W3 Report on Server Error Codes Unfortunately for some website owners, search engines have been known to decrease organic ranking positions, or prominence, of otherwise quality websites that have problematic issues on the hosting server, in the structure of the file directory, in the .htaccess file, or improperly administered redirects, to name a just a few SEO demotion culprits.

Our SEO Services [Mobile SEO aside, as a different animal] can be broken down into 3 sections; onpage SEO, offpage SEO, and Server Side SEO. Offpage is mostly the creation of social media and buzz content, as well as generation of relevant, quality backlink pointing at the site to be optimized...basically.

Onpage SEO deals with elements of the page that impact ranking as far as keywords, title tags, content prominence and placement order, anchor text, content emphasized with bold, strong, and em tags, etc.

Server Side SEO, on the other hand, deals with issues affecting ranking and visibility that are more advanced and often more obscure to the untrained eye than either onpage or offpage SEO factors.

A few examples of server side issues that could be hindering your site's SEO performance:

• canonical url bleeding; use of both www and non www versions of site
• website is using "free" hosting services
• duplicate content exists on the server; obsolete pages or different versions of pages
• site is hosted on a "blocklist spam" ip address or other bad neighborhood
• redirects are incorrectly configured
• site is using cloaking techniques
• problems with .htaccess file and / or server paths
• excessive folders and redundant directory paths; content is buried or inaccessible

The above list is by no means all-inclusive, and lists only a few examples of possibly pesky server side issues. For a personal consultation, please call us at 619.504.0450.

Are the following issues creating problems on your server? Is it possible your ranking is hampered by one or more issues below?

• Apache Redirect Messes? Ensure redirection to proper URLS,. Instead of redirecting the home page via file name with extension [index.html], redirect to your domain name using a trailing slash (”/”) at the end. For example; http://www.example.com/.
• Canonical domain not yet established? [i.e., domain.com versus www.domain.com]
• Duplicate Content previously posted online. Search engines tend to penalize websites for loading their sites with duplicate content. The search engines keep an index of where and when content first appeared, so if your heavily duplicates other websites, it may be seen as a nuisance and penalized accordingly. The search engines are voraciously hungry for new, rich, quality content that is unique. For content already in the index, duplication is of no value, although your readers may consider it interesting, you are encouraged to link to the content rather than repost it.
• Dead Links, internal or externally pointed. Practice routine link housekeeping. A solid website has a relevant and current portfolio of incoming and outgoing links.