Latest Questions
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Thoughts about stub pages - 200 & noindex ok, or 404?
With large database/template driven websites it is often possible to get a lot of pages with no content on them. What are the current thoughts regarding these pages with no content, options; Return a 200 header code with noindex meta tag Return a 404 page & header code Something else? Thanks
Technical SEO | | slingshot0 -
Strategies for revising my duplicate content?
New to SEO and SEOmoz. I tried searching for this first and I'm sure it's on here but I could not find it. I have a site that markets fishing charters in a few dozen cities. Up to now I was relying on PPC and using each city page as a landing page of sorts. Each citiy page is very similar (there are only so many ways to write about a type of fish or fishing). What would be the recommended way for optimizing this, keeping in mind the duplicate information we provide on each page seems to be important to people. Site is www.vipfishingcharters.com Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | NoahC0 -
Where a Blog should be located?
Hello Guys, My question is, in a Company where do a Blog should be located? In a subdomain? a subfolder? a in a independent domain? Tks in advance! Regards,
Technical SEO | | PedroM0 -
I started my hungarian Seo blog :-)
http://www.seoblogger.hu/ Give me advice please 🙂 How many articles should I write each week? How many link should I build / month? What can I do to make better position in Google? I just have started my hungarian seo blog and seems very positive. Thanks, Misi
Link Building | | Netkreativ0 -
Should I move my brand under our corporate domain to boost Domain Authority?
Dear Community, I am seeking your expert advice on this situation: We have these assets as a starting point: a long-existing and well-linked Corporate Website (CW) with good metrics, a Brand Website (BW) with low/medium metrics, and some Brand Competitor (BC) websites with very similar metrics to BW. We will launch a new version of BW very soon with a well SEOd structure and copy (the old one was not SEOd at all) which I hope itself will bring SERP advantages. My dilemma emerged after checking the domain level values of our Corporate Website: CW / BW / BCs Domain Authority: 48 / 28 / 24-27 Domain mozRank: 4.79 / 3.15 / 2.6-3.25 Domain mozTrust: 4.73 / 2.79 / 2.47-3.06 My understanding is that based on seoMoz consensus domain level values give about 1/4th of the total pie. Based on these what do you think I should to win over competitors rankings? Should I keep running the service under BW (in an neighborhood with nearly identically valued competitors) Should I redirect BW to a sub-folder of the Corporate Website? (e.g.www.corporate.com/brand) with 301 redirects and enjoy the advantages of the much better domain values Alternatively, I could also build valuable and keyword-optimized content under our CW linking back to our BW. My understanding is that Option 1 has the least advantages among the three. Option 2 and 3 compete with the following advantages: Option 2: We could quickly rank higher as domain values elevate us from the mediocre BW and BC values (offsetting a little loss on 301 redirects) Option 3 would allow us to occuppy more positions for the important keywords on SERPs thus attract more "deep-browsing" visitors (and possibly BW could also get some advantages by receiving links from CW) Which direction would you proceed from here? Cheers, Andrew
Competitive Research | | andrew12120 -
Link value when with parameter ?
Hi all, I added some links to my website, but because I want to track traffic and other things, all links were created with Google URL Builder and slightly customized. So the end result looks like this: http://www.example.com/example_home.asp?acs=986lfqa&utm_source=keyword.fr&utm_medium=RP&utm_content=example_Link&utm_campaign=General All links are containing keyword as anchor text. And the question is if Google is smart enough to figure out that the anchor text is for http://www.example.com and not for the whole /example_home.asp............ I'm afraid that it will see it as entirely different page and don't pass link value.
Reporting & Analytics | | VasilTasev0 -
Use of 301 redirects
Scenario Dynamic page produces great results for the user but produces a long very un-user and un-search friendly URL http://www.OURSITE.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=loving&x=0&y=0#/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lovingthebead&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Alovingthebead Solution 301 redirect in .htaccess Fantastic - works a treat BUT after redirect the original long ugly old URL appears in the location field Would really like this showing the new short user friendly short URL What am I doing wrong? Thank you all. CB
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GeezerG0 -
Website not appearing in top 100
A few months ago, we launched the website www.gunnersdirect.com. The main keyword target for this website was "arsenal shirts", which you can see is at the very start of the page title. In fairness, limited work has been done to the link building, etc due to time constaints so I would not expect it to rank at the top. However, it does not appear to rank even in the top 100. This gives me major cause for concern, as surely Google should at least recognise the website, albeit in a lowly position? Does this point to some underlying coding issue or penalty? What would you recommend we do to turn round it's fortunes?
