Newbie Question(s) so dumb, you're afraid to even ask!

[Sutra]

Sounds to me like someone was interlinking and accidentally grabbed the "Edit" link instead of the "View" link, where the View link would be the actual URL and the Edit one would be that wp-admin one.

That's the only way that would leak to the front-end, and if you're linking to it without nofollow, even if you request Google not to crawl the page, they'll still index it.

I've described it before as Google walking down a hallway. Part of their job is to go into every room they come across and index what's inside of it. But if one of the doors is locked, they'll still add to their index that a door is there, with a note that they don't know what's inside the room. They'll literally say that in the SERPs, like "Page content blocked by robots.txt" and then the title tag will be whatever anchor text you used.

So even if they can't crawl the page, they'll index it's existence with all the information they can get about it (anchor text, mainly). They do this because you're the authority of the website and you linked to it, assumingely on purpose. They don't know if human visitors can reach it, they just know they can't.

To get it removed, you'll want to find where you linked to it (I'm assuming this is the case here) and remove the link. From there, Google will eventually drop it out of the index on their own, but in the mean time you can go to Search Console and request that the URL not be shown in the SERPs. I think this lasts 3 or 6 months tops before you'd need to do it again if the URL didn't drop from the index by then.

We did a search on all internal links and this particular url wasn't found. I have temporarily blocked the url in GSC, but any other ideas of where it might be found so we can remove it permanently?

 

[Jesse]

In Google Search Console, for some reason one of our Wordpress admin edit URLs is showing as Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt. The actual article itself is good and want to keep it indexed but obviously don't want the WPadmin URL indexed.

Example WPadmin URL:
https://domain.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=123&action=edit

1. How to remove the WPadmin URL from the index?
2. How did it get indexed in the first place?

Trying this search query in Google might yield something:

link:domain.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=123&action=edit

My understanding is that the "link" operator (which shows pages that link to the given url) was depreciated by Google years ago, but it still turns results.

 

[Sutra]

Trying this search query in Google might yield something:

link:domain.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=123&action=edit

My understanding is that the "link" operator (which shows pages that link to the given url) was depreciated by Google years ago, but it still turns results.

Appreciate the response. Tried that just now and nothing came up, unfortunately.

 

[savat]

How do you guys find the right niche when building a new website? Do you write all of your content yourselves or got some other tactics on how to populate the site (I've seen those WP content aggregators and similar plugins/scripts)?

I know how to design and build a nice website, know how to write, but don't have a clue yet what to focus on and where to start.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[ToffeeLa]

How do you guys find the right niche when building a new website? Do you write all of your content yourselves or got some other tactics on how to populate the site (I've seen those WP content aggregators and similar plugins/scripts)?

I know how to design and build a nice website, know how to write, but don't have a clue yet what to focus on and where to start.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.

All the information you are looking for is here:
https://www.buildersociety.com/forums/digital-strategy-crash-course.25/

 

[savat]

Hey guys, what's your opinion on comments on a new blog/magazine? Do you leave them on or disabled? I guess there can be some SEO boost, social proof and customer relations improvement if there's enough of them and they're high-quality, but I'm going to guess that's pretty rare. I don't have any audience yet. What do you think?

 

[freshpeppermint]

Okay, so guys one of my sites I am doing "OKAY" in terms of making money. But the thing is I am making most of my money from an affiliate program. While I am making like 10-20$ per month from Ezoic.

I am scared that if this special offer or deal from this affiliate program is gone, I am going to be making 50$ or some crap.

I am spending my money on building tools (this is only to juice up the site) and creating articles around this affiliate program. I am also paying some guy to create videos for youtube. Problem is, it'd be stupid for me to try and not do everything I can to juice as much money outta this affiliate program. But at the same time, I don't know if something happens to this offer, I am going to be back to making chump change.

Should I be spending my time on say creating content where I can swap out the affiliate programs with competitor affiliate program URL in future? (This type of content sure makes money but it doesn't make a lot of money where you review affiliate program or affiliate program-specific keywords. But this isn't something where I can recommend people to another program.)

Or should I continue creating the content I am already creating like affiliate program review hitting that particular affiliate program to make money (but with SEO we know it takes time.). I tried running PPC ads but it says Trademark...

