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Category: White Hat / Black Hat SEO

Dig into white hat and black hat SEO trends.

  • shauny35


    Hi all After an unnatural link warning I am about to do my third reconsideration request after having my previous two turned down. I have manually removed hundreds of spammy links (thousands if you include sitewide) and used the disavow tool on hundreds more where I could not get them manually removed. The backlinks I have remaining now all seem to be genuine. There are quite a few backlinks from technorati, I thought these were ligitimet links but am now thinking should I remove/disavow them. Does anybody have any opinions?

    | shauny35
    0
  • Web3Marketing87


    Hello Moz folks, We just launched a new website: www.edmontonweb.ca It is now ranking on page 2 in our city. The website is built on Wordpress and we have made every effort to make it load faster. We have enabled the right caching and we have reduced the file size. Still, some of our local competitors have lower load times and more importantly lower ttfb's. Is a CDN the right answer? I've read articles demonstrating that Clowd Flare decreased a websites rankings. Is there a better CDN to use, or a propper way to implement Clowd Flare? Thank you very much for your help! Anton,
    LAUNCH Edmonton

    | Web3Marketing87
    0
  • Asjad


    Hello Everyone, I am analyzing and working on recovery of some sites that were hit by Penguin 2.1 on 4th Oct, 2013. I have done almost all fixes including Anchor Variations Social Sharing Local Links Diversity in Back-links but still not witnessed any real recovery. Is anyone witnessed Partial or Complete Recovery From Penguin 2.1? Thanks for your feedback in advance! Regards

    | Asjad
    0
  • Millermore


    I was doing some research on a competitor's backlinks in Open Site Explorer and I noticed that their most powerful link was coming from this page: http://nytm.org/made-in-nyc. I visited that page and found that this page, carrying a PageRank of 7, is just a long list of followed links. That's literally all that's on the entire page - 618 links. Zero nofollow tags. PR7. On top of that, there's a link at the top right corner that says "Want to Join?" which shows requirements to get your link on that page. One of these is to create a reciprocal link from your site back to theirs. I'm one of those white-hat SEOs who actually listens to Matt Cutts, and the more recent stuff from Moz. This entire page basically goes against everything I've been reading over the past couple years about how reciprocal links are bad, and if you're gonna do it, use a nofollow tag. I've read that pages, or directories, such as these are being penalized by Google, and possible the websites with links to the page could be penalized as well. I've read that exact websites such as these are getting deindexed by the bunches over the past couple years. My real question is how is this page allowed to get away with this? And how are they rewarded with such high PageRank? There's zero content aside from 618 links, all followed. Is this just a case of "Google just hasn't gotten around to finding and penalizing this site yet" or am I just naive enough to actually listen and believe anything that comes out of Matt Cutts videos?

    | Millermore
    0
  • SSFCU


    Say you have two separate pages, each featuring a different product. They have so many common features, that their content is virtually duplicated when you get to the bullets to break it all down. To avoid a penalty, is it advised to paraphrase? It seems to me it would benefit the user to see it all laid out the same, apples to apples. Thanks. I've considered combining the products on one page, but will be examining the data to see if there's a lost benefit to not having separate pages. Ditto for just not indexing the one that I suspect may not have much traction (requesting data to see).

    | SSFCU
    0
  • pbhatt


    Let's say you get a guest post on a blog that links to your site for $100. How much is the link from another guest post on the same domain worth? $90? $50? Does each additional link from the same domain lose its SEO impact? What if one blogger loves your content and is willing to post 10+ of your blog posts with links to your site in each - is that worth pursuing just from an SEO standpoint (I know it can be a good branding opportunity if the readership is right)?

    | pbhatt
    0
  • appnyc


    Hi All, I am currently working on a travel site.  Would for example Boutique Hotels in New York | Luxury Hotels in New York be considered keyword stuffing?

