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How to Implement Massive SEO Modifications
Hi everyone, I'm implementing some fairly significant changes on a clients website and wanted to know if it was better to implement all the changes at once or if I should implement the changes gradually. The changes are: 1. Amended information architecture 2. Completely new URL's 3. New meta data and some new on page content 4. Meta robots 'no index, follow' approximately 90% of the site Can I make all these changes in one go (that would be my preference), or should I gradually implement? What are the risks? Many thanks James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jamesjackson1 -
# hidden by the header?
Can someone please clarify whether hiding tags behind the image header is an accepted best practice or is frowned upon by Google? I was doing some competitive analysis and noticed some websites were doing it, but it certainly wasn't egregious.
On-Page Optimization | | dignan990 -
Links to commercial pages vs resources.
My company has a number of resources pages that are garnering links from external sources. It won't be long before these links outnumber the breadth and the quality of links to my homepage and commercial pages. Does having a lot more links to the resources pages risk unbalancing flow of PageRank around the site? What I want to avoid is a situation where my homepage has a lower PR than my blog/resources, or people searching for relevant terms getting directed to my blog/resources (with many high-quality links) than to my commercial pages (which will have fewer).
Link Building | | JacobFunnell0 -
Google sees redirect when there isn't any?
I've posted a question previously regarding the very strange changes in our search positions here http://www.seomoz.org/q/different-pages-ranking-for-search-terms-often-irrelevant New strange thing I've noticed - and very disturbing thing - seems like Google has somehow glued two pages together. Or, in other words, looks like Google sees a 301 redirect from one page to another. This, actually, happened to several pages, I'll illustrate it with our Flash templates page. URL: http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | templatemonster
Has been #3 for 'Flash templates' in Google. Reasons why it looks like redirect:
Reason #1
Now this http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php page is ranking instead of http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php
Also, http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php is not in the index.
That what would typically happen if you had 301 from Flash templates to logo templates page. Reason #2
If you search for cache:http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php Google will give the cahced version of http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php!!!
If you search for info:www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php you again get info on http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php instead! Reason #3
In Google Webmaster Tools when I look for the external links to http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php I see all the links from different sites, which actually point to http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php listed as "Via this intermediate link: http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php" As I understand Google makes this "via intermediate link" when there's a redirect? That way, currently Google thinks that all the external links we have for Flash templates are actually pointing to Logo templates? The point is we NEVER had any kind of redirect from http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php to http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php I've seen several similar situations on Google Help forums but they were never resolved. So, I wonder if anybody can explain how that could have happened, and what can be done to solve that problem?0 -
How accurate is the Keyword Difficulty Tool for international markets (specifically Australia)?
The difficulty percentage on several keywords is identical for Google.com and Google.com.au and I am wondering why?
Competitive Research | | davidangotti0 -
Maximum length of a URL for good SEO?
Hi there, We have a content database as part of our site and I noticed that the way the database is loaded with new content, it means that the URL’s for these pages are really long, around 100 characters or sometimes more http://www.xxxyy.org/knowledge-base/documents/word1-word2-word3-word4-word5-word6-word7-word8 Is there a suggted maximum character length for a URL? Kind of like for title tag where I max out at 69… Should I truncate the URL’s or at least reduce the numbers of words in them to something less spammy? Does that make a difference? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0 -
Penalties for site going down often?
I have a client with a site that ranks for some very competitive terms who consistently has server issues and the site goes down for a day at a time. Each time this happens his site seems to drop in site wide rankings and then stay there for months without ever fully recovering. Only part of the rankings are usually recovered. Has anyone else seen this trend? Is it something Google keeps on record without fully removing any penalty addressed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iAnalyst.com0 -
Promoting an Affiliate Scheme
I have to promote an affiliate scheme, and am drawing up a list of techniques that I can use to get people interested and sign up to it. Currently I have: Promoting the scheme in any article promotion. Identifying relevant websites to the scheme, and contacting them directly. Networking in affiliate forums and communities. Promoting on Facebook and Twitter. Possibly producing a video reviewing the scheme and posting it onto YouTube and other video sites. Can anyone think of any other techniques that I could try using? Cheers.
Affiliate Marketing | | speedyseo0 -
WordPress Question: Canonical field in Category Section of Yoast SEO Plug In
I've added the Yoast SEO Plug In for my word press blog. When I add a new category, there is a listing called "Edit Category". On this page there is a listing "Yoast WordPress SEO Settings." In this section, there are two fields in which I need guidance on what is supposed to be included. One: There is a field called "Canonical". What info is supposed to be entered in this field and how does it need to be formatted? Is it a URL. If so, what URL is supposed to go there? Two: Breadcrumbs title. What is the purpose of this field? (Isn't it OK to just use the category name as the breadcrumb title?)
