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I wonder if this could be the page layout algorithm? You can read more about that here. This effectively goes after sites / pages and "downgrades the ranking of a web page with too many ads at the top or if the ads are deemed too distracting for users."
The problem might now not be to do with links, but could be something else - or a combination. The Wix banner doesn't appears to be no-followed either.
Bluehost at the bottom left (image link) also doesn't appear to be no-followed.
-Andy
Hi,
I certainly wouldn't go with the first SEO's recommendation as this is sacrificing usability and a title that reads well, for one that is only there to try and get as many keywords into it as possible.
There comes a point where you have to do a bit of a trade-off, and in this case, you trade a minor phrase "Buy Cane Beds" for a more highly searched one "Cane Beds For Sale".
This just doesn't read well at all... "Buy Cane Beds For Sale Online". Keyword stuffing at its finest.
Edit- Can I also point out that it doesn't really matter that the word "buy" isn't in there, as Google is pretty smart and knows how to apply the word "buy" to someone who is selling something.
If I do a search for the phrase "Buy cane beds", no-one in the top 10 has the word "buy" in their title.
-Andy
Hey Vince,
I remember reading that when it was posted.
Do you have an example if a page with an outbound link that has been nofollowed? I would like to take a look at this myself. Do you have a rel=nofollow tag on the outbound links at all?
-Andy
Hi Jonathan,
Sorry, I misread that bit.
What does your actual backlink profile look like?
-Andy
Hi Jonathan,
These sorts of problems can be many different things. With what you are saying, I would be leaning towards thinking that you had a penalty from Google - that would be where I would start looking.
You mention a lot more links back to you than your competitors have - perhaps it is Penguin that has performed a manual / algorithmic action on the site? When was the last time you were ranking well, or has this always been the case that the site has never ranked too well? Who built the current links to the site and how long ago was this done?
It could be so many other problems that it could be impossible to go through them all here, but the correlation between Bing and Google is something I have seen many times with penalties. Rank well in Bing, but bad in Google.
Sorry it's a little open ended, but like I said, it could be so many other things.
-Andy
Hi,
In the longterm, moving to a platform like Wordpress will be a much better solution. This powers millions of sites, is hugely customisable and very good for SEO, with a lot of control, thanks to the Yoast plugin - and it's free!
-Andy
Thanks David & Dana,
So far, this appears to be erring towards the simple URL's.
To address your comment about moving Dana, this is only quite a small site, but I can see the benefits of looking at it in this way.
-Andy
Hey all,
I am looking to get the opinions off the community to help settle a discussion / debate.
We are looking at how a site is laid out and which is the preferred method. There are two options:
If you have a moment, I would be interested to know your views on which you would consider to be your preferred method and why.
Thanks,
Andy
Hi Clair,
How is your Google local listing? Has this been confirmed? It is also worth looking for some localised listings and cocitations from sites dedicated to London - Google will still use these sites to confirm your site and contact details.
i would also suggest having a look at http://www.whitespark.ca/ as they are a great way to find local listings. This has helped me many times in the past.
-Andy
As Karl is doing, this is what HREFLANG was made for. Something of a saving grace for many sites with this same problem.
-Andy
Hi James,
Thanks for clearing that up - I don't like to assume and get anything wrong 
For this, you want to use rel="alternative" hreflang"nnnn". This will allow you to serve up duplicate content to different locations. Google goes into this in more detail here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
It has been introduced to help exactly this sort of problem.
I hope it helps.
-Andy
Hi James,
Perhaps I am not reading this correctly, but can you please confirm what you actual problem is and what you are trying to fix? Are you saying that you don't want the .com version to show at all, or just to try and make sure you don't get a penalty?
-Andy
Here is something that might be worth showing them Mark. Matt Cutts was talking about this exact matter last month.
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-seo-desktop-18271.html
There doesn't appear to be a clear cut answer here - if there is one, Google aren't confirming one way or the other, but i would certainly be erring on the side of caution.
