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Category: Intermediate & Advanced SEO

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  • Hi everyone, I'm sorry if this has been asked before. I just wasn't able to find a response in previous questions. To fix the problems in our website regarding duplication I have the possibility to set up 301's and, at the same time, modify our CMS so that it automatically sets a rel="canonical" tag for every page that is generated. Would it be a problem to have both methods set up? Is it a problem to have a on a page that is redirecting to another one? Is it advisable to have a rel="canonical" tag on every single page? Thanks for reading!

    | SDLOnlineChannel
    0

  • Interesting topic and would love to hear some thoughts. How do you justify SEO, measure results, etc etc

    | imageworks-261290
    0

  • What is the best way to target a specific keyword? I rank well for several of my keywords but want to do better on others. How do I go about doing this?

    | bronxpad
    0

  • Hello Everyone, I'm new to SEOmoz, I'm looking to use this as a tool to really help me, and evenually I can help others. I am an Web Developer with some online marketing experience. I did Local SEO a Few Years ago, and things have really changed since then. I know this Panda and Penguin update really is putting a hurting on the directory submission. Google no longer has 'Citations" on their places page, and many other changes. With that being said, what are some best practices for Local SEO? I am a propeller head by nature, but am also very creative when I need to be. I have potental sites to market, anywhere from Holistic Medical Doctors, Plastic Surgeons Community Blogs, and Auto Repair Shops, Law firms (to give you some perspectic) I also read Danny Dover's Book, to learn some more about SEO, the one thing that is unclear is how to acquire quality links I would really appreciate any perspective on this, every little thing helps Zach Russell

    | ZacharyRussell
    0

  • I have a site that I'm trying to rank for the Keyword "Jigsaw Puzzles" I was originally ranked around #60 or something around there and then all of a sudden my site stopped ranking for that keyword. (My other keyword rankings stayed) Contacted Google via the site reconsideration and got the general response... So I went through and deleted as many links as I could find that I thought Google may not have liked... heck, I even removed links that I don't think I should have JUST so I could have this fixed. I responded with a list of all links I removed and also any links that I've tried to remove, but couldn't for whatever reasons. They are STILL saying my website is breaking the Google guidelines... mainly around links. Can anyone take a peek at my site and see if there's anything on the site that may be breaking the guidelines? (because I can't) Website in question: http://www.yourjigsawpuzzles.co.uk UPDATE: Just to let everyone know that after multiple reconsideration requests, this penalty has been removed. They stated it was a manual penalty. I tried removing numerous different types of links but they kept saying no, it's still breaking rules. It wasn't until I removed some website directory links that they removed this manual penalty. Thought it would be interesting for some of you guys.

    | RichardTaylor
    0

  • We're currently ranking #1 for a valuable keyword, but the result on the SERP is our home page.  We're creating a new product page focused on this keyword to provide a better user experience and create more relevant content.  What is the best way to make a smooth transition to make the product page rank #1 for the keyword instead of the home page?

    | buildasign
    0

  • I am developing a new set of pages for a series of products which exist on separate sub domains linked to the root domain. The product pages on the sub domains have rich snippets; review count, review score etc. The new pages im building out are for the same products though on the root domain and with different content. Im not comfortable marking those pages up with rich snippets too given they will have the same review counts, scores etc though would like to if its viable? Any thoughts/opinions? Thanks, Andy

    | AndyMacLean
    0

  • I have 7 brands that are owned by the same company, each with their own domain.  The brands work together to form products that are then sold to the consumer although there is not a e-commerce aspect to any of the sites. I am looking to create a modified link wheel between the sites, but didn't know if my efforts would pay off due to the same IP Address for all the sites. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

    | HughesDigital
    0

  • Hello All, I once read that htm files are considered stronger (SEO wise) than aspx files and I wondered if that is correct. Obviously, I mean the static part of aspx files for example making my about us page in htm and not aspx. Among the advantages of aspx is the usage of a master page (a template) for the design etc. Any thoughts? Thanks

