Documented by Gaelim Holland Site Audit wExecutive Website Audit www. shopback.com
Aug 06, 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Documented by
Gaelim Holland
Site Audit
wExecutive Website Audit
www. shopback.com
Site Audit of Shopback.com
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TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................... 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................... 3
BREAKDOWN OF ISSUES .................................................................................................................... 5
1.0 Content ................................................................................................................................................5
1.1 Issues ............................................................................................................................................................5
1.2 Recommendations .......................................................................................................................................7
2.0 Crawl ...................................................................................................................................................8
2.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................... 10
3.0 Sitemap ............................................................................................................................................. 11
3.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 11
4.0 Robots.txt .......................................................................................................................................... 12
4.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 12
4.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................... 12
5.0 Canonicalization ................................................................................................................................. 13
5.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 13
5.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................... 14
6.0 Architecture ....................................................................................................................................... 14
6.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 15
6.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................... 16
7.0 Internal Links ..................................................................................................................................... 17
7.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................... 17
8.0 Inbound Links ..................................................................................................................................... 18
8.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 18
8.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................... 19
9.0 Images ............................................................................................................................................... 20
9.1 Issues ......................................................................................................................................................... 20
9.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................... 21
10.0 Titles ................................................................................................................................................ 22
10.1 Issues....................................................................................................................................................... 22
10.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................. 23
11.0 Meta Descriptions ............................................................................................................................ 24
11.1 Issues....................................................................................................................................................... 24
11.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................. 25
12.0 Site Speed ........................................................................................................................................ 26
12.1 Issues....................................................................................................................................................... 26
12.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................................. 28
13.0 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 29
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Shopback.com is a website with a business goal of attracting users who are interested in using online
coupons and discount codes. It's onsite and offsite elements should reflect this ambition. The website
architecture should be structured from category to subcategory to lead users to a discount code reveal
or to an offsite partner.
At present , the website architecture lacks depth; it does not lead users from category to subcategory
pages which creates a very flat architecture. This is not ideal for both users and search engines to
maneuver Additionally, users enter the website from different pages. They will not all fall on the
homepage. Therefore, it's important to have good navigational strategy to lead them through the
website. Using breadcrumbs and organizing the website in logical fashion is necessary. See Site
Architecture and Site Map section for more information and Internal Links section for insights and
recommendations.
A website must be informative and have relevant content for the user and the search engine. Without
these factors, the users will leave the page immediately and the search engine will devalue the
website. More detailed keyword rich content must be added to the website to overcome these
shortcomings and signal context to the search engine. The content that is produced by Shopback.com
must remain unique. All pages should have unique titles, descriptions, URLs and content. With recent
algorithm changes, this has become a critical factor. Both manual and technical steps need to be
taken to make sure that duplicate information is not being released on the web and that the source of
this information is linked to shopback.com or its pages. There are several issues on Shopback.com that
may lead to duplicate content penalties and confusion. Please see Canonicalization section
Meta data is comprised of the website's title, description and URL of the website. Both users and
search engines use this to classify the website. These elements should reflect the keyword strategy to
drive the right type of traffic to the website and attract users' clicks from the search engine result
pages . Optimizing these elements will ultimately lead to better ranking and more click throughs.
Shopback.com has a few issues in this area see Meta Data
All data and information should not be available to search engines. Steps need to be taken to stop
Google or any search engine from indexing all pages. This needs to be done to preserve confidential
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data and not waste the website link equity on low search content. Shopback.com has not taken steps
to avoid indexing all its pages. See Robots.txt
Search engines weigh technical issues and speed in the ranking algorithm, the website must have
optimized images and coding to avoid slow loading speeds. A fast site leads to a better user experience
and will increase conversion and time on the website. Shopback.com has several issues affecting its
speed. See Site Speed.
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BREAKDOWN OF ISSUES
1.0 Content
The content on the webpage is the most important element to the website. It not only informs users
but also informs the search engines. Content must be well written and optimized for search engines
using adequate length and judicious use of targeted keywords.
