Search Engine Optimization

Recently, I encountered my first-ever "Copyright Notice" via the Google Search Console. As a webmaster, receiving such a notice can be both alarming and a learning experience. Thankfully, our SEO and  Secops teams are actively addressing the issue by filing counter-notices where appropriate and ensuring that any infringing content is removed from our website. In this post, I’ll be sharing the detailed analysis of the copyright notices we received for our website www.experience.com . These notices are filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and can be viewed publicly on the Lumen Database . Overview of the DMCA Notices Received We’ve received a total of 15 DMCA notices related to content hosted on www.experience.com . I’ve categorized them into three distinct types based on the nature of the claims: Type 1: Multiple Websites Involved Several copyright notices we received target not only www.experience.com but also other major websites like: www.realtor.com ww...

 In the world of SEO, getting your web pages indexed by Google is crucial for visibility. I recently faced a challenge: a page was discovered by Google but wasn't showing up in searches. So, I decided to use a tool called the Google Search Console API along with Python, a programming language, to fix this issue. Understanding the Problem: Explaining the issue: Google knew about the page but wasn't showing it in search results. Why indexing matters: Having pages show up in search results is important for getting traffic to your website. Using the Google Search Console API: What the API does: It's a tool that helps us communicate with Google's systems. Making a Python script: I created a small program in Python to talk to the Google API. Finding the problem pages: The script helped me find the pages that Google knew about but wasn't showing in searches. Getting Instant Results: Running the Python script: I ran the program and saw immediate changes. Seeing the differen...

In my initial exploration of Python technology, I encountered a pivotal challenge: managing a website with over a million pages. Manual checks of the index status for hundreds of URLs were time-consuming, compounded by Google Search Console's daily quota limits. To overcome these hurdles, I developed a Python script that swiftly checks URL index statuses, saving time and navigating Google's limitations. However, frequent script runs risked access errors, requiring a 24-hour cooldown. Despite challenges, the script now allows for 80-100 URL checks daily, with results neatly organized in a spreadsheet . Python's efficiency has transformed our website management, empowering us to focus on strategic tasks and explore further innovations.

Recently, we encountered an XML sitemap error on our website, specifically related to an "Incorrect namespace" issue. The affected XML sitemap can be found at this link: https://www.experience.com/sitemap_results.xml Upon inspecting the Google Search Console tool, the following errors were identified: Sitemap index can be read, but has errors Incorrect Namespace Your sitemap or Sitemap index file doesn't properly declare the namespace. Examples "Line 1 Tag: Sitemapindex." To address this issue, I referred to the XML schema for the Sitemap protocol available at https://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html . The correct declaration should be as follows: <sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"> Upon closer examination, it was discovered that we had used "https" instead of "http" on line 1 in our XML sitemap. To rectify this issue, we uploaded the corrected XML sitemap on our site and subsequently re-submitted ...

I want to share my journey of overcoming a challenge in indexing a specific listing page, ultimately achieving its inclusion on Google SERP. It's been quite an interesting ride. For the past four months, we've encountered an issue with one of our pages not being crawled by Google. This page belongs to a professional listing site in the USA with millions of pages. Initially, Google crawled the page on October 6, 2023, and October 13, 2023, returning a "Not found" status for both desktop and smartphone bots. However, despite the page now returning a 200 OK response, further crawls seem to have been neglected. Upon inspecting the URL in the URL inspection tool, I noticed the last crawl date was October 6, 2023, by the desktop bot. While the initial "404" error was due to server stability issues during deployment, a review of the server log file revealed no current issues. Regarding the server stability during deployment, I discussed with our DevOps team, who me...

 In the realm of Google Search Console, observing a decrease in impressions alongside an increase in clicks can be a perplexing occurrence. Typically, a decline in impressions signifies that web pages have dropped from Google's Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). This is a significant issue that demands attention. A reduction in clicks, on the other hand, can be attributed to various factors. It may indicate that our meta titles and descriptions are not aligning with user intent, paid ads may be competing for visibility, or competitors may have more enticing meta titles and descriptions that better cater to the user's search intent. However, in my specific case, an interesting scenario emerged : an increase in clicks accompanied by a decrease in impressions . This anomaly was a direct result of specific actions taken on our website, notably the implementation of "canonical" and "noindex" tags. The Google Search Console (GSC) screenshot serves as a clear il...

When it comes to SEO, third-party tools may not always provide the most accurate data. It's essential not to rely too heavily on third-party metrics. Let's take a look at an example using the Moz tool's Spam Score : On December 3, 2021, the Spam Score for the SCGS website was at 36%. This increase was due to a malware infection that affected the site in June and July. Although the issue was resolved during that period, the Spam Score remained high at 36% . It took approximately two years for the Spam Score to return to a normal 1%. On January 19, 2023, the SCGS website's Moz Spam Score was at 1%, marking a significant improvement. It took about a year for this metric to reflect the website's recovery and return to a normal score. This example illustrates that third-party metrics can be slow to update and may not always provide accurate, real-time information. It's important to remember that each SEO tool has its unique capabilities for crawling and indexing web...