Link Building | | ukss19840 -
Tricky Decision to make regarding duplicate content (that seems to be working!)
I have a really tricky decision to make concerning one of our clients. Their site to date was developed by someone else. They have a successful eCommerce website, and the strength of their Search Engine performance lies in their product category pages. In their case, a product category is an audience niche: their gender and age. In this hypothetical example my client sells lawnmowers: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-25 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-3 For all searches pertaining to lawnmowers, the gender of the buyer and their age (for which there are a lot for the 'real' store), these results come up number one for every combination they have a page for. The issue is the specific product pages, which take the form of the following: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower This same product, with the same content (save a reference to the gender and age on the page) can also be found at a few other gender / age combinations the product is targeted at. For instance: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33/fancy-blue-lawnmower http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-32/fancy-blue-lawnmower So, duplicate content. As they are currently doing so well I am agonising over this - I dislike viewing the same content on multiple URLs, and though it wasn't a malicious effort on the previous developers part, think it a little dangerous in terms of SEO. On the other hand, if I change it I'll reduce the website size, and severely reduce the number of pages that are contextually relevant to the gender/age category pages. In short, I don't want to sabotage the performance of the category pages, by cutting off all their on-site relevant content. My options as I see them are: Stick with the duplicate content model, but add some unique content to each gender/age page. This will differentiate the product category page content a little. Move products to single distinct URLs. Whilst this could boost individual product SEO performance, this isn't an objective, and it carries the risks I perceive above. What are your thoughts? Many thanks, Tom
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SoundinTheory0 -
Link Volume - calculate what you need?
Hi everyone, an interesting question here. How do you determien what link volume you should try and get into your website? What analysis do you do to determine the number of links you feel is right to go into a back-link profiel every month? obviously there is no magic number but its an interesting question to know what others do. Obviously you don't want to build too many or too little. If you have been penalised for bad links in the past and are now back on track - how do you calculate the volume? Do you take links dropping out into consideration?
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Does hreflang help international SEO?
I have a very large US based website and series of European sites which are very new and therefore have very limited inherent equity. my US collegues have suggested using alternate language headers: In my opinion this should significantly help the SEO of the new European sites. Does anyone have any experience with this tag? Thanks for your help in advance 🙂
SEO Learn Center | | TWDCEMEASEO0 -
Homepage ranking before optimized page
We finally managed to obtain a spot in the first 10 positions of the serps for our main keyword. Since a week, our homepage started ranking in the top 15 as well, so we we're pretty excited about that. On our way to dominate the top 10! Since 2 days we started to rank with our homepage before our optimized page, which sucks because the metadescription (made up by Google) isn't helping our CTR. Is there a way that we can show Google that the other page is more relevant than the homepage? Or do we have to wait until we have build up enough PA to switch places with the homepage (seems unlikely to me).
On-Page Optimization | | duoweb0 -
Keyword Ranking Fluctuation
Hi, In campaigns, every week we found a big keyword ranking fluctuation. For Example: This week SEO MOZ campaign shows one keyword on 23 position and keyword change number shows 13 position down. When i have checked manually its showing on 13th position. Can you please tell me why its happen? Waiting for your reply Thanks,
Moz Pro | | pulseseo0 -
What's Your Thought About Market Samurai as An SEO Tool Compared to SEOMoz?
What is your opinion about Market Samurai tool as a SEO Tool? I have used it and found it good for analyzing the top 10 competition, getting anchor text profiles and so on. SEOMoz is cool, but has a lot more features. However it lacks keyword research tool. We really cant compare the two tools in terms of pricing because the cost of the MS tool for a lifetime is what will cost SEOMoz membership for a month. What;s your take on this?