Tools used: Screaming Frog, Raven Tools
1.1 Issues
Site contains “thin” pages
The content on this website is severely lacking. Thin content will ultimately lead to issues with Google's
Panda Algorithm. It is important to provide sufficient information to the users. Search engines can
interpret thin pages as non-informative.
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Limited Keywords in Content
The main page has targeted keywords in the content such as "cashback" which is an important keyword for the company's business goal of the website. This keyword can be found 27 times in the body and in a H1 tag.
However, "online vouchers" and "online discount codes" cannot be found anywhere on the page. All
other pages do not have keyword specific content. If the keywords are not in the content of the pages,
it will difficult for search engines to classify and rank these pages. These keywords should be used
judiciously throughout the website's content and in a natural conversational manner.
Pages with missing H1 tags
There is over 25% of H1 Titles missing from the website's pages.
.
Search engines use the H1 tag to interpret what a page is about, much in the same way readers of a
magazine use article titles to get an idea of what an article is about. When pages are missing H1 tags,
it’s harder for both visitors and search engines to decipher what the page is about. The H1 tag should
contain a judicious use of the keyword(s) you’re targeting the page for. Be careful to make the
language natural and not keyword stuffed. If you have to decide between user experience and SEO, go
with user experience.
Pages duplicate H2 tags
Over 99% of the H2 Titles are duplicate.
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Code to Text Ratio
Thin content can also be measured by code to text. There should be a high amount of text to code. The
search engines will ultimately see high code to text as very thin content. Recent, algorithm changes
award websites with good informative content.
1.2 Recommendations
It is important that pages have enough content to for search engine's to consider informative. I
recommend that pages be expanded to at least 300 words.
H1 tags should be added to indicate to search engines what the pages are about. Keywords
should be added judiciously in the content, the H1 and H2 tags to aid in ranking for these
terms..
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2.0 Crawl
Search engines use automated programs to find, review and index web pages. These programs are
known "crawlers". It's important to have an organized accessible architecture which allows crawlers to
enter, evaluate, and index each web page.
Tools Used: Google Webmasters Tool
2.1 Issues
Crawl Errors
The website has 22 Crawl Errors in Google Webmasters Tools. These errors are mostly generated due
to 404 pages. This code indicates that a page has been removed or doesn't exist.
Often when pages are deleted. It's best practice that we review the missing URL and either redirect
them to the new updated URL or create a custom 404 page that allows for the user to find what
existing content they are looking for.
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No custom 404 page
Often when pages are deleted, it's best practice that we review the missing URL and either redirect
them to the new updated URL or create a custom 404 page that allows for the user to find what
existing content they are looking for. At present, the 404 page is redirected to the homepage.
Site uses nofollow tags ineffectively
There are no no-follow directives on the sites. No-follow directives should be used to tell search
engines not to include content. Best practices suggest we use these to stop blog comments, user-
generated content and paid links from receiving credit from your website.
Navigation uses Javascript
Navigation is fully functional even when Java script is disabled. Search engines have limited ability to
crawl javascript technology. Java script is used to make drop-down menus among other website
functions. It's important for crawlers to be able to reach the navigation links. However, some
elements of the site that are used for navigation purposes cannot be used when Javascript is enabled.
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2.2 Recommendations
Create a custom 404 page with links to drive users into the website. At present, 404 signals
redirect users to homepage. While this is better than an blank 404 page, it's better to customize
these pages.
Use a 301 Redirect to send users to pages than have been replaced with new related web pages.
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3.0 Sitemap
3.1 Issues
A sitemap is as it suggests a map. It details to the users how to navigate through your website
homepage to deeper levels of your website. Think of it as the table of contents of your website. It
shows the search engines how to crawl your website. Without a site map, your website's content may
be difficult to classify in the search engines.
There are two types of sitemaps that should exist. HTML and XML sitemaps. Both of these sitemaps
help search engines crawlers classify your content. However, HTML is just a organization of all the links
on your website. A user would find this extremely beneficial. On the other hand, an XML sitemap
contains extra data that is specifically geared towards the search engines.
