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Hi Joroen,
Are you able to normalise the canonical element to point back to the non-hashed URL? I haven't actually worked on anything quite like this myself, so have no live data to share with you.
Google used to ignore what was after the hashtag (unless you used a hash bang #!), but you will now see anchors being indexed, so this may have some bearing on how it is actioned.
-Andy
Sorry, changed my response. I went to the last domain first.
I am off out shortly, so a little limited in time to check this. I would start by contacting the host, GoDaddy, and raising a ticket with them. You might find it is something as simple as a mis-configuration or mistake on someone's part.
-Andy
Gary has pretty much hit the nail on the head. What you are proposing doesn't sound like it would cause any issues. Google are smart enough to know that sometimes there is a crossover of content. It might be a different story if every page was the same, but as I always advise in these situations, use a little common sense and think:
Make sure the page is well produced, questions clear and answers concise.
-Andy
Very often, it isn't enough to only try and complete this through parameter handling. As Patrick said, you can look at adding sets of 'disallows' in Robots.txt and no-index at a page level, if you want to have pages de-indexed, but be careful how you do this and make sure that Google can see and action a no-index before blocking access to the page.
-Andy
Hi Nick,
I don't actually use any MOZ tools, so can't really comment on their findings directly. However, I would suggest downloading Screaming Frog Spider as this can give you a bit more raw data to work with.
What I find many times with e-commerce systems is that they can often create lots of pages of 'noise', often without the site owners even being aware.
Without digging around on the site, it is quite difficult to know what else could be doing this.
-Andy
Setup Google Alerts. These are one of the key ways to monitor chatter.
https://www.google.co.uk/alerts
-Andy
I have shared this question with Dan from Screaming Frog for you 
-Andy
A 404 just tells Google that a page has moved or been removed and that there is nowhere that you would prefer a visitor to be redirected too. There is absolutely no problem with a few 404's or thousands.
Just make sure your 404 page is helpful to people that might land there and don't be tempted to try and redirect where it isn't needed. Make sure there are links to key categories and you can even add a search to the page as well.
-Andy
I would suspect that unless something has been done differently, that Google can read what is there, but as Jimmy said, check the page cache to see what Google can see.
You can also do a search for a snippet of text from the page and see if Google has it indexed.
-Andy
Without knowing the site structure, or seeing how the duplication occurs, it might be a little awkward, but you could set a canonical tag from 3 of the pages to 1 primary so that Google doesn't get confused about what should be returned for a search result.
You could also stipulate how landlords should title their pages and just monitor as an update happens.
-Andy
MOZ would be able to answer this more readily for you, but because they aren't Google, they don't have every site, page or link stored. It could be days or weeks.
Just as a side note though, don't use directories as forms of link-building as more often than not, they will do nothing and if you plough through too many, you might cause yourself problems.
If it's a local directory, these can have some benefit to local results though. Each site must be taken on its own merits.
-Andy
Did you see any concrete penalties that a web development did get because of these links?
I have seen a few over the last 2 or so years. And I agree, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a footer link, just don't use it as a link building tactic.
From a search engine view, wouldn’t this be a great way to determine what web development firm made what kind of websites?
No search engines are going to be bothered about that - all you want to do is use it as a link-building strategy, and you really shouldn't.
If it was legitimate, everyone would be doing it and Google wouldn't be so against them for these purposes.
However, if you want to go ahead and do this, then far be it from me to stop you 
-Andy
I agree with you that this isn’t the only way you should be linkbuilding
No, it just should not even be figured into any linkbuilding. At best footer / sitewide links will do nothing (or very little) - at worst, if you are seen to gain too many, you could bring down a penalty.
Google specifically says that they don't want to see these sorts of links.
Create content, make it amazing and share it. Create interesting infographics or get creative and make people get interested.
Footer / Sitewide links isn't something I would ever advise anyone try to use as an effective tactic.
-Andy
That way, I think they are important for the promotion and SEO of web development companies.
Hi Bob,
No, these won't do anything for SEO in terms of link-building. Google isn't interested in footer links as something they want to see, but that doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile having there. There are benefits, but they aren't SEO. If someone likes a site and wants to see who developed it, for example.
If you want to create a good backlink profile, then you need good quality links in reputable sites. And don't worry if you see these as making up the majority of links for your competitors, it just means they don't know / haven't spent any time on building good links.
-Andy
Very welcome and glad it has been of help
-Andy
Have a try of this:
<code>RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.(html)$</code>
I think this should work by ignoring anything with .html
Give it a go but if not, you may need to wait for someone else to come and confirm it
-Andy
Perfect. Glad to hear it has helped
-Andy
No need to go with canonicals. A bit of .htaccess code should do it. Pretty sure I got this from Stack Overflow in the past for a client with the same issue:
<code>RewriteCond%{REQUEST_FILENAME}!-d RewriteRule^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]</code>
Give that a go and let me know how you get on.
Edit - Found the page I was looking for here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21417263/htaccess-add-remove-trailing-slash-from-url
Cheers,
Andy
Well looking at that page Simon, I see lots of scrolling adverts, but if you want some page data, head over to SEMrush and enter that URL.