Moz Pro | | ConversionChamp0 -
Problems after spending three days out of line.
My site was offline for three days and now my pages are like 404 but theoreticallynow online, this usually happen? Mi pagina estuvo fuera de linea durante tres dias y ahora mis paginas estan como 404 pero teoricamente ya estan en linea, esto suele pasar?
Content Development | | cdrdz870 -
Yahoo Directory! Is it worth Paying $299 for?
Yahoo Directory! Is it worth Paying $299 for? Is this going to help you be better indexed. Will it help your site over all beside having one link?
On-Page Optimization | | AppleCapitalGroup0 -
How Can I Get Yahoo to Index My Site?
How Can I Get Yahoo to Index My Site? I have installed Bing webmaster tool two months ago -- is Yahoo that slow. My site has been out since May 2010 and for a year and a half, I only have 40 pages index. HELP!!!!
On-Page Optimization | | AppleCapitalGroup0 -
Photography site still not ranking well after over year
I have a photography business In the Orlando Fl market. I have noticed my site: joeyvalyphotography.com Does not rank even In the top 50, for my strongest keyword: Orlando Wedding Photographer However, the keyword Orlando engagement Photography/photographer Ranks Very well, and has been rising I'm rank very rapidly over the last two weeks. I'm not sure why my main keyword is not going anywhere, and what my next move should be. I'm considering spending few fhousand dollars on a n seo company, however I though I could learn how to improve my keyword ranking on my own to no avail. Any and all tips, suggestions, advice, will be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | gaji0 -
Localize Web App
Is there a way to "localize the web app"? In other words, get ranking results based on a location? I pecked around the forum and documentation but couldn't find anything. Any plans to move in this direction? I'm getting wildly different results based on browser location settings. Any thoughts are welcome.
Moz Pro | | Gyi0 -
Google adsense what is the best way to display the ads
Hi. I am using google adsense and trying to find the best way to have them on my pages but being knew i am not sure the best way to lay them out. I am playing around with the pages and would love to see some good examples of adsense pages that work. If anyone can give me advice on the following page and let me know what is wrong or right with this page to help me understand where i am going wrong, then that would be great. I am trying to sort it out so each page is set out the same. http://www.cheapflightsgatwick.com/news/easyjet-news/easyjet-tell-disabled-man-to-get-off-plane
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Sitelink Disappeared from SERPs
Hi everyone, Something weird has happened to one of our client's site. First of all I want to explain that the client's name is something like a Person Name plus another generic keyword, for example Truxy Lawyers. Before when you searched for the brand keyword (in my example Truxy), Google would show in the SERPs the client's site as first result with six sitelinks below. Now when searching for the same branded keyword (for example Truxy), Google doesn't show the sitelink anymore, but the first result is the home page and the second and third results are subdomain pages. Does anybody know why Google all of the sudden decided to stop showing the site link? Things get more weird when you search the complete brand name "Truxy Lawers" for example, because in this case Google shows the site link. Does anybody know what has caused this? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | Aviatech0 -
Submitting to Directories
What do you look for when submitting to directories? I'm going through the Web Directories list that SEOMoz has put out and trying to decide which are the best. I'm just wondering if anybody has any suggestions as far as what to look for before submitting. I know PageRank is kind of an old metric but I do seem to see a correlation between PageRank and directory cost. If I submit to a directory category with a PR of 4 or 5 it seems like it will cost me anywhere between $50-$300.
