Welcome to the Q&A Forum

It just sounds like it's however the links are being formed. As long as the site is setup correctly and redirecting one to another, then there will be no problem.

-Andy

I think that as long as you no-follow the links so that Google doesn't think you are trying to gain benefit in this manner, then it should be fine. The links as you suggest, are towards the bottom of the page, and Google should see this - perhaps mention that the blog posts will open on a new site and keep the anchor text neutral.

"For More Information, Please Check Out These Posts on our Blog (__Opens up new site)"

• www.sitea.com/blog/relevantinfo1
• www.sitea.com/blog/relevantinfo2
• www.sitea.com/blog/relevantinfo3

-Andy

Think about how this would look to Google if they were to inspect the site under a microscope. Would they question why the blog posts are on site B and not posted on Site A? What is the reason for not posting them on Site A? Are you wanting to cross-link for no other purpose other than for the benefit of the site visitors?

-Andy

Hi Christian,

It's a little difficult to say what might be going on without being able to actually see the site. You are welcome to PM me this or post it here and I will gladly take a look for you.

Should I fear that this will harm my SEO efforts? It all depends. If your site has indeed been hacked, you need to find out what has happened (and how it happened). What did you build the site in?

-Andy

It's so easy to block your entire site from Google with robots.txt. Are you using Yoast SEO as the SEO plugin? With this, there shouldn't really be any need to block anything yourself.

Drop your URL here and we can take a look.

-Andy

First of all David, I would wait until the next refresh before making any decision on what could / couldn't have caused this. The MOZ tracker might have just caught the SERP in the middle of a bit of a Google dance, so it may return to where it was originally.

If not, then we can look at other alternatives - it certainly doesn't sound like changing the page title as you suggest, could do this.

Cheers,

Andy

Hi David,

Very difficult to say with any degree of certainty. There is so many reason why this could be but if you are seeing the drop in rankings on a desktop machine rather than mobile, it won't be the mobile algorithm.

When did you first see the drop? What are you using to do your tracking? Have you made any changes to the site recently or undertaken any off-site work such as link building?

Cheers,

Andy

Hi,

It sounds like a config issue either with the host, .htaccess or could even be something within the site settings itself. What is it that powers the site? Drupal, Wordpress etc?

Cheers,

Andy

Hi Oscar,

Are you noticing anything negative in terms of your phrases slipping? The reason I ask, is that Google is pretty smart when it comes to links, and someone just building spammy links isn't usually enough to draw a penalty on its own. If Google sees a few hundred spammy links appear overnight (figuratively speaking) then they are likely to just ignore them.

By all means disavow these bad links, but focus more on getting new links - be careful how you do this though. I have clients who have thousands upon thousands of low quality / spammy links, but the fact that I keep the link profiles topped up with high quality links, keeps penalties away.

-Andy

I've read every blog on the planet and now maybe too much info

You would be surprised how easy it is to actually fall into that trap. Because there are so many 'experts', everyone has an opinion on how best to SEO a website. It is actually easier that you might realise if you pull yourself back to basics and follow some best practice guidelines on both SEO and user experience (something often overlooked).

The reason you need to consider user experience (UX) is because what is the point in getting traffic to your site if all it does it bounce back off again? There are often reasons for this that include:

• Lack of descriptive page title
• Lack of descriptive Meta Description
• Primary information buried away in too much content
• Call to action not clear
• Uninteresting pages filled with 'waffle'
• Content not broken up into usable paragraphs on pertinent information
• Badly written content

The list goes on...

Remember, you are aiming to get the right traffic to your page - not just any traffic...

For the keyword research, that is a very important aspect because it allows you to not only focus on primary keywords, but also look at alternative related words and phrases that will support the page. For this, Google's keyword planner is pretty basic.

Remember that with content, you are competing amongst billions of other pages for a decent rank, so you have to make sure your content is as good as it can be. Look at what is winning for your desired phrases and see if you can spot why Google is giving this more prominence and then aim to make yours even better - but remember not to copy. Plagiarism will be dealt with by a slap from Google.

I hope this helps a little.

-Andy

Hi,

You will find a number of different views on how to do this but I always try and give the H1 to the more important message on the page. In terms of SEO, this really won't make much (if any) difference. However, try not to copy the actual page title and use this as the H1 as that is considered bad form.