    | appnyc
    0
  • gazzerman1


    I found myself in an impossible situation where I was getting information from various people that seem to be "know it all's" but everything in my heart was telling me they were wrong when it came to the issues my site was having. I have been on a few Google Webmaster Hangouts and found many answers to questions I thought had caused my Penguin Penalty. After taking much of the advice, I submitted my Reconsideration Request for the 9th time (might have been more) and finally got the "revoke" I was waiting for on the 28th of MAY. What was frustrating was on May 22nd there was a Penguin refresh. This as far as I knew was what was needed to get your site back up in the organic SERPS. My Disavow had been submitted in February and only had a handful of links missing between this time and the time we received the revoke. We patiently waited for the next penguin refresh with the surety that we were heading in the right direction by John Mueller from Google (btw.. John is a great guy and really tries to help where he can). The next update came on October 4th and our rankings actually got worse! I spoke with John and he was a little surprised but did not go into any detail. At this point you have to start to wonder WHAT exactly is wrong with the website. Is this where I should rank? Is there a much deeper Panda issue. We were on the verge of removing almost all content from the site or even changing domains despite the fact that it was our brand name. I then created a tool that checked the dates of every last cached date of each link we had in our disavow file. The thought process was that Google had not re-crawled all the links and so they were not factored into the last refresh. This proved to be incorrect,all the links had been re-cached August and September. Nothing earlier than that,which would indicate a problem that they had not been cached in time. i spoke to many so called experts who all said the issue was that we had very few good links left,content issues etc.. Blah Blah Blah, heard it all before and been in this game since the late 90's, the site could not rank this badly unless there was an actual penalty as spam site ranked above us for most of our keywords. So just as we were about to demolish the site I asked John Mueller one more time if he could take a look at the site, this time he actually took the time to investigate,which was very kind of him. he came back to me in a Google Hangout in late December, what he said to me was both disturbing and a relief at the same time. the site STILL had a penguin penalty despite the disavow file being submitted in February over 10 months ago! And the revoke in May. I wrote this to give everyone here that has an authoritative site or just an old one, hope that not all is lots just yet if you are still waiting to recover in Google. My site is 10 years old and is one of the leaders in its industry. Sites that are only a few years old and have had unnatural link building penalties have recovered much faster in this industry which I find ridiculous as most of the time the older authoritative sites are the big trustworthy brands. This explains why Google SERPS have been so poor for the last year. The big sites take much longer to recover from penalties letting the smaller lest trustworthy sites prevail. I hope to see my site recover in the next Penguin refresh with the comfort of knowing that my site currently is still being held back by the Google Penguin Penalty refresh situation. Please feel free to comment below on anything you think is relevant.

    | gazzerman1
    0
  • WayneRooney


    Hello guys,
    About a month ago we got in the webmaster tool a message that saying that we have unnatural links to the website.
    We got drop from 200 keys that was in page 1-2 to pages 5-8.
    We check our links and notice that someone links more then 1000 links to our site. We apply for reconsideration request plus we send the file with the links to Google to ask to remove. Yesterday we got message from Google that say : Manual spam action revoked.
    We check today the ranking and we saw that from 3 keys that was in the first page, now we are with 24 in the first page. Very good improvement but still very far from the 130 keys that was in the first page a month ago. I wanted to ask, what can we expect ?
    Are we gonna get the lost ranking now ?
    Is this happen overnight ?Maybe the big change will be in the next penguin update ? Bottom Line, what is the chance to get back the ranking as we had before ?
    This is the most important thing right now... Thank you

    | WayneRooney
    0
  • cschwartzel


    Ok, the "SEO" in me says don't sign my clients up for this. But their ads are EVERYWHERE. All the time. Is this bad/good? thoughts? Have you ever used Yext? I can't find a review online that I don't think is biased. Should I trust my gut on this one and pass?

    | cschwartzel
    0
  • MountainMedia


    For obvious reasons, we have submitted our clients to high authority directories such as Yahoo! Directory and Business.com. However, with all of the algorithm updates lately, we've tried to cut back on the paid directories that we submit our clients to. Having said that, my question is, is Yahoo! Directory still a beneficial SEO tactic? Or are paid directories, with the exception of BBB.com, a bad SEO tactic?

    | MountainMedia
    0
  • WebServiceConsulting.com


    For a site that is only one to two months old, what is considered a natural amount of inbound links if you're site offers very valuable information, and you have done a marketing push to get the word out about your blog? Even if you are receiving backlinks from authority websites with high DA, does Google get suspicious if there are too many inbound links during the first few months of a sites existence? I know there are some sites that blow up very fast and receive thousands of backlinks very quickly, so I'm curious to know if Google puts these kind of sites on a watchlist or something of that nature. Or is this simply a good problem to have?

