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The times of looking to rank numero uno for one term are long gone. What sounds like your existing strategy of having good content is the way to go. The risk with an agency that would even focus up on one term and promise number one is that they are going to inadvertently wreck your link profile.

If I were you, I would read the beginner's guide to link building https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building and continue to make good content. Don't allow an agency to manipulate the hell out of your profile for the sake of one term.

Hi Neil,

Congratulations on the first client! That is so great!!

In my experience, this is not really an issue. Some businesses share addresses... just a real world fact of the matter. Your client's search success will depend on dozens of other things before this.

Best of luck!

Mike

Hi Karen,

It has a pretty weak link profile with a bunch of links from directories and a few too many anchor text optimized links. Since car computers are a commercial space, I would assume it's fairly competitive. Not saying that it's domain authority/link profile are its only problems, but definitely not a big plus. It's organic search problems for sure has nothing to do with whatever you're doing with paid search.

Best of luck! ... Mike

Here's an update. These serps are 1 or two days apart: 11 75 63 33 So, it may have swung around past the dark side of the Moon and be on a trajectory to re-enter Earth's orbit.

Hi David,

Good question. The short answer is, I wouldn't worry about it.  You will have no competition for variations of Hema Design Center, even if all you do is make an About Us page with a title tag and url including the name of the business and/or work it into your other content where relevant and useful for visitors. You don't have to worry about ranking for your name.

You also don't have to worry about anchor text in that one chamber of commerce listing and later others. You'll probably pick up your fair share of "Cabinets Bay Area" anchor text links.

That then leaves all of the variations on cabinet phrases and local search. It might help you a little (not much, but a little) to have cabinetsbayarea.com, at least in click through rate as having a clearer purpose in a search result than "Hema Design Center."

Then, you'll get a bunch of local citations/links and do all the other seo work and it will all work out. Think of it like a business name vs an 800 number or a street address... they don't have to match. The real work lies elsewhere, like in making a great site, which it looks like you're well on your way!

Best of luck... Mike

Hi Egol,

Thanks for the thoughts.

What if your content is a forum for a professional community discussing all manner of niche topics, but who generally are not super web savvy and out there linking to content much? The average age of these folks is about 50 and they're not real, "hey, check out this cool discussion about this totally niche area of government regulation!"

So, by "good content," it can be super in-depth, opinionated, fact-filled and authored by folks who know what they're talking about. Does that qualify as good enough material for a reputable link builder to work with?

If it is, what about the rest of my question?

It's almost like you're saying that no one should ever need to outsource link building, because with good content it always just takes care of itself.

Thanks!

Negative keywords would have their biggest value as a way to filter out unproductive queries in paid search... not SEO.

Yes, the keyword explorer can help you build a long list of negative keywords for your adwords/paid search campaigns. As such you could use those negative keywords on the adgroup, campaign or account level and save your client alot of money in non-converting clicks.

For organic search, you'd really be using Keyword Explorer to get ideas for keyword phrases you can/should compete for.

Hope that helps!

Hi Roman,

Depending on your answer to Nicolas's points, I think it may be more likely that despite the sheer quantity of links, it just doesn't do much for you.

If this is something you control and depending on how spammy Open Site Explorer says this domain is, it would be much better to get one good, in-context, non-anchor text targeted link from their most authoritative page.

If it is a spam factory and you don't control it and you don't want the one good link, consider contacting them to request removal, document your effort and then submit a link disavow to Google. Here's Moz's handy guide on that: https://moz.com/blog/guide-to-googles-disavow-tool

Best of luck!

One area that we've had a lot of success with is user generated content. I see it's possible for folks to comment on the site. How much does your use of email drive those comments?  Maybe controversial opinions promoted by email to your list would gain deeper UGC. Better yet if you could segment media fans by personas. Creating thinner pages, say about a trailer review and then not having comments to deepen it makes for a lot of thin/highly templated pages.

You could also work a bit more on internal in-context linking to elevate the importance of various search pages.

I think in the incredibly competitive space of movie reviews, the site will have to focus smartly on nichier/longer tail searches.

Do you leverage youtube? What about some kind of embeddable result creating tool for self-obsessed tv/film fans to link to?

