Weekly SEO news: 15 October 2013
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

Technical errors on your website can have a major influence on the rankings of your web pages on Google and other search engines. If you're not actively monitoring your website, it might be that you are not aware of these errors on your site. This weeks article explains the two most common errors.

In the news: TorSearch wants to be the Google of the hidden Internet, Google and search privacy, Matt Cutts about redirecting users, and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO

1. Two technical website errors that will send Google away

Technical errors on your website can have a major influence on the rankings of your web pages on Google and other search engines. If you're not actively monitoring your website, it might be that you are not aware of these errors on your site.

broken Google rankings

The following two technical errors are common errors that prevent Google from indexing your web pages correctly:

1. The 301 redirects on your website are broken

Most websites use 301 redirects after a website redesign. If done correctly, these redirects can help you to keep your rankings on Google.

If done wrong, 301 redirects cause a lot of ranking problems. Even if your 301 rankings worked in the past, they might have stopped working in the meantime.

Code changes on your website, new website plugins or broken databases can be the reason for 301 redirects that lead to non-existing pages.

Broken links can destroy years of natural link building. You should make sure that all links on your website are intact.

Tip: Use the website audit tool in SEOprofiler to check the redirects on your pages. The audit tool automatically checks all links and redirects on your pages and it will warn you if something does not work.

2. The rel=canonical tags on your web pages cause problems

The rel=canonical tag can help you to avoid duplicate content problems. Unfortunately, it can also lead to major problems.

For example, some websites add a rel=canonical tag that points to the index page to all web pages. Other sites use a rel=canonical attribute that points to pages that use the 'noindex' attribute.

In both cases, the web pages won't be indexed by Google. Only use rel=canonical with duplicated pages and do not use this tag instead of 301 redirects.

Tip: If you're not 100% sure that you know what you're doing, do not use rel=canonical at all. The potential benefits are much smaller than the damage that you can do to your website if you use the rel=canonical tag incorrectly.

Technical errors on your website can damage the SEO work of several years. Use the website audit tool in SEOprofiler to check your web pages for errors. In addition to 301 redirects and the rel=canonical attribute, the website audit tool checks your website for 49 other factors that can have a negative influence on the rankings of your web pages.

The website audit tool is available in the full version SEOprofiler. The full version is available at a special price this month:

Free trial Test full version


Create a free trial account now or get the full version and save 99%.

2. Search engine news and articles of the week

TorSearchTorSearch launches to be the Google of the hidden Internet
"Tor is an anonymizing network — for any traffic passing over it, you can’t correlate the start and end points, and websites can’t see who you are [...]

Currently TorSearch indexes almost 130,000 Tor resources, and traffic, which surged almost from day one, has doubled in the last three weeks as the Tor community has discovered its new search engine."



The questions Google refuses to answer about search privacy

"Are search terms considered private information?
This is a fundamental question that Google should answer. It’s core to what most people do at Google - search. Are the words they enter into the Google search box considered private or not?

The answer seems to be, 'maybe' or 'sometimes.' But good luck figuring that out directly from Google itself."



Matt CuttsGoogle: Is redirecting users based on their location spam?

Google's Matt Cutts answer this question in a video on YouTube. As long as search engines and real users get the same content if they access a page from the same location, it is okay to redirect users based on their location.

It is only cloaking/spam if search engines get different pages than regular website visitors.


All about Google's new "shared endorsement" ads
"If you make a review about something, or leave a comment, or follow a particular brand (rather than just +1 “liking” it), that and other social actions may appear in the ads on Google or as shown through its display network, along with your image."

Relate: NY Times: Google to sell users’ endorsements



Bing partners with Klout
"Snapshots on Bing enable anyone who signs up on Klout to verify and manage how they appear in Bing search results, based on their public social network profiles.

You’ll now be able to easily share your professional accomplishments and highlights, as well as your most influential moments on Instagram and Twitter, when people search for you on Bing."


Search engine newslets

  • Google patent: Google scoring gibberish content to demote pages in rankings?
  • Bing launches the 'Bing it on' campaign in the UK.
  • Chrome usage on iOS devices reaches 3% in North America.
  • Brazil investigates Google over antitrust charges.
  • Judge: Google’s tracking not harmful.
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3. Recommended resources

How to get a website health-check quickly and easily

Doing a regular audit of your web pages is important if you want to make sure that search engines can index all of your pages. The more pages your website has, the more likely it is that there are many errors that have to be corrected.

The website audit tool in SEOprofiler automatically checks your web pages once per week. You will get a report that shows all the issues that should be corrected. By correcting these issues, you make sure that search engines can index all of your pages correctly. Here’s a screenshot of the overview page:

SEO website audit

You can get the website audit tool and all other tools in SEOprofiler for our special offer price:

Free trial Test full version for $1


Create a free trial account now or test the full version for only $1.

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4. Previous articles
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