Simply typing the URL: www.shopback.com/sitemap.xml will reveal the XML sitemap
No HTML Sitemap
There is no HTML Sitemap. This is a beneficial component to the user and search engine. The HTML site
map will allow search engine crawlers to find your new content and web pages quicker. Simply typing
:www.shopback.com/sitemap.xml into the search bar reveals a 404 page and redirects the user back to
the homepage
Recommendation
Add an HTML Site Map in order to improve website's user and crawler navigation.
This also helps crawlers discover pages faster.
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4.0 Robots.txt
Robots.txt file should be utilized to instruct search engines on what not to index. It's best practices to
not index content that will bring little or no search volume . This file should be also be used to block
search engines from indexing private or sensitive information. A valid robots.txt file does exist.
4.1 Issues
Pages that should be in robots.txt
There are pages on the site that should be included in the robots.txt file such as "Terms of Use" and
"Privacy Policy" page.
4.2 Recommendations
Add "terms of use" and "privacy policy" pages to the robots.txt file
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5.0 Canonicalization
Canonicalization is used to avoid duplicate versions of a website or webpage from being indexed in
search engines. When duplicate version of website exist in search engines the link credit gets split.
Tools Used: SEO Site Checkup ad Screaming Frog
5.1 Issues
Homepage not canonicalized properly
Although the www. and non www. version of the homepage are canonicalized. The
www.shopback.com/index.html and www.shopback.com/home pages have been redirected with
302 redirect which does not give all link power to the main URL.
Site doesn’t canonicalize print pages
The site is not using CSS for these or unique URLs. The image shows all the css files the print pages css
does not exist.
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5.2 Recommendations
Properly canonicalize "www.shopback.com/home" and www.shopback.com/index" pages by
using a 301 redirect
Use CSS for print pages for proper canonicalization.
6.0
Architecture
Site Architecture is extremely important to search engine optimization. Site architecture and URLs
should be clean and well organized for both users and search engines. The site architecture also
provides context and relevance to pages and URLs. The architecture must communicate to the user
and search engines the context of each page. The website's depth signals to search engines the
importance of each page. The homepage is the most powerful page on the website. Pages directly
linked to home page are 2nd in importance and so on.
Tools Used: Screaming Frog
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6.1 Issues
Breadcrumb Issues
Breadcrumbs are used to show the user where they are in the website's architecture. Users have the
ability to enter the website from different URLs based on searchable keywords. Breadcrumbs will
show users where they are within the site's architecture and allow them to easily navigate the website.
The website does not have breadcrumbs structure in the website. This reduces bounce rate by
allowing the user to see higher level pages they may be interested in . Here is a good example of how
breadcrumbs should be utilized.
Main keyword (link to home) > Main keyword + word (category link) – Main keyword + word
Food > Food Vouchers > Food Panda Vouchers
Site Depth and Orginaztion.
Although the site architecture is simple and easy to follow. There should be a logical flow from
homepage to category to subcategory. All pages are currently connected to the homepage in a tier 1
structure. This is an extremely flat architecture that is difficult to navigate and doesn't utilize site depth
properly.
For example, If I click the category fashion from the homepage, this URL will be displayed:
http://www.shopback.com/fashion
This page has brand subcategories to choose from. One such brand is MissGuidedUs. Clicking this link
should award me with URL that looks like this:
http://www.shopback.com/fashion/missguidedus-voucher
However the existing URL structure is as such:
http://www.shopback.com/missguidedus
This also creates a confusing site map for both the users and the search engines.
Currently all pages are either r at level 1 or level 2 by the search engines. This indicates the number of
steps from the start page. A good structure should push less important pages deeper into the
architecture and raise more important pages.
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6.2 Recommendations
Below are the recommendations to remedy these issues:
Create a plan to incorporate bread crumbs into the website's architecture to allow users to
navigate the website easier and reduce bounce rate. The breadcrumbs should reflect the
category to subcategory flow structure.
Create a deeper site architecture that allows the user to move from a logical category to
subcategory flow. This will provide more organization to the search engine and user.
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7.0 Internal Links
Internal links are an essential part of your website navigation. The user experience is completely
dependent upon the website ability to lead the user from one area of the website to the another.