    | BeytzNet
    0

  • Just looking for some advice on this topic.  I know it's much debated but it seems the consensus is that having some broad categories and more defined tags is optimal. The issue with my site is that it is very broad in nature.  We're profiling and interviewing all types of careers.  The site is www.jobshadow.com for reference. Up until now I haven't used Wordpress Tags at all.  I've just been using categories(i.e. 9-5 type jobs, salaried jobs, hourly jobs, jobs in medicine, etc). I've probably got way too many categories.  They are being counted as links on every post page which pushes me way overboard on links per page. -Just curious if anyone has any thoughts on best practices for my site. -Also, none of the categories themselves are really pulling in any SEO traffic so switching those wouldn't be a big deal.  Just looking for the best way to help users browse the site and the growing number of content. And rom what I hear Tags can pull in some random/long tail traffic pretty easily if done right. Look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks for the help!

    | astahl11
    0

  • It is my understanding that if I do a search for site:mydomain.com the results are like every other SERP in that the most authoritative pages are ranked higher. So obviously I would expect my homepage to be first (in most cases), then followed by main category pages, etc. My question is has anybody ever seen disturbing results when doing this (i.e. pages that should have no authority outranking main category pages)? Is this always an issue with site structure or can you think of other factors that may cause this?

    | purch
    0

  • and not just every single link, but ones you know that Google is actually indexing. I find seomoz to be super easy, but there is no way to distinguish links that are actually counting "juice", or am i missing something. What about majesticseo - any other similar tools you use when trying to find linking sites that pass juice?

    | imageworks-261290
    0

  • Hi there, I was ranking pretty well for highly competitive keywords without actually doing any link building please see graph attached, so I thought I have an opportunity here in getting to page 1 for these keywords, the plan was to write fresh & original content for these pages, because hey Google loves fresh content, right? Well it seems NOT, after one week of these pages been re-written (21st Feb 2012), all of these pages dropped all together, please note: all the pages were under the same directory: /health/flu/keyword-1 /health/flu/keyword-2 and so on... I have compared both pages as I have back ups of the old content On Average there are more words on each of the new pages compared to previous pages Lower bounce rate by at least 30% (Via Adwords) More time on site by at least 2 minutes (Via Adwords) More page visits (Via Adwords) Lower keyword density, on average 4% (new pages) compared to 9% (old content) across all pages So since the end of February, these pages are still not ranked for these keywords, the funny thing is, these keyword are on page 1 of Bing. Another NOTE: We launched an irish version of the website, using the exact same content, I have done all the checks via webmaster tools making sure it's pointing to Ireland, I have also got hreflang tags on both website (just in case) If anyone can help with this that would be very much appreciated. Thanks ZCJDa

    | Paul78
    0

  • Hi everyone, appreciate any thoughts on this. (bit long, sorry) Am working on 3 sites selling the same thing...main difference between each site is physical location/target market area (think North, South, West as an example) Now, say these 3 sites all sell Blue Widgets, and thus all on-page optimisation has been done for this keyword. These 3 sites are now effectively duplicates of each other - well the Blue Widgets page is at least, and whist there are no 'errors' in Webmaster Tools am pretty sure they ought to be ranking better than they are (good PA, DA, mR etc) Sites share the same template/look and feel too AND are accessed via same IP - just for good measure 🙂 So - to questions/thoughts. 1 - Is it enough to try and get creative with on-page changes to try and 'de-dupe' them? Kinda tricky with Blue Widgets example - how many ways can you say that? I could focus on geographical element a bit more, but would like to rank well for Blue Widgets generally. 2 - I could, i guess, no-index, no-follow, blue widgets page on 2 of the sites, seems a bit drastic though. (or robots.txt them) 3 - I could even link (via internal navigation) sites 2 and 3 to site 1 Blue Widgets page and thus make 2 blue widget pages redundant? 4 - Is there anything HTML coding wise i could do to pull in Site 1 content to sites 2 and 3, without cloaking or anything nasty like that? I think 1- is first thing to do. Anything else? Many thanks.

    | Capote
    0

  • We recently completed a re-design for a site and are having trouble getting it indexed. This site may have been penalized previously. They were having issues getting it ranked and the design was horrible. Any advise on how to get the new site reconsidered to get the rank where it should be? (Yes, Webmaster Tools is all set up with the sitemap linked) Many thanks for any help with this one!

