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Recent Posts
- Thinking About Switching From WordPress? What Should You Consider Before You Move?
- The Airtable Acquisition Raises a Bigger Question: Do You Really Own the Software Your Business Runs On?
- How to Use Google Search Console’s New Generative AI Data to Improve Your SEO
- How to Update the Same Website Content on Multiple Pages at Once
- Discovered vs. Crawled Not Indexed in Google Search Console: What’s the Difference and How to Fix Each
- The Small Business Guide to Auditing Google Ads and Website Costs
- Do Professional Writers Still Need SEO in the Age of AI?
- Search Engine First vs. People First Content: Why Generic FAQ Dumps Harm Your SEO
- Looking for a Website Builder Without AI? Which One Should You Choose?
- Keyword Cannibalization: How to Find and Fix the Pages Stealing Your Own Google Traffic
- Why Great Content Gets Stuck on Page 8 (And How to Fix It)
- Why MySQL FULLTEXT Search Returns 0 Results (And How to Fix It)
- The Reality of Domain Speculation on New TLD Launches: Is It Still Worth It?
- The Hidden Domain Name Lock-In: Which Registrars Restrict Nameservers?
- Paying $10,000 a Month for SEO? Here’s How to Tell If You’re Getting Your Money’s Worth
- Introducing New WordPress Magazine Layouts in UltimateWB 9 (With Early Access)
- How to Fix the WordPress “Critical Error” on the Widgets Page After a PHP Upgrade
- The Hidden Risk of SaaS Website Builders: Lessons from the Recent Wix Outage
Categories
Tag Archives: crawlers
How to Use Google Search Console’s New Generative AI Data to Improve Your SEO
If you run a website, you’ve probably noticed a massive shift in how people find information online. Between AI Overviews at the top of search results and interactive search interfaces like AI Mode, traditional organic search traffic patterns are changing fast.
For a long time, site owners had no clear way to measure this visibility. Google addressed this gap by introducing dedicated Generative AI performance reporting inside Google Search Console (GSC). If the update has rolled out to your Search
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Posted in AI, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged AI crawling, ai impressions, ai mode, ai overviews, AI visibility, clicks, crawlers, ctr, Generative AI performance, Google Search Console, Googlebot, gsc, headings, indexing, keyword research, keyword stuffing, keyword targeting, organic traffic, page structure, schema markup, search engine results, search performance, seo, seo strategy, serps, structured data, user experience
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Search Engine First vs. People First Content: Why Generic FAQ Dumps Harm Your SEO
For years, a common SEO tactic dominated web design: take a page, scroll to the bottom, and drop in a generic FAQ block.
The strategy seemed logical on paper. If you added ten accordion-style questions loaded with long-tail keywords, you’d hit a higher word count, capture extra search queries, and bump up your page’s relevance.
Today, that exact strategy can actively hurt your site’s search rankings.
Google’s algorithms have evolved to target what they explicitly term "search-engine-first content" - pages
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Content
Tagged ai slop, boost conversions, bounce rate, build trust, clean structure, crawlers, engagement signals, faq, fast website, generate value, google algorithm, help center, helpful content, high-quality content, indexing, keyword research, keyword research tool, keyword stuffing, knowledge base, llm, long-tail keywords, people-first content, search engine ranking, search-engine-first content, seo, target keywords, useful content, user experience
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Why cPanel AWStats Shows 90%+ of Website Visits as 0–30 Seconds (And Why It’s Normal)
If you have ever opened your website analytics and looked at the Visits Duration report, you may have felt a sudden wave of concern.
You see that the majority of your visits - sometimes 90% or more - appear in the shortest duration category:
0 seconds to 30 seconds.
Does that mean visitors are leaving immediately? Is your content failing? Is your website not engaging people?
Before assuming the worst, it helps to understand what your analytics system is
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Traffic
Tagged AI crawlers, awstats, bots, cpanel, cpanel awstats, crawlers, disables cookies, engage visitors online, engagement, google analytics, javascript, server-level vs script-based analytics, tracking script, visit duration, web hosting, website visitors
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Webpage direct visits: bots, crawlers, or real visitors?
"Are webpage visits coming from a direct visit (vs a search) from bots or crawlers vs real visitors, or perhaps AI scrapers?"
Yes - a significant portion of direct webpage visits can come from bots, crawlers, and AI scraping content, not just real human visitors. But how much depends on the site, traffic level, and what kind of page you’re looking at.
Below is a clear breakdown.
1. What “Direct” Traffic Really Means
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Posted in AI, Ask David!, Website Traffic
Tagged ai, AI crawling, ai scrapers, analytics accuracy, bot traffic, bots, bots vs humans, content scraping, crawlers, direct traffic, fake direct traffic, fake traffic, google analytics, matomo, raw server logs, real visitors, robots, seo, SEO analytics, server logs, traffic analysis, web crawlers, website analytics, website monitoring
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What techniques do you use to improve website crawlability and indexability?
Good question! A well-designed website is only half the battle. For your website to truly thrive online, it needs to be seen by search engines and potential visitors. This is where crawlability and indexability come into play...
Conquer the Crawl: Techniques to Boost Website Crawlability and Indexability
Simply put, crawlability refers to how easily search engine bots (also known as crawlers) can navigate and access your website's content. Indexability determines whether those crawled pages are deemed worthy of inclusion in
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Posted in Ask David!, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Tagged analytics, backlinks, content creation, content is king, crawl, crawlers, engagement, fast loading times, Google Search Console, indexing, interactive, mobile friendly, organic traffic, responsive, responsive app, search engine crawl, search engine optimization, search engine optimization tips, search engine results pages, seo, serps, sitemap, sitemap generator, website speed, xml sitemap
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How to deal with bad bots and crawlers that waste your server resources and harm your website?
It is true that there are bad bots and crawlers that can potentially harm your website by consuming server resources, engaging in scraping, or attempting to exploit vulnerabilities. These malicious bots can negatively impact your website's performance, security, and user experience.
To address this issue, it's possible to implement measures to block or restrict the activities of bad bots and crawlers without affecting the good bots and crawlers that are used by legitimate search engines.
Here are some methods for
... Continue readingShould you block bots and crawlers from your website?
“Ask David!” question: "Is it a bad idea for SEO and search engine indexing and ranking to block bots and crawlers from accessing your website?"
Short Answer: Yes.
Blocking search engine bots and crawlers from accessing your website is generally a bad idea if your goal is to achieve good SEO rankings and search engine indexing. Here's why:
- Invisibility to Search Engines: When you block bots and crawlers, your website becomes invisible to search engines like Google. They won't be
Posted in Ask David!, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Traffic
Tagged backlinks, bots, cloaking, crawlers, fast website, fast-loading times, high-quality content, invisibility, keyword ranking, meta robots, mobile optimization, organic traffic, responsive app, search engine crawl, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, seo, sitemap generator, target keywords, webpage indexing, website speed, xml sitemap
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How reliable and accurate is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a reliable and accurate tool for tracking website traffic and visitor behavior. It is used by millions of websites around the world, and it is considered to be the industry standard for web analytics.
Google Analytics uses a variety of methods to collect data, including JavaScript tags, cookies, and server-side collection. The data is then processed and stored in Google's data centers.
Google Analytics is known for its accuracy and reliability. However, it is important to note
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Posted in Ask David!, Website Traffic
Tagged ad blockers, bots, crawlers, data, google analytics, google analytics troubleshooter, sampling, website traffic
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