Latest Questions
Have an SEO question? Search our Q&A forum for an answer; if not found, use your Moz Pro subscription to ask our incredible community of SEOs for help!
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Moz Q&A is closing, December 12th 2024
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, we’re finally closing Moz Q&A. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we’re locking both new posts and new replies. Why? The truth is that the conversation has moved elsewhere. Sites like Twitter, Reddit, and more recently BlueSky and LinkedIn, have largely replaced specialist forums. At the same time, the challenge of moderating a platform like this has become more difficult, and of course, we’re SEOs, and the sheer quantity of new pages generated, often by malicious actors, has its challenges in terms of what it does to the profile of our site. Forums are still an opportunity for many sites, in SEO and more broadly, but the calculus no longer works for Moz. Where can I ask my question instead? If you’re a customer or currently evaluating a free trial, you can reach out directly with questions about the product to our customer support team here. If you want to learn more about SEO, you can check our learning resources here, and we also offer the Moz Academy. If you just want to hang out, you can also still find us on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn. Thank you We’re grateful to everyone who has contributed to Moz Q&A over the years. It’s been a blast, and we hope this isn’t the last time we’ll see you here on the Moz site.
Moz News | | Tom.Capper1 -
What is the importance of exact match keywords for local SEO in service industry businesses?
I am working with a local service contractor. Several of his competitors have domain names with exact match keywords. Audits of competitor sites and use of other research tools reveals that their sites are behind in content and technical SEO. The competitor sites consistently rank higher in organic search results. I am new to SEO and I understand that some of my lack of clarity here is a result of not understanding the value of key word use in local SEO vs. wider efforts.
Technical SEO | | Andrew Woffenden0 -
Should I Change My Blog Permalinks to Remove The Date
Hi All Thank you in advance for any help. Last year a website was moved to multisite and the permalinks for the blog posts were changed to include a category, the year, the month and day. As a result most of the page URL's are flagged as too long. A number of the pages are receiving good traffic, so my question is whether just to leave them as they are or to change the permalinks? My gut feeling is to take the short term hit and change the permalinks, but I thought I'd take the advice of the forum before doing so. Many Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | DigitalProgress0 -
Unsolved REfund
Hello,
Product Support | | selcukalbayrak
We have no idea what Moz is or how it is used. We only learned your name when our credit card was charged. We want to cancel this subscription transaction somehow and get our money back. We called our bank to cancel our card and stated that the transaction was made without our knowledge. Please refund our money.0 -
Unsolved SAB Solution
What is the best solution using Moz Local for a Service Area Business?
Moz Local | | smartlocaldenver0 -
Does Google only show high rankings to webmasters?
Hello! I'm using Google Chrome browser. On the browser logged in with the Google Web Master account, the keyword ranking of my site is ranked on pages 1 to 2. However, in the case of the Google Secret tab and other browsers that have not logged in to the Google Web Master account, the keyword ranking of my site is only 10 pages. Which one is more reliable?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 1kB_man_YWH
Does it only show higher rankings to webmasters?
Or will you soon be able to see the high ranking that has only been seen by webmasters in other browsers? I desperately need your help. Thank you. I look forward to your kind cooperation.0 -
Moz API Spam Score - Backlinks
Hi, everyone I am trying to get my website DA up. I have analyzed my competitors and thanks to Moz I have idea and insights of how my competitors get backlinks. But, some of them are old school techniques. Also my website has some PBNs no follow backlinks does it affect my website ranking? Their spam score is 10-40. But other competitors has them as well. Does anyone know indepth on this topic?
