Latest Questions

• 

  Internal Linking - in content vs navigation menu
  

  Would like to get some thoughts on whether navigation menus or in-content links are best for internal linking, from an SEO standpoint. A few thoughts to get started with: For sites with a lot of content, you can have a navigation menu linking to your higher-level pages, then in-content links to deeper pages on your site. For smaller sites, this is not an option, as the navigation menu will probably link to all your important pages. You could add in-content links, but Google only counts the first link on the page, so the in-content links would be ignored if you'd already linked yp the page in your top nav menu. I can think of several possible reasons navigation menu links could be less desirable than in content links from a Google perspective. (They are sitewide boilerplate content without context.) If you setup your navigation structure based on what is best for the user, small sites don't have much wiggle room to optimize internal link structure, as all their money pages will be linked to from the top nav menu. Do you think Google prefers in content links to navigation menu links? If so, how do you get around the fact that for many sites, all their money pages are being linked to from their main navigation menu?

  On-Page Optimization | | AdamThompson

  0
• 

  Will changing a subdirectory name negatively effect local ranking?
  

  We submitted a group of 50+ franchise stores into UBL to fulfill directory listings back in September. We are now looking at changing the some of the URL structure to include city names. Example:  website.com/store/store-name(not city) to                website.com/location/city-store-name Will changing the subdirectory and resubmitting to the directory aggregators negatively effect their search results? Thanks, Jake

  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AESEO

  0
• 

  Sudden drop after 301 redirection
  

  Hi Experts We did a 301 redirect from an old site to a new site to get rid of any bad link juice. We recently found a big drop in rankings and traffic after google last indexed the new web pages. We did 301 using asp at page level coding. The website had 4000 approx. pages and we did 301 section by section. This is how we did as per one of the blog post in seomoz. Create a sitemap for your old domain. Create content (contact information, description of your company, indication of future plans) and something link worthy for the new domain. (You should start trying to build links early) Setup the new domain and make it live. Register and verify your old domain and new domain with Google Webmaster Tools. Create a custom 404 page for old domain which suggests visiting new domain. Old Domain error checking and fixing In a development environment, test the redirects from the old domain to the new domain. Ideally, this will be a 1:1 redirect. (www.example-old-site.com/category/sexy-mustaches.html to www.example-new-site.com/category/sexy-mustaches.html) 301 redirect your old domain to your new domain. Submit your old sitemap to Google and Bing. The submission pages are within Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center (This step will make the engines crawl your old URLs, see that they are 301 redirects and change their index accordingly.) Fill out the Change of Address form in Google Webmaster Tools. Create a new sitemap and submit it to the engines. (This will tell them about any new URLs that were not present on the old domain) Wait until Google Webmaster Tools updates and fix any errors it is indicated in the Diagnostics section. Monitor search engine results to make sure new domain is being properly indexed. We also did a press release with prweb to announce the new launch. We followed the steps recommended in one of the I am not sure what to do next. Can anyone suggest if its normal to see a drop and we should wait for some time or if we did something wrong? We are loosing business with every single day. Please help !

  Algorithm Updates | | ITRIX

  0
• 

  Plural vs singular keyword usage - on-page optimization
  

  The on-page report card appears to include both plural and singular versions of keywords in reporting the keywords within the body, which results in a keyword stuffing warning. My question is, is it truly keyword spamming to use over 15 instances of a keyword that is spread across plural and singular versions of the keyword? If keywords are lumped together this way by Google's algorithms, why do pages rank differently for singular and plural versions of the same keyword?

  Keyword Research | | nathan_lg

  0
• 

  Important keywords in product names
  

  Hi! among other we sell motorcycle clothing, which you can buy as a set (both jacket and pants) or single piece. Currently we name the products with the labeling in the beginning, e.g: Motorcycle pants R2000, Motorcycle jacket R2000, Motorcycle kit R2000 Motorcycle pants R4000, Motorcycle jacket R4000, Motorcycle kit R4000 This is causing keyword stuffing and cannibalization in the category pages as all the product names include important keywords. On the other hand it would be beneficial to keep the labeling in the name for search queries for the exact product. What be your recommendations? I tend to take the labeling away.

  On-Page Optimization | | RomiSverige

  0
• 

  Disavow Subdomain?
  

  Hi all, I've been checking and it seems like there are only 2 options when disavowing links with Google's tool. Disavow the link: http://spam.example.com/stuff/content.htm Disavow the domain: domain: example.com What can I do if I want do disavow a subdomain? i.e. spam.site.com I'm also assuming that if I were to disavow the domain it would include all subdomains? Thanks.