    | WebServiceConsulting.com
    0
  • webit40


    We have big issue with a website who has been hardly penalized by Pinguin on october 4th. After a lot of try to remove bad links and sending two disavow files, none of our actions has improved our situation. We're wondering if this solution might be good : changing the domaine name Keeping the same content Not using Webmaster tools and redirect 301 and wait until the site will be fully indexed Build new links Please tell us your opinion and solution. Thanks

    | webit40
    0
  • Harbor_Compliance


    A site that is a competitor of ours is basically dominating the search results despite doing everything you're not supposed to do, including: Purchasing links Having content that is thin, templated, and duplicate - adds little value Owning half a dozen other sites for linking to each other (link wheel?) We spend a lot of time on our content and making it the most useful it can be for our visitors.  Granted our site is newer but we avoid these gray/black hat practices and yet we're not ranking nearly as high.  What gives?

    | Harbor_Compliance
    0
  • BobGW


    Hello, According to Google here, 404s don't cause rankings to go down. Our rankings are going down and we have about 50 or so 404s (though some may have been deindexed by now). We have about 300 main products and 9000 pages in general on this Ecommerce site. There's no link equity gained by 301 redirecting the 404s. A custom 404 page has been made linking to the home page. There's nothing linking to the pages that are 404s Provided that no more 404s are created, can I just ignore them and find the real reason our rankings are going down?

    | BobGW
    0
  • Prime85


    Hello, I just recently took on a client that had hired a very black hat seo and used their service for roughly two years.  He outsourced link building and the link profile is full of spun articles and blog commenting on chinese websites etc… The anchor texts/pages used for all this spamming no longer rank, but there is no penalty in Webmaster tools manual actions. I was thinking about disavowing some of the obviously spammy backlinks that exist but would that be raising a red flag that could lead to a manual action and even more negative movement? Have you ever heard of anything like the situation i'm dealing with where its obvious the pages have been hit but there is no manual action?  What do you all think/suggest?  And Should I disavow some terrible links and potentially open a can of worms?

    | Prime85
    0
  • BobGW


    Hello, We've got old category pages that are blank like domain/shoes.html  (blank white page not in menu anymore) domain/newshoesurl.html (working URL with link in menu) Will the blank pages be automatically deindexed and updated by Google?

    | BobGW
    0
  • BobGW


    Hi, We've got some old content, about 50 pages worth in an Ecommerce site, that is optimized for keywords that aren't the subject of the page - these keywords occur about 8 times (2 keywords per page) in the old content. We are going through these 50 pages and changing the title, H1, and meta description tag to match the exact subject of the page - so that we will increase in rankings again - the updates have been lowering our rankings. Do we need to completely rewrite the content for these 50 pages, or can we just sprinkle it with any needed additions of the one keyword that is the subject of the page? The reason I'm asking is that our rankings keep dropping and these 50 pages seem to be part of the problem. We're in the process of updating these 50 pages Thanks.

    | BobGW
    0
  • Mouneeb


    One of our websites has been wrongfully tagged for penalty and has literally disappeared from Google. After lot's of research, it seems the reason was due to a ton of spammy backlinks and irrelevant anchor text. I have disavowed the links, but the results are still not rebounding back. Any idea how long the wrath of Google gods will last?

    | Mouneeb
    0
  • PaddyDisplays


    I found this article on huffingtonpost.co.uk http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/top-5-most-influential-ma_b_3682369.html In the 2nd paragraph it has the words "mannequin retail displays", linked to a site that sells mannequins.  The link has nothing to do with the story and it seem ( to me a least) its been paid for. Looking at other old posts by the same author its does not seem to be a one off: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/celebrity-honeymoons_b_3962560.html
    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/cruise-holidays_b_3898661.html
    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/five-of-the-worlds-most-important-rivers_b_3761599.html
    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/the-top-4-manliest-jobs-in-the-world_b_3694431.html I'm just surprised that a site as big as the huffington post selling back links in this way

    | PaddyDisplays
    0
  • Globalgraphics


    Hi - we have a client whom we work with for SEO. During a review we noticed in Webmaster Tools, there was an IP address with over 30,000 links to our clients site. The IP address is 92.​60.​0.1​23. From looking up the IP address details, it looks like it is based in Europe - but we are unable to establish what it is, where the links are and who created it. We are concerned it could be a potential spammer trying to cause an issue with the SEO campaign. Is there any way of finding out any more details apart from the basic information about the location of the IP address? Also - if we submit a disavow via webmaster tools, we are unsure what issue it will have on the clients site if we do not know what it is and the type of links it is creating. Any ideas? Thanks for your help! Phil.