-Andy

Hi,

Without digging in detail, it is always awkward to suggest possible issues - simply because there are so many possibilities.

That said, what you mentioned about the move could cause a temporary drop while Google corrects the indexation of the site. The site has gone from www.site.com to http://site.com and now back to www.site.com again. That is a lot of movement for Google to try and make sense of.

I am guessing also that because this was not a planned move from www to non-www, that no 301's were implemented, which means that Google would effectively see the site as having just gone and now returned again.

I would assume that the site will recover, but this can take time.

Use webmaster tools to 'Fetch as Google' at the root of the site and see the site is back again.

-Andy

Hi Rufus,

You are correct that a disavow can take some time to start making a difference, but even so, you need to either continue with this, or contact the poor link sites and ask for links to be removed.

What you can always do, is some positive link-building and outreach to help counter this. I would never really advocate just removing lots of links without doing something positive as well, and this does work well.

You could also look to create a strong internal link strategy to key pages throughout the site. This can often help push specific phrases back up that might have seen a bit of a drop.

Additionally, see if there is some value-added content that can be written for the site to help Google again see that positive measures are being taken.

-Andy

Just tweeted this out because it should be remembered by everyone.

Top notch Tom

-Andy

It is right that Google is very fond of re-writing titles that it feels better match search criteria. This isn't always a bad thing, but there is more you can do yourself here.

There are two articles I would suggest reading:

http://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag & Google SEO User Guide

I would also suggest that you try and structure your page titles to follow a format like this:

Just don't go changing your titles frequently - this isn't something Google likes to see and can result in a drop in the SERPs.

Also, try and create some internal linking throughout the site to help Google understand more about the important pages related to specific phrases.

-Andy

Just to correct a little something on here, you don't need to have anything in Google news or be in the top 10 for anything.

Google Alerts will trigger based on your keywords / phrase and then mail you based on your criteria as they are discovered. I have a lot of these set "as they happen" and are all related to brand mentions / articles of interest.

-Andy

Hi Tej,

Moz have a best practice guide on redirects here, but the general rule of thumb is that a 301 is used for most scenarios where a permanent redirect is required. This also passes more link juice than a 302, which is generally used for temporary redirects, and passes no link juice.

In terms of SEO, a 301 is almost always the preferred option because of the benefits in helping a site retain a more natural flow of link juice.

-Andy

I would second Justin's recommendation of the attribution builder rather than using URL shorteners.

-Andy

You don't need to worry about the page title and URL matching exactly. Google doesn't give any inherent SEO boost to sites that have URL's and titles that match.

That said, there are most certainly benefits to having a good URL structure. It will help with usability and can help with click through rates, which in a roundabout way, can impact your positions.

An an example, if you look at the following, what do they say to you?

• ../armani/emporioarmani/suits   <-- This tells me all I need to know about the page I am on
• ../product/cat63/23487HA.html    <-- This tells me absolutely nothing useful

"...am considering whether we need to get it locked down so that if the page title is amended (only in a minor way) it does not also change the URL."

This would be fine to do. However, you don't want to go changing your page titles frequently. Pick a format that you are happy with and try to stick with it. Only change this if something significant on the page also changes that would call for rewording.

-Andy

You mean the one I bought wasn't real???

I never mentioned anything about Pigeon?

Forget about links.

I'm not sure you can just dismiss one of the most important ranking signals to Google. Great content will invite links and push people to perform a call to action, but you have to also create outreach to get out there. Content alone will only ever get you so far.

-Andy

Will the rankings for this page drop back down again

This is impossible to say I'm afraid. They could drop, or the changes may have satisfied Google and you will stay where you are.

Try making similar changes to the other pages and see if you can replicate your success. Unique content is always great, so as an exercise, it is a win-win anyway.

-Andy

Something to avoid, is the mindset of buying links / sponsoring.

Google values a genuine link that is editorially gained, rather than a side note / footer / site-wide links. These carry very little value and in some cases, can create a big headache for you in terms of penalties from Google.