    | d25kart
    0

  • Hello, We need 100 strong  linking root domains to rank at all in our industry (probably more). But all our competitors are using internal pages. I only found one competitor that is using their home page, and I found 12 good backlink possibilities through it. How do I go about finding other competitors? I know this is a general question, but what strategies do you guys use, and could you give examples?

    | BobGW
    0

  • Hello, I am using a 3rd party company to generate reviews for my website.  I want to optimize my site for the index page to see a star rating in the SERP. I am pulling the the count of the number of reviews and the average rating from my review partner and rendering this on the page.  It is not visible to a visitor to the site. My page has been marked up correctly as you can see using the rich snippet testing tool http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jsshirts.com.au However the stars are not showing in SERP's.  Does anyone have any ideas as to why the stars are not showing. Many thanks, Jason

    | mullsey
    0

  • In the new blog post here, she links to mobilemoxie, a site which allows you to do searches on various different smartphones.  I tried a search for my brand, "ixl.com" on an iPhone 4 and a Android phone, the Motorola Droid X.  On the iPhone, our brand appears in #1 like normal, but on the Android phone, our result doesn't appear on the first page. Any ideas as to why this would be the case?  We're currently developing a mobile version of our site but we don't have one yet.  Could that be the issue?

    | john4math
    0

  • Hi, I just have a doubt. I am building a site I want to optimize for the keyword "slot machine gratis". I have bought two domains: slot-machines-gratis.it and slotmachine-gratis.it. Which domain do you recommend that I use to target the keyword "slot machine gratis"? Thank you.

    | salvyy
    0

  • One of my clients has always ranked well for this keyword (janitorial services, nh). Then within a week, they dropped out of the top fifty in Google and now in other major search engines as well. My first thought of why the drop in rankings is due to duplicate listings within online directories. The previous marketing person on staff was listing the company more than once in these directories, and it wasn't discovered until later in the link building process. Sometimes the company was listed with "janitorial services" as part of the company name, and then listed again with "carpet cleaning" as part of the company name... sometimes with duplicate address, or using the po box instead - as if two companies. The odd thing in all this is that while they dropped in ranking for this keyword, they still come in usually 1st in Google Places for this keyword with 12 excellent reviews. And yet when I check their Google Places account, it says that it needs to be reverified, again, it doesn't meet the terms. (company is a family owned business, for over 30 years, they have a lot of potential). So all this duplication needs to be fixed, but how serious are duplicate listings on places like Manta, YellowPages, SuperPages, also Yahoo Business Local and Bing Business Directory? And now that "forensics" seems to be my task, any suggestions on how to start? Any processes I should go through with Google WebMaster? _Cindy And, too, if I could add, the site ranks very poorly for this keyword and while I have provided recommendations, and they understand the onsite issue, they have yet to go forward with implementation, making this a little more difficult issue.

    | CeCeBar
    0

  • Link spam is naturally a hot topic amongst SEO's, particularly post Penguin. While digging around forums etc, I watched a video blog from Matt Cutts posted a while ago that suggests that Google only pays attention to the first instance of a link on the page As most websites will have multiple instances of a links (header, footer and body text), is it beneficial to nofollow the additional instances of the link? Also as the first instance of a link will in most cases be within the header nav, does that then make the content link text critical or can good on page optimisation be pulled from the title attribute? I would appreciate the experiences and thoughts Mozzers thoughts on this thanks in advance!

    | JustinTaylor88
    0

  • I updated www.egrecia.es/robots.txt two weeks ago and I still haven't solved Duplicate Title and Content on the website. The Google SERP doesn't show those urls any more but SEOMOZ Crawl Errors nor Google Webmaster Tools recognize the change. How long will it take?

    | Tintanus
    0

  • Hi, I usually build WordPress sites and I was thinking about buying one of those ready-made Wordpress templates I found on a site that sells them to the public. FYI, the site at issue is: yootheme.com. I'd like to make sure that building sites using ready-made templates is NOT a bad thing. Could you please confirm? Thank you.