Tools Used: MOZ Site Explorer
7.1 Issues
Pages with too many links
http://www.shopback.com/fashion 123 Links
http://www.shopback.com/accessories 102 links
These pages have more than 100 links. It's best to keep pages under 100 links.
7.2 Recommendations
Reduce the amount of links on the page to under a 100. It would best to better categorize the
content on the fashion and accessories pages to give users a better experience and reduce the
amount of links.
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8.0 Inbound Links
Inbound links are like votes to a candidate. However, it not so much about the amount of links.
Although, this does play a role in ranking, the quality of the link is also extremely important. Search
engines use links as a metric to gauge the popularity of website. With new algorithmic changes, search
engines can determine the quality of a website's link profile. If you have a large amount of spammy or
unnatural inbound links. You will be categorized as such.
Tools used: Ahrefs, SEO Site Checkup, MOZ site Explorer
8.1 Issues
Overly optimized and repetitive anchor text
One of most influential indicators that search use in rankings is anchor text. This is the clickable link on
a web page. If there are a lot of links pointing to page with the right keywords in the anchor text, that
page has a very good probability of ranking well for the targeted phrase in that anchor text.
15-30% of a link profile should originate from exact or near-match anchor text links. The rest should be
a variety of anchor text. In this property, 100% of the anchor text is a variation of the brand name
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Linkable assets aren’t top organic landing pages
The majority of inbound links are to a landing page that laments the end of the Great Singapore Sale.
However, this was a seasonal event. According to the marketing team, the zalora cash page is their
best asset due to the popularity of the brand in this country.
8.2 Recommendations
Use the website key words to create deep links to website. Look for links opportunities using
competitive analysis and social media. Acquire anchor text that will lead users to relevant pages
and send ranking signals to Google.
Avoid linking users to one singular page. Determine the greatest asset pages use these as
linkable assets. At present the client, considers their home page as their most linkable asset.
Therefore, using more anchor text with website defining keywords is needed.
Create a better conversion strategy for the GSS is Over Page. Users will land on this page and
need to be persuaded to navigate deeper into the website. At present, there is only a form, this
is hard sell. Using more relevant content and persuasive content to could help click through
rates.
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9.0 Images
Images are an essential part of SEO. In order for search engines to classify or list pictures in the search
engine result pages, there must be text to describe the picture. This is called ALT Text which is added to
the picture file to adequately describe the images.
Tools Used: Raven Tools, Screaming Frog
9.1 Issues
Large images
With SEO being inextricably tied to user experience, search engines are trying to motivate webmasters
to make their sites easier to use by adding page load time as a ranking factor. One factor that can bloat
page load times is large images. In the rush to publish, it’s easy to overlook image size. However, great
care should be taken to make sure images are under 100KB
Images with no or irrelevant ALT text
There are quite a severe number of images that are missing their ALT-Text and Title Text
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There will be very low visibitly for these images if there is no accompanying ALT TEXT.
9.2 Recommendations
Add descriptive and keyword specific description to all images using the ALT TEXT and title text.
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10.0 Titles
Ultimately the page title is a key ingredient in your meta data to capture users attention. The title
should clearly indicate what the page is about and find some way to utilize relevant keywords.
Tools Used: Screaming Frog
10.1 Issues
Pages with missing titles
The following URL is missing a title:
http://www.shopback.com/elf-cosmetics
Pages with long titles
Best practices suggest that titles fall under 65 characters with an ideal length of 55 characters. The
following titles exceed this practice.
Duplicate page titles
There are few instances of duplicate titles. This a bad practice due to the fact that this sends a duplicate content
message to the search engines which can have your website removed from the results.
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Pages with repetitive titles
Although each page technically has a unique title. They are repetitious. Since the title is one of the
most important elements to the search engine and user, it is important to have compelling and unique
titles that increase click through.
As seen in the image, there is a page that addresses technical issues. This title also includes the terms
"coupons & promotions". This has no connection to the term "technical issue".
10.2 Recommendations
Remove the "Coupon & Promotions" tag from pages that do not specifically provide this.
Unique titles should be keyword specific and fall under the most relevant keyword. Keyword
research would help to come up with the best title.