-Andy
Hi,
There are likely to be a number of factors that play a part in this, although there is no rules from Google on how to achieve it. If there were, people would be changing them based on what they want, rather than what Google wants. It is also worth remembering that Google only show these for brand searches, so a strong brand is important.
That said, if I were looking at this myself, I would include the following:
There is never any guarantee that you can influence these sitelinks or have Google guarantee a demotion, but follow a bit of best practice, and you might have some success.
-Andy
I would be more concerned about the impact on users. This is like visiting a site and being forwarded to those annoying games. A real pet hate of mine.
I would be tempted to show them this post from Google on sneaky redirects, as it falls into this category: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/webmaster-guidelines-for-sneaky.html
Anything that takes a user from an expected page to an unexpected one, is going to have a number of negative impacts.
The polite thing to do, is provide a "Download this app now" button that is easily seen.
-Andy
Hi Chris,
A short write-up doesn't mean that Google is going to automatically look at this and then slap a penalty on you. I would personally look at how you could enhance these by just covering some best practice basics to help do more with them.
How long has this smaller blog been running for? Have you been penalised so far? I wouldn't necessarily rush to move everything unless there is a need to.
-Andy
If it were a larger jump, I might have been concerned about it, but a few points are nothing really. If you still have concerns though, you can always mail the help desk and ask them for a little extra advice - if it continues to drop though, then this could point towards a problem.
-Andy
A great move Simon - welcome to the madness
One tip I would give, is to make a name for yourself. If you are planning on becoming a consultant, then your name is everything and the strongest marketing tool you will have at your disposal. Yes, stronger even than your MOZ subscription 
Be active everywhere. Go networking, be active on Twitter with other professionals, offer free advice if someone is stuck, connect with other professionals on G+ - and have a great website that will inspire people to take you seriously.
If you do have any particular questions, happy to answer them
-Andy
Hi Sara,
If it is something that only gets a low amount of traffic, then really this is something I would personally be looking to improve rather than to move it - unless there is nothing of any worth in there, then I would be looking to fix this as well.
It does seem an odd decision to make, but don't worry about what Google will think about it - they will find the articles no matter where the links are - but unless there was a very good (possibly commercial) reason, then it isn't a move I would suggest.
-Andy
"a place where we can do some blogging on behalf of our clients sites and also invite other industry experts to contribute in exchange for contributions to their sites and links back in their content from time to time"
This sounds an awful lot like reciprocal linking and something that would not gain favour with Google.
Dangers? Yes, don't do it. You can't really ignore the fact that this is a very unnatural way to build links and there is no ethical way to pull this off.
-Andy
Hi,
If you have a site that had a large volume of pages already, and you were to release 10,000, it might not be as much of an issue, but I would suggest that only having about 1,000, you drop feed these over a period of time. To add them in a rush might cause you issues.
There are never any guarantees that issues might arise if you add them all in one go, but it certainly isn't something I would suggest doing.
-Andy
Hi Ivan,
Authority links are those which will be regarded more highly in the eyes of Google, have been gained through ethical means and serve to benefit you. What an authority link looks like is going to change from site to site though. It is just a link from one site to another - it just happens to be from a site that is seen as an authority in their particular field.
-Andy
Hi,
Just as a side note, a particular pet hate of mine (and many others) is video playing with audio immediately when you visit a page. If I were in an office and this started, I would be panicking to find it and probably never return.
I can only offer the same suggestions that I do for others in the same boat as yourself here. Without working on a site and spending hours analysing it, it could be any number of factors.
With the phrases you give above as examples, are you trying to get the homepage to rank for them? Have you followed best practices throughout the site? Have you ever ranked highly for the site, or has it always been at this level?
-Andy
Hi,
There are so many factors that could be causing this, that it will be impossible to speculate - without actually working on the site at least.
You say that you have cleaned up the link profile - does this mean it was poor / damaging before? When and how was this completed? How many links were 'cleaned'?
How many new links were built to the site and how were these acquired? What sort of sites did you get links from?