    | Globalgraphics
    0
  • infinart


    Hello, I am reading about getting great links to my site and it mentions these blog aggregates. http://technorati.com/ (PR8) http://www.blogarama.com/ (PR6) http://www.bloghub.com/ (PR5) http://regator.com/ (PR5) http://www.icerocket.com/ (PR6) Can someone explain how these work? And what is the best practice when using them?

    | infinart
    0
  • ba_seomoz


    There are a number of low-quality “exact-match” domains that are ranking well for the term “locum tenens”. I don’t want to specifically mention any sites, but there are some with poor content and very few quality backlinks that are on page one. The only reason I can see for them ranking so well is the fact that “locum” and/or “tenens” are in the URL. It’s very frustrating because we have worked hard to do all the right things (regular blogging, high-quality content, quality backlinks, etc.) to build our domain authority and page authority so they are better than these sites, yet they still out-rank us. Our site is www.bartonassociates.com. Could it have something to do with the term “locum tenens”, which is a latin phrase? Is it possible that because it is a latin term that it somehow slipped through the cracks and avoided the update that was supposed to eliminate this? If so, what can we do to get some justice?

    | ba_seomoz
    0
  • phlcastro


    Hi guys originally my website was poor ranked on Google. So, after sign in on Moz and follow their tips I achieved the 4th position for one of my keywords (amazing!). But a few days ago my page dropped to bellow the first 50th pages for this same keyword, but I didn't make any changes on it. Anybody has some tips of how can I discover/repair what happened? Thank you all in advance. Best regards Paulo

    | phlcastro
    0
  • BobGW


    Hello, I read on this great SEO Blueprint Article here that you don't want to duplicate any words in the title tag, even one duplicate. But what if your branding and keywords both have the same word in it. For example, making the title here like this: NLP Training and Certification Center | NLP and Coaching Institute which is 66 characters by the way. Your thoughts on the duplicate word "NLP"?

    | BobGW
    0
  • esiow2013


    Thanks in advance!

    | esiow2013
    0
  • WebServiceConsulting.com


    Does anyone know of a company who has direct experience with growing websites AFTER a manual link penalty has been lifted? Any referrals would be great!

    | WebServiceConsulting.com
    0
  • BobGW


    Hello, I notice that it is common practice to put the page's keywords directly into an alt tag. I don't see how this helps the user and how it helps the user using screen readers and such. Do you think future G updates will slightly penalize pages with alt tags that are just the page's keywords and not a helpful phrase? What do you recommend to put in alt tags in light of future G updates?

    | BobGW
    1
  • Anti-Alex


    hey guys, got mini discussion question. With rapgenius.com getting penalized today, it raises some questions about linking. What they did is definitely not ok. A link scheme involving their own affiliate network is against Google guidelines for sure. So is it ok to ask for a non reciprocal link if there is no incentive involved and no money changes hands? ie. Someone writes an article related to your article topic, or they reference you without a link. Then uou email the webmaster requesting a link... They add it. Is this against the guidelines?

    | Anti-Alex
    0
  • BobGW


    Hello, What is your opinion about when to use a keyword phrase vs. 2 keywords, separated by a comma, in the title tag? For example, on this page, the title could be either: NLP Hypnosis, Language Patterns | Nlpca.com or NLP and Hypnosis Including Language Patterns | Nlpca.com Which do you guys think is best with respect to rankings, updates, and future updates?

    | BobGW
    0
  • Door4seo


    Hi - I have identified a client website which was; a ) hacked and had several fraudulent pages added e.g. www.xxx.com/images/uggaustralia.html added which have 301 redirect links to another fraudulent websites. b) had  an auto generated back link campaign (over 12k back links at present) with targeted anchor text at cheap ugg boots, ugg sale etc. I've removed the dodgy redirect web pages and also undertook a link audit using Google WMT, OSE and Seo Majestic and have disavowed all the spammy links at domain level. Consequently my client has dropped from top three for the key phrase to #9. Google WMT now sees ugg boots uk, ugg boots sale etc. as some of the most popular anchor text for the site even though it's blatantly obvious that the site has nothing to do with Ugg boots. No manual webspam penalties are in place however the auto generated anchor text campaign is still ongoing and is generating more spammy links back to non existent web pages - which still Google appears to be picking up. Question is - how long  do you reckon it will take for the links to disappear and is there anything I can speed Google along as this issue if not of my making? p.s. For the record I've found at least 500 sites that have been targeted by this same campaign as well.