 

[Zoro]

Anyone got a sweet formula or how they calculate visitors = $ ?
Like 1000 visitors = 5$.
I know it depends on how much you are getting payed but let´s say one formula for low and and one for high end?

 

[Jesse]

Any opinions on whether dating advice falls under YMYL?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Hey guys, what's your opinion on comments on a new blog/magazine? Do you leave them on or disabled? I guess there can be some SEO boost, social proof and customer relations improvement if there's enough of them and they're high-quality, but I'm going to guess that's pretty rare. I don't have any audience yet. What do you think?

I quit messing around with comments a long time ago. It's too much extra nonsense even when you disregard spammers. It's going to be 95% low quality comments not worth having on your page. And if you accept them your choice is to fix them up or respond to them to try to offset the nonsense. It's a big time waste in my opinion. I do believe comments can help show Google a page is popular and helpful. I have had great success from pages where I've baited comments (take this quiz and share your results in the comments). I still don't care about them and don't use them any more.

Should I be spending my time on say creating content where I can swap out the affiliate programs with competitor affiliate program URL in future? (This type of content sure makes money but it doesn't make a lot of money where you review affiliate program or affiliate program-specific keywords. But this isn't something where I can recommend people to another program.)

Or should I continue creating the content I am already creating like affiliate program review hitting that particular affiliate program to make money (but with SEO we know it takes time.). I tried running PPC ads but it says Trademark...

That's your call. You're going to have ups and downs in organic traffic, social media algorithms, PPC campaigns getting copied or blocked, and in affiliate programs dying on you. I think minimizing the damage as a model for getting money isn't worth it except in organic search. Most of the time it's probably better to double down on something that's working and get the money while the getting is good, and make sure you can adapt and evolve to keep rinsing and repeating.

Anyone got a sweet formula or how they calculate visitors = $ ?
Like 1000 visitors = 5$.
I know it depends on how much you are getting payed but let´s say one formula for low and and one for high end?

You need to know what your conversion is, what it's worth, and some guesstimate on how well it converts. Then you can do something like:

1000 visitors per month x 2% conversion rate x $5 per conversion = $100 per month

20,000 visitors per month x 3% click through rate x $0.25 average revenue per click = $150 per month

You can make some numbers up that you think are accurate (or search and try to find the appropriate numbers for your industry, you can usually find it) and adjust your expectations and equations as you start collecting your own data.

Any opinions on whether dating advice falls under YMYL?

I don't think so currently but I also think eventually everything will fall under YMYL and there won't be as much of a distinction any more. Google will continue to lean into links and page rank, which brands collect the most, as a means to keep spam out of the index. Their attempts to do otherwise will continue to introduce more ways for spammers to enter the SERPs. So while they refine their "helpful content" this and that, they'll have to keep using page rank (and age and branding signals), and I think links are the main factor in YMYL. They just turned the knob for links in those niches.

 

[freshpeppermint]

Ok, so I was getting some articles written where it was PURELY research data, charts, and graphs. My question is, let's say I create this, and let's say this article only brings in like 30-50 traffic per month. But, I could be writing an article that could get me 500-1000 per month of traffic.

Usually, in a case like this, the more traffic page would build more backlinks correct or no? Cus you know how they say "Oh create infographics or statistics articles, they get a lot of backlinks". Or should I just write what will get me the most traffic? (In both scenarios, my goal is just to juice the site so I rank for more competitive keywords that will make me money. Meaning the articles I will write to get the most traffic won't make me enough money if they get me fewer backlinks than the infographic statistic articles.)

 

[DanielS]

Ok, so I was getting some articles written where it was PURELY research data, charts, and graphs. My question is, let's say I create this, and let's say this article only brings in like 30-50 traffic per month. But, I could be writing an article that could get me 500-1000 per month of traffic.

Usually, in a case like this, the more traffic page would build more backlinks correct or no? Cus you know how they say "Oh create infographics or statistics articles, they get a lot of backlinks". Or should I just write what will get me the most traffic? (In both scenarios, my goal is just to juice the site so I rank for more competitive keywords that will make me money. Meaning the articles I will write to get the most traffic won't make me enough money if they get me fewer backlinks than the infographic statistic articles.)