Good SEO is actually a mix of a great user experience, easy-to-use website, interesting information and closely following Google's webmaster guidelines. This all boils down to best practice. Keep your visitors happy, social media buzzing, content well written and Google will start to value your site more.

-Andy

Hi,

What you have to remember, is that when looking at 'link earning', you should concentrate on creating a 'wow' factor - although the reality is, you won't be able to do that every single time, so you need to concentrate heavily on quality over quantity. Remember that anyone can write an average blog post.

Infographics still play a very important role in creating visually appealing link assets. They provide short snippets of information that is created in a visual manner for easy digestion. So how can you apply this to your industry? How about something that shows how tastes in furniture have changed in the last 200 years? Or show a photo of a typical bedroom back in the 1800's along with an example of a modern family bedroom today, and overlay it with interesting information snippets?

Or perhaps create a blog post with 10 crazy bathroom designs? You want something that is going to catch the eye to get social shares as well as links back.

*** My question is if people are going to be linking to my blog, will this help my website rank for product terms? The blog is part of the website, websitename.com/blog.**

Well, in a roundabout way it will. The link itself will provide the link juice / authority to fuel your pages, which you will SEO accordingly. Just remember when link building, you don't want to look at keyword rich anchor text - you want a nice neutral link such as your domain, brand or something like 'click here to visit...'

You will also want to focus on internal linking as well, and in this case, you do want keyword rich anchor text.

-Andy

I agree with ntcma that there are gains to be had if you wish to retain their existing clients, brand, etc., but are you looking to just sweep them out of the way in Google altogether? What is your preferred scenario?

-Andy

If Google say to add 3 unique digits on the end, then this is what you should do. I would also add a sitemap as well, but don't add this until you have been approved.

It also helps to make sure you have some good news stories already lined up and live on your site.

-Andy

Click on my name and then use the 'private message this user' button towards the bottom on the left.

-Andy

Thanks for that Bryan

-Andy

Would you like to PM me the details so I can see exactly what you mean Polly? It's a little awkward to advise without examples sometimes.

-Andy

My page has also dropped from 1st page rankings for numerous pages to 2nd and 3rd page.

When did you notice this started to happen? I ask because there was a Panda refresh on the 23rd September, and it is possible you have been caught in this.

Outside of penalties, it is hard to say with any degree of certainty, just what has been going on. It could be anything from new on-page content being objected to, to negative SEO or a poor link-building campaign.

-Andy

That sounds to be your problem right there. This isn't a viable linking solution any more and will do you more harm than good.

In order for links to succeed now, you need to be thinking linkable assets (what does your site have that people want to link to) and outreach (contacting site owners to inform them of this).

When looking at links back into the site, you don't want to be using keyword rich anchor text either. This will draw unwanted attention from Google, so always use neutral anchors such as the domain, brand or something as simple as a 'click here'.

I would stop doing what you are right now though and focus on quality over quantity.

-Andy

Should we report this proactively to the web spam team using the guidelines here? No

**Should we request a malware review as recommended within the same guidelines, keeping in mind the site hasn't been given a 'hacked' snippet in the search results? **

No

**Is submitting a massive disavow links file right now, including the 490k-something domains, the only way we can escape the wrath of Google when these links are discovered? Is it too hopeful to imagine their algorithm will detect the negative-SEO nature of these links and not give them any credit? **

Yes

This sounds to me like you need to be thinking 'damage limitation', and by submitting a disavow now, you will be doing just this. Don't worry about the fact there are so many domains there, that is what the tool is all about. However, Penguin hasn't had a refresh in some time (12 months), so one might consider this and think that while you have time on your side to fix it, a refresh could be round the corner - so hop on it

-Andy

Hi Julien,

Having had a look at preferred safaris, I can't find any element of duplicate content on there - it all appears to be health spam now. Where does your concern for duplicate content come from? Sorry if I am not understanding.

-Andy

If Google is seeing an old page that isn't used any longer, why not 301 it to the desired page? A canonical tag will help give Google more of a signal as to your intentions, but it isn't a guarantee in the way a 301 redirect is.

-Andy

Without seeing the sort of links you are building, it is very difficult to know exactly what is being done and how good the links are.

