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  • Dameian


    I have a client that insists on using the ProPhoto WordPress theme. This theme has an interesting habit of putting empty anchor tags in the site nav in order to nest css dropdowns. By empty I mean totally empty. For example: <a>Navigation Link</a> Since the anchor does not specify a destiation, do you think it would have any effect on link juice one way or the other? This wouldn't count as an additional link on the page would it? My inclination and personal practice is not to risk quirky things like this, but I'd like a second opinion before I suggest changes to the client's site. Thanks!

    Technical SEO | | Dameian
    2
  • Shopadorn


    I am looking into starting to use the comparison shopping engines.  Any ideas on where to start wtih this?  Is there a good place to go that would manage all the different sites?

    Paid Search Marketing | | Shopadorn
    0
  • RobertFisher


    On a site we developed of which .com is forwarded to .net domain, we quit getting crawled by google on about the 20th of Feb. Now when we try to run a crawl test on either url, we get     There was an error fetching this page. Error description     For some reason the page returned did not describe itself as an html page. It could be possible that the url is serving an image, rss feed, pdf, or xml file of some sort. The crawl tool does not currently report metrics on this type of data. Our other sites are fine and this was up to this date. We took out noodp, noydir today as the only thing we could think of. Site is on WP cms.

    Web Design | | RobertFisher
    0
  • Gordian


    I have read tons of guides about canonical implementaiton but still am confused about how I should best use it. On my site with tens of thousands of urls and thousands of afiiliates and shopping networks sending traffic,  is it smart to simply add the tag to every page and redirect to the same url. In doing this would that solve the problem of a single page having many different entrances with different tracking codes? Is there a better way to handle this? Also is there any potential problems with rolling out the tag to all pages if they are simply refrencing themselves in the tag? Thanks in advance.

    Technical SEO | | Gordian
    0
  • leonenobleseate


    I have a competitor who always ranks very on alot keywords relevant to our business and using Open Site Explorer I note they have a tremendous amount of links.  I also noticed that it appears their web company has gone out and set up numerous websites with relevant content, and then have linked back to the competitors main site.  Is this kosher?  I ask because before I settled on my current domain name, I purchased several keyword rich domain names; should I be thinking of setting up websites with relevant (and original) content and link back to my main site?

    Link Building | | leonenobleseate
    1
  • rawberg


    Hello, I'm relatively new to SEO and looking to find a good tool for estimating the search traffic volume of different keywords in order to focus efforts on higher yielding terms. Right now I'm using Google's traffic estimator but it doesn't seem to have much data for long-tail keywords. Is anything else out there better or more accurate? Thank you!

    Keyword Research | | rawberg
    0
  • jcolman


    What metrics tell you the most when you're looking at your competitors across the search landscape? PageRank/MozRank Inbound links Keyword rankings Alexa/QuantCast/etc. Pages indexed Something else entirely? What numbers speak volumes to you when you want to get an idea of how you benchmark against your competitors?  And how do you communicate these results?

    Competitive Research | | jcolman
    2
  • jcolman


    With our new knowledge -- yielded from J.C. Penney, Forbes, Overstock, content farms, et al -- that the link graph/link profile can be algorithmically mined by search engines to uncover non-natural patterns of links occuring over time, is there any level of link-building that is safe to engage in? If so, then what are those "bright white"-hat tactics that are 100% safe for a site to use?

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jcolman
    0
  • comercialroldao


    I release this site, about 1 year ago: www.bioespaco.com Cant understand why the site has so low value on domain mozrank e moztrust. The page has 1500 visitors/month and 3500 page views/month too. Most of the visitors from Google come to this site, with the keyword "bioespaco" the name of the company. Cant find what is wrong... Looks like something it penalizing the page (or the domain!?) Thanks! GDSAK.png

    Content Development | | comercialroldao
    0
  • ao.com


    Hi Guys, If you have a baby of a domain which is only a few months old what should  be the priorty for getting establish once all the on site stuff has been done? I know the directories are not as important as they use to be but is there a top list that should be worked through steadly to get the new site setup on? Kind regards

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ao.com
    0
  • Riggz


    Hey Mozers! We will be creating another brand pretty soon with some pretty cool interactive features and before we start development of the site I was wondering if there are any pros/cons to branding the site sans the www. For example http://example123.com and http://www.example123.com. I would much prefer to brand it has http://example123.com but I just wanted to check first to see if that would have any negative SEO ramifications. It seems that it might just be a preference as I looked at Facebook and Twitter and they both do it differently, same with Groupon and LivingSocial. Looking forward to hearing from you guys!