Link Building | | RejinKayastha0 -
Unsolved Help with API Error: "Query Not Found" for a Specific URL
Hi everyone, I'm trying to retrieve data for a specific URL using the Moz API, specifically the data.site.metrics.fetch method. The URL I'm querying is: https://www.fiftyfiveandfive.com/ai-agents-marketings-new-means-of-production When I make the API request, I receive the following 404 error: { "id": "unique-id-testing", "jsonrpc": "2.0", "error": { "code": -32655, "status": 404, "data": { "key": "site_query.query", "value": "https://www.fiftyfiveandfive.com/ai-agents-marketings-new-means-of-production" }, "message": "That query was not found." } } However, when I check the URL in Moz Link Explorer, I can see that the page has a Page Authority of 23 and a Domain Authority of 36, but no backlinks or ranking keywords. What I'm Trying to Achieve:
API | | Chris_Wright1664
I’m attempting to retrieve metrics for this page via the API, but it seems like the API does not recognise the URL, even though it’s visible in Link Explorer. Questions: Why does the API return "Query Not Found" for a URL that is indexed in Link Explorer? Is there a way to request Moz to crawl or re-crawl this URL to ensure it's accessible via the API? Are there any additional criteria the API requires (e.g., backlinks, ranking keywords) before it recognises a URL? Additional Info: I’ve verified that my robots.txt file allows all bots, including Rogerbot. list itemThe page is included in the sitemap, and the URL is accessible without any restrictions. list itemI’d appreciate any insights on how to resolve this issue or steps to take so that the Moz API can retrieve data for this URL.0 -
Why have my positions dropped after implementing recommended changes?
Hello! I have taken a Moz free trial and am really enjoying using this service. But, after implementing the recommended changes by Moz my rankings have really dropped. Is this normal? I was averaging around 17 but now averaging 40. Here is my website if anyone has any ideas of what I might be doing wrong, I would greatly appreciate any help.
Technical SEO | | NicoleChambers
Thank you
Nicole0 -
Unsolved Issue with API Results and Excessive Token Consumption
Dear Moz Support Team, I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to express my concerns regarding the performance of the Moz API, which I have been using for domain information retrieval through Zapier. Despite paying for your API service, I am encountering several significant issues that are affecting my ability to use the service effectively: Incorrect and Inconsistent Data: When I query domain information, I receive incorrect results for Page Authority (PA), Domain Authority (DA), and Spam Score (SS). Specifically, PA and DA are always returned as 1, while SS is consistently -1, which indicates that the data being provided is either incomplete or incorrect. This discrepancy is preventing me from relying on your service for accurate domain insights. Excessive Token Consumption: I have noticed that the API token usage is significantly higher than expected. After querying only 250 domains, my token consumption has already exceeded 6,000 tokens, which seems unusually high. I had understood that the token usage would be calculated per query, but it appears that the consumption is much higher than anticipated. Given that I have invested in this service, I am frustrated that I am not receiving the expected level of performance and data accuracy. Could you please investigate these issues and provide clarity on why this is happening? Additionally, I would appreciate any guidance on how to resolve these discrepancies and ensure that I am using the API in the most efficient way possible. I look forward to your prompt response and assistance in resolving these issues. thank you
Product Support | | tkddh13230 -
Unsolved MOZ API for domain authority
I am using the MOZ API to check domain authority (DA). Recently, I noticed a discrepancy: the DA value retrieved via the API differs from the result on the MOZ homepage. Specifically, the API returns a DA of 10, while the homepage shows "NO DATA." Additionally, other services like Ahrefs report a DA of 0. I relied on the MOZ API's result when purchasing this domain and now feel misled. I would like to understand the exact reason for this inconsistency.
API | | Skys0 -
Unsolved Can links tracking lists help to crawl high authority backlinks by Moz 2024
Hi i am create a link tracking list for my domain, but Moz don,t crawel after 2 weeks completed.
API | | Rawaluij1 -
Unsolved Link Tracking List Error
"I have been maintaining 5 directories of backlinks in the 'Link Tracking List' section for several months. However, I am unable to locate any of these links at this time. Additionally, the link from my MOZ profile is currently broken and redirects to an error page, no to Elche Se Mueve. Given the premium pricing of MOZ's services, these persistent errors are unacceptable."
Moz Pro | | Alberto D.0 -
I'm having trouble removing SPAM from my site
I make the list of disavow links every week, plus they keep popping up. Does anyone know any techniques to remove them all at once ?
