crappy those Amazon themes are setup.

              When you switch themes and use category description you also need to edit the category-template.php inside /wp-include/ folder, cause otherwise your long ass 1000-1500 word category description will appear in the sidebar when you hover your mouse over it (assuming you use a category widget), now that creates duplicate content lol.
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              • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
                Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

                I thought the keyword meta tag was pretty much ignored?
                Keyword meta tags are ignored by every major search engine.
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                • Profile picture of the author dadamson
                  Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

                  Keyword meta tags are ignored by every major search engine.
                  I tend to disagree. My tests show that they do in fact carry some weight. They essentially put Google on the right track to ranking the keywords you want your site to be ranked for.

                  I find them useful when link building as I never actually need to use exact keyword anchor text. I can create some really natural links with varied anchor text and let my meta tags guide Google to rank.

                  Obviously keyword meta doesn't play as big a role as it used to, and there was a time after Penguin/Panda where I truly believed it doesn't help and perhaps even hurts rankings but these days I can find the benefit in using it.
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                  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
                    Originally Posted by dadamson View Post

                    I tend to disagree. My tests show that they do in fact carry some weight.
                    I would be willing to bet just about anything that those tests are highly, highly flawed.
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              • Profile picture of the author raitoavi
                Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                I think it has to do with not just read more snippets but in combo with affiliate links high on the page, at least all my affected pages were setup like that.

                However I dropped a little on the 15th and came back on the 22th (bit less then the drop), so it was a bit of a turbulent week and not exactly on the 20th, the day that Panda4.0 was released so I'm a little confused.

                Anyway, I not only make my homepage static but my category as well by removing all the php code that displays the post loop.

                Then i use the category description field with some plugin that changes it to normal posting format (so that it doesn't look ugly) and just place unique content there, few affiliate links and link out the individual product reviews in list format, but all together just make a nice long post of it.

                I did switch themes yes, got so sick of how crappy those Amazon themes are setup.

                When you switch themes and use category description you also need to edit the category-template.php inside /wp-include/ folder, cause otherwise your long ass 1000-1500 word category description will appear in the sidebar when you hover your mouse over it (assuming you use a category widget), now that creates duplicate content lol.
                Thanks for the info nik0. Mine also had (though only one) affiliate link on the top. It sounds like you're saying you abandoned (assuming you had) the ecommerce format affiliate type store completely, I just wonder how I can go about it as all my sites are built to look exactly like real stores, following some of these structual changes will make things tricky. I can make the categories like you said, but there still has to be a store like structure at one point or another.

                How about making the categories reference points as you suggested, filled with unique content, but then then linking out to a woocommerce type product post (also unique content) which is part of their store structure (woocomerce also has the affiliate link option).
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by Varz View Post

          Is this really an issue? Wordpress powers something like 20% of websites and just about all of them use either:
          No it's not an issue. Canonical tags take care of that and I have seen zero evidence otherwise.
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            No it's not an issue. Canonical tags take care of that and I have seen zero evidence otherwise.
            Yes it is an issue and I have seen evidence as my 20 Amazon sites are all setup in an almost identical way, the few differences are build in by accident but they proof my point.

            If you have seen no evidence it doesn't mean that the evidence isn't out there.

            Canonical tags don't fix duplicate content issue's entirely and if they were intended to do that they do a worthless job.

            If they did such a great job we wouldn't need plugins to noindex date/author archives just to name something.
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            • Profile picture of the author webby0031
              Too many tags, then you index them. X
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe J
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      A few that I see all the time...

      WWW vs. non-WWW... On many sites, both are accessible. They do not have the proper 301 redirect setup to the preferred version.

      No canonical tags.

      .................................................. ...................

      Those are a few of the more common screw ups I see from web designers.
      Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't realize how much use that canonical tags provided until you mentioned it and I looked it up.

