Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks, appreciate your prompt response.

Leaving the old pages alone than is a time saver.

On  pages being 301 directed what should be done about the copy on the old page?

1. leave the copy up on the page being 301 redirected?

2. delete the copy on the page?

3. Have  a link pointing to the new url with a short note saying if not redirected to the page in 5 seconds?

Appreciate everyone's input. What can I say, I see the light after reading the responses.

Since the pages are optimized without changing the URLs, I won't be needing the redirect. But only understand that from the advice received.

Sounds like your clients want results without paying for it. You sound willing to do that, using spammer techniques, but it is not a good idea for a couple of reasons.

1. Hiding a paragraph or two of content can get the site lowered or banned by Google instead of increasing its rank. Your customers won't be happy with the cost of recovering from that. And, you will get all the blame.

2. Hiding the reality of what it takes to be ranked high in Google from your client is a dis-service to your client. They will expect more from you in the future (until they get pushed to the back of the line in search).

3. Not educating your client on the realities of needing good visible content their customers, not just the robots, can see, reflects poorly on you. Anyone in this business encounters difficult clients unwilling to pay for services is a given. It's a good learning curve for you, more than for them.

I have a client who has just come back to me and my recommendations after a year and a half of trying to get results from others promising them more for less, but never able to deliver.

When you have the confidence and experience to know what your knowledge and skills can do for your customers, and know that what you requires monetary value, than you can calmly lay it out for them.

One option is to let your client know what kind of ranking  they can get without adding content to their webpages. Then let them know what ranking they can expect by adding content and at the price you require to do the work and stay in business.

Performing black hat/spammer techniques falls on you, not your client. It's too high of a risk and price to pay for a client looking to get ahead by squeezing you dry.

Two years ago updated url page to include better keywords and used a 301 redirect from the old page to the new.

so www.example.com/keyword-1st-generation.html now points to ...

www.example.com/keyword-2nd-generation.html

That moved the pages up in ranking, but now have better kw for the url,

so is it okay to redirect the /keyword-2nd-geration-html to

www.example.com/keyword-3rd-generation.html

And what is a good length of time before removing the 1st-generation url?

It's been 3 years and there is no chance of using it again. Plus, no sign of it in analytics.

Please clarify:

In the page optimization tool, seomoz recommends using the canonical url tag on the unique page itself.

Is it the same canonical url tag used when want juice to go to the original page?

Although the canonical URL tag is generally thought of as a way to solve duplicate content problems, it can be extremely wise to use it on every (unique) page of a site to help prevent any query strings, session IDs, scraped versions, licensing deals or future developments to potentially create a secondary version and pull link juice or other metrics away from the original. We believe the canonical URL tag is a best practice to help prevent future problems, even if nothing is specifically duplicate/problematic today.

Please give example.

So you are saying 301 redirects are better?

Would amount to 50 redirects (in that ball park).

Does not affect google ranking?

So you are saying 301 redirects are better?

Would amount to 50 redirects (in that ball park).

Does not affect google ranking?

The reason for so many duplicate urls is that classified ads limit the number of posting to one url from one classified account. To post multiple ads, therefore, you create multiple websites with different urls.

I appreciate you bearing with me. Making headway with classified ads vs. google seo are  two different entities. And this is a area with scant information on it, as if classifieds are the black sheep of the family. But getting a 2:1 ads v. seo traffic ratio out of the experience.

Creating a couple of additional websites with different urls accomplishes the ability to reach a wider audience with classified ads. One goes where the traffic is.

But does using canonicals that way  offend Google?

I have consciously done a u-turn on this account in terms of time and seen both seo and referral traffic increase in the past couple of months.

But thinking that by increasing SEO ranking = more traffic = revenue.

Adding twitter, quora, facebook since October has given the site a nice boost. However, Yahoo Answers did nothing.

It all comes down to do those canonicals get penalized with Google? Is my seo traffic being suppressed because of it?

Your offer is inviting. I do want to hear more about what traffic drivers are creating the most conversions on.

Sounds like your clients want results without paying for it. You sound willing to do that, using spammer techniques, but it is not a good idea for a couple of reasons.

1. Hiding a paragraph or two of content can get the site lowered or banned by Google instead of increasing its rank. Your customers won't be happy with the cost of recovering from that. And, you will get all the blame.

2. Hiding the reality of what it takes to be ranked high in Google from your client is a dis-service to your client. They will expect more from you in the future (until they get pushed to the back of the line in search).

3. Not educating your client on the realities of needing good visible content their customers, not just the robots, can see, reflects poorly on you. Anyone in this business encounters difficult clients unwilling to pay for services is a given. It's a good learning curve for you, more than for them.

I have a client who has just come back to me and my recommendations after a year and a half of trying to get results from others promising them more for less, but never able to deliver.

When you have the confidence and experience to know what your knowledge and skills can do for your customers, and know that what you requires monetary value, than you can calmly lay it out for them.

One option is to let your client know what kind of ranking  they can get without adding content to their webpages. Then let them know what ranking they can expect by adding content and at the price you require to do the work and stay in business.

Performing black hat/spammer techniques falls on you, not your client. It's too high of a risk and price to pay for a client looking to get ahead by squeezing you dry.