    | salvyy
    0

  • Hi guys, Mobile SEO question. So some time in the past, my client accidentally got a whole bunch of m.example.co.nz URLs indexed due to a link on another website and the awesome relative URL links on my client website. However, now they're building a mobile website and they want all those m.example.co.nz URLs. My question is, if we build a new mobile website and use those mobile website URLs including those already indexed by Google, will Google automatically know after crawling those URLs that they are now for mobile users? Will it change the pages to it's mobile index? Or will it be a case of duplicate content? Thanks Kim

    | Voonie
    0

  • I was wondering if the free word press themes would suffice as long as the plugins were added for seo purposes?

    | bronxpad
    0

  • What to do if the wrong page of your website is ranking and you cannot 301 it? Apparently an outsourced company the previous manager hired build anchor text links to the homepage, when those links should have been pointing to a deeper page. As a result, the hompage is now ranking for that term. But I think we can convert a lot more of the visitors if the deeper page is there instead. Obviously, I can't 301 the homepage. What would you do?

    | andrep
    0

  • Suppose I have two dynamic URLs that lead to the identical page: www.example.com/product.php?x=1&y=1 and www.example.com/product.php?y=1 The x=1 parameter had some historical meaning, but is now unused. All references to the x=1 parameter have been removed from internal links and sitemaps. I have implemented two solutions: First, the header of www.example.com/product.php?x=1&y=1 includes: Second, the .htaccess file includes the following: Redirect permanent /product.php?x=1&y=1 http://www.example.com/product.php?y=1 Questions: 1. I assume that since canonical is still relatively new, it's best to play it safe and implement both solutions. Is this correct? 2. When I point my browser to www.example.com/product.php?x=1&y=1, it does NOT redirect to www.example.com/product.php?y=1. The address bar continues to show the non-canonical URL. Is this because the canonical tag somehow takes precedence over the 301 redirect? 3. How long will Google Webmaster Tools continue to show these as duplicates, even though I've implemeted BOTH canonical and 301? It's been a few weeks and I thought it would have rolled off by now. Thanks!

    | ahirai
    0

  • Just curious what people think of my footer.  I think it provides some value. Not that many people click on it but it doesn't look that bad in my opinion. Curious what others think.  If getting rid of it would help SEO I'd look into it.  I outsource all my coding though so don't want to spend money tweaking what doesn't need to be done. www.jobshadow.com Thanks for the help!

    | astahl11
    0

  • Hello, I have a dog training client who is offering services in 2 separate locations. We're looking to be first in the non-local search results and also rank well in google places. Would it be better to go for 2 separate sites or one site and try to rank for 2 different locations with one site? There's both local and standard search results when we type in our keywords. Thanks!

    | BobGW
    0

  • found some broken links from 2007 to our site pointing to a url that needs a redirect. Obviously I am going to set that up (in-case there are others out there i don't find pointing to the same URL) but should i also reach out to the webmaster and ask him to update the link, or will the redirect suffice? I don't want it to look like a paid link when in fact it is completely natural 🙂

    | imageworks-261290
    0

  • Hey SEOMozzers, Quick question. In light of the possible 'over-optimisation' penalties pending from Google should we be looking to remove the SEO links to our site from our Clients websites? I appreciate that including a link to our site from an anchor text that includes 'SEO' in it may be like waving a flag to Search Engines saying we are carrying out SEO on our Clients sites. Obviously we would sooner risk a drop in our SEO keyword rankings than risk a penalty of any kind for our Clients. What is the recommended practice here?

    | MiroAsh
    0

  • Basically I need to find a way to fix my canonical problem. The www and no-www version of my site each show up. This creates duplicate content. I have no htaccess with yahoo. How else can I fix this problem? Does anyone have a sample code I could use?

    | bronxpad
    0

  • Hello I have redisgned a website inl new url structure in cms. Old sitemap was not set to 404 but changed with new sitemap files,also new sitemap was named different to old one.All redirections done properly Still 3 month after google still shows me duplicate titile and metas by comparing old and new urls I am lost in what to do now to eliminate the shown error. How can google show urls that are not shown in sitemap any more? Looking forward to any help Michelles

    | Tit
    0

  • I have a client who's experiencing a number of crawl errors, which I've gotten down fo 9,000 from 18,000. One of the challenges they experience is that they've modified their URL structure a couple times. First it was: site.com/year/month/day/post-name
    Then it was: site.com/category/post-name
    Now it's: site.com/post-name I'm not sure of the time elapsed between these changes, but enough time has passed that the URLs for the previous two URL structures have been indexed and spit out 404s now. What's the best/clean way to address this issue?I'm not going to create 9k redirect rules obviously, but there's got to be a way to address this issue and resolve it moving forward.