You're overthinking things. The higher traffic articles might accumulate more links than the lower traffic articles, or they might not. Define your goal and execute. Give yourself the best chance of achieving your defined goal. You already know what the answer is, you're just trying to come up with reasons to avoid the discomfort of performing outreach, by the sound of it, at least.

 

[makoloko]

Today I found out I'm getting linked on an exclusive directory page for my niche. This directory gets a lot of attention, so it'll probably lead to more direct traffic and hopefully even more links. The site the directory is on has 96 DA. It's the top dog.

It's a nofollow link though. When an actual person sees the link, it'll signal "this is a quality site that we endorse." This is a very good thing. I'm assuming since it's nofollow, it won't have any SEO value. Is that right?

Hey guys, what's your opinion on comments on a new blog/magazine? Do you leave them on or disabled? I guess there can be some SEO boost, social proof and customer relations improvement if there's enough of them and they're high-quality, but I'm going to guess that's pretty rare. I don't have any audience yet. What do you think?

I like comments. I find them to be valuable for my site. I usually get about 3 useful types of comments every week:
1. Thanks, etc...
2. Pointing out a mistake - usually just a typo.
3. Asking a specific question my post didn't answer. I love these. These allow me to add or update content. I answer them in the comments and sometimes update the post OR write an entirely new post. My top post came as a result of someone asking me a question in the comments. Serendipity

I also get people trying to argue, or pointing out non-issues. I don't bother arguing or telling them they're wrong. I just delete these.

And of course, huge amounts of bot spam.

If you're going to use comments, be sure to have anti-spam AND require comment moderation.

 

[freshpeppermint]

You're overthinking things. The higher traffic articles might accumulate more links than the lower traffic articles, or they might not. Define your goal and execute. Give yourself the best chance of achieving your defined goal. You already know what the answer is, you're just trying to come up with reasons to avoid the discomfort of performing outreach, by the sound of it, at least.

Outreach? Oh, I am not doing any outreach at all. I was talking about getting it organically.

I am already going to be writing articles that make me money. I am just wondering whether I should just do articles that will get the most traffic and them good so that I get backlinks naturally or if I should do articles like Woodworking Statistics for example, where it's mainly charts and research data.

Are you suggesting I do outreach or something like that instead of this??

 

[thisishatred]

Outreach? Oh, I am not doing any outreach at all. I was talking about getting it organically.

I am already going to be writing articles that make me money. I am just wondering whether I should just do articles that will get the most traffic and them good so that I get backlinks naturally or if I should do articles like Woodworking Statistics for example, where it's mainly charts and research data.

Are you suggesting I do outreach or something like that instead of this??

Why not do both? One's passive, the other is active.

I'll never understand why people don't make lists of sites in their niche and literally send these people 1 email asking for a link placement, then follow up the next day if they don't respond.

Some tips:

• Personalize the email. Actually fucking read their about page, learn about who they are, pander to them in the email. This doesn't have to be long, maybe a sentence or two after your pitch. Say they're someone who makes food and posts shorts on YouTube, tell them that you found them via their "Spiderman cake" video and you saw on their site that they are open to collaborating in some capacity (wording varies in most niches - you're just here to "advertise" via a link in their existing content). I mean it sure beats the hell out of "Sir or Ma'am, you give me link for $50?"
• Follow up the next day if they don't reply with a yes or no. In the follow up, state what you pay on average for sites in their traffic range and they'll either respond or they won't; If they don't respond, cross their name off your list.

Done, sorted.

If they do respond, cool! You get a link likely within that 2nd follow up email range - or if they gave you a quoted price after the first email, it either works for you or it doesn't. If it doesn't work for you, send them an email saying so and that maybe when your "budget" is big enough, you'll circle back around with them.

The latter is enough to leave it open-ended. They either won't respond or will say "Sounds" good, or they'll ask "what is your budget?" Which gets your foot in the door.

Even if only 1 in 20 people respond, that's still a link you didn't have in your niche.

This shit isn't complicated, yet People want to make it out to be that way.

To quote @DanielS

You already know what the answer is, you're just trying to come up with reasons to avoid the discomfort of performing outreach, by the sound of it, at least.