Rewrite page titles to ensure that they fall under 65 characters and above 30 characters.
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11.0 Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions provide concise explanations of the contents of web pages. These descriptions are
used to provide users with enough information to stimulate a click through from the search engine
results.
11.1 Issues
Pages with missing meta descriptions
The following pages are missing meta descriptions.
Pages with long meta descriptions
There are a number of long meta descriptions. Over 23 percent of the meta descriptions are too long.
It's best practices to keep these descriptions under 156 characters.
Pages with short meta descriptions
Over 13 percent of the websites meta descriptions are two short. It best to keep meta descriptions
over 70 characters.
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Odd capitalizations in descriptions
Meta descriptions should be written with a conversational tone that follows standard sentence case to
aid readability. However, there are a few capitalizations that seem unnatural. The URL below has a
meta description which seems "salesy" and unnatural
11.2 Recommendations
Ensure that descriptions are over 70 characters and below 156 characters.
Eliminate unnatural text and keep the descriptions conversational with good call to action
statements.
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12.0 Site Speed
Website speed is ultimately tied to user experience. If pages do not load within the users'
expectations, they will ultimately hit the back button and leave your site. Elements of the website must
be optimized for speed.
Tools Used: Google Page Speed Insights and Web Page Test
http://www.webpagetest.org/
12.1 Issues
High Page Load time
The overall website's loading time is slow due to Javascript and CSS above the fold content.
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Site uses inline CSS
Inline styles are CSS styles that are specified within the page code itself, as opposed to inside an
external style sheet. Repeated use of inline styles leads to unnecessary code bloat and slower page
loading. Using an external CSS stylesheet that references these styles will lead to smaller code and
faster page loading.
Site uses inline Javascript
If your site is using the same Javascript code across multiple pages, you should consider using an
external Javascript file so that it will be cached by the user's browser for each of those page views. This
will reduce your page's HTML size, as well as make your code easier to maintain.
Site doesn’t minify all JavaScript or CSS
Shopback.com does minify some of its JavaScript or CSS files. Although there are some files that are
not minified. Minifying these files removes unnecessary bytes on the wire. While it's great to put
comments, tabs and whitespace in code to improve readability and maintenance, these are bytes that
take up space on the wire and that a browser has to parse unnecessarily.
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12.2 Recommendations
Minify all javascript and CSS for a decreased loading time of 6%
Use external Java Script and CSS files to decrease unnecessary loading time. There are several
online tools that can be used to perform this. YUI Compressor is one of them.
http://refresh-sf.com/yui/
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13.0 Conclusions
Overall Shopback.com has done many things correctly. However, there are many elements that need
to be properly optimized for the search engines.
Organizing the site architecture according to a keyword strategy is a major importance. This keyword
research will ultimately tie to the business strategy and influence offsite factors such as link building
and anchor text choices. Optimizing the website for user experience and search engine crawlers is
needed. Without this measure, search engines will not be able to properly analyze your content and
users will be confused. Sitemap and breadcrumbs will be an important tools in informing search
engines and users about how to navigate your website. Therefore, a well organized HTML and XML site
map is needed
Unique and sufficient content needs to be added to the site to avoid new algorithm penalties. A
website's content should be keyword specific, informative in nature and persuade users to flow
through a predefined conversion funnel which can be established with good architectural choices. Thin
content and high code will ultimately classify a website a low or thin content. Good content practices
are not limited to just what's on the page. Without well defined and concise meta data strategy
search engines will not be able to categorize our pages and users will not click our results in the search
engine pages. We can control our choice of indexed pages into the search engine with several
strategies discussed above such as Robots.txt. Moreover, duplicate content needs to be handled with
proper canonicalization.
Some web technology such as javascript that limits navigation and site speed should be addressed on
the development side and proper steps to eliminate unnecessary code, excessive image size and
JavaScript bloat. Ultimately , we want a fast website to deliver exquisite unique content to users. In
the end, we have two masters, the search engine crawlers and our users. If you need to make a choice
between the two, always choose the user. However, we are all playing Google's house so let's follow
the rules and play nice.