Link Building | | TRICORSystems0 -
Reviewing my Adwords Strategy
Before I started working on Organic SEO, I did Adwords. Being that I am entirely self-taught with adwords, I am concerned that about what I might not know. From time to time I have looked for outside advice, but I never got very far. It seemed that I would be talking to a salesman, someone who knew less than me, or someone who was horrified that I had 7,500 tracked words. So I am presenting my methods here for comment. Each keyword I have used is placed into an exact match campaign, phrase match campaign, and broad match campaign. Exact match gets the highest bid, broad match the lowest. Every week, I cull new keywords from phrase and broad results. I also create negative keywords each week based on searches that are obviously not looking for my products. Over time, I get very few searches triggered from broad matches. Keywords are kept in ad groups that generally have less than 6 keywords. Acceptable conversion costs are decided based on product category. I have made an assumption that first position adwords results are too expensive (idiots overpay for them). I automatically reduce my bid 10% on any ad that has an average position of greater than 1.5. I automatically reduce my bid 10% on any ad that has a conversion cost greater than my target. I delete keyword that have a CTR below 1%. I generally require 300 clicks to make a determination. All ads have been endlessly split tested to the point I don’t split test them much now. I judged ads for both click through rate and conversion rate. End result: After 4 years of doing this, conversion costs are below target costs. Not sure what else I could do to improve it, but looking for ideas. Management of the system is pretty easy now, as well. Anything I am missing?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | EugeneF0 -
Ensuring Assets (PDFs, PowerPoint Files, Word Docs, etc.) are Indexable on Site
Hi there - I'm working on an educational site in which users will be able to search our repository of PDF articles, PowerPoint files, and so on through an on-site search engine. What is the best way to ensure each of these documents/assets are indexable by Google since they technically don't reside on an HTML page....they are just pulled up if the user searches for them? The site itself is just a few pages, but the files, articles, and videos in the repository are in the hundreds. Should I just name and tag them properly and make sure they're all included in an XML site map? Anything else suggested? Thanks very much!
Technical SEO | | MedThinkCommunications0 -
GOOGLE Rankings
We built a site for one of our clients about 3 years ago and added Meta tags to each page of the site. But when you do a google search on the keywords the site still does not come up. I thought it would be spidered into the system by now. Web Site - www.specialtysealgroup.com Let me know what we can do to improve our GOOGLE rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thine1230 -
Adding qualifiers to keywords?
I know that it's worth adding qualifiers to high value keywords to create long-tail variations which will later have the potential to rank well for the main keyword as well... My questions is, how important is it that the newly-formed keyword/phrase also be evaluated for search volume? E.g. "tips for job interviews" has a high search volume, but scores 72 in the Keyword Difficulty tool - quite high. I would therefore be tempted to create a "10 tips for job interviews" articles or something similar, yet THIS particular phrase is searched for <10 times per month... If there are not any easy-to-find qualifiers that also create a well-searched for keyword/phrase, is it still worth adding them?
Keyword Research | | staingurus0 -
Does a 301 redirect pass along Google +1's from the old url to the new one?
When I 301 redirect a page that has content that has been +1'ed by our visitors, I would assume that Google would handle a +1 the same as a link and pass this authority along to the new url. Has anyone had any experience or heard directly from Google confirming this behavior?
Social Media | | Eventful0 -
Using 2 wildcards in the robots.txt file
I have a URL string which I don't want to be indexed. it includes the characters _Q1 ni the middle of the string. So in the robots.txt can I use 2 wildcards in the string to take out all of the URLs with that in it? So something like /_Q1. Will that pickup and block every URL with those characters in the string? Also, this is not directly of the root, but in a secondary directory, so .com/.../_Q1. So do I have to format the robots.txt as //_Q1* as it will be in the second folder or just using /_Q1 will pickup everything no matter what folder it is on? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seo1234560 -
META Description Not Showing Up On Google
Hi, I have noticed recently that for my highest ranking keyword on Google United Kingdom, the meta description (that has not changed for several months and always used to be displayed when someone searched for this keyword) now only shows the first couple of words. Also, instead of the rest of the Meta Description there is a list of items that I offer for sale all squashed together with their individual prices. I am the only company on page one of Google who's impression looks like this and I think it looks really unprofessional. Why has this happened and how do I change it? Any help is much appreciated
Web Design | | g3mmab0 -
Site drop in SERPS after domain down for three plus weeks
Have had a clients site that has been staple in the SERPS for the last four years that we have worked on it. However they had hosting issues a couple of months back which they didn't sort for two to three weeks. Since there the main keyword has bounced around between 24th and 44th in the google results. The drop ties in with the hosting issue but the client does seem to believe that this is the source of the issue. Can someone point me towards some online articles that would explain this for them. Some of the keywords have not suffered as badly but the one key term is still in the mid 20's. I am sure it is suffering a minus 20 for the keyword as it was normally 4th or 5th in the results. We don't host the site and the client had know idea were it was hosted. What is so annoying is that it is us who pointed out the site was down. Thanks in advance everyone 🙂
Technical SEO | | highwayfive0 -
Adwords Keyword Research - Impressions, CTR
Hello, In my Adwords Keyword Research (spending $300 to find out any keywords I'm missing using mostly exact match keywords) am I looking for impressions or Click Through Rate, or both? Please explain.