Just some thoughts. Curious to hear what you think. Good luck! Best... Mike

Hi Becky,

Beyond the hypothetical limit, would be the consideration of dividing the link authority of the page by a really large number of links and therefor decreasing the relative value of each of those links to the pages they link to.

Depending on the page holding all these links, user experience, purpose of linked-to pages, etcetera, this may or may not be a consideration, but worth thinking about.

Good luck!

• Mike

Hi,

I have a U.S. client who is stuck on a name that he wants to get as a .io (British Indian Ocean) domain name for a new site.

Aside from the user confusion/weirdness, how much harder do you think this makes this sites organic in the U.S. in the future with a .io domain name?

FYI, the other part of the domain name he wants to use is short, meaningless and implies nothing in and of itself.

Thanks!

Given the time it takes to get somewhere search-wise, I know for me personally I either need to be paid for the time or be so in love with the idea that work doesn't feel like work. If it falls in neither of those two categories, then for myself, I would just let them sit. Best... Darcy

HI Joel,

I can understand wanting a study to convince someone of something. Thing is, Erica is right.

You figure 100% of the people on this page are on this page. Some smaller percent will by definition be on the next page with the sign up form.

So, unless there is something magical about the button that adds to their commitment to filling out the form or some amazing content (that should be on page one if it's so amazing), I can't see how more visitors would fill out the form on page two. It would have to be so many more that it makes up for all the people that didn't click the link or button.

If the signup form is too huge for the content already on page one, you may want to try asking for just name and email on page one and the rest of it on page two. That way, you would at least get enough to keep marketing to them later if they bail on page two of the form. Of course, test that to get the data you need.

What the page two form advocates have is a hypothesis. Such is the stuff tests are made of.

Sorry about not having a study, but it really is not very debatable. Of course, every site is different and who knows what variables in information or channel you're dealing with.

Best of luck!

Mike

It sounds like real progress after less than a year - congrats!

Alexa Rank is an approximation of site traffic rank based mostly on visits to your site by those with the Alexa toolbar. I've compared sites with very similar traffic and found very different rankings. Just out of curiosity, why do you care what your Alexa Rank is? As the site owner, you know what the actual traffic is vs their very approx ranking.

Google PageRank is another infrequently updated calculation that doesn't mean much, especially with so many other benchmarks available.

Best of luck! .... Mike

Okay, so I'm working on my site, minding my own business and everything is just great.

Many different terms on pages 1 -4, all inching ever upward.

When suddenly, one term that got all the way to #11 gets blasted to oblivion... #75!

Is there some kind of landmine one could step on that would cause that? All the other terms are fine.Nothing on the page changed since it first went up two months ago.

Thanks!

Yes to the above... don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Also, given your name is ("the seo company") is keyword rich, at first glance I'm not sure how spammy your link profile really is anchor text-wise.  I agree with Highland that disavow is really a 12 lb hammer and really only saved for special occasions.

Good luck! Best... Mike

Hi,

Alexa has, for purposes of fictional number illustration, let's say one out of 10,000 web users using their toolbar. They then take that data and multiply it by 10,000 and say that represents web traffic in total. With that, they rank sites by estimated total.

They may have some other secret sauce, but that is basically it. So, if you have the tool bar and visit your site as much as you probably do while doing all that work, then it affects your Alexa rank.

It's kind of like why folks filter out your own office's web traffic from one's own Google Analytics data in order to get a clearer picture of pure traffic.

I hope that helps. Best... Mike

Well, golly, that's incredibly hopeful! Thanks for weighing-in. I agree and at the same time it makes me wonder why the roller-coaster drop before improvement? This term is actually one that I felt very upbeat about it's steady progress. Weird.It's almost Google-sadism.

Other than be odd for the user, it wouldn't do anything positive for search.

Hi Paul,

I'd add detail to a distinct term, as opposed to more stand-alone terms.

Random example:

"Custom Car Parts For GM, Ford, Chrysler & Most Foreign Brands"

Which would be better than 3 terms all meaning "custom car parts" in the title tag.

Consider also that a keyword stuffed title tag is inherently going to have a lower CTR, which will hurt you in the end.

Good luck!

It reminds me of taking the kids to the Pediatrician. "Yeah, that happens alot. If it doesn't clear up in a week, bring em back in and we'll have another look."

Thanks for all the really helpful answers Dunamis, Steve and Aaron!