SEO Tactics | | Gabriel1710 -
what Due to terms of use violation, your account has been suspended by Akismet Anti-Spam Plugin ?
I have seen many, built links but after three days it says "Due to terms of use violation, your account has been suspended by Akismet Anti-Spam Plugin".
Link Building | | kenhaa5
What is the solution?
If anyone knows, tell me.
I am in a lot of problems, why this problem? Below is the screenshot
Screenshot_6.png What is the solution?0 -
Best redirect destination for 18k highly-linked pages
Technical SEO question regarding redirects; I appreciate any insights on best way to handle. Situation: We're decommissioning several major content sections on a website, comprising ~18k webpages. This is a well established site (10+ years) and many of the pages within these sections have high-quality inbound links from .orgs and .edus. Challenge: We're trying to determine the best place to redirect these 18k pages. For user experience, we believe best option is the homepage, which has a statement about the changes to the site and links to the most important remaining sections of the site. It's also the most important page on site, so the bolster of 301 redirected links doesn't seem bad. However, someone on our team is concerned that that many new redirected pages and links going to our homepage will trigger a negative SEO flag for the homepage, and recommends instead that they all go to our custom 404 page (which also includes links to important remaining sections). What's the right approach here to preserve remaining SEO value of these soon-to-be-redirected pages without triggering Google penalties?
Technical SEO | | davidvogel0 -
Unsolved How can I improve SEO for my auditing firm’s website?
Hi Moz community! I run aauditing.com, offering audit, tax consulting, and accounting services in the UAE. I’m looking for effective SEO strategies to boost visibility and attract clients. Any tips on content optimization, backlinks, or local SEO would be appreciated!
Getting Started | | HFM972 -
Unsolved Questions about travel industry keywords
My question is regarding my current learning of SEO and keyword research. I have been leaning towards Keyword Everywhere, SEMrush, and Google Keyword Planner for keyword research. What do you recommend? I know you might suggest Moz, but I'm looking for something that will enhance and help me find valuable keywords for the travel niche. If I sign up with Moz, will someone from the team help me with keyword research for the travel niche and my website? I haven't found any resources or lessons specifically focused on travel websites and their keywords.
Moz Pro | | RavenBhutan0 -
What are the best link-building strategies for 2024, considering Google's evolving algorithms?
Link-building remains a crucial part of SEO, but with Google's algorithms constantly evolving, many traditional techniques are becoming less effective. I'm interested in learning about the latest link-building strategies that are expected to be successful in 2024. What approaches or tools should we focus on to ensure our efforts align with Google's current best practices and avoid potential penalties?
Link Building | | Ibrahim-Khuzam0 -
Unsolved Apple Maps isn't syncing
Hi there! I have been using Mozlocal for a local client for a few months now. They recently opened, so I began the syncing process a few weeks ago. Apple Maps is reporting as synced when I view it in my Listings, but when viewing the actual listing on Apple Maps, the hours are very wrong. It is an important time of year for this business, and appearing as not open for 6 days a week is not great. Is there anything else I can do through Mozlocal to get this listing fully synced?
Moz Local | | Beth_Shockley0 -
Backlink builder (Professional)
If I wanted to hire a professional person to build high quality backlinks for me, where would I look? I'm asking here because I'd rather go on the recommendation of other businesses owners, than a google search. Does anyone have a person that they can recommend? It's for an insurance agency in Texas. Many thanks
Link Building | | laurentjb2 -
Unsolved How Should I Increase DA of my Website?
Google itself has been troubled by ranking factors. On top of that, the https://moz.com/ has worn a new garland of domain authority. It is even more regrettable when a website DA suddenly decreased. As recently on 22nd September, my website's DA was 16. As usual, on September 23, I posted a new informational blog related to QuickBooks antivirus exclusions on my website. The very next day my website DA was decreased. Can anyone who knows SEO help me understand why this always happens specially to me every time? I read the whole forum and all I found out is how my site's DA is decreased.