    Technical SEO | | Riggz
    1
  • lolskizz


    Hello, I am a complete newbie to the world of SEO and I have read few thing available on the net about things to begin with (so google seo guide and then seomoz beginers tutorial) and I just wanted to ask if I understand the process correctly: So I have my website lest call it abcd.com and there I might have a subpage about certain type of robots or specific parts that these robots are built from. I do my keyword search using adwords keyword search tool. Where I get 10 phrases (phrase1, phrase2, phrase3 so on..) that could be used by users to search information about certain type of robots I wrote on my website. Let's asume all 10 of those phrases have low competition so they can all be used. And they are from the long tail ofcourse so let's say I can get 10,000 searches from them per month. Some of them would have 200 searches, some 1500, some 5000 per month in that google adwords report. After reading those basic tutorials I understand it this way: I put one or two best phrases of those 10 in my <title></p> <p>2) I describe the website as accurately as possible to those keywords in <meta description> i.e. Those specific robots are built from those specific parts - we know all about them.</p> <p>3) I put all of them in <meta keywords> phrase1,2,3, etc.</p> <p>4) I use one or two phrases in <h1> on the page with article</p> <p>5) then I use those phrases in the text that's on that particular page of my website - text is about certain type of robots and parts etc.</p> <p>6) I put photos on that page with alt descriptions that may contain some of these phrases</p> <p>7) to be honest I don't know how am I suppose to build links from that page about certain type of robots to anywhere else on my website - but I undestand that's the part of SEO as well</p> <p>And that's pretty much how I understand the basics of SEO. I read about it and I just don't know if that's what I am suppose to do. Silly me!</p> <p> </p></title>

    On-Page Optimization | | lolskizz
    1
  • elephantseo


    Outside of Google & Bing what is your favorite search engine and why? This could be for personal use, competitive research, user experience.

    SERP Trends | | elephantseo
    0
  • MeghanPrudencio


    Is it bad to change the canonical URL in the tag, meaning does it lose it's stats? If we add a new page that may have duplicate content, but we want that page to be indexed over the older pages, should we just change the canonical page or redirect from the original canonical page? Thanks so much! -Amy

    On-Page Optimization | | MeghanPrudencio
    0
  • elephantseo


    I am creating a process & strategy for publishing videos and would like some feedback on if it is worth syndicating the videos on multiple third party sites either manually or via TubeMogul. Currently the plan is to put the video on our main site, create a video sitemap, submit to webmaster tools so that hopefully the videos on our site show up in the SERPs. Then wait a week and syndicate on third party sites such as youtube, vimeo, viddler, etc. Are there any negative side affects? My thinking is that some people may only see the video if it is on youtube and the other niche sites because they may search those sites for videos rather than Google/Bing. Your thoughts?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | elephantseo
    0
  • DanDeceuster


    I recently redesigned a website that is now in WordPress. It was previously in some odd, custom platform that didn't work very well. The URL's for all the pages are now more search engine friendly and more concise. The problem is, now Google has all of the old pages and all of the new pages in its index. This is a duplicate problem since content is the same. I have set up a 301 redirect for every old URL to it's new counterpart. I was going to do a remove URL request in Webmaster Tools but it seems I need to have a 404 code and not a 301 on those pages to do that. Which is better to do to get the old URL's out of the index? 404 them and do a removal request or 301 them to the new URL? How long will it take Google to find these 301 redirects and keep just the new pages in the index?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DanDeceuster
    0
  • jaredspencer


    Is there a tool that you can use to find out what words a competitor is using for google adwords?