I'd start here: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo and think of it like a fun game that may take moments to learn, but a life time to master.  That guide will lead you to still more handy resources.

In phrasing the question as "is it considered fresh/unique," I'm going to assume you mean by google for the site's organic benefit. So, I guess the reasoning would be is the fact that it's fresh to the site a bigger positive than the negative of duplicate content. Is that what you're getting at? Personally, knowingly on-boarding duplicate content would be too big of a potential negative for me to consider doing it. I've done it as a noindex/follow for reasons other than Google, but not for some mystery freshness bump.

Not that you can't find examples of duplicate content ranking in more than one place. To me on-boarding indexed duplicate content seems like just asking for trouble.

Hope that helps. Best... Mike

Hi Paul,

My personal opinion is that adding the company name is a redundant (to the url) waste of space. Possible caveat, if the company name is short and does something for CTR.

Generally no though.

We have about 600k downloads of our app and would like to know what cost effective analytics tool you use to gain insight into what your app users are doing?

Thanks! Best... Mike

Could changing one's physical address for a domain or going from public to private registration have a negative affect on rank? Other factors? Thanks!

Hi Cole,

Fresh by Google (if not noindexed) in this case would be kind of like the freshness value of a "fresh" error.

Maybe that's extreme, but point being, the content is not needed by the web, since it already exists. If there was absolutely nothing else being added to or changed about the site and my one option was adding duplicate content, I'd noindex/follow it and figure I might have gotten some small, small, small benefit from updating the site a little, maybe an improved user signal. I'd for sure keep it out of the index. I guess that's how I'd do it, if it had some value for visitors. If it's only value was adding something fresh and not that great for visitors, I'd find the extra hour necessary to re-write it into something fresh, unique and valued by visitors. .

The other thing about syndicated content is that after you make sure where else you can find it on the web via an exact phrase search in Google, it may not mean you've seen the only instance of it as it may evolve. Having duplicate content indexed with other sites of possibly low quality may put you in a bad neighborhood as sites with common content. If I had a ten foot pole, I wouldn't touch it with it.

I hope that helps. Best... Mike

Yes, I'd put it on the slow motion housekeeping list. and don't do every single link you can find.

I'd prioritize in-context links from high authority pages way above masses of footer links, which are often not a great user experience anyway.

Over time, look at the link profile/anchor text in open site explorer. If it looks too targeted, it probably is Go for less than 40% targeted anchor text.

Definitely cut your footer link load.

Good luck!

I'm loving the optimism! I'll continue to post rank, in case anybody's interested in the experiment results.

Hi Egol,

Thanks for the message. For this particular site, I'm looking at a very noticeable dip in position tracking that is then partially obscured by the following week's Thanksgiving holiday. This week, the week after the holiday week, is down about 15% traffic wise compared to 2 weeks prior. As a point of reference, last year this site was flat for the same period. So, don't really think it's just seasonality.

I might think it was just this site, but it just happened to coincide with that increase in mozcast temps and other stories of flux.

Has anybody benefited or suffered with the same kind of timing?

Quality content properly promoted is the ultimate link building strategy.

Consider how many artificial link building strategies from the past have eventually caused site owners problems.

I'd post to your site first and when I was sure it was indexed, re-purpose it for social media.

Best of luck!

Yes, it is something of a question about the image alt text working as well as text for a link. In desperation, I was thinking about making the nav buttons into images with alt text, but leave them reading the way they are "cool stuff" and "outdoor fun" etc.

It reminds me of Starbucks using italian names for small, medium and large... like small, medium and large aren't good enough.

Are you using the Moz's Firefox toolbar? There was a recent notice about it being down for awhile.

Hi,

I've been looking at how various sites handle rel author tags linking to Google+ accounts to get rich snippets results. I've found more than a few that have the same code on every page, even though those actual pages clearly have different authors and some may not even mention the rel author's name.

A site I'm working on has different authors for different pages. Although the convenience of putting the same rel author on every page seems dreamy, it also seems like a disaster waiting to happen, since it would appear to be trickery about who the author is and possibly one Google update away from disaster.

Can you call a site owner or employee an author on pages that to the reader appear to be written by others?

Am I being too cautious or what?

Thanks!

Cheers... Darcy

Javascript loading sometimes slows down the loading of the page, which could affect search. I would suggest measuring page speed without it, adding it and  re-measuring.