Technical SEO | | EricVallee340 -
Blog Redirect
We have a blog hosted directly on WordPress with a PR of 3. At this point we are moving this blog to our server and incorporating it into our website. I wanted to ask the experts how to go about moving this blog without loosing Page Rank. Is it possible to do a 301 redirect from WP itself? Is there anything that I can do to preserve ranking? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you Dmitry
Content Development | | DmitryP0 -
I am seeking a high quality sites to submit articles for free in order to get links. Can you recommend me on those sites?
I am seeking a high quality sites to submit articles for free in order to get links. Can you recommend me on those sites?
Link Building | | yoavm0 -
Java-script slider & H1 tags
If you have a java-script slider on the homepage, each slide has an H1 tag heading, which of the H1 tags would google most likely consider? all of them or just the first one?
Web Design | | GraphicMail0 -
Good content but high bounce rate
Hi all, We run a website offering specialist turkey tours and gulet cruises. Our website holds a few information and recipes pages which are doing well in the engines and bring in alot of traffic. However these pages are crippling our bounce rate with bounces of about 80-90%. The time on site for these pages are above the websites average, but it seems that once the reader has finished with the information/ recipe, they bounce back to the Search engines. An example of one of our recipe pages can be found here: http://www.petersommer.com/turkey/turkish-food/pilav-rice/ We have thought about moving and redirecting these pages from our main site to a new website, but we are worried that it may effect our position in the SERP's. Can anybody offer any advice on this? Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | petersommertravels0 -
How to resolve duplicate content and title errors?
Hello, I'm new to this resource and SEO. I have taken the time to read other posts but am not entirely sure about the best way to resolve the issues I am experiencing and so am hoping for a helpful hand. My site diagnostics advise me that most of my errors relate to duplicate content and duplicate page titles. Most of these errors seem to relate to our ecommerce product pages. A little about us first, we manufacture and retail over the internet our own line of unique products which can only be purchased through our website. So it’s not so important to make our product pages stand out from competitors. An example of one of our product pages can be found here: http://www.nabru.co.uk/product/Sui+2X2+Corner+Sofa In terms of SEO we are focusing on improving the rankings of our category pages which compete much more with our competitors, but would also like our product pages to be found via a google search for those potential customers that are at the late stage of a buying cycle. So my question: Whilst it would be good to add more content to the product pages, user reviews, individual product descriptions etc (and have good intentions to do this over time, which unfortunately is limited) is there an easy way to fix the duplicate content issues, ensure our products can be found and ensure that the main focus is on our category pages? Many thanks.
Technical SEO | | jannkuzel0 -
Query deserves freshness
There was an seomoz article - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/does-query-deserves-diversity-algorithm-exist-at-google . I would like to point out the specific part of it - "So - because a lot of searchers express a preference for more diverse results than just those pages that ordinarily would "make the cut," Google provides an extra helping hand to pages they feel help to satisfy those searchers. This data could be gleaned from lower CTRs in the SERPs, greater numbers of query refinements, and even a high percentage of related searches performed subsequently" I don;t understand how data could be gleaned from lower CTRs, don't you think it should have been Higher CTRs ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Post Panda Link Building Methods
Google Panda update has brought about so much changes in Google search engine algorithms. I like to know what sort of link building is considered good for SEO in the present scenario? Is article marketing, directory submission, blog posting, web property creation, video submission, press release submission etc still relevant? I like to know your valuable opinions.. I am hearing conflicting responses to this question. So I thought, I will ask here and know what really works. Thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SunuPhilip0 -
Do links to blog.domainname.com help the www.domainname.com subdomain?
Hi, Do links to pages within the blog.domainname.com subdomain help the rankings of pages within the main www.domainname.com subdomain? (where "domainname" is the same of course). Thanks.
Link Building | | geoffh0 -
Should i use NoIndex, Follow & Rel=Canonical Tag In One Page?