    | Door4seo
    0
  • Armin666


    There are domains available which match exactly to my main keywords which I am trying to rank for. For example my keyword is "Green apple" and there are domains like greenapple.com . Do you think from Google stand point of view it is ok if I buy domains like this and when visitors go to these domains, automatically direct them to my main website? Thanks

    | Armin666
    1
  • BobGW


    Hello, I believe my on-site SEO process that I used to use a couple of years ago is not working well anymore for a couple of my sites, including this one. I'll tell you the old strategy as well as my new strategy and I'm wondering if you can give me pointers that will help us rank where we should rank with our PA and DA instead of getting moved down because of what could be our old on-site SEO. OLD ON-SITE SEO STRATEGY: Title tags usually match the page, but title tags occasionally on this site don't match the pages exactly. There's not many of them, but they do still exist in a couple of places. Title tags are either 1. A phrase describing the page 2. Keywords 1, Keyword 2 3. Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 4. Keywords 1, Keyword 2, branding The keywords are in the h1 and h2 of each main page, at the very top of the page. The h1 and h2 do not exactly copy the title tag, but are a longer phrase with the keywords appearing in their exact word order or in word variations. See this page for an example. Keywords occur 3-4 times in the body of the main pages (the pages with a menu link). Right now some of the pages have the exact phrases 3 or 4 times and no variation. meta description tags have exact keyword phrases once per keyword. Meta description tag are a short paragraph describing the page. No meta keyword tags, but a couple haven't been deleted yet. FUTURE ON-SITE SEO STRATEGY: I'm going to change all of the page titles to make sure they match the content they're on exactly. If the title is a phrase describing a page, I'm going to make sure a variation of that phrase occurs at least three times in the content, and once in the meta description tag. Title tags will be either a. Short phrase exactly matching page b. Keyword 1, Keyword 2 | branding c. Keyword 1 | branding 2. I'm thinking about taking out the H1 and H2 and replacing them with one tag that is a phrase describing the page that I'll sometimes put the keyword phrase in, only a variation in it and not the exact keyword phrase - unless it just makes total sense to use the keyword phrase exactly. **I'm thinking of only using the keyword phrase in it's exact words once on the page unless it occurs more naturally, and to include the keyword phrase in word variations two more times. So once (in non-exact word order) in the at the top, once (exact word order) in the text, and two more times (varied word orders) somewhere in the text. All this will be different if the keywords show up naturally in the text. **3. I'll delete all meta keyword tags, and still use exact keyword phrases in meta description tag, though I'll change the meta description tags to always very closely match what the page is about. Do you think my new strategy will make a difference? Your thoughts on any of this?****

    | BobGW
    0
  • NateStewart


    I have a client who attends an internet marketing meetup. I have been once myself. Good group of people but most seem lost when it comes to SEO and can't tell Black from White! Well today my client emailed me and in the email she mentioned doing a trick to the title tags. Client: "there is a trick to use with the title by putting keywords in quotes and parenthasis.   I'm sure you know how to do that little trick. If we do it in the title and in the first few lines of the verbage it will soar us near the top and hopefully on the first page of Google." a few sentences later "We could use a tad more content on the first page ( with parantesis and quotes) to boost us up in the ratings. At least it is an easy trick to do." I have never heard of this. Has anyone else heard about this. Please share thoughts. It sounds completely bogus to me but I will be the first to admit that i don't know everything! However i would like to have more than just my opinion when I talk to my client. Let me know what you think.