      For anyone else that needs clarification on it, here's the link to Googs explanation and the way they suggest it to be used:

      https://support.google.com/webmaster...r/139066?hl=en

      Thanks Again Mike.
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Nofollow tags on internal links.
      I've never heard that before. Is it important? Should I go thru all of my sites and insert that tag for every single link?
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

        I've never heard that before. Is it important? Should I go thru all of my sites and insert that tag for every single link?
        No. You should not have that tag on any internal links.
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

          I've never heard that before. Is it important? Should I go thru all of my sites and insert that tag for every single link?
          Don't do things just because you can. If you don't have a reason, don't do it, that goes for anything.






          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          No. You should not have that tag on any internal links.
          This has been debated a dozen times but I can say from from experience a nofollow tag on an internal page will not hurt a site.
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        • Profile picture of the author Electrical
          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          No. You should not have that tag on any internal links.
          Gotcha, thanks.


          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          Don't do things just because you can. If you don't have a reason, don't do it, that goes for anything.
          Why would I do it if I didn't have a reason?
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

            Why would I do it if I didn't have a reason?
            Exactly my point, why would you?

            Do you have a reason?
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            • Profile picture of the author Electrical
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              Exactly my point, why would you?

              Do you have a reason?
              Originally I thought there was a reason but I read it the wrong way.


              Again, why would someone do something without a reason? I was clearly asking Mike if it should be done. I don't know what you are talking about.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Biggest site architecture SEO mistakes you see?
    • Lack of focus & not understanding the less is more concept.
    • Not understanding how to use <h> tags.
    • Adding noindex tags to pages that are trying to be ranked (I've lost count how many times I've seen that happen).
    • Irrelevant internal links.
    • Not understanding how to use xml.
    • Not knowing how to view the plain text version of a webpage.
    • Only worried about ranking article webpages instead of media (video/images) which can help boost SERP CTR.
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  • Profile picture of the author pryidevsblog
    Irrelevant Internal links
    Not proper used tags
    Not a proper content
    Some times web design is different from their actually services
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  • Profile picture of the author tonyscott
    Making the "home" nav menu link something like http://www.somesite.com/index.html

    i.e. creating a duplicate home page that all on site links point to, whilst external links point to a different home page.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Plenty of sites weathered the updates just fine that use snippets. Both affiliate and non-affiliate.

    Now if your snippet happens to also be 75% of the actual content, I could see that being an issue. Many Amazon sites I have seen are setup that way. You click the "read more" button and wonder why you bothered.

    But no, snippets alone are not a problem.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I have a site that has 100% of the post content on the home page for 20 Post, less than a sentence of text per each post & the kicker is most of the text is hidden (on the home page) but shows up on the individual post page & the home page Google cache (text version). That site/home page has been holding #1 SERP position for multiple keywords on Google for years.

    I have 2 competition that each have multiple sites all in the same niche try & take that site out, the site doesn't budge. This site has a lot of links built by global traffic.

    I'm not bragging, just saying that site breaks a lot of theories around here (hidden content, too much/little/duplicate content, etc...).
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  • Profile picture of the author TrustedSEO
    Hi,

    This is an informative piece guys. Nice!

    I would like to start seeing more and more site owners establish a better internal linking structure. This would be really helpful, for your users to better get around your site..

    Greg
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  • Profile picture of the author Imfactsandsecrets
    Banned
    Originally Posted by hobokook View Post

    In terms of overall site architecture, what are the biggest mistakes you see when it comes to SEO?
    It's two things for me:

    1. Unnecessary Keyword stuffing and
    2. Trying to get backlinks by hook or crook with the focus being on quantity rather than quality.
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott016
    1. Create boxes on homepage that are displayed on all the pages creating issues of duplicate content.
    2. Make the tags and categories indexed for their blog which shows the archives , tags results instead of blog post.
    3. Making the links in form of /pageid=51 or in form of archives i.e in a form Google can understand.
    4. No interlinking to allow users to navigate across the site.
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  • Profile picture of the author vedremo
    Banned
    If I may also add, stuffing your posts with a bunch of keywords is highly unnecessary to rank. You should also make sure that all the hyperlinks are gong directly to your intended website or page to avoid broken links. And also, make sure your website doesn't have duplicate contents because readers will find it really annoying.
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