I am having pagination problem with one of my clients site , So I am deciding to use noindex, follow tag for the Page 2,3,4 etc for not to have duplicated content issue, Because obviously SEOMoz Crawl Diagnostics showing me lot of duplicate page contents. And past 2 days i was in constant battle whether to use noindex, follow tag or rel=canonical tag for the Page 2,3,4 and after going through all the Q&A,None of them gives me crystal clear answer. So i thought "Why can't i use 2 of them together in one page"? Because I think (correct me if i am wrong) 1.noindex, follow is old and traditional way to battle with dup contents
Technical SEO | | DigitalJungle
2.rel=canonical is new way to battle with dup contents Reason to use 2 of them together is: Bot finds to the non-canonical page first and looks at the tag nofollow,index and he knows not to index that page,meantime he finds out that canonical url is something something according to the url given in the tag,NO? Help Please???0 -
Site Usage Statistics and organic ranking
I'm not sure if anyone has tested this properly but i'm begining to suspect that google is using site usage statistics as a site quality guide and ultimately as a ranking variable. The this what i've seen so far on one of my sites (site A) Week 1= bounce rate (83.88%), Avg time on site (0:0:57), Pages/visit (1.28) no changes made to the site apart from the usual link building. Week 2: Traffic drops by 30%, Keywords generating traffic drops by 39%. Bounce rate (87.25%), Avg time on site (0:0:43), pages/visit (1.21). I replaced all affiliate links on my homepage to internal pages where the chunk of the content is and did a reconsideration request. Week 3: Traffic goes up by 30%, keywords generating traffic goes up by 65%, Bounce rate (30.41%), Avg time on site (0:3:02), Pages/visit (3.74). This is not the most scientific test but surely google must be using these variables and a ranking factor? Anyone seen something along these lines or have thoughts on it?
Algorithm Updates | | clickangel0 -
Linking to Adsense heavy sites?
Hi SEOmoz community! Hopefully a pretty straight forward question here... Does anyone know if linking to "Adsense heavy" websites can have a negative impact on your rankings? Or a positive impact even? Thes sites in particular are owned by a business aquintance, so they come from a trusted source even though the sites themselves look quite "spammy". Also they all have pagerank of 1 or 2 and there's about 100 of the sites that we would link to. Does anyone have any thoughts? Regards, Ash 🙂
Link Building | | AshSEO20110 -
Canonical for non-exist URL ?
Hi I have a website what has parameter URL. For example www.example.com/index.php?page_id=1&no=2 I want that search engine see my page URL as; www.example.com/toys/cars But this URL is not exist in my website. And when i externally enter this page it goes to 404 page. If i add canonical url as www.example.com/toys/cars to the page www.example.com/index.php?page_id=1&no=2, what happened ? Is the url at the serp change as www.example.com/toys/cars ?
Technical SEO | | SEMTurkey0 -
Does it hurt your site to syndicate content on other sites?
Does publishing an article from your site on other sites hurt your site if you require a link back to your site? If website B, C, and D publish an article found site A, but they link back to site A, does that hurt or help site A?
Link Building | | nicole.healthline0 -
Submitting my URL on web/business/service directories
Does it make sense to submit a business URL in as many relevant web/business directories as possible when kicking off a link building campaign? Submitting a free listing is obviously better than nothing, but when does it make sense to pay extra for a premium listing profile on some of these directories? There are just so many and a lot of them appear spammy, even though some of my competitors are getting traffic from them. Any advice on this would be great!
Link Building | | TheSquareFoot1 -
How to handle URL's from removed products?
Hi All, I have a question about a fashion related webshop. Every month about 100 articles are removed and about the some amouth is added to the site. Most of the products are indexed on brandname and type (e.g. MyBrand t-shirt blue) My question is what to do with the URL / page after the product is removed. I'm thinking about a couple of solutions: 301 the page to the brand categorie page build a script which shows related articles on the old URL (and try to keep it indexed) 404 page optimized for search term with links to brand category any other suggestons? Thanks in advance, Sam
Technical SEO | | U-Digital0 -
Site navigation menu in head of page for SEO
We are considering expanding our site navigation menu (horizontal) at the top of our pages. However, once implemented, this would include around 30-40 links at the top of the page; before the content of the page. How much effect (good/bad) would this have on SEO? Are their any other options? (perhaps rendering the menu after the main content with CSS)? Any thoughts, suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640 -
Can including advertising slots have a negative effect on SEO?
Can including advertising slots at the top and side of pages have a negative effect on SEO? Can Google detect these advertising slots? Can they work our advertising pixels to page content pixels ratio? Any ideas, suggestions, comments and opinions are greatly appreciated!
Web Design | | Peter2640 -
Robots.txt
Hi there, My question relates to the robots.txt file. This statement: /*/trackback Would this block domain.com/trackback and domain.com/fred/trackback ? Peter
Technical SEO | | PeterM220 -
Are you doing SEO on Twiiter and Facebook pages?