Paid Search Marketing | | BobGW0 -
What is the minimum photo size for Pinterest? Getting "No Large Images Found."
I can't find the answer to this by Googleing, and Pinterest doesn't seem to specify.
Social Media | | ebenthurston0 -
Where to link?
Hi I need to gert this page up in the rankings http://www.kerryblu.co.uk/wedding-headbands-70-c.asp but am getting no where fast. When applying for links should I direct them to this page or to the homepage, and let them filter through. Thanks
Link Building | | Yorkie0 -
Top 3 actions I should immediately take.... ?
Site: bussongs.com I have a fairly successful (400k visits/month, 1.2m PV/month) site which features a directory of kids songs. kididdles.com is my archnemesis. Slight edge in PVs with better ranking on many long-tail KWs (song names mainly). What are the top 3 things I should do to knock out my competitor? I feel I've nailed the on-page stuff - I have checked all the major items and produced superior content. The big thing that shouts out to me is that my competitor just has many more backlinks, especially from unique domains and that's lifting up everything. Thoughts? Can't wait to hear your ideas!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kmander0 -
UGC Comments - Ditch them?
Site: bussongs.com I have a fairly successful (400k visits/month, 1.2m PV/month) site which features a directory of lyrics-style content. The bulk of the content is not unique and exists in many places across the web. I figured adding commenting would help add more bulk to each page and give some long-tail on-page KWs. The comments are non-AJAX and Google is crawling the information. There's 10k comments across the site. I have some automated filters to remove profanity and junk but otherwise comments are published in real time. Because of the niche I target, the quality of spelling/grammar is very low. I don't have any pagination at the moment so some pages are now quite long and the quantity of UGC content is considerably larger than the main content of the page. Traffic went down post-Panda and has picked up slowly over time - almost back at normal levels. But I feel I could better manage comments and that they do have an impact on SEO. Do these comments have value? Should I use AJAX to stop crawling? Implement pagination to limit page length? Use plus/minus ranking to give prominence to the better comments? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kmander0 -
301 redirects and Dynamic URLs
I just ran my first diagnostic and one of my primary immediate problems are duplicate titles and duplicate content. My guess it that because the root URL http://sitename.com (which has not yet been redirected to www...) has generated an entire tree of content which is identical to the tree rooted at http://www.sitename.com. QUESTION: Do I need to do a redirect simply for the root url (sitename.com -> www.sitename.com) or do I now need to develop specific 301 redirects for each of the sub-nodes/pages? ie sitename.com/?q=about-us -> www.sitename.com/?q=about-us sitename.com/?q=our-team -> www.sitename.com/?q=our-team etc.
Technical SEO | | Barrycliff680 -
Node.js for SEO
We've got a client building a site using node.js (http://nodejs.org/) I'm not at all familiar with this and of course need to know how nodejs impacts SEO? Are you familiar with it? Any sites you know of using it? But as I said, bottom line - how will it impact the SEO on the site?