I mean christ, you don't even have to talk to someone on the phone. You're just typing text on the screen to people you don't know. What's the worst thing that can happen? They say no?

 

[Ryuzaki]

My question is, let's say I create this, and let's say this article only brings in like 30-50 traffic per month. But, I could be writing an article that could get me 500-1000 per month of traffic.

Nobody can answer this question for you but I'd say what you ought to be doing is creating the "Link Bait" articles that you're describing and then use them to do marketing. Share them on Reddit, in forums, on Facebook Groups, do outreach... that's how you'll accelerate the whole process.

I understand your goal as being "I want to create a bunch of content that gets exposure and nets me links without doing a bunch of extra stuff". That's fine. It does work and happen. It just depends on how fast you want to go and where you want to spend your time.

Are you better off creating 10 link bait posts and not promoting them, or doing 1 link bait post and promoting it? I'd say with full confidence that the answer is to create 1 and promote it. Then create the next and promote it. It may not be a part of your original vision and you may not want to do marketing, but it's what's going to make all this worth your while, if your goal is to ultimately gain links.

I'm assuming since it's nofollow, it won't have any SEO value. Is that right?

Nofollow links traditionally don't pass page rank. They were meant to be used so that you can link to content without endorsing it. Big sites started abusing it and nofollowing all external links when Google started creating problems concerning who you link to (and they had editors and authors selling links).

So Google then said they'd treat nofollow as a hint. Meaning it might pass page rank now depending on Google's analysis of the link I guess (which would be great for us legit sites, I get so many high DR nofollow links its starting to piss me off).

The problem is Google then introduced new flags like "UGC" and "Sponsored" and now those same sites are now marking everything as rel="nofollow sponsored" which puts Google back to square one. They didn't think that one through very well.

Another thing is that Google now is doing sentiment analysis so maybe some of these nofollow links that are like "look how crap this site is"... maybe we don't want those to give us credit, you know.

That's the thick of it. The basic conclusion should just be that nofollow remains worthless for SEO, though until we learn more about how Google is dealing with it now.

 

[Lowrider]

My website has a Ahrefs DR of 52, but only a Moz DA of 18. I got quite a few good links from huge publications (Hubspot, ZDNet etc.) in the last months by creating post with original data. However, I was a bit surprised that the Moz DA is still so low.

I know that it's third-party data, but I was wondering if you see similar results for your websites

 

[MAXwin]

I am not sure if this question has been asked before but

1. Where do you host your wordpress blog?
2. Thoughts on GoDaddy for doing this?

Thank you I am new to the forum, but not new to the internet and I know programming.

 

[wrightj2]

I am not sure if this question has been asked before but

1. Where do you host your wordpress blog?
2. Thoughts on GoDaddy for doing this?

Thank you I am new to the forum, but not new to the internet and I know programming.

1. I use both WPX (circa $25 p/m) and Cloudways (starts at $10 p/m)
2. Personally wouldn’t use GoDaddy as they don’t have a particularly good reputation for hosting but more importantly don’t have the kind of features I want (automated backups, staging, cloning etc.

But all depends on what your comfortable spending and what features you need.

My website has a Ahrefs DR of 52, but only a Moz DA of 18. I got quite a few good links from huge publications (Hubspot, ZDNet etc.) in the last months by creating post with original data. However, I was a bit surprised that the Moz DA is still so low.

I know that it's third-party data, but I was wondering if you see similar results for your websites

My DRs/DAs are similar between the two but I’d imagine your significant difference is probably just MOZ being a lot slower than Ahrefs at discovering your newer backlinks and updating its data.

 

[makoloko]

The Kitchen Sink Method says "stop creating gigantic mega-posts."

Based on this description, I think I have a few mega-posts. These go wide instead of deep. For example, I tried to target a high-volume keyword, like "How to do X", and I wrote a post that answers that but also added several sections answering more specific queries, like "How to do X and Y". My posts like these have really high competition and rank poorly.

What is a good way to deal with a mega-post like this? I'm guessing it would help to split it into several smaller posts that answer a specific query, and then link them all together. So like:
post 1 "How to do X"
post 2 "How to do X and Y"
post 3 "How to do X, Y, and Z"

 

[ToffeeLa]

The Kitchen Sink Method says "stop creating gigantic mega-posts."