    Paid Search Marketing | | jaredspencer
    1
  • dturkington


    I'm fairly certain there is ultimately something amiss on our server but the Site Explorer report on my website (www.kpmginstitutes.com) is showing thousands of folders that do not exist. Example: For my "About Us" page (www.kpmginstitutes.com/about-us.aspx), the report shows a link: www.kpmginstitutes.com/rss/industries/404-institute/404-institute/about-us.aspx. We do have "rss", "industries", "404-institute" folders but they are parallel in the architecture, not sequential as indicated in the error url. Has anyone else seen these types of error in your Site Explorer reports?

    Moz Pro | | dturkington
    0
  • reegs


    Hey Guys, I was wondering if you've seen or practiced some effective ways to take up real estate in the SERPS.  Ideally I'd like to see more results from my own domain although I realize that G seems to only display 3 for any single domain.  I'm looking for creative ways to take up more real estate other than subdomains. I recently saw a municipal website with 4 results (1 being a PDF) which suprised me. I have a couple in my head but what's worked best for you?

    Image & Video Optimization | | reegs
    0
  • AtoZion


    How do I find the link that is still refferring to a 404 error? Somewhere on my site there is a link pointing to an un-usable page and I cant find where that link is to fix the 404 error. I could just delete the page all together, but I would like to find the problematic link first.

    On-Page Optimization | | AtoZion
    0
  • christinarule


    If you have a membership site, which requires a payment to access specific content/images/videos, do search engines still use that content as a ranking/domain authority factor? Is it worth optimizing these "private" pages for SEO?

    Technical SEO | | christinarule
    1
  • markwrightseo


    Hey guys! I'm curious if anyone knows of any research or has any experience with using the word "buy" vs "shop for" as a call to action in meta descriptions, and what has better click through rates? A quick search of Google trends shows that they're both pretty close in terms of search, but im curious as to the psycological reaction that people have to those terms and what one they respond to better. I look forward to your response. Thanks!

    Conversion Rate Optimization | | markwrightseo
    0
  • ShawnHerrick


    Our site provides two approaches for customers to locate the products they're looking for: Brand and Category. Where we're unsure if we're causing confusion for the search engines is when the left navigation filter link anchor text for these pages conflict with one another. For example, let's say we have a Snazzy Brand Type A widget, Blue, Squared. The nav links from a category approach could be: Widgets > Blue > Squared > Snazzy From the brand approach, we have: Snazzy > Widgets > Blue > Squared Where we have the conflict is in the instances of "Snazzy". From a category perspective, we direct customers down to the Snazzy Widgets page at /snazzy-widgets/ (as it's a filter). But from a brand perspective, we direct to the Snazzy brand page at /snazzy/. This means we have two sets of links with the anchor text of "Snazzy" that are going to two completely different pages. Repeat this across a variety of categories, and you have many instances of "Snazzy" all pointing to different Snazzy-related pages, but not to the Snazzy brand page (/snazzy/, /snazzy-widgets/, /snazzy-whatsits/, etc). So what's the best way to make sure we communicate the right information to the search engines, while still keeping the customer's browsing experience intact and enjoyable? Thanks!

    Link Building | | ShawnHerrick
    2
  • IamSharp


    I am writing an article that has 2 links: The fist one is to : http://xxx.net/the-be... The second one is to : http://xxx.net/ The links are with different ancor texts and I am wondering about the link power they will bring to my website. Will both links count? Will the first one send significantly more PR than the second one ? I am asking this because my MAIN objective is the second link. Much Thanks Alex

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IamSharp
    0
  • christinarule


    What is the correct way to "redirect" a domain if you have multi domain names for the same site? For example if a company has www.mysite.com www.mysite.info www.mysite.tv www.mysite+location.com Say my website lived at this location www.mysite.com  would I then just forward the other domains to the same place? Do search engines penilize for this? Do search engines view this as duplicated content? Is it even worth having these domains and making the active? Thanks in advance!