    | digisavvy
    0

  • Which is best: www.domainname.com/category-subcategory or www.domainname.com/subcategory-category or www.domainname.com/category/subcategory or www.domain.com/subcategory/category I am going to have 12 different subcategories under the category

    | Boodreaux
    0

  • Hi, One of my client has shady link profile and has hit by penguin update. I have confirmed the penalty using Google hack. Now, seeing his link profile, most of his links comes from blog comments which are from unmoderated blogs, and there is no way, we cant remove those comments. But without removing them, we cant get rid of the Google's penguin penality. So, i am planning on 301 redirecting to a new domain. But my question is, will the penality transfers, if i 301 to a new domain? What iff, if someone buys an old domain hit by a penguin update? Please clarify me, or if there are any alternatives to get rid of penguin update, please help me.

    | Indexxess
    0

  • Ok, so I just got done running my campaign on SEOMOZ for a client of mine who owns a Coupon Magazine company. They upload thousands of ads into their website which gives similar looking duplicate content ... like http://coupon.com/mom-pop-shop/100 and
    http://coupon.com/mom-pop-shop/101. There's about 3200 duplicates right now on the website like this. The client wants the coupon pages to be indexed and followed by search engines so how would I fix the duplicate content but still maintain search-ability of these coupon landing pages?

    | Keith-Eneix
    0

  • Hi all, A quick question, after you have setup your 301 re-directs in .htaccess - is it necessary to keep your content in the original domains directory? My thinking is that requests do get as far as referencing the directory, thus it should be safe to delete all the files on the old domain? Thanx!

    | gazza777
    0

  • Hi,
       Over the past few days, I have noticed that a few of my pages that were hit by the Google Penguin update come back from the dead and return to the #1 spot for the main keywords.  I still don't see any change for secondary keywords I used to rank for, but hey at least there is something. Has anybody else noticed this? NOTE:  I did not make any changes to my pages.  I had never done any black-hat (just greyish) so I took the advice of many and just waited.

    | rayvensoft
    1

  • Has anyone experienced any negative experiences using a JS onload event to show a particular tab opened to organic visitors vs front door traffic? Any other thoughts on the subject are indeed appreciated.

    | AU-SEO
    0

  • Due to the way our system is and the way we want to do something. We have to make the description for each image in the ALT. Now this is not just a few words but is actually a few sentences. Is there going to be any negative disadvantage to doing it this way? The positives I see is that it will help with accessibility and atleast the bots will be able to tell what the item is about. The negatives is that maybe this description could be better used elsewhere?

    | websitesaleslab
    0

  • I have an affiliate subdomain on a larger company's domain. (For example I have: www.victor.company.com on www.company.com). Would working to attain backlinks to the subdomain help it rank or will I just be putting forth my effort and helping the domain rank?

    | VictorVC
    0

  • I have two clients, both of which have a single website, with multiple top-level domains, many of which represent "subpages". For example, when you navigate to the home page, the URL is "[CompanyName].com". However, when you navigate to a subpage, the browser appears to remain at the same website, but in actuality (as you can tell from the URL bar) you've navigated to "SubPage.com". Client A is an insurance company that has multiple branded insurance products. Each product is independent of the other (it's unlikely that a single client would purchase multiple insurance products from different brands) and have their own brand. Thusly, each section of the site that represents a different brand has its own top-level domain. The website design/structure remains the same, with some light color changes and image swaps. Client B is a consultant and offers various services. None of these services are "branded" (a single client would hire the consultant for a wide range of available services). Each subpage on the site represents a different service and has its own top-level domain. Here are my questions: Are either Client A or B breaking guidelines set forth by major search engines? Are either Client A or B hurting their optimization with this trickery? My inclination is that Client A is doing it right, but Client B is not. Your insights would be appreciated!