Moz Bar | | ravigaurav
Can anyone let us know whether we can increase the Domain Authority of our website only by creating backlinks or there can be some other activities also?2 -
Domain keyword ranking
I used to use Searchmetrics (years ago) which enabled me to add in the domain name into their website, and it would provide all the keywords that rank for it. Does Moz do that do you know? Thanks
Keyword Research | | patn_studio0 -
Solved Payment Issue in Subscription Upgrade
Hi, I’m trying to upgrade from the Starter to the Standard plan, but I keep encountering an error: "Failed to send subscription update to Stripe." Could you please assist me in making the switch?
Product Support | | Devesh_Chauhan0 -
How can I check my website is not in spam?
I have a blogging website where I post about famous food, home remedies, and more. When I started my website's keywords were ranking on Google But Now a single keyword is not in the ranking list. That's why I have concerns about how I can fix it.
SEO Tactics | | worldviajar.com0 -
How to Identify and Recover from Algorithmic Penalties?"
Hey Moz community, I’ve recently noticed a significant drop in organic traffic on my website, and I suspect it might be due to an algorithmic penalty. However, I’m not entirely sure how to confirm this or where to start with recovery. Could someone please guide me on how to identify if my website has been hit by an algorithmic update? Additionally, what are the best practices to recover from such penalties? Any tools or strategies you recommend would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Community | | ghambirgoutam450 -
Please share the strategy how to find better organic keywords for hight traffic and low competition for "locksmith west palm beach"
Hi, I'm trying to find better high-volume and low-competition traffic keywords for my business. Can you share the strategy about volume and competition grade that are good for the keywords list that I'm planning to use for internal blog articles? I am just looking for more organic traffic. Thanks.
Keyword Research | | FIT0 -
cross canonicalization with redirect
I'm working with a website that has turned one of its pages into its own website within the main website - mostly for the ease of customers, making it simpler to access that page using www.page.com rather than www.mainsite.com/about/page.
Technical SEO | | Shrine.SEO.Gal
As a result, there are two urls for that page (the ones just mentioned), both pointing to the exact same page, but with different urls. Now, they have made it so www.mainsite.com/about/page permanently redirects to www.page.com. which I thought was a good call. However, what do I do about canonicalization? Is it good to point the canonicalization of www.page.com to www.mainsite.com/about/page so that the rankings and link equity are maintained in the main website? Or would the fact that the www.mainsite.com/about/page redirects to www.page.com mess that up? I hope this makes sense!0 -
Need help in diagnosing what I may be doing wrong
I have a site that has been having problems ranking. Initially, spam rate was at 18%. I have since changed the URL and forwarded to the original so now the spam rate is under 5%. Phone calls started picking back up very slowly but then by August 2024 things came to a screeching halt. Phone has been dead and very little business has been written. I did notice on the robots.txt file it had this: User-agent: *
Technical SEO | | SOM24
Disallow: /
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow:
User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /no-bing-crawl/
Disallow: wp-admin and now I have since changed it to this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php Sitemap: https://urlishere.com/sitemap_index.xml My question is what else do I need to do to get this site to start ranking again? We are blogging once a month, writing press releases once a month, updating the social media a few times a week. I feel like maybe there is something on the backend that needs to be done to get this site back to ranking. I am using SEO by Yoast and I have filled in the title and meta description fields for all pages. There is a spot in Yoast where I can validate the site with Google, Bing, etc. I'm trying to figure out how to do that. I do see in the site's Google Webmaster Tools there are several pages not indexing. Any ideas on what else I can do to get this site to start ranking again? Thank you.0 -
Recently rankings for "Tree Service" dropped
Hi, we've had a page which was ranking top 1 on the Google rankings but has complete dropped out to 5. We don't have any duplicate errors from that page on here. Do you have any suggestions?
Technical SEO | | FIT0 -
Backlinks from local businesses
Hello, I need to make sure I understand this correctly. Will it help my SEO if I: find local businesses with a good DA & low spam score select businesses that are somehow related to mine (Insurance Agency) offer to guest post and include a backlink on their blog ( ask them if they'd like to reciprocate) For example, businesses such as
Link Building | | laurentjb
Roofing companies
Contractors
moving companies
etc Please let me know if there's anything I'm missing? Many thanks0 -
Why Moz is showing Spam Score at my New Domain?