Seems to be a thought process emerging (CALL THE MEDIA!) that twiiter and facebook are having through various different paths a real ranking effect. Is anyone now doing SEO on a clients Social media page because of this. I know they are no follow. I am not sure they don't pass juice.
Social Media | | MBayes0 -
Google preview magnifying glass icon
Why are my search results missing the google preview magnifying glass icon next to them? My site is an adult toys e-commerce/portfolio site. but doesn't have any sexual explicit content especially on the homepage. I used to have Goole preview working a few month ago but have changed the skin a couple of month ago and Preview is not avalable for my site since then. Google's preview testing tool shows a perfect image for my site. url: http://www.funstuff.co.il Thanks, Asaf
Technical SEO | | AsafY0 -
Is this new? Anchors showing in Serps.
I was checking out a keyword today and I noticed several listings on Google that had a line underneath that said, "Jump to keyword". The "keyword" was an href name anchor on the page. Is this new? Should we be including more anchors on our pages now? It makes sense as it helps the reader to navigate the page. Here is a photo of an example: 7XwaQ
On-Page Optimization | | MarieHaynes0 -
Are URL shorteners building domain authority everytime someone uses a link from their service?
My understanding of domain authority is that the more links pointing to any page / resource on a domain, the greater the overall domain authority (and weight passed from outbound links on the domain) is. Because URL shorteners create links on their own domain that redirect to an off-domain page but link "to" an on-domain URL, are they gaining domain authority each time someone publishes a shortened link from their service? Or does Google penalize these sites specifically, or links that redirect in general? Or am I missing something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jay.Neely0 -
Bing and Yahoo rankings
I must admit its every 3 months or so I check these listings 🙂 I would even admit we are that engrossed in google we forget these sites exist many times. I wanted to see if anyone had experience doing sep for these sites and what sort of techniques you used in order to help improve these rankings. I tend to get great listings on Yahoo for many sites but bing seems slightly different. Would love to find out some information on the algos on each of these.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinemediadirect0 -
Launching an infographic as linkbait- best practices.
Hey guys. I created my first infographic and I'm hoping it's something that will attract a lot of links. I just have some questions about the best ways to present the infographic. Should I post it on a page on my site that has no ads? no branding? Or should I go ahead and put it on my site as a regular piece of content (with ads in the sidebars.) I wondered about doing this: -Post the infographic as a regular page on my site (with regular ads), but if someone clicks on the infographic it would go to a second page where there is limited branding (or no branding) and no ads. The embed code (that other webmasters can grab) would link to this page. But, this page would have a rel-canonical pointing to the original page. The idea is that my page on the subject will end up getting a lot of links (albeit processed through a rel-canonical) and webmasters will be more likely to embed or link to my content because it is not littered with ads. Thoughts?
Link Building | | MarieHaynes0 -
Simple Joomla cart suggestion
I have a client with an online store which currently offers two products and is hosted on a shared server. As a result of my SEO evaluation his site will be redesigned in Joomla. Does anyone have experience with or a suggestion for a simple, light cart that would be open to standard SEO changes and work in this situation? The cart should accept both Google checkout, Paypal and support international customers from Europe, US and Canada.
Web Design | | RyanKent0 -
Twitter as a website's #2 ranked linked page?
A site I'm researching on open-site explorer has a #2 link with page authority of 52 and Domain authority of 97, and that link is the site's twitter page. No other sites I've researched have had their twitter page show up in it's link rankings like this, can someone explain?
Competitive Research | | TheSquareFoot0 -
Copywritting Service Recommendations
Hi there, I'm looking for several recommendations for decent copywritting services, freelancers or otherwise. Ideally with B2B experience. Any ideas? Steve
Content Development | | phsgroup0 -
Keywords and content and seo advice please
Hi i am building a site at the moment which i am working on. please ignore the state of the site as we are just playing with designs at the moment but please do take notice of the top part. The site is a travel magazine but i am a bit concerned. The keywords that we will be looking at to drive travel will be as follows, cheap flights gatwick, holiday magazine and travel magazine. Now i do not want the site to look untidy with loads of content describing the site but at the same time i want google to know what the site is and for people to pick the site up with the search terms that we are aiming for. the site is www.cheapflightsgatwick.com Can anyone please show me some examples of how i should structure the site to attract the keywords and give me some advice. It seems hard when you are designing a magazine site where the content changes all the time to try and attract the search engines with your keywords. any advice would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
SEOs and web developers frequently leave links to their site in the footer of their clients' sites. Does this negatively impact the site with the links?
Does this provide any SEO value to the receiving site? Has anyone experienced problems doing this?