Any more questions, just ask
-Andy
It certainly sounds like it Luke. If there is nothing there that is content-worthy, then it 'could' cause issues. I always ask my clients to imagine they are Google and "what would you think if you visited that page to look for great quality content that they should index and share with others".
-Andy
It's hard to say Simon. That is something only Moz could answer for you.
What data is your marketing department after? If it's click-throughs, then you will be better setting it up as a click event to be tracked in Google Analytics.
-Andy
Hi Simon,
When was the ad placed? If it was recently, it might just not be picked up by anything as yet.
What are you using to look for back-link data? If it is OSE or similar, remember that they don't have every site and page in their own database, so might just not be crawled as yet.
-Andy
Or 301 redirect these pages to home page?
This is something of a no-no. Google states that a 301 should be used to redirect one page to another that is similar. If you can't find a good match, you are better leaving it as a 404.
I heard there's a Wordpress plugin that 301 redirects all the 404 errors successfully preserving all the potential link juice.
As above, if you have a plugin do this for you then you could find that old URL's are redirected 'en-masse' to the same place, which will do you no favours.
-Andy
Hi Christina,
Some are better than others, but all tend to be limited in functionality. They are free for a reason. SEMrush is probably the best of the free bunch (personal preference) but there is no substitute for a complete site audit.
Just take what you see when entering your URL as an indicator and use that to dig deeper into the problem. Be careful of those that only look at your homepage, as this can lull you into a false sense of security and not show what is going on with the rest of your site.
Screaming Frog and URL Profiler are my tools of choice these days. They cover everything needed to perform SEO & Content audits.
-Andy
That must be really frustrating for you Mike.
I am not surprised you can't access them at the back-end as these are almost always a by-product of the e-commerce system. So many don't care about what extra churn the sites produce.
You could always robots out those bad pages? Just something like:
Disallow: /store/pc/www.ocelco.com/*
This should still readily allow everything else to be indexed after http://www.ocelco.com/store/pc/...
Give it a try and then run the site through Screaming Frog and see if these bad pages are then picked up.
-Andy
What are you using to power the site Mike?
I would suggest looking at the site configuration, or contact the developers and ask them how to correct this, as it looks a lot like a mis-configuration somewhere. 301's might help for now, but you need to figure out why these extra pages are being created because I suspect that if you add additional products, the same issue will surface again.
Also when I look at the first two links, I have a lot of rendering issues, that I don't see on the bottom 2 links. Definitely something amiss.
-Andy
Have you some real case of real penalty just for some article mkt?
Lots. It is one of the more regular issues I find when performing back-link audits and disavows. Spammy links are one thing, but these sites just invite issues.
There is no substitute to creating something that others want to link to without having to ask.
Best of luck,
-Andy
One area that is often overlooked, and that is hugely powerful for any site, is internal linking.
An internal link to a page will tell Google that you consider it to be important, based on the phrase you are using. Remember that with internal linking, you should be as descriptive as possible.
I often point people towards this document, as it contains so much valuable information:
-Andy
Hi Celine,
Google is very smart at finding content these days, so I would avoid any possible ways of trying to hide it, but looking at what is there, I wouldn't worry too much.
When looking at the model choice at the bottom of the page, it is the same for a reason, and there is no way around it. However, I wouldn't think that Google would see that as duplicate content. Lists in this manner don't normally cause issues and as mentioned above, it is more often larger 'chunks' of content that causes issues.
There are other considerations that you might want to think about before releasing a lot more pages in this manner, and one if them is making sure Google won't see the pages appearing for no other reason that to draw in search traffic for particular phrases.
Keep the pages well stocked with unique relevant content and you should be good to go.
-Andy
**any suggestions? **
Yes, don't use them for link building. Create wonderful content on your own site, make it very link-worthy and then start plugging reputable sites in your niche to see if you can get them to reference you.
Article marketing as it used to be no longer works.
-Andy
How popular a site is depends on so many factors, such as the site content, link-worthiness, site niche & market, etc.
Concentrate your efforts on making the site as good as it can possibly be. Create content that is better than your competitors, come up with ideas to help make it more of a resource that reputable sites will want to link to, and then start sharing it amongst groups via social media to help it gain traction.
Don't be afraid to contact reputable sites and advise them if you have created something fantastic. Some may run it as a feature and credit you with a link.
-Andy
No problem with doing this at all. I have also worked with a client who had a large number of pages and they came down from about 170,000 to just under 2,000 and the result was a good one. This was also to combat Panda.
However, when redirecting, take care not to just redirect every one of the 3m pages to the same places. If you can't find a good and relevant match for a 301, then just 404 it. it is much better to have a 404 than poor redirects. I would also review your 404 page to make sure it is user friendly and helps people navigate to something better.
Best of luck.
-Andy
Google says to place the canonical tag in the HTTP header, and that to me, would suggest that this is where they look for it.
Someone else might have a work-around, but I don't don't think it makes for a good strategy.