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | christinarule
    0
  • NeilInFrance


    Hi I'm preparing a confernce in France to explain Google Places & Maps to an audience interested in promoting local businesses but mainly hotels and other tourism related. As you know, searches such as Hotel + City are giving a lot of visibility to Google Places results. Being in the top results is as important if not more important than organic ranking. I'm going to be looking into the new presentation of Google Places results in the SERPs and maybe underlining a difference in results between Places and Maps which I've just recently spotted. Can anyone recommend some good ressources online to explain the changes that came about with Google Places  and ranking factors I should be talking about ? If you have a pet theory on what triggers the different presentation of Places results in the main SERPS or what factors make one local business rank better than another in Google Places then please discuss below too 😉 Ah ! Almost forgot, any feedback on Google Boost use also interesting for us ; although it isn't in France yet Thanks Neil

    Image & Video Optimization | | NeilInFrance
    0
  • comercialroldao


    I have a competitor that apeears first place in Google with a certain keyword, i explore their site, and they have a lots of forums poiting to their page. What they do is, just go to a random forum, comment some threat and they put the anchor in sig, with that keyword, linking to their page. Well, from what i read in SEOmoz articles, Google its no supose to penalyze this pages? Because thoose are pages (forums) that dont have nothing to do -subject- with the page that apears in first place? Its a good practise? Should i do the same (x2) to get the first place in google? (Sorry for my English) Thank you.

    Link Building | | comercialroldao
    0
  • dennis.globalsign


    Hi there, First Q&A question 🙂 So I understand the problems caused by having a few secure pages on a site. A few links to the https version a page and you have duplicate content issues. While there are several posts here at SEOmoz that talk about the different ways of dealing with this issue with respect to secure pages, the majority of this content assumes that the goal of the SEO is to make sure no duplicate https pages end up in the index. The posts also suggest that https should only used on log in pages, contact forms, shopping carts, etc." That's the root of my problem. I'm facing the prospect of switching to https across an entire site. In the light of other https related content I've read, this might seem unecessary or overkill, but there's a vaild reason behind it. I work for a certificate authority. A company that issues  SSL certificates, the cryptographic files that make the https protocol work. So there's an obvious need our site to "appear" protected, even if no sensitive data is being moved through the pages. The stronger push, however, stems from our membership of the Online Trust Alliance. https://otalliance.org/ Essentially, in the parts of the internet that deal with SSL and security, there's a push for all sites to utilize HSTS Headers and force sitewide https. Paypal and Bank of America are leading the way in this intiative, and other large retailers/banks/etc. will no doubt follow suit. Regardless of what you feel about all that, the reality is that we're looking at future that involves more privacy protection, more SSL, and more https. The bottom line for me is; I have a site of ~800 pages that I will need to switch to https. I'm finding it difficult to map the tips and tricks for keeping the odd pesky https page out of the index, to what amounts to a sitewide migratiion. So, here are a few general questions. What are the major considerations for such a switch? Are there any less obvious pitfalls lurking? Should I even consider trying to maintain an index of http pages, or should I start work on replacing (or have googlebot replace) the old pages with https versions? Is that something that can be done with canonicalization? or would something at the server level be necessary? How is that going to affect my page authority in general? What obvious questions am I not asking? Sorry to be so longwinded, but this is a tricky one for me, and I want to be sure I'm giving as much pertinent information as possible. Any input will be very much appreciated. Thanks, Dennis

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dennis.globalsign
    0
  • Technical_Contact


