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Erik D. Slater
MemberRaven: Assuming you're talking about XML sitemaps and not an HTML sitemap ...
You can use the (newly-named) Yoast SEO plugin to determine which XML sitemaps get created, while also controlling what goes into - and keep out of - those sitemaps.
Pages and posts are probably the only things that you really need to include.
You can also include your blog listing page ... but not if it contains the full content of your posts, since that can cause a duplication issue ... although sometimes it doesn't 🙂
Pages related to taxonomies (tags and categories) and author/user pages are subsets of the main blog listing ... and including them offers no value ... and can be safely excluded.
Yoast SEO also provides the option to exclude pages by their internal identifier if necessary ... while you can also mark pages and posts accordingly so that the search engines are informed about what to do in certain cases.
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberThe thing I was questioning was your mention of "child" ... which itself would have zero impact on anything SEO-centric ... since all the work is handled within the framework itself ... unless the child theme was so heavily customized through the use of numerous hooks.
I would love to see the two domains side-by-side ... just to see if there is something going on there. There may be some glaring markup differences that Genesis handles better than the non-Genesis site.
Even if the two sites were exactly the same in every way, they belong to two different companies. The way in which those companies execute their services may also have a significant impact ... since they couldn't possibly be the same 🙂
The companies themselves don't need to "do any peripheral efforts that would make one presence more powerful than the other". The activities of their clients/customers are a greater signal for search engine rankings.
One of the sites may have been affected by an algorithm update more than the other.
One of the domain names could have been older than the other.
The domain names themselves could have played a significant role.
Lots of other factors are involved.
SEO should never really be used as a metric to justify one product over the other ... since we have no direct control over the decision-making processes that go into determining the SERPs.
Previous SEO results cannot be taken as a reliable indicator for the success of future SEO endeavours 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberHi Alan,
It’s just so classy, so user friendly, and I never have to worry about sites cracking from updates
I agree completely. It is extremely robust 🙂
... sites running Genesis child themes excel in searches because of a variety of factors like speed, clean code, and much more.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Can you elaborate?
My question is how is the future of Genesis themes looking? Are there plans to continue rolling out themes? I haven’t seen anything otherwise but it feels like to me that things have started to slow a bit ...
The current focus of Copyblogger Media is their new(ish) Rainmaker platform (of which I am a Reseller). All StudioPress-built themes - and at least one other - are available to Rainmaker customers. If StudioPress are slowing down a bit, it doesn't mean there is anything to fear. I would be more concerned about a vendor who churns out a theme every month or so ... than a vendor who is solid, supports and is supported by other lines of business, and who creates maybe 1-3 new themes a year 🙂
I’m taking a project for a national medical company and I’m recommending they redesign to Genesis. My decision is big and a lot (more than usual) of people are counting on me.
Since you are not building the technology itself, the good news is that they are not actually counting on you, per se. They are - however - counting on the technology. You are Obi-Wan Kenobi, while your client is Luke Skywalker 🙂
If you know of a better vendor for WordPress themes and functionality, I would definitely want to know 🙂 There are some great ones out there, for sure. But the Genesis Framework works superbly. It has numerous hooks into which you can tap. The back-end functionality is solid. Everything else is just CSS ... no matter which vendor you go with 🙂
I’d rest easier knowing that StudioPress and Genesis themes have plans to continue to set the industry standard of WP themes, support, and updates ...
Don't just point them to StudioPress. Point them to Copyblogger Media. StudioPress no longer exists as a single business entity. It is now a line of business in a bigger entity ... and it is an integral part of the everything offered by said bigger entity 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
Member... it’s not in the signature - which I would be totally cool with ...
It used to be ...
Brad: You may be doing yourself a bit of an injustice 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberSent you an email 🙂
I'm a Windows sort ... but MOODY is an Apple snob 🙂 He might be able to shed some light for you there.
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
Memberwhen I clicked on the toki site a pop up would open in another tab for something like an ad or a warning site. And even now when I went to click on a link in my dashboard for the toki site an ad site opened in another tab
- Do those popups still happen when you turn off all your plugins?
- Are you on a PC/Mac? What OS are you running?
- What protection do you have on your machine?
- What browser(s) are you using?The problem may not have anything to do with your site. Indeed, those popups may not have anything to do with this particular problem.
How can I protect my sites?
I would definitely start by creating a support ticket with your web hosting provider. They should be able to determine what accessed those files (listed in the email I sent earlier) that saved the hacky code.
A BIG thank you for not only taking the time to find that but to remove and fix it for me
Not a problem 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberRight then ... so ... the problem is now fixed ... for both tokitover.com and bestbackpacksguide.com ... and it was a bit of a doozy 🙂
Basically, there were no issues with the theme or the plugins.
Instead, I found some crucial files containing code that should not have been there. I don't know if it was the result of a dodgy plugin or some hacking attempt, but removal of the code resolved the issue.
The giveaway was the filesize of the wp-config.php file ... which looked way too big at around 32KB, when normally it's only about 4KB. I downloaded it to my local machine ... and when I opened it in my editor, everything looked OK ... except for the horizontal scrollbar ... which indicated a necessity to scroll to the right for further viewing of whatever was lurking in the shadows. So scroll I did ... and found some dodgy-looking PHP porn 🙂 I couldn't even submit it here ... I guess it was that distasteful 🙂
I made a copy of these files on your server. Details of those files can be found in the email I sent you. There may be other files out there, so I would suggest you contact your web host to alert them, and to find out if additional action may be required.