What sort of sites are you approaching for links? How are the potential link partners being acquired? It sounds to me like the links you are building are not favourable, but as I said, impossible without seeing examples or until I understand what types of sites these are.

-Andy

As a matter of course, I would add your website address to your contact page as well. Under your e-mail address would be fine - but that is just a very small part of local SEO.

However, rather than go over everything here, this is a great article that will help you make sure you are doing everything you can. Moz also has a check list to refer to.

Grab a coffee and have a good read through these

-Andy

So Apartment Therapy are selling links? Tread carefully with this, because you have announced that you may pay $10k for writing an article that contains lots of links back to your site. If Google get wind of this, you could spell a whole heap of trouble for yourself.

Just as a side note, $10k will buy you a lot of very good organic SEO and link building that won't carry the risk.

-Andy

Hi,

Do your images appear in your sitemap? Generally, there isn't a lot of difference between what Google and Bing look at, but they may both have different scores they associate with various aspects.

With this in mind, make sure that:

• The image is well optimised and not too large
• The file is named accordingly
• Has good descriptive ALT text (but not spammy)

Outside of that, it will also help if you build external links to that page and as with any SEO campaign, if you have pages that you wish to be more prominent for the search engines, remember to do some internal linking too.

I hope that helps a little.

-Andy

Sounds good! Keep us updated with how it goes.

-Andy

It is still possible it isn't a penalty from one of the major algorithms and you may be able to solve this by creating a strong internal linking strategy. It helps to formulate one if you use something like MindNode to create an overview of the site and then you can drill in on the pages in questions.

It is possible that a noindex would cure this, but it all depends because even though you add a noindex tag to a page, Google can still read the page and apply the penalty. All it means is that the page won't be indexed.

However, if you are relaunching everything very soon, you might be as well to sit tight and not do anything too rash for a short-term solution.

-Andy

Hi,

Without looking at these issues in more detail, it can be awkward to see exactly what is going on.

That said, if you are looking to exclude pages from Google via the sitemap, this won't do an awful lot for you. You will need to noindex the pages, or better still, use rel=canonical tags to tell Google which pages are duplicate and which ones they should reference.

Remember that the sitemap and canonical are only suggestions to Google and there is still a chance that they can bypass them, although that isn't the case the vast majority of times.

-Andy

Hi James,

Am I right in assuming that there's a Panda filter on the /deals/ segment

Unfortunately there is no guaranteed way to say this is the case, but generally if you see a drop in traffic / positions that coincide with an algorithm refresh, then this can be telling.

Is it just traffic to those pages that has dropped, or positions in the SERPs?

-Andy

What? You callin me a fruit picker???

There are worse things

Well, you can buy a plugin that will take care of this for you, or if you prefer to control this, you would need to add internal links within the site manually.

-Andy

Hi,

Can I ask if you have your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) in place correctly on your site? Do you have citations coming from other sites at all? It can also help to get some reviews about your business too, although this isn't likely to cause you not to be placed.

Finally, have you completed all the local SEO work on your site to help with this? From what you have said above, you might be lacking in this a little, but hard to know without seeing the site.

-Andy

Hi Willem,

Do you have a plugin that manages the internal links for you, or do you not currently have anything in place? Internal links won't happen automatically unless there is something that adds them in, or if you go along and add them in yourself.

-Andy

Hi Ryan,

I haven't had this myself, so have sent John Mueller at Google at Tweet asking him to have a quick look at this for you. If he comes back to me with a reply, I will update you

-Andy

Hi Robert,

I have never gone back that far myself (30-40 days max), but I can see no reason why this isn't worth a shot. There could still be a lot of potential hanging around out there for the grabbing. Grab any low hanging fruit with both hands

-Andy

I would start by looking at fixing glaring errors and then making sure all best practice is in place, and one of the best places to find this, is in the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Should I start by gathering for links that have no user value and plan to block them with meta tags?

Can you explain this a little more please? Do you mean internal or external links? Or do you mean pages?

When it comes down to it, there isn't really a huge difference between smaller and larger sites, but you do have to be mindful of making sure you don't inadvertently block a path or group of pages by noindexing / nofollowing.

You will also find that different SEO's will have different ways they would approach SEO on any site. For example, I like to start any new project with an audit to see what state everything is in.

-Andy