    | NateStewart
    0
  • esiow2013


    RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)/(1)?$ /search/$1/sort-$2 [R=301]
    RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=search&q=$1&page=$5&sort=$2 [L]
    RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/(1)?$ /search/$1 [R=301]
    RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=search&q=$1&page=$4 [L]
    RewriteRule ^([r|R])-([0-9]+)((-)([0-9a-zA-Z-]+))?$ index.php?cmd=propertyPage&id=$2&group=1 [L]
    RewriteRule ^([s|S])-([0-9]+)((-)([0-9a-zA-Z-]+))?$ index.php?cmd=propertyPage&id=$2&group=2 [L]
    RewriteRule ^reset-password$ index.php?cmd=retrievePassword [L]
    RewriteRule ^reset-password/([0-9]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ index.php?cmd=retrievePassword&act=retrievePasswordConfirm&code=$1&key=$2 [L]
    RewriteRule ^map-page.php$ index.php?cmd=mapPage [L]
    RewriteRule ^advertise.php$ index.php?cmd=advertiseWithUs [L]
    RewriteRule ^my-account.php$ index.php?cmd=protectedMyAccount [L]
    RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties(/((R|S)-([0-9]+)))?$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&id=$2 [L]
    RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties/([0-9]+)$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&page=$1 [L]
    RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties/delete/([0-9,]+)$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&act=protectedBookmarkedProperties_delete&id=$1 [L]
    RewriteRule ^register.php$ index.php?cmd=register [L]
    RewriteRule ^about-us.php$ index.php?cmd=aboutUs [L]
    RewriteRule ^news(/([0-9]+)(.*))?$ index.php?cmd=news&id=$2&title=$3 [L]
    RewriteRule ^registration/confirm/key=([a-zA-Z0-9]{150})/code=([a-zA-Z0-9]{5})$ index.php?cmd=register&act=registerConfirm&key=$1&code=$2 [L]
    RewriteRule ^terms-and-conditions.php$ index.php?cmd=termsAndConditions [L]
    RewriteRule ^privacy-policy.php$ index.php?cmd=privacyPolicy [L]
    RewriteRule ^contact-us.php$ index.php?cmd=contactUs [L]
    RewriteRule ^sitemap.php$ index.php?cmd=siteMap [L]
    RewriteRule ^members/login.php$ login.php [L]
    RewriteRule ^rss$ index.php?cmd=rss [L]
    RewriteRule ^resources.php$ index.php?cmd=links [L]
    RewriteRule ^links.php$ /resources.php [R=301]
    RewriteRule ^resources2.php$ index.php?cmd=links2 [L]
    RewriteRule ^results.php$ index.php?cmd=results [L]
    RewriteRule ^residential-properties((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=1&page=$3 [L]
    RewriteRule ^commercial-properties((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=2&page=$3 [L]
    RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=1&str=1&page=$3 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&group=2&page=$3 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&group=1&page=$3 [L]
    RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&str=1&sort=$2&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&str=1&sort=$4&page=$7 [L]
    RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&str=1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&str=1&page=$7 [L]
    RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&str=1&page=$6 [L]
    RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&str=1&page=$4 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=1&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=2&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=1&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=2&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&sort=$2&group=1&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&sort=$2&group=2&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&sort=$2&group=1&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&sort=$2&group=2&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=1&page=$7 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=2&page=$7 [L]
    RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=1&page=$7 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=2&page=$7 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]
    RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=1&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=2&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=1&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=2&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2&category=$1&group=1&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2&category=$1&group=2&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2&category=$1&group=1&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2&category=$1&group=2&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()0-9_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&sort=$6&page=$9 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()0-9_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&sort=$6&page=$9 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&page=$8 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&page=$7 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&page=$7 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2&category=$1&sort=$3&page=$6 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2&category=$1&sort=$3&page=$6 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2&category=$1&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2&category=$1&page=$5 [L]
    RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain_categories&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
    RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain_categories&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]

    | esiow2013
    0
  • gbkevin


    I am cleaning up some spammy backlinks for a client and will be submitting a disavow at Google. This particular company website has 2,000+ backlinks from the domain wn.com which appears to be "World News". If you go to it, it appears to be nothing more than scraped content from other sites. Here is a recent example, where my client is linked to (I don't even see the backlink on the page, but it is in the source code!):
    http://article.wn.com/view/2013/11/22/Hungarian_Woman_Sentenced_to_One_Year_in_Prison_for_Her_Role/#/related_news But when I look at Moz metrics, WN.com has a domain authority of 90! So I don't want to disavow something that could POTENTIALLY be helping us. The client's website gets zero traffic from wn.com and I've never seen my client linked to in anything worthwhile... it kinda looks spammy to me. If you were me, after looking at WN.com and taking everything into account... would you disavow it? This client really needs to create a healthier backlink profile. Thanks!