  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carlos-R

  0
• 

  Host sitemaps on S3?
  

  Hey guys, I run a dynamic web service and I will start building static sitemaps for it pretty soon. The fact that my app lives in a multitude of servers doesn't make it easy to distribute frequently updated static files throughout the servers. My idea was to host the files in AWS S3 and point my robots.txt sitemap directive there. I'll use a sitemap index so, every other sitemap will be hosted on S3 as well. I could dynamically mirror the content from the files in S3 through my app, but that would be a little more resource intensive than just serving the static files from a common place. Any ideas? Thanks!

  Technical SEO | | tanlup

  0
• 

  Outranking a crappy outdated site with domain age & keywords in URL.
  

  I'm trying to outrank a website with the following: Website with #1 ranking for a search query with "City & Brand" Domain Authority - 2 Domain Age - 11 years & 9 months old Has both the City & brand in the URL name. The site is crap, outdated.. probably last designed in the 90's, old layouts, not a lot of content & NO keywords in the titles & descriptions on all pages. My site ranks 5th for the same keyword.. BEHIND 4 pages from the site described above. Domain Authority - 2 Domain Age - 4 years & 2 months old Has only the CITY in the URL. Brand new site design this past year, new content & individual keywords in the titles, descriptions on each page. My main question is.... do you think it would be be beneficial to buy a new domain name with the BRAND in the URL  & CITY & 301 redirect my 4 year old domain to the new domain to pass along the authority it has gained. Will having the brand in the URL make much of a difference? Do you think that small step would even help to beat the crappy but old site out? Thanks for any help & suggestions on how to beat this old site or at least show up second.

  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DCochrane

  0
• 

  Transfer a Main Domain to a Sub-Domain
  

  My IT department tells me they want to transfer my main site domain, which has been in existence since 1999 as an e-commerce site (maindomain.com) to a sub-domain (www2.maindomain.com) or a completely new domain (newdomain.net). This is because we are launching a new website and B2C e-commerce engine, but we still have to maintain the legacy B2B e-commerce engine which contains hard-coded URLs, and both systems can't use the same domain. I've been researching the issue across SEOmoz, but I haven't come across this exact type of scenario (mostly I've seen a sub-domain to new domain). I see major problems with their proposal, including negative SEO impact, loss of domain authority/ranking and issues with branding. Does anyone know the exact type of impact I can expect to see in this scenario and specific steps I should go about to minimize the impact? Btw, I will be using Danny Dover's guide on properly moving domains where appropriate. Thanks!

  Technical SEO | | AscendLearning

  0
• 

  Keyword not showing
  

  Hi, we are trying to rank this keyword "Human Resource Books" for Silvercreek.ca for a long time. But somehow, the keyword is not ranked by google at all. Is there  a reason why Google is denying our site? What did we do wrong? Can anyone help to see what wrong with tis siet www.silvercreekpress.ca? thanks

  Technical SEO | | solution.advisor

  0
• 

  How do I PERMANENTLY change an incorrect URL link with one of my keywords?
  

  Hello, I received an “F” grade on my on-page report for one of my keywords. I noticed that the URL linked with that keyword was wrong. After changing it to the correct URL, I received an “A.” However, the change was not permanent. How do I permanently change the URL? I don’t see any “Save Changes” or “Apply Changes” button anywhere. Thank you!

  On-Page Optimization | | jampaper

  0
• 

  CcTLD and duplicate content
  

  Hello people, I would like some help with this question... I am building 2 websites www.domain.com.ec  and www.domain.com , both on the same languages, and same content, but the domain.com.ec will show a different price for local ecommerce and focus to target Ecuador... the www.domain.com will sell on all the other spanish languages countries with a fob price... So my question ... is there any way to fail into the duplicate content on the google eyes? What could be the best way to do it? Using the multistore option, with different cctld could change anything? Thank you guys

  International SEO | | lans2787

  0
• 

  Genesis WP Theme H1 Tag not properly Used?
  

  I am in the process of redesigning my website, and I have been working on the Genesis framework a lot lately, so I used the Genesis framework to make my new site. The URL is http://protechig.com As I look at the H1 on the page (homepage only, every other page has solid h1s from an SEO perspective.) The first thing that I see is that the home page H1 is a links (to protech's home page). The second thing that I see is the the title text is replaced with an image (my logo) and there is a text-indent:-99999; and overflow:hiden; I just want to know from an SEO perspective if this is okay, and, if it isn't, what I could/should to to rectify it. Thanks Zach

  Technical SEO | | Zachary_Russell

  0
• 

  Local Citation Sites
  

  After searching through many local citation site I find that most only apply to the US. Are there any really good ones in Canada?