Hi folks I just registered a new domains boring magazine but I forgot to check the spam score. Recently, I checked and it showing spam score of 46% without any backlinks. You can check the domain age is 30 Days only till now. Need your recommendations on how can I reduce it and on which basis Moz showing it as spams? sp.PNG
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ImranZahidAli0 -
Seeking SEO contractor
I would like to hire an SEO contractor to assist with some technical/SEO issues on our site (Schema, etc). Can anyone make a recommendation? I am looking to work with a small company. Thank you in advance for any referrals!
On-Page Optimization | | JulieALS1 -
Unsolved Crawling error emails
Recently we start having random error messages about crawling issue:
Product Support | | DTashjian
2024-08-30 edweek:Ok
2024-08-29 marketbrief:Err. advertise: Err, edweek:Err, topschooljobs:Ok
2024-08-23 edweek:Ok
2024-08-22 marketbrief:Err. advertise: Err, edweek:Err
2024-08-21 topschooljobs:Ok, edweek:Ok
2024-08-15 marketbrief:Ok. advertise:OK
2024-08-13 edweek:Ok
2024-08-12 marketbrief:Ok
2024-08-08 marketbrief:Ok, advertise:Ok
2024-08-03 edweek:Ok, topschooljobs:Ok
All for 2024-07 - are Ok Yesterday I set 2 more crawls for the same sites (edweek and marketbrief) and I get a morning email about original edweek site is ok (still have some problem but crawl occurs and all is fine) but for test crawl for the same site "EW Test" I just got error email.
Also I suppressed ALL email communications and frankly surprised by this email. Can you please check what is wrong with a crawler or stat collection or I don't know who produced the issues.0 -
Search Intent and Relevance
Hello SEO gurus 🤓 I’m looking for the most efficient ways to analyze the search intent and relevance of competitors who are ranking for the keywords we’re targeting. While I know Google excels at assessing search intent and relevance, I’m interested in learning how we can evaluate these factors as metrics for our competitors. The goal is to understand their strategy better and find ways to outrank them. Do you have any tools or methodologies that you recommend for assessing competitor content to determine its alignment with search intent and user needs/relevance? I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on this!
Competitive Research | | Cricket931 -
How do I carry out a redirect? Is there a code I need to use?
How do I carry out a redirect? Is there a code I need to use? Thank you in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | laurentjb0 -
Reputable Place For Guest Posts
We do our SEO in-house, and I don't have the time for blogger outreach. Does anyone know of a reputable place where I can submit our content to be pitched to relevant outlets for backlinks and US traffic? I am not in it for someone creating our content; I write it myself and have a degree in the content I produce. I am looking for a place that gets REAL US traffic, not some P.B.N. sites or those where I can create accounts at a post myself. I want real traffic from relevant, reputable blogs or a place where I can have them use my content and find niche sites for me.
Link Building | | tammysons1 -
Well performing blog article
I have an article that gets a lot of hits, way more than any other I have. Is there a way I can figure out why? For example, Is there a tool to help me find out where people are finding it? Or another important factors I should look at? Thank you in advance
Content Development | | laurentjb1 -
Should I redirect or add content, to 47 Pages?
We have an insurance agency website with 47 pages that have duplicate/low content warnings. What's the best way to handle this? I'm I right in thinking I have 2 options? Either add new content or redirect the page? Thanks in advance 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | laurentjb1 -
Solved Page content writing tool
A long time ago I'm pretty sure I used a tool that helped me write content for a webpage. It checked my writing as I typed and gave suggestions. I can't find the tool anymore. I hope I didn't imagine it as it was really useful..
Product Support | | laurentjb0 -
Unsolved How can I shorten a url?
I've got way too many long url's but I have no idea how to shorten them?
Getting Started | | laurentjb0
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