    | gbkevin
    0
  • Ideas-Money-Art


    Hi Mozzers, I have a client that have 3 pages represented twice in the Nav. There are not duplicates since they land with the same URL. It seems odd to have this situation but I guess it make sense for my client to have those represented twice since these pages could fall into multiple categories? Is it a bad practice for SEO or is it a waste to have those in the NAV? Should I require to eliminate the extras? Thanks!

    | Ideas-Money-Art
    0
  • eTundra


    This one is tough, and I've asked it once here, http://www.quora.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO/Is-having-rich-snippets-placed-below-a-review-that-is-pulled-via-javascript-considered-bad-grey-hat-SEO, but I feel that the response was sided with the company. As an SEO or digital marketer, it seems that if we are pulling in our reviews via iframe for our users, but serving them through a nonscript tag when the user agent is a search engine, that this could be considered cloaking. I understand that the "intent" may be to show the same thing to the bots as the user sees, but if you look at the view source, you'll never see the reviews, because it would only be delivered to the search engine bot. What do you think?

    | eTundra
    0
  • njhypnotherapy


    My sub-pages are ranking well, but Homepage isn't ranking well for the keywords I'd like it to. It used to in the past. My site - njhypnotherapy.com used to rank (#2-5) 1st page in google for many keywords. In Sep/Oct I noticed my homepage ranking drop dramatically for the main keywords. Well, I made some foolish decisions and I'm trying to clean up the mess. Low quality links, duplicate content...etc I rewrote most of the content, removed unnecessary pages, removed as many low quality links, and used disavow for the rest. It's been a 2 Weeks now. I noticed a lot of improvements in my sub-pages. From #50 to #20. Not Bad. My homepage still isn't ranking. Any suggestions to improve? Btw, I've included my link metrics below if it helps 🙂 Thank You metricks.png

    | njhypnotherapy
    0
  • imlovinseo


    We have a manual action against us on Google webmaster tools for unnatural links.  While evaluating our back links, I noticed that forums with low page rank/domain authority are linking to us.  Is this hurting us?

    | imlovinseo
    0
  • esiow2013


    #1 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^xyz.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.xyz.com/$1 [L,R=301] What I want to do here is to redirect URLs that have omitted the “www.” prefix to the full “www.xyz.com” home page URL. That means the home page URL http://xyz.com will not resolve on its own, but instead will redirect to http://www.xyz.com (without trailing slash). #2 RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/]+/)*(default|index).(html|php|htm)\ HTTP/ [NC] RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*)(default|main|index).(html|php|htm)$ http://www.xyz.com/$1 [L,R=301] What I want to do here is to ensure that any home page URL that includes several versions of explicit page name references, such as default.htm or index.html, will be redirected to the canonical home page URL, http://www.xyz.com (without trailing slash). Are the rewrite rules correct? Thanks in advance!

    | esiow2013
    0
  • WongNs


    Hey Moz pals, So for some reason someone is building thousands of links to my websites (all spam), likely someone doing negative seo on my site. Anyway, all these links are pointing to 1 sub url on my domain. That url didn't have anything on it so I deleted the page so now it comes up with a 404. Is there a way to reject any link that ever gets built to that old page? I don't want all this spam to hurt my website. What do you suggest?

    | WongNs
    0
  • WayneRooney


    Hey guys, The website of the company i work hit in the PR update two days ago . A little history , the site was notice by Google about spam links around  5-6 months ago .
    Since then there is a company that cleans all the spam links and manage all the disavow process. In the last penguin update ( about two months ago ) the site jumped like crazy in the ranking and stayed there ever since... In the last three months we create less than ten links to the site, and we have focus all our work to improve
    the optimization of the site.
    It should be noted that the company is investing a lot in social networks and all the work in the past 3 month are White and clean... Now, two days ago in the PR update (more or less) the site just dropped , but when i say dropped , it's 200 keys that was in page 1-2 that just want out to page 5-6-7. Like the website is gone, i never see something like this... The things that pass through my head: A lot of the links the linking to the site with high PR lost their pr and now they are worthless, but still this drop ? its to extreme.
    Or that Google received the disavow and just disavow a lot of links.... Does anyone have any ideas or tips on the subject ? Thank you

    | WayneRooney
    0
  • AymanH


    Hello Working on my 404 pages, I've just found the following http://awesomescreenshot.com/08d22txtc9 This website http://basilurteaindia.com has a link mine as checked into Google. Link is presented with some of my content here http://basilurteaindia.com/images/19022012list.asp?type=2&file=C%3A%5CProgram+Files+(x86)%5ChMailServer%5CData%5Cace-egy.com%5Cm.kilany%5C9A%5C%7B9A532C2F-FB00-4C72-9403-7F26B7DC8E54%7D.eml Does someone know what the hell is that and how to remove it ?