Link Building | | KatMouse2 -
Advertising and negative impact on SEO
On one of my sites, I've been trying to get the word out by contacting blogs and asking them to share my site with their readers. This has resulted in some free publicity for my site, as well as quite a few paid reviews/sponsored posts. Note, however, that I've never paid for links, just reviews of my site... When I started this about 2 months ago, my site was a PR3 and getting fairly lowsy organic search traffic (i.e. 30-40 visits a day from Google). Then a few days ago, my PR dropped to 1. I didn't worry too much though, because my organic traffic was still around 30-40 visits a day. Now today, I checked and I only had 1 visitor the entire day from Google. Obviously I've been penalized. My most important question is, what can I do? Do I have an recourse, or do I need to just shut the domain down and move elsewhere? Second, wtf is Google penalizing this? I understand the argument against paid links, but should I not be allowed to advertise my site? Apparently I can buy links all day long through Google and they'll happily take my money, but the minute I pay some poor blogger to write an article about my site to their audience, I get penalized? Please help, I can't believe I just destroyed one of my sites like this!
Technical SEO | | dustin9990 -
Bug in Virtual Page view javascript
I am trying to learn the basics of tracking outbound links with this javascript code set up on this url http://queenofhats.com/links.php I think I have a bug in my javascript that tracks clicks on an outbound link. http://www.portlandmaine.com When A person clicks on the "Portland Maine" link, in theory it should create a virtual pageload of a page called "portland_maine". I have clicked on the link, but when I filter on "portland" in the Top Content section of Google Analyitcs, there are is no record of the click. So I think my javascript code has a bug. Any comment on the javascript would be most welcome. I just noticed that I have \ before /links. Is the "" the source of the problem? Thanks!!
Reporting & Analytics | | dsexton100 -
Link Building Management Tool That Syncs Sweetly With Google Analytics
Hi, I would like a link building management tool that syncs with Google Analytics, so that I can Easily see traffic referrals from link acquired sites Easily see traffic from keywords that were anchored in the link acquisition Browny points for the tool to be a CRM as well. Raven Tools cant do this. Does anyone know of a tool? Or do I keep building custom reports in Google Analytics! Thanks.
Link Building | | DigitalLeaf0 -
Facebook Comments | Massive Overall Increase in Rankings! Anybody else experience this?
Last week I implemented Facebook Comments and Addthis to my site. Rankings went up for nearly all my keywords. I have people from Africa, Europe and USA asking questions. Every time someone comments, it is shared on their Facebook Wall. I want to know if anybody has experienced this besides me? Here's my site if you want to see it in action.
Social Media | | Francisco_Meza0 -
Anyone Used ScrapeBox or SEONukeX Before?
I have been looking at trying out Scrapebox or SEONukex for a while, but don't want to wast my money. Has anyone tried them out with positive success? I am not looking for an automated submission platform necessarily. I am simply looking for a platform to tell me which sites are relevant to mine, dofollow, etc. That is what I would be using them for.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MyNet0 -
Ezine Articles
How much do other people rate Ezines as a provider of articles and incoming links. What are peoples experiences. It has to be one of the most strict article sites but does this make it the best ?
Link Building | | onlinemediadirect0 -
If two links from one page link to another, how can I get the second link's anchor text to count?
I am working on an e-commerce site and on the category pages each of the product listings link to the product page twice. The first is an image link and then the second is the product name. I want to get the anchor text of the second link to count. If I no-follow the image link will that help at all? If not is there a way to do this?
Technical SEO | | JordanJudson0 -
Google Shopping in SERPS - What % of clicks do they get?
Howdy, Looking for any data we can get on the % of click through the shopping results are getting in Google SERPs. There are tons of variables: how many products & which position the shopping feeds and images are shown in but any hard data would be helpful. The background is that we have a client who ranks #1 in Google for a shopping related term and their organic traffic is down in 2011 for this main keyword which has ranked #1 all year since the shopping feeds are continually showing above or below the 1st Google position vs sporadic or no display in years prior. I.e. They aren't happy the traffic is down & we are looking for some data we can provide them with beyond, "Google shopping is now eating part of your organic traffic for that term". Many thanks in advance!!
Image & Video Optimization | | WebpageFX0 -
Will Google Places put ranking weight on google reviews instead of 3rd party now?
WIth the visual update to Google Places over the past 2 days do you think that Google reviews will become a higher ranking factor as compared to 3rd party reviews. The research I have done shows that 3rd party reviews seem to correlate better with higher rankings..Any thoughts on what might be coming down the road?
Image & Video Optimization | | NiftyMarketing0
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