Best Of Luck... Mike

Thanks, Tom!

So, the site this issue is a few hundred pages of not very unique catalog content. Would you rewrite the relative links to absolute?

Best...Mike

Great question. I try to look at it like "is it worth my time?" The fact that it's translated and you sometimes get a link, really kicks it down the priority list for me. You could spend some time going after it, but to what end? If your new pages are generally crawled/indexed quickly, you probably got first authorship already. If you haven't already, you might want to look into how fast your new content gets indexed. If it is a duplicate content issue, it's really their duplicate content issue, depending on the translation factor. I can't see spending any time on it.

Best... Mike

Thanks Russ and Rand! I've used many tools for getting to the bottom of estimated volume and have high hopes for your evolving KW Explorer. It's definitely needed.

I think the much more likely culprit is that it is a new site. What do you get when you enter "site:http://www._____.com" in google? If the pages are indexed, one can't blame for the robots file for lack of rank.

Good luck!

Mike

Besides crawling with a bot, what kind of info about site construction, html, etc does Google get via users via alternate methods?

Thanks... Darcy

Do pages of vehicles that are in inventory for a short time actually deliver monetizable traffic?

If the answer is no, because they are up for such a short amount of time, you would have to weigh the value of having them indexable in the first place vs creating an ever-growing list of missing pages.

Having a lot of 404s or 422s is a bit of a negative. Is there really no way to add the step of 301ing to their removal?

Making the pages non-indexable via noindex once they are indexed will not remove them. You either have to 301 and/or request removal from the G's index. Is there a programmatic way to turn their removal into a 301 to the top inventory category page?

Good luck!

I kind of think of text in expandable tabs like could be useful to someone, but not the majority of people.

Tom is right that it could be a better user experience. But what does it say about the text... not really super important for most people. That's a little like way way down the page.

Have you searched for your text in tabs to see if it's indexed? I did that not long ago and found that mine wasn't and since moving it out of expandable tabs it now is.

It's possible it was not the only thing going on, but it would be interesting to check.

Making sure that the https pages are canonicalized to https pages should be relatively easy and within your control. I would get that done right away.

If the canonicalization wasn't done right in the migration, it makes me wonder what else may not be right with the move to https. You might want to look here https://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl, especially the links under "best practices" and double check all that.

The unnatural link clean up and reconsideration request will be more work intensive and take a lot more time and is on some level not entirely within your control, as you are left at Google's mercy.

Both need to be done, but they seem like very different sized problems with very different timelines to payoff.

Best of luck! ... Mike

As Google seems to have new interest in Rel Author for articles, is there anything comparable for q&a comments, where you have many commenters?

IMHO, Google is trying to get at the quality of the authors advice via authority of some kind, especially for YMYL content.

Best... Mike

I work with a site that gets lots of members and conversions from its specialty interest community forum out of organic search. The site has been around for a number of years and still has many forum pages that do well in search that are 5+ years old. Some of these discussions may have dozens of comments and a few have thousand words.

The option has been floated to end accepting new comments on specific discussions at some point. I can see the negatives, such as folks coming out of search and wanting to register to comment, but not be able to... if we closed the discussion to new comments.

I've always assumed that new comments may freshen up a page a little organic search-wise, but honestly don't know how much that matters.

Are  there any good reasons to close a discussion to new comments? Related question, what do you think is the optimum qty of unique text before paginating?

Thanks!

Thanks, guys.

I've adjusted alt images tags on pages that really matter to me for organic. The tens of thousands of other images/pages are just going to have to chillax.

What would be your take on how to hire a link building service. Specifically, but not limited to:

• Finding one whose methods/links achieved won't later destroy the domain?

• Define the cost for the service?

• What is a typical cost for such a service?

• Reasonable expectations?

• Any other tips for dealing with same.

Thanks!

Hi Egol,

Thanks for the clarification. I need links into these discussions, vs social, to get them to rank better in organic. The conversations we're targeting are aligned with organic search opportunities and generally perform, but not as well as they could if they had a few links.

Do you think a link builder could use non-toxic methods to make that happen?

What do you think it would cost and how how are the resulting links attached to cost?

For instance, is it like "here's some money and whatever happens happens?" Or, is it more like a clearer contract?

Thanks!