    | AymanH
    0
  • ByteLaunch


    **Situation: **We are a digital marketing agency that has been doing SEO for 6 years. For many years, we maintained exceptional rankings and online visibility.However, I suppose with great rankings comes great vulnerability. Last year, we became the target of a pretty aggressive and malicious negative SEO campaign from another other SEO(s) in our industry - I'm assuming they're competitors. Overnight, there were 10,000+ links built on various spam domains using the anchor text: negative marketing services poor seo butt crack kickass ... and more (see attached image) The issue we face are: Time Investment - Enormous investment of time and energy to contact each web admin for link removal. Hard to Keep Up - When we think we're getting somewhere, new links come out of the woodwork. Disavow Doesn't Work - Though we've tried to generally avoid the disavow tool, we've had to use it for a few domains. However, it's difficult to say how much effect, if any, it's had on the negative links. As you can imagine, we've seen an enormous drop in organic traffic since this all started. It's unfortunate that SEO has come to this point, but I still see a lot of value in what we do and hope that spammers don't completely ruin it for us one day. Moz Community - I come to you seeking some new insight, advice, similar experiences or anything else that may help! Are there any other agencies that have experienced the same issue? Any new ways to combat really aggressive negative SEO link building? Thanks everyone! UUPPplJ

    | ByteLaunch
    0
  • David_Veldt


    Hello, We have an SEO agency pushing to implement article syndication as a method of link building. They claim to only target industry-relevant, high authority sources. I am very skeptical of this tactic but they are a fairly reputable agency and claim this is safe and works for their other clients. They sent a broadly written (but not trash) article, as well as a short list of places they would syndicate the article on, such as issuu.com and scribd.com. These are high authority sites and I don't believe I've heard of any algo updates targeting them. Regarding linking, they said they usually put them in article descriptions and company bylines, using branded exact and partial matches; so the anchor text contains exact or partial keywords but also contains our brand name. Lately, I have been under the impression that the only "safe" links that have been manually built, such as these, should be either branded or simply your site's URL. Does anyone still use article syndication as a form of link building with success? Do you see any red flags here? Thanks!

    | David_Veldt
    0
  • Sognando


    Hi everybody, we have a lot of websites (about 100) on one Server in Italy. This Server crashed 5 days ago and now it should go online (I hope!). What will happen to the SERP? What shall I do to recover the rank of every key? New links, new content, just wait...what? Tnks 😉

    | Sognando
    0
  • mavster


    Just wanting to get some feedback from others dealing with Penguin hits on client's websites. We've got one particularly client that has been hit badly because of a high proportion of link toxicity. After running the Cemper Detox Tool we found that only about 25 links are healthy. We're actually thinking of dumping the domain and moving the website to a new domain and starting again with link building (manually grabbing as many of the existing healthy links as possible on the way). Has anyone out there used this strategy? What do you think of the potential of the Sandbox of the new site vs. the Penguin hit on the old site. Do you think the 'drag' of Penguin is higher than the 'drag' of the Sandbox on rankings? Thanks guys, look forward to your insight!

    | mavster
    0
  • makote


    Hi there, we recently did a redesign on a big site and added Gmaps locations to almost every page since we are related to Real State, Listings, Details, search results all have a map embedded. While looking at GWT I found that the top keywords on our site (which is in spanish) are the following. have here imagery sorry After a quick search I found out this is a Gmaps bug, when Google Bot accesses the Pages it throws an error out with this text repeated several times. If you do a search for "sorry we have no imagery here" you will see lots of sites with this issue. My question is, Is this affecting the overall SEO since Bots are actually crawling and indexing this hence its being reported by GWT, Should I cloak this to robots? Has anyone noticed this or has been able to fix it? Thanks in advance!

    | makote
    0
  • thegoatman


    Is it okay to include keywords in your domain name (as well as business name) to rank well on Google Places? In my opinion, this is very spammy and the sites using this technique will be slapped by Google sooner or later.

    | thegoatman
    1

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