    | PinckneyHugoGroup
    0

  • I have my blog at www.blog.practo.com and wish to shift it to practo.com/blog since from an SEO point of view I dont think having good content on blog.practo.com is going to help. Without having to move the WP instance to /blog can I have all my urls directing as www.practo.com/blog/articles and still work to update the blog from www.blog.practo.com Is this possible and advisible?

    | shanky1
    0

  • Hello, I am new to web design. I designed my own site using dreamweaver and did all my seo on my own, I read a few books. Long story short I rank on the bottom of page 1 just after 3 months and the keywords are highly competitive. Now, I am up against some heavy hitters from national brands versus my local real estate site. I don't have a 301 redirect, and am not sure what else I should be doing to get my site ranked higher. I have back links from various sites, ( non-paid ) so it's what others call white hat. When I grade my site on website grader I get a great score versus the sites that are higher than me. I'm guessing my sites age is an issue. I guess I'm looking for some guidance. Thank you all, Here is my site to view. http://www.bronxpad.com

    | bronxpad
    0

  • Hello All: I would really appreciate any insight that can be provided into this dilemma. I've ruled out bad links issues - we don't have them and never engaged in grey to black hat SEO linkbuilding. I cannot find the cause for this drop off. Maybe I'm missing something because I am so close to it? The site is markspace Thanks in advance for any and all help or insight!! 🙂

    | holdtheonion
    0

  • Hello, We are adding content to ourdogsmind(dot)com We're going to have a blog with unique content. Should we use an external blog with links back to our site, or an internal blog. Thanks.

    | BobGW
    0

  • Which got hit harder in penguin update. I was looking at SEER Interactive backlink profile (the SEO company that didn't rank for it's main keyword phrases) and noticed a pretty big trend on why it might not rank for its domain name. SEER was in a majority of anchor text, many coming from directories. i'm guessing THEY were effected because they matched the exact match domain link profile rule I'm not an expert programmer, but if i was playing "Google Programmer" I would think the Algo update went something like. If ((exact match domain) & (certain % anchor text==domain) & (certain % of anchor text== partial domain + services/company))  { tank the rankings } So back to the question, do you think that this update had a lot to do with directories, article directories, or neither. Is article directories still a legit way to get links. (not ezine)

    | imageworks-261290
    0

  • I am working on a project to build a microsite of sorts that will represent a joint program between two large organizations with established web presences and strong domains. Each of the organizations has dedicated sections on their sites speaking to the program, but the leadership has decided the joint program deserves it's own site with dedicated content. The two larger sites perform very well for SEO, and I don't necessarily want to jeopordize thir rankings by delivering content that competes directly with them. So I am doing some keyword research to find some opportunities that will alllow me to use the new site to target keywords not yet being captialized by the larger sites. My grand scheme is to have the three sites targeting the broadest array of keywords possible, thus maximizing exposure and avoiding competition. Here is the rub: the content between the three sites will be different but very similar, and there will be plenty of cross linking, especially from the existing sites to the new site, as we grow the brand of the joint program. I'm curious to here some expert opinions on what the puitfalls of the strategy are and what are some of the things I can do to avoid falling in the black hat category - I recognize that proliferating sites around a single topic and cross linking them is black hat. The organizations simply want to build a brand around a joint program and we are striggling to do that without a dedicated website.

    | AmyLB
    0

  • I recently took on the SEO of a large website with http://example.com. My predecessor bought 40 plus domains for specific cities like Jacksonvilleexample.com, Miamiexample.com, etc.  ZERO of the additional domains linked to our main website. The domains that were bought basically had our exact same website in terms of content, links etc that mirrored our main http://example.com.  I added 301 redirects to help problems that may be a result of this type of structure. Some of the additional domains were indexed and some were not but all have 301's and as far as traffic is concerned I'm not worried about loosing short term traffic. My question: All the domains are set to expire in June and I don't want to continue to have them 301 redirected to my main domain (example.com).  I'm not trying to avoid the additional cost of all the domains but I don't see an advantage to having them so CAN letting all these domains expire hurt me from a long term SEO position if I don't renew them?

    | ballanrk
    0

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