Industry News | | VMLYRDiscoverability1 -
Meeting Google's needs 100% with dynamic pages
We have bought into a really powerful search, very exciting We can define really detailed product based 'landing pages' by creating a search that pulles on required attributeseghttp://www.OURDOMAIN.com//search/index.php?sortprice=asc&followSearch=9673&q=red+coats+short-length Pop that in a link Short Red Coats on a previous page and wonderful, that gives a page of short red coats in price ascending order, one happy consumer, straight to a page that meets their needs Question 1 however unhappy Google right? Question 2 can we meet Google's needs 100% with a redirect permanent in an .htaccess file E.G redirect permanent /short-red-coats/ http://www.OURDOMAIN.com//search/index.php?sortprice=asc&followSearch=9673&q=red+coats+short-length
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GeezerG
Many thanks
CB0 -
Custom Web Fonts
If we decide to use custom web fonts - using CSS + linked .ttf files - will there be any sort of issue in terms of being looked down upon by SE's? I realize there would be a slight increase in download time - but other than that has anyone experienced any negative effects?
On-Page Optimization | | Zkwarta0 -
Local listing | Virtual office
Hi Miriam (and all Local SEO mozers), I read a couple of your answers where you advice people in different situations not to consider a virtual office when creating their Google Places listing and I would like to know if you would apply the same advice in my case. This is the scenario: I have a client who's in the limousine service in Orlando, he just bought the URL and registered the business with the City using a "virtual office" in Orlando. This virtual office provides him a physical address, local area phone number, 411 listing, a listing for the businesses in that building and an office to have his meetings. This is the part where it gets confusing when I read your answers and I will give you an example. You said here:
Image & Video Optimization | | echo1
_The requirements in order to qualify for a Google Place Page are that you have: __1. A legal business name__2. A local area code phone number__3. A physical street address (not a P.O. box or virtual office) to which customers either come to do business with you or from which your employees depart in order to serve customers at their locations (think chimney sweep, landscaper, etc.)_Number 3 says "A physical street address (not a P.O. box or virtual office) to which customers either come to do business with you".
My client is going to rent one of those virtual offices, which does have a physical address, on as-needed basis. This office actually does exist. Why would Google have anything against it?
One of the reasons why he chose that location is because he is running the business from home and he does not want the clients to see it.
Another reason is the image he wants to create for his company by having a different address where he can hold meetings and such. The phone number will be either a local land-line or a local cell phone number, in any case, it will be a _local area code phone number. _
So this is where we stand: he dispatches the cars from home (he does not have a garage, the cars stay with the drivers 24 hours) but he meets his clients and business partners at the other address. There is nothing fake about it, he does have a legal business name, a local area code number and a real place where customers come to do business with. Which address should I use for his Google Places listing?0 -
What would you do?
We have quite a few ideas for projects to help improve our web presence on SERPs while providing value to our members. Below is a 'short' selection. Which one strategy do you think would be highest priority, and why? Dynamically-Generated Content Create additional unique content-rich pages dynamically from technical data about plastic materials stored in our database. We don't just want to puke out data, but make it meaningful and unique - educational in fact to engineers, thinking it's good for them and also might give us an opportunity to gain links from edu websites. More Content Hire a company to transcribe our 60+ recorded plastics industry webinar presentations. These are really cool topics (at least that's what engineers think) presented by top industry experts - something we want to continue to do to capture knowledge for future engineers. Forum / User-Generated Content & Interaction Create an online forum for people who design with plastic materials - a forum like the SEOmoz format we think, would be cool! It's good for the users to interact and provide additional user-generated content that can be useful for our members and for SEO. Social Push This is a tough one for us because the plastics industry is an older audience (that continually 'grows' younger). We can see a shift towards social adoption over the past few years, and obviously its impact on search. We see growth on Twitter and LinkedIn, but Facebook and others are a mystery for us - but we've got to adopt it early so we're ready when the plastics industry matures. We're a small company, so we've got to pick and choose the best things that help improve our business while providing top notch products and services to our users, members and customers. Simply posting to a blog that auto posts to all other social outlets seems like an opportunity, but kind of cheesy. You probably have better ideas... Videos We can easily generate short educational videos to post on our site through YouTube. This would be a great strategy, albeit it would take some effort, but we're thinking it would be well worth it.
Social Media | | Prospector-Plastics0 -
Sudden dramatic drops in SERPs along with no snippet and no cached page?
