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BritneyMuller

Hi Chris,

Are you still using ColdFusion?

It sounds like you're on a Windows server, yeah? If so, adding this to your web.config file should do the trick:

Otherwise, adding the following to your web.config for WordPress should work:

 <rulename="company cfm"=""><matchurl="^company (.*)$"=""><conditionslogicalgrouping="matchall"><addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isfile"negate="true"><addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isdirectory"negate="true"><actiontype="rewrite"url="{r:1}.cfm"></actiontype="rewrite"url="{r:1}.cfm"></addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isdirectory"negate="true"></addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isfile"negate="true"></conditionslogicalgrouping="matchall"></matchurl="^company></rulename="company>

BritneyMuller

Thanks for your great question!

Schema.org has stated that using either is fine. Here is their longer form answer from their FAQ page on which to use:

"There is a general trend towards using 'https' more widely, and you can already write 'https://schema.org' in your structured data. Over time we will migrate the schema.org site itself towards using https: as the default version of the site and our preferred form in examples. However 'http://schema.org' -based URLs in structured data markup will remain widely understood for the forseeable future and there should be no urgency about migrating existing data. This is a lengthy way of saying that both 'https://schema.org' and 'http://schema.org' are fine."

That being said...I think I'll go switch Moz.com to https now. 🙂 Think they will keep http:// around for a while, though. Especially considering SEOs who implemented Schema before https and G doesn't want to penalize site owners for not knowing any better? <- My personal thoughts on this.

Thanks again!

BritneyMuller

Definitely, agree with Robert. You do not need rel=canonical tags on filtered / search views of your content.

After you remove these rel=canonical's, I'd suggest running your site through Screaming Frog's rel=canonical error report to confirm that the rel=canonical issues are fixed.

Hope that helps,

B

BritneyMuller

Hi Jessica!

You're absolutely correct, use of a canonical on paginated pages should point to a "view all" page as opposed to page 1 of the paginated content. I've heard of the Yoast plugin causing some problems with rel=canonical markup in WP and would suggest getting rid of that canonical (especially if you have rel=prev/next markup).

Hope this helps.

B

BritneyMuller

So the consensus is that there's no right or wrong answer here, but in general, you should be looking to be higher than your competitors (especially on non-branded KWs).

You should also aim for higher visibility over time. The higher your visibility, the more traffic you will drive to your website. However, if you don't see organic traffic increase (with increased search visibility), you might be missing some primary keywords.

Hope this helps,

B

BritneyMuller

This is such a great question Meagan! I imagine it'll be quite different for individual industries?

Let me check with my team to see if we know the ballpark average search visibility and what you should shoot for. Thank you for asking this 🙂

-Will get back to you soon.

BritneyMuller

Thanks EGOL 🙂

Apologies, it was late and I've heard that term used in a few different ways. Should have figured that was the case though. -Thank you!

This is another great resource on how Search Visibility is calculated: https://moz.com/help/guides/moz-pro-overview/rankings/search-visibility

BritneyMuller

Just to clarify, what do you mean exactly by search visibility percentage? Percentage of visits to your website via organic search?

BritneyMuller

Hi David,

Curious why you're not interested in doing rel=canonicals? I think I understand your overall goal and would suggest simply hiring a content marketer or writer to differentiate the content from product A page to product B page.

Hiring a content marketer or writer to differentiate the content from one to the other would be well worth it in this situation. Have the writer re-organize and re-write the content (while maintaining the same message) so that crawlers will view each page as unique.

Cheers,

B

BritneyMuller

It's also worth mentioning that Google gets SO MANY of these before and after requests they have created a segmented carousel (Dr. Pete would prob punch me for using that name haha!) -Nudity is not an issue for these indexed / segmented photos and greatly improves UX.

THANKS PEOPLE!! 🙂

Peace, Love & Grandma Hugs

oL5a1hM.png

BritneyMuller

Thanks for your great question!

Schema.org has stated that using either is fine. Here is their longer form answer from their FAQ page on which to use:

"There is a general trend towards using 'https' more widely, and you can already write 'https://schema.org' in your structured data. Over time we will migrate the schema.org site itself towards using https: as the default version of the site and our preferred form in examples. However 'http://schema.org' -based URLs in structured data markup will remain widely understood for the forseeable future and there should be no urgency about migrating existing data. This is a lengthy way of saying that both 'https://schema.org' and 'http://schema.org' are fine."

That being said...I think I'll go switch Moz.com to https now. 🙂 Think they will keep http:// around for a while, though. Especially considering SEOs who implemented Schema before https and G doesn't want to penalize site owners for not knowing any better? <- My personal thoughts on this.

Thanks again!

BritneyMuller

So the consensus is that there's no right or wrong answer here, but in general, you should be looking to be higher than your competitors (especially on non-branded KWs).

You should also aim for higher visibility over time. The higher your visibility, the more traffic you will drive to your website. However, if you don't see organic traffic increase (with increased search visibility), you might be missing some primary keywords.

Hope this helps,

B

BritneyMuller

Hi Jessica!

You're absolutely correct, use of a canonical on paginated pages should point to a "view all" page as opposed to page 1 of the paginated content. I've heard of the Yoast plugin causing some problems with rel=canonical markup in WP and would suggest getting rid of that canonical (especially if you have rel=prev/next markup).

Hope this helps.

B

BritneyMuller

Definitely, agree with Robert. You do not need rel=canonical tags on filtered / search views of your content.

After you remove these rel=canonical's, I'd suggest running your site through Screaming Frog's rel=canonical error report to confirm that the rel=canonical issues are fixed.

Hope that helps,

B

BritneyMuller

Hi Chris,

Are you still using ColdFusion?

It sounds like you're on a Windows server, yeah? If so, adding this to your web.config file should do the trick:

Otherwise, adding the following to your web.config for WordPress should work:

 <rulename="company cfm"=""><matchurl="^company (.*)$"=""><conditionslogicalgrouping="matchall"><addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isfile"negate="true"><addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isdirectory"negate="true"><actiontype="rewrite"url="{r:1}.cfm"></actiontype="rewrite"url="{r:1}.cfm"></addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isdirectory"negate="true"></addinput="{request_filename}"matchtype="isfile"negate="true"></conditionslogicalgrouping="matchall"></matchurl="^company></rulename="company>

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BritneyMuller

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