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberYay cats 🙂
Got your email, thanks. Will look at your site in a few moments 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberSo lucky to have Erik the Red (otherwise known as Erik the Barbarian) working on this problem
I'm really quite the soft-n-fluffy type, like my cats 🙂
The result is still the same. Something somewhere is clearly not right. Can you send me your FTP details to [email protected] please? DO NOT POST THEM HERE ... since these pages are publicly viewable 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberThanks for the screenshots 🙂 The only thing I noticed at a glance (and likely not related) was "Google XML Sitemaps" and "WordPress SEO". I think you could remove "Google XML Sitemaps" since Yoast's plugin handles the XML sitemaps for you.
I also see you're not using a caching plugin, e.g. W3 Total Cache or similar ... so that's not getting in the way of this problem.
(1) Can you to deactivate (neither delete nor uninstall) all those plugins ... so we can see what's going on without them?
(2) Is your site now a Dynamik-free zone?
(3) Does your functions.php file contain any custom code?
We'll definitely get to the bottom of this one 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberYep ... the problem persists. The <body> tag is missing all it's standard WordPress/Genesis attributes ... including the class attribute ... which is critical.
On closer inspection of the downloaded HTML source code, there is - in fact - a special character inside the <body> tag. Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer attempt to correct the issue by adding a default <body> tag to the rendered HTML output.
I have a feeling that the problem originates inside functions.php or a plugin that hooks into the body_class filter. But I don't want to speculate too much at this stage.
Can you please list - or provide a screenshot of - all the plugins you are using for tokitover.com only ... and whether or not they are active?
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberOK. I FOUND THE PROBLEM 🙂
You are missing class="home blog sidebar-content-sidebar" (and other attributes) in the <body> tag of your home page ... and similarly for all your pages, it would seem.
I'm not sure how you managed to do that ... possibly through a combination of plugins and/or Dynamik. Something somewhere in your setup is non-standard ... and you will need to somehow reset what's going on there.
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberHaving said all that ... you should clear any caching plugins you may have installed (as Moody suggested).
Sometimes, browser inconsistency issues can be resolved by doing a hard refresh in your browser ...
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberMeanwhile, a friend of mine who is a total expert…I’m going to ask him (if I can get a hold of him) to take a look at your problem here.
And get a hold of me you did ... as I now attempt to put my already-dwindling reputation on the line 🙂
Let's focus on one site at a time to begin with. I'd like to start with Toki Tover if that's OK. The other site - Best Backpacks Guide - also uses the Eleven40 Pro theme ... although if you want help with that one, I would turn off the minify plugin thing you've got going there 🙂
Back to Toki Tover ...
The first thing that confuses me is your footer ... which says the site was built using CobaltApps' Dynamik Website Builder ... which is - itself - a child theme of sorts. Yet the site uses StudioPress' Eleven40 Pro theme ... which would not be consistent with the use of the Dynamik affiliate link.
If the site really was built using Dynamik then you will need to talk to Eric Hamm & co at Cobalt Apps. I suspect it's just an affiliate link 🙂 Can you confirm this point first?
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberYou shouldn't need the plugin mentioned in the video. You should only need the embed code from the 1min 07secs mark ... when she says "now I need to grab the code". There should be no need to go beyond the 1 min 35 secs mark of the video.
Can you provide screenshots of each area of your admin dashboard where you are adding a property listing?
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberIf you do look for another theme - and you want to replicate your existing home page layout - don't be put off by some of the layouts you see with other themes.
While many look as though (1) your header image is in the top left-hand corner, while (2) your navigation is in the top right location, that can be changed with minimal CSS efforts.
You might not think that when you see it, but Parallax Pro (just an example) could replicate your home page layout since it has generic widgets for your content areas, whereas Scribble has specific widgets for your "welcome", "about", "blog" and "services" areas.
CSS changes would be required ... which is always the case, I'm afraid 🙂 Perhaps one or two tweaks to the theme's functions.php file may be needed, e.g. changing the custom header dimensions for your header image.
Beyond that, I think it could be doable without too much pain ... although I admit I haven't looked beyond your home page at this point 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberMy buddy Moodster here is correct (sorry man ... I've been a bit quiet lately ... lots of work going on 🙂 )
Scribble is one of those old, non-responsive Genesis themes that got left for dust.
One thing I have learned over the years is the complexity with headers. There are different ways to make a header responsive. Using the
<img>
tag is the most natural way to make that happen ... but different people have different responsive requirements, so it doesn't fit all purposes ... and neither does the CSS approach.But in this case, I'm wondering if switching to a responsive theme may be the better solution here ...
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberThanks for providing some links there. Interestingly, the second link actually points back to the first.
As things stand today - and directly addressing the issue raised by the OP - if you run the two URLs through Google's Mobile Friendly Test tool, the results are consistent with each other.
Similarly with the PageSpeed Insights tool ... although I usually don't trust the image it creates on the right-hand side of the results. GTmetrix does the same thing on occasion.
Whether or not we should rely on these tools is another matter entirely 🙂
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberI find it ironic that you ask for ‘references’ in reply to one of my comments earlier yet provide zero specifity to back up such a nonsensical claim
Two birds, one stone: http://www.studiopress.community/users/gandt/replies/
I was unaware that helping people who got no responses or clear directions over the past 30 days warranted such a sensitive reaction from you.
- The OP on this thread received a solid answer from Marcy. The OP has been active elsewhere on these forums since then. Your response here added no value.
- If a thread is old and contains no responses for such an extended length of time, it would make more sense to ask the OP if the issue remains unresolved ... or to mark the thread as resolved ... and/or to open a new thread if the problem happens again
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedInErik D. Slater
MemberGandt: This would be an example of a response that is redundant and unhelpful.
Please refrain from posting such responses ... or at the very least, point the OP - and the community - to a source that justifies your opinion.
Erik D. Slater: Digital Platform Consultant • LinkedIn -
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