    Hi all, I'm working for a new company which has several websites built on the Miva Merchant 5.5 platform. I'm new to SEO and trying to improve one specific category of products. With Miva the URL structure is set to: "category/" or "product/". I would have liked to have the ability to create URLs like "bike/beach-cruisers/mens-red-hawaiian.html". Since I cannot do that I'm trying to determine the best product name and page titles. Currently all of our titles have the word "bike". So when a category page is displayed, which shows over 100 products I get flagged in my campaign for over using the keyword "bike". However, if I take the work "bike" out of the page title I'm concerned that it would hurt us in the SERPs. Another factor that I'm getting flagged for on my campaign is the fact that our navigation uses the same key words repeatedly in each link. I'm not sure if it's really hurting us or not. Below is an example. I'm looking for some input on recommendations for product names and page titles. Below are some examples of what I'm working with. Any input or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Menu Sample: Bikes-Street-Blue-Mens Bikes-Street-Blue-Womens Bikes-Street-Blue-Kids Bikes-Street-Orange-Mens Bikes-Street-Orange-Womens Bikes-Street-Orange-Kids Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Blue-Mens Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Blue-Womens Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Blue-Kids Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Orange-Mens Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Orange-Womens Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Orange-Kids Current Page Titles/Name: Mens Bike Street Blue | XYZ Bike Mfg. - product/mens-bike-street-blue.html Mens Bike Street Orange | XYZ Bike Mfg. - product/mens-bike-street-orange.html Womens Bike Street Blue | XYZ Bike Mfg. - product/womens-bike-street-blue.html Womens Bike Street Orange | XYZ Bike Mfg. - product/womens-bike-street-orange.html

    Technical SEO | | Technical_Contact
    0
  • phantom


    Hi There- I am looking to optimize sites serving the UK and Austrailia markets. I feel like I have a good handle on how to go about doing that, but what I am fuzzy on is, what's the best way to monitor the SERPs for the keywords I am targeting. I know based on experience that if I just search google.com.au from here in the states, my results will be 'americanized' and may/probably won't accurately reflect what someone would see if they were search from Austrailia. Are there any good tools or tactics for seeing what searchers in the countries I am focusing on woudl see? Thanks! Jason

    International SEO | | phantom
    0
  • rossmawd


    Hi, I've noticed that when looking at this site I cannot view their souce data: http://www.lloydspharmacy.com/ All that appears is this: |   | |
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    |   | | Am I just doing something wrong here? Is this an alternate way of setting up a website and how does it work with regards to SEO? Thanks, Ross

    Web Design | | rossmawd
    0
  • IM_Learner


    I have read the blog posts by Rand and other community members at YouMoz but i still have a question on trageting and domains / sub-directories usage. Suppose, my business is located in France but my prospects are in US and UK as well. The issue is, they are not English speakers but French. If i use ccTLD, i don't think it will rank well in US and UK. gTLD will not be a good option for prospects in France. What should i do? Regards, Shailendra

    International SEO | | IM_Learner
    1
  • BenRWoodard


    I understand the need for fixing 404's but I have yet to have a serious walkthrough of how to set up a 301.  From all the talk on the forums and such I'm pretty sure this is easy but I've just never done it before and I could really use a walk through. Thanks

    On-Page Optimization | | BenRWoodard
    1
  • rejja


    If i make, modifications in my paget title and sescription, it's possible to will decrase my page visits? If yes, when will increase my page visits? thanks

    On-Page Optimization | | rejja
    0
  • vliegticketsnl


    Hi, On our website Vliegtickets.nl we are now targeting one combination of keywords " flights + destination". We are working on a new website and we are rewriting texts for the launch. Our idea is to target again on the combination " flights + destination", but also target other combinations. Our intention is to have a first introduction text targeted on " flights + destination" and have lower parts of texts (descriptions) targeted on the long tail, with use of keywords like  flight / fly to / cheap tickets to etc. Our page will be divided like this: 1. introduction text max 150 words (h1 + h2) targeted on " flights + destination"
    2. box 2 Cityguide snippets / content in context of destination - targeted on city name
    3. box 3. Question: target on new generic keywords + combination of destination What is your point of view on box 3? Is it the right way to target a broader range of keywords? Should we use these long tail keywords (fly to / flights / cheap flights...) also in meta title / meta description / strong kwds, etc? Or will it be sufficient if we target on one combination and use those synonyms in a lower density? Or is it best to keep the focus on one main combination and other pages on other keyword combinations? Best regards, Vliegtickets.nl

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vliegticketsnl
    0
  • ecnic


    Hi, We do have a consistent url structure like http://www.company.com/productname-london
    http://www.company.com/productname-auckland
    etc. Now marketing wants to include each URL in our yearly printed catalogue.
    Out of marketing reasons (I agree with that), they think the URLs are too long and should be for example: http://www.company/london
    http://www.company/auckland
    etc. Our brochure is very important for direct customers and we have a target group that actively uses the internet and social media and therefore will pick up these links. Even if we do correct redirects in the background - couldn't we have the problem
    that we have a double set of urls? What do you think about that?