  Image & Video Optimization | | casper434

  0
• 

  CSS family names and whitespace
  

  A CSS validation notes the following: Family names containing whitespace should be quoted. If quoting is omitted, any whitespace characters before and after the name are ignored and any sequence of whitespace characters inside the name is converted to a single space. Not sure what this means or how to fix. Help. thanks

  On-Page Optimization | | casper434

  0
• 

  Combining CSS
  

  One recommendation from a page speed analysis of my site was to combine CSS (external style sheets) but after reading more on the topic others say that this is not always best. Any thoughts on either approach?

  On-Page Optimization | | casper434

  0
• 

  Can you change meta description at any time without loosing rankings?
  

  I'm wondering if it is possible to change the meta description of a page on your site at any time without it affecting rankings on google? Is it only changing how my SERP looks? Or could bad things happen to changing your meta description? Appreciate all opinions on this one, thank you guys!

  On-Page Optimization | | danielpett

  0
• 

  Domain / Page Authority - logarithmic
  

  SEOmoz says their Domain / Page Authority is logarithmic, meaning that lower rankings are easier to get, higher rankings harder to get. Makes sense. But does anyone know what logarithmic equation they use? I'm using the domain and page authority as one metric in amongst other metrics in my keyword analysis. I can't have some metrics linear, others exponential and the SEOmoz one logarithmic.

  Moz Pro | | eatyourveggies

  0
• 

  Has anyone else noticed a dramatic drop in Facebook post impressions?
  

  One of the clients I manage has over 5,000 Facebook fans. Whenever I'd make a post, it usually would get ~700-1,000 impressions. About two weeks ago I did my first promoted post. Ever since then, all the regular posts I've done have only gotten ~100 impressions . . . out of 5,325! I'm wondering if Facebook, once learning that you are willing to pay for promoted posts, secretly lowers your impression count so that you will pay for promoted posts more often, or if the timing of my promoted post was just a coincidence, and everyone started to see a decrease about two weeks ago. Does anyone know what's going on?

  Social Media | | UnderRugSwept

  0
• 

  Is there a tool for measuring content freshness?
  

  i.e. crawling a site to identify last date of new or changed content? Thanks.

  Content Development | | PeterTroast

  0
• 

  Increase of 404 error after change of encoding
  

  Hello, We just have launch a new version of our website with a new utf-8 encoding. Thing is, we use comma as a separator and since the new website went live, I have a massive increase of 404 error of comma-encoded URL. Here is an example : http://web.bons-de-reduction.com/annuaire%2C321-sticker%2Csite%2Cpromotions%2C5941.html instead of : http://web.bons-de-reduction.com/annuaire,321-sticker,site,promotions,5941.html I check with Screaming Frog SEO and Xenu, I can't manage to find any encoded URL. Is anyone have a clue on how to fix that ? Thanks

  Moz Pro | | RetailMeNotFr

  0
• 

  SEO plugin by Yoast messing up my title/meta description
  

  Hey guys, I'm having some issues with my wordpress blog, and I believe SEO plugin by Yoast could be the one causing it. I have set a title for my wordpress blog, and a tagline. This was set in dashboard > settings > general Under "titles and metas" > home in the plugin it says, title: %%sitename%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitedesc%%, and meta description is blank. The reports on seomoz says my title is title+meta description - making it to long (to many characters). What could be the issue here? Thanks in advance!

  Technical SEO | | danielpett

  0
• 

  Google Impressions Drop Due to Expired SSL
  

  Recently I noticed a huge drop in our clients Google Impressions via GWMT from 900 impressions to 70 overnight on October 30, 2012 and has remained this way for the entire month of November 2012. The SSL Cert had expired in mid October due to the notification message for renewal going to the SPAM folder and being missed. Is it possible for an SSL expiry to be related to this massive drop in daily impressions which in-turn has also effected traffic? I also can't see any evidence of duplicate pages (ie. https and http) being indexed but to be honest I'm not the one doing the SEO therefore haven't been tracking this. Thanks for your help! Chris

  Technical SEO | | MeMediaSEO

  0
• 

  Adding keyword to your url
  

  Couldn't find the answer to my question anywhere so I'll give it a try here. If you have a site called www.example.com, and then want to add a keyword to this site, like this: www.example.com/keyword How do you add a keyword to your url like this? Without making the URL with the keyword your "main" URL, meaning you don't have to enter the keyworded URL to get to the homepage (www.example.com), and still rank better on the keyword put in the url. I'm a bit confused on the subject, would love for someone to help me understand! Thanks.

  Link Building | | danielpett

  0