-Andy
Edit - As Dirk said
If it's that you have both www & non-www versions of your site, you need to do this through the .htaccess file. Have a look at this page for some info on how to create a bit of code to add in there. This link is assuming you want the www version of the site to be the one you use.
http://dense13.com/blog/2008/02/27/redirecting-non-www-to-www-with-htaccess/
-Andy
Well it's clear that something has happened.
Was any work carried out prior to to drop? Are you seeing any increase in 404's or problems in Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools after the daft re-brand)?
-Andy
although the products are the same on the pages.
This is what is going to prevent you from reaching these goals. Google isn't going to rank two pages the same with just a difference in basics. It isn't enough for them.
There is usually a lot more to look at in these circumstances if you want to start ranking for location phrases too, because what you are doing there alone isn't enough. This is more likely to bring down problems than help you gain rankings.
-Andy
You could do a lot worse than having a look here Michael:
But, I have also found Quora to be pretty good, and is more reputable than some.
-Andy
Hi Pete,
Just a very quick observation, you might be running into pages that are quite similar:
Then you also have...
Pages 2 & 3 appear to be exactly the same, but with a different title, heading, etc. Google won't thank you for that.
I would spend some time thinking about the phrases you wish to rank for and making sure your pages are all suitably different in content and offerings.
-Andy
And that is fine After having done a lot of testing on this, I can say it does make no difference. Create a site, create a subdomain, and that subdomain will then carry the PR from the primary. I have had subdomains ranking in a matter of days (and still there 12 months later), with not a single link to them.
I have yet to see anything that would suggest otherwise.
Edit-- FYI, I much prefer not to use a subdomain myself, unless there is a reason. I prefer to keep everything under the primary domain.
-Andy
The SEO agency we are looking to work with are claiming they can get my website to first page with above keyword.
Walk away. No-one can make these claims without doing something a bit dodgy. Generally these sorts of claims turn into results that are short-lived and after a few more months, Google has caught up with what they are doing and you end up with a penalty.
Link building is not as easy as it once was. Now you need to have a reason for someone to want to link to you - if you want good links that is. A good linkable asset can make a real difference, so you need to start thinking outside the box a little bit on what you can do to help make you stand out a little.
-Andy
No reason not to do that, but when I say be careful with which sites you disavow, how are you assessing the likelihood it is a problem site?
-Andy
Your first issue is that the blog is a sub-domain which means as far as Google is concerned a new website which will have to be optimised and grow independent of the main site.
This isn't the case now Michael, and hasn't been for some time. Your site sub-domain will carry all benefits as if it were a normal part of the link structure. Google say "Just use whichever one is easier for you"
Matt Cutts talks about them here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk
-Andy
only the version the offending links points towards
This one, which is probably your primary domain? Google is pretty smart and will know that you have multiple domains 301ing to another domain, but there is no need to disavow against a site where there are no links.
Just be careful how you are disavowing though. Don't be too brutal and concentrate heavily on those with spammy anchor texts.
-Andy
I don't think IP factor matters that much
Going to disagree with this here I'm afraid because I have seen some quite overwhelming results based on a user location. I am based in Chester, UK - If I search, based on my IP, I will be shown local results earlier - that kind of thing. I'm not saying this is always going to be the case, but based on locations, it can play a pretty major part.
@Hans - There are lots of things you can do to try and remedy this, but remember that Google has the final say. You could try building your brand strength more and perhaps talk create a few blog posts based around location and product, talk about surrounding towns that you cover and suggestions as Umar mentions above.
Also you could do a little testing and see how your competitors get around this issue. Crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i' is going to be a big key to success.
-Andy
Hi Pete,
Just having a mobile friendly site isn't necessarily going to be enough for Google. You also can't really compare desktop and mobile positions because the two are based on a different algorithm set - well, parts of anyway.
There are quite a number of ways you can help improve your mobile SEO, but rather than making this a very long post, have a read of these resources below - you will find some good information in both when troubleshooting what is going on.
-Andy
As mentioned above, some CMS's will do this and if the site isn't configured correctly, like editing the .htaccess to take care of it. then it will just sit there. It is unlikely to be causing problems, unless there are multiple homepages being generated (/home, /index.html, etc).
Ideally it should be redirected to root if for no other reason, than to bring it up to date.
-Andy
Hi Micha,
I doubt very much that a single link like this is causing you issues, but there would be no harm in no-following it, just to be on the safe side.
and there are a couple of links pointing to it.
You might find that this is playing a major part. It is possible for a site to rank without links, but the content would have to be pretty amazing and really tick all the boxes for Google.
Do you feel the content on you site would be classified as a linkable asset? Would what is there be reason enough for others to want to link to you? Have you had a look at those who are winning in the SERPs to see where they get their links from, and why? A little competition analysis might open up a sea of opportunities, or at least let you see what needs doing.
-Andy
Not really. Yoast is about as good as it gets with an SEO Plugin. There are alternatives, most of which I have seen, but still they don't do as much or make it quite as easy. Ultimately, you want something that allows you to configure individual pages, but offer a level of customisation, if required - which Yoast does.
-Andy
Just go to http//site.com - does it forward to www.site.com? If it does, redirects are working. If not, then you will want to read up on .htaccess redirection as this is what will control how the site acts depending on how the URL is entered.
-Andy