    Link Building | | ecnic
    0
  • IM_Learner


    Hi, I implemented custom search code on my website which is on a test url http://61.246.241.232/. It is working perfectly fine on all the browsers except on IE6 and IE7. Can anyone please let me know the solution to this problem. Thanks & Regards

    Web Design | | IM_Learner
    0
  • automart


    My site is getting crawl errors inside of google webmaster tools. Google believe a lot of my links point to index.html when they really do not. That is not the problem though, its that google can't give credit for those links to any of my pages. I know I need to create a rule in the .htacess but the last time I did it I got an error. I need some assistance on how to go about doing this, I really don't want to lose the weight of my links. Thanks

    Technical SEO | | automart
    0
  • RishadShaikh59


    I don't know if the title makes sense, but here's my question... Our newspaper website has multiple categories like World, Sport, Entertainment etc. Now, a story, belonging to the entertainment section maybe published on the entertainment page but is likely to have a slot somewhere on the Home page as well as other pages. The same goes for stories in sport etc. However, the url displays the date folllowed by the post title and thats it, no category name. Now, a user may end up going to a detailed story that belongs to the entertainment section (from the home page or any other page) without actually having visited the entertainment page. However, for tracking purposes, we want to see how many hits we got on the entertainment page and any story belonging to that particular section. So, my question is how do I go about creating filters that can help me track category page and detail story hits as one? Or, should I ammend the url structure (keep in mind we are using wordpress for our news website) to include category after the date and would this solve my problem of tracking? I asked a similar question recently but maybe I did not explain myself clearly. Thanks!

    Reporting & Analytics | | RishadShaikh59
    0
  • IM_Learner


    Hi, Currently, page A is redirecting to page B. I am in the process of developing new site for the same domain and this time page B will be redirected to page C. This is gonna happen on many pages. Is it correct or should i adopt some other strategy? Will it have adverse effect on the speed of my site? Page A -----> Page B ------> Page C Regards, Shailendra

    Technical SEO | | IM_Learner
    0
  • fideaux64


    Thought experiment... All other things being equal (content, inbound links, etc), which will rank better: a Facebook Page or a regular website?  Why?

    Social Media | | fideaux64
    0
  • UWPCE


    Our website is a continuing education website that is linked to a large university, and our URL is a subdomain of that larger university domain. We offer degrees as well, but because of the modifications we'd like to make to the degree webpages, our content management system won't let them be a part of our website. Now we're trying to figure out if we should create a separate subdomain for all degrees, and put the individual degrees in separate folders (so, all degrees' URLs woudl be degrees.us.university.edu/degree-name/), or if we should give each its own URL, which would be completely separate from ours (degree urls would be degree-name.university.edu). So our question is, how well do subdomains carry the value of the domain? Is it better to have twenty websites that are all separate subdomains of a strong domain, or one subdomain in a subdomain that houses all twenty websites in folders? And, as a side note, will housing the degrees in degrees.us.university.edu pass value to us (us.university.edu)? Thanks!

    On-Page Optimization | | UWPCE
    0
  • ownlocal


    Hi, I'm just getting familiar with all of the cool tools on SEOMoz PRO. There's a lot to use on the pro members area of the site! What are the best tools,etc.? Or is it more about just joining the community and participating? What is your favorite part of SEOMoz PRO? Thanks! -Erica

    Moz Pro | | ownlocal
    2
  • MichaelJanik


    I realy don't understand how Google could posibly devaluate a link because the site displays the same content with www and without www. I mean did somebody recently saw a devaluation of a domain because of this isue? I somehow can not belive this because it is the standard when geting a new webspace that the new website display the same content with and without www. Is a redirect realy necessary?

    On-Page Optimization | | MichaelJanik
    0

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