Resolved SEO for Pagelines

[danielfinn 1]

I am using the Yoast SEO for wordpress plug-in and have some questions aobut its intergration with the Pagelines framework. They are as follows:

1. When information is placed in boxes / box sets, and specific box sets are inserted onto a page, is that box set recognized as page content to search engines? For example, I have a SERVICES page on my blog with no textual content, but instead a box set containing several boxes with text. The Yoast plug-in therefore assumes that I have no relevant text on my page - and gives me a poor search result rating. I do actually infact have relevant text but it is a box set.

I see that Yoast allows box set to have their individual SEO, which kind of resolves my problem, but will Yoast know that box sets are linked to pages?

2. Are other Pagelines sections taken into consideration for page content such as Highlights and banners. Also, is there any documentation which outlines what makes up a highlight or banner. For example, do all highlight titles ahve the <h1> tag around them by default?

Below is an example of some results retunred by the Yoast plug-in. Some of these results are positive, however, the majority are negative. Quite a lot of them are not necessarily ture either as I am using Pagelines sections - but Yoast can't see them.

The keyword doesn't appear in the first paragraph of the copy, make sure the topic is clear immediately.

The images on this page are missing alt tags.

No outbound links appear in this page, consider adding some as appropriate.

No subheading tags (like an H2) appear in the copy.

The keyword / phrase appears in the URL for this page.

The page title contains keyword / phrase, at the beginning which is considered to improve rankings.

The meta description contains the primary keyword / phrase.

The page title is more than 40 characters and less than the recommended 70 character limit.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Simon 248]

Basically, 'yoast' and any other SEO plugin read the post content and the post excerpt ( if you add one ), features/boxes/banners or any other section on a page are not post content and are ignored by these plugins as they tend to use the the_content filter in wordpress.

[danielfinn 1]

Thanks. i have also noticed that using the badass shortcodes plug-in in the Pagelines store stops SEO plug-ins from seeing page content also. I am using BA Shortcode to generate columns and any text within the column is ignored - the same with Pagelines row/span div classes. Thanks for the clarification - I will work around the section issue.

[Danny+ 1,327]

How do you mean it stops the SEO plugin from seeing the content ?

Can you go into greater detail please.

[bass340 1]

Tha's unfortunate then Simon that box content is not recognized. I'll be moving on from Pagelines immediately after a couple of years and a lot of purchases with your company. I will also be rebuilding client sites on something else as soon as possible.

[Simon 248]

Boxes, features etc are not post content.

[bass340 1]

Boxes, features etc are not post content.

That's fine. Thanks for addressing the concern.

[Simon 248]

You could open a bug ticket

[bass340 1]

That's not a bug though is it? That's a structural concern. I'm not trying to be a smart a--. Thing is if you have a way to make this index as homepage content then I'll continue to be a brand evangelist.

[Simon 248]

What settings in wp-seo are you using? Are you trying to use description? excerpts? what exactly?

[bass340 1]

Well I have 10 sites on pagelines right now and all of them are using wp-seo. I have a feature section with three boxes beneath, all filled with content that I have always been wondering if was being indexed. I have 9,000 Twitter followers and want to continue to share how great you are. Can I please PM you with my contact information?

[Simon 248]

Indexed? Are you talking about google now? Of course its indexed, the search engines scan the finished rendered page for text, the boxes, features whatever are all text in that page.

Also the OP is referring to the built in page analyser on the post edit page, boxes, shortcodes whatever are not rendered at this point, yoast is looking at your actual post content to find keywords etc.

[bass340 1]

Well that's huge. What a mixup on my part. I assumed that because the plugin is not seeing it that Google is not either. Is there a way though to somehow work with Yoast to make the two systems jibe a little bit more on this concern. You're a programming wiz, maybe you could carve out some time to make it happen.

[Simon 248]

well like i said, the yoast analyser tool the OP is talking about scans the post content in the editor, and whatever you add the excerpt box, oh and the post title.

ALL sections are rendered when the page is viewed by the end user ( and google ).

[GetMeWebDesign+ 115]

+1 for bass340. Would be great if someone could work with Yoast

[Simon 248]

bpoa To do what now?

[jbrouwer 5]

+1

I guess to have the Yoast SEO plugin analyse the complete page (including features/boxes etc) and not only the content from the post editor. That way the page analysis from Yoast gives a better reflection of your 'seo score' for that page.

[Rob 547]

Coming into this discussion rather late, admittedly, but... I hate to state the obvious, feature slides, boxes and custom post types are not unique to PageLines. Thus it's not for us to work with Yoast to fix this. Rather, it's for Yoast to work to fix their omission. As users of their plugin, I'd recommend, heartily, that you write them and point out this obvious omission and ask that they update. Any plugin developer will react more to customer feedback than another company's.

[Simon 248]

You cannot load the finished page in the wp editor

Maybe yoast could add a front end option to scan the whole page.

There are already links to 3rd party tools in the seo drop down for keyword density etc

[squarepenguin 2]

Quick follow on question for this one...

The Banner Sets, Feature Sets, Box Sets and Format all show up as Taxonomies in the XML Sitemap section of Yoast. I am excluding Tags already as I understand that these Taxonomies will essentially display an 'archive' page of all the content in the Taxonomy and I would rather keep Tags out of the the sitemap seeing as I am not indexing them anyway.

Should I also exclude the Banner Sets, Box Sets etc from the sitemap? Am I right in thinking that if I don't, seeing as I can't 'noindex' the content of each set, I risk duplicating content in these 'archive' pages?

Of course, at the moment I have created no actual content using these Sets features, and what I am seeing in the 'archive' page has no content. It might be that when I create content, this remains the case and my question is a moot point. However, if one of you knows, I would be very interested to get some guidance on this!

[catrina 103]

I think you should exclude these banner and box sets from the site map. I don't see any point in them being there, personally, since they're sections, and not really pages or categories like blog categories that someone can navigate to.

[squarepenguin 2]

Ok great, I have done as you suggested just to be on the safe side and because like you say I could see no reason for them to be in there.

Incidentally, I did actually find a place to 'noindex' these sections within Yoast so I have made sure to do that too and I think with these settings there will be no issues arising.

Thanks for helping me!

[Danny+ 1,327]

The topic was marked as resolved.

[jagipson+ 10]

http://kb.yoast.com/article/217-is-the-plugin-compatible-with-xyz-visual-page-builder
I found this if anyone is still looking for help on this 

 

This is the message Yoast sent me 

Hi Jeff!

 

Unfortunately, we cannot provide any support custom work to make your theme compatible. The filter given, is used as an example.

 

If you would like Pagelines to be compatible with Yoast, then you may want to reach out to the theme developers, and have them work with our developers in finding a solution.

 

How would you rate my reply? 

       

Thanks and regards,

Nile

 

--

Nile Flores

at Yoast

Edited October 5, 2015 by jagipson (see edit history)

[jagipson+ 10]

Please Add Support for Yoast PL!