Based on this description, I think I have a few mega-posts. These go wide instead of deep. For example, I tried to target a high-volume keyword, like "How to do X", and I wrote a post that answers that but also added several sections answering more specific queries, like "How to do X and Y". My posts like these have really high competition and rank poorly.

What is a good way to deal with a mega-post like this? I'm guessing it would help to split it into several smaller posts that answer a specific query, and then link them all together. So like:
post 1 "How to do X"
post 2 "How to do X and Y"
post 3 "How to do X, Y, and Z"

I'd probably take a slightly different view on 2) and 3) and go for something like:
"How does doing Y affect the performance of X?"
"Good or bad? Doing Y and Z in addition to X?"

 

[vortex]

I have a question: I'm building a multi language website.

From SEO perspective, if I build links to site.com/en/ will this help the general authority of my site? or will it just "boost" the english version?

 

[savat]

I quit messing around with comments a long time ago. It's too much extra nonsense even when you disregard spammers. It's going to be 95% low quality comments not worth having on your page. And if you accept them your choice is to fix them up or respond to them to try to offset the nonsense. It's a big time waste in my opinion. I do believe comments can help show Google a page is popular and helpful. I have had great success from pages where I've baited comments (take this quiz and share your results in the comments). I still don't care about them and don't use them any more.

Thank you for the time, I actually figured the same myself. Let me grab the opportunity to ask you about the social media - where should one start with 0 followers across platforms? Nobody knows I exist at the moment. Which platforms are even worth making/starting that could be grown organically, without paid advertising? Let me know if you want to check out the website and share your thoughts. Wish you all the best.

 

[makoloko]

I've been using an alias as my author name, including on social media. I've only been using Twitter. I decided to expand into LinkedIn, because my niche is very active over there and my personal account is already establish (which is probably good for displaying "authority").

I'm thinking about using my real name as my author on my website. How will this impact SEO? I'm worried that Google will see the author name changed and not trust it or something.

Also, does it matter if I use just my first name, or should I use my full name?

 

[thisishatred]

I've been using an alias as my author name, including on social media. I've only been using Twitter. I decided to expand into LinkedIn, because my niche is very active over there and my personal account is already establish (which is probably good for displaying "authority").

I'm thinking about using my real name as my author on my website. How will this impact SEO? I'm worried that Google will see the author name changed and not trust it or something.

Also, does it matter if I use just my first name, or should I use my full name?

I'd create all the socials you can for both your author and your domain - big brands have them, so should you.

• Personal, I always do the big 4 - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin (Pinterest depending on Niche).
• Brand, as many as I can - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.

For your alias, if you created a Linkedin, you should "link" that personal profile to show that they're an "employee" of that brand (hence why the brand should have socials). Do the same thing across socials too - in your twitter bio - "Author for Brand" etc.

All the above should also be exploited via Schema - using sameAs to tell Google that:

https://www.brand.com/author/alias-name/

sameAs

https://www.twitter.com/alias-name/

https://www.facebook.com/alias-name/

etc.

Personally, I'd never use my real name on one of my sites. However, I do use Pen names which are variations of my first name, middle name, last and vice-versa; Also use a full name - both first and last.

The biggest reason these "AI profiles" don't work (https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/) is because people skip the above steps and don't create socials. Not to mention the photos they pick from the tool above all look the same - deadpan, staring back at you with no emotion. Even using your face on the sites isn't bad, just use a new photo that doesn't exist on Google.

The profiles don't even need to be public but having your "link" be visible to Google is. I know some folks who even go to the extent of regularly tweeting from each individual author profile, Facebook page, etc.

Even getting backlinks that feature your name on relevant domains is useful; You see this lots with HARO. "XYZ from Brand name said this."

In terms of transitioning author names, this could be problematic depending on how "experienced" one is in comparison to the other; I'd personally leave the authorship alone.

For instance, if you're a Civil Engineer named John and you write about bridge development with personal anecdotes and relevant information based on past experience. All of sudden the authorship changes to Jane whose driven across bridges, I'd wager to say Google wouldn't be a fan.

• John is an civil engineer with experience, and we can trust John.
• Jane has driven across bridges, the fuck does she know about building them.