We are a very stable, time tested domain (over 15 yrs old) with thousands of stable, time tested inbound links. We are a large catalog/e commerce business and our web team has over a decade's experience with coding, seo etc. We do not engage in link exchanges, buying links etc and adhere strictly to best white hat seo practices. Our SERPs have generally been very stable for years and years. We continually update content, leverage user generated content etc, and stay abreast of important algorithm and policy changes on Google's end. On Wednesday Jan 18th, we noticed dramatic, disturbing changes to our SERPs. Our formerly very stable positions for thousands of core keywords dropped. In addition, there is no snippet in the SERPs and no cached page for these results. Webmaster tools shows our sitemap most recently successfully downloaded by Google on Jan 14th. Over the weekend and monday the 16th, our cloud hosted site experienced some downtime here and there. I suspect that the sudden issues we are seeing are being caused by one of three possibilities: 1. Google came to crawl when the site was unavailable.
Web Design | | jamestown
However, there are no messages in the account or crawl issues otherwise noted to indicate this. 2. There is a malicious link spam or other attack on our site. 3. The last week of December 2011, we went live with Schema.org rich tagging on product level pages. The testing tool validates all but the breadcrumb, which it says is not supported by Schema. Could Google be hating our Schema.org microtagging and penalizing us? I sort of doubt bc category/subcategory pages that have no such tags are among those suffering. Whats odd is that ever since we went live with Schema.org, Google has started preferring very thin content pages like video pages and articles over our product pages. This never happened in the past. the site is: www.jamestowndistributors.com Any help or ideas are greatly, greatly appreciated. Thank You DMG0 -
Redirecting According to the occasion
We have loads of different departments that relate to specific occasions (e.g. Christmas, mothers day, father day etc), they all have good PR and inbound links etc and most of them rank well for the specific occasion. What I was thinking is that I could redirect all of the occasions that aren’t in use and send the traffic to the valid occasion live at the moment. So I would 301 all the Christmas pages to our valentine’s day main page. Then once valentines is gone I will redirect Christmas and valentines to the mothers day main page and so on. So this would be constantly switching as different occasions come along. Can you see any possible negative problems? Is there any chance that if I redirect Christmas for example, and then when Christmas comes we remove the redirect, could it harm the Christmas page?
Technical SEO | | steliosp210 -
Google Analytics censoring keywords?
The top keyword on our real time GA is showing as a blank. There's a topic of a sexual nature in our talk threads trending on Twitter right now which is driving a lot of traffic and I'm wondering whether Google have censored the keyword. The next few keywords are our name and variants of. Could there be some other reason why this word isn't showing up? Has anyone else experienced this?
Reporting & Analytics | | CecilyP0 -
Scoop it is anyone using this social networking site to generate traffic
hi i have just come across scoop it http://www.scoop.it/t/gastric-band-hypnotherapy which is a magazine site where you can post items and news and i would like to know if anyone is using this to generate traffic for their site and generate links. I cam across it after finding out that links were coming to my site from the network and this morning i have signed up as a free member to try it but there are paid options. I would like to know if anyone is using it and how successful it has been for them
Social Media | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Optimization for an Car Image Gallery Site
I have a site where I feature several car images and the details/press releases about those cars. So normal layout would be an article page consisting of the following: Article Text Image gallery list laid out for user to browse. Now, when a user clicks on the image, the link opens up in another page with the image as a main content and then other image belonging to same article are shown below to browse. Each of such pages with images from same article are linked to one another with 'rel'=prev/next and has a 'rel' canonical to the page with article text. Am I doing this right to prevent thin content and duplication issue? Each of the images are for same car and are related to one another. The site under question is DieselStation. Also, if you can provide a general feedback on the site's layout and architecture in terms of SEO, that would be great.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ketan90 -
Formatting of Links in Direct Press Releases
I have been looking around but not found any great suggestions. If we send out a direct press release to a journalist, eg to their email address, what is the best format to send it in (eg word, pdf, rtf, html)? Also, if it was to be sent out as a pdf or word doc, is there a good way to put links in there to increase the chance of them putting a keyword link in the article if it was to be published on their site? Would a hyperlink in there be confusing or is that ok?
Link Building | | edwardlewis0
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