-Andy
No problem Simon - hope it all gets sorted
-Andy
Unrelated to rankings, I would not be wanting the login URL to the site so easily accessible Simon. I would look to change this - it will be much better hidden from view.
As for what has happened, I would be very surprised if this was anything to do with page layout, but looking away from analytics, how are your positions in the SERPs? Are you seeing a drop of just a few places, or a number of pages?
-Andy
I agree with Travis & Moosa. You shouldn't try to target a page to more than one phrase. You will quickly run into keyword dilution (cannibalisation) where Google won't really know which page to rank for a particular phrase. The net result here is that generally, none of the pages will rank well, or perhaps only one of them.
Keep each page highly targeted, make good use of prominent internal links and ensure that the content on each page is well written to explain exactly what is on there.
Remember, there are billions of pages out there, millions of them all trying to compete for the same phrases - do everything you can to make yours the best it can possibly be, but try not to do everything (or anything) just for the search engines. Write and design your pages for maximum user experience.
-Andy
Rich snippets are what come from HTML markup from the likes of Schema. And yes, there are a number of Wordpress plugins that will allow you to create markup very easily. This will then (hopefully) be used by Google to create rich snippets.
It is confusing at first
-Andy
Just to clarify, if you remove a link manually, the link will be removed from the likes of GWT and other back-link sources eventually. If you were to disavow a link through GWT, this will still show up (as the link is never actually removed), but there is a kind of invisible no-follow added to it which will completely remove your association with the site.
As David said, if the link has been removed manually, then you don't need to worry about doing anything else or notifying any services.
-Andy
Rich Snippets Rich snippets—detailed information intended to help users with specific queries. For example, the snippet for a restaurant might show the average review and price range; the snippet for a recipe page might show the total preparation time, a photo, and the recipe’s review rating; and the snippet for a music album could list songs along with a link to play each song.
From this page: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/99170?hl=en
Schema HTML tags, that webmasters can use to markup their pages in ways recognized by major search providers.
From this page: http://schema.org/
Rich Snippets are Google's own wording for the snippet of information that can be given to them when using a markup from the likes of Schema.org (Microdata).
I hope that explains this a little?
-Andy
I would check the settings of the site. In Settings > General, make sure there is no site title or tagline set. These can sometimes mess with other titles.
-Andy
Hi Tom,
The links you refer to are in the Blogroll of the site - something common with Wordpress based sites and generally serve no good purpose.
If they are all like this, you have no idea how they came to be there, and serve no purpose, then the best thing to do (in the event of lack of action when contacting them) is to disavow the sites through Google Webmaster Tools. This will ensure you have nothing more to do with the sites in question and Google will know you want nothing to do with them either.
How they came to be there is anyone's guess, but sounds like they need to be removed.
Are you familiar with disavowing and how it works?
-Andy
--Edit. Updated for typos
I don't know about a 100-fold increase, but as Martijn said, an image sitemap will certainly help. You can often build images into the standard sitemap, but with so many images, you are best keeping these separate.
Something else I would look to do, is change the page Title structure. Currently, this says:
"The sky begins to lighten during morning twilight behind a suspension tower of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge. - DYFXET | Alamy"
There is no mention here of photography, royalty free, stock images, etc.
I would be cutting the description of the image down so it looked something like this:
"The sky begins to lighten during morning twilight behind a suspension tower... Royalty free stock photography | Alamy"
Look at others who do well in stock image searches (Shutterstock, 123rf, etc.) and match some of what they do.
-Andy
Hey Doug,
Never seen that myself before and can only imagine it is either a mistake, or someone has been misinformed that there is some benefit to this.
Like you said, these aren't links that would appear naturally, so something odd has certainly happened.
-Andy
Personally, I would go with something more like www.lasvegaswrappers.com (which is available).
Or www.wrapvegas.com... Something that is less of a mouthful and will probably be easier for people to remember.
-Andy
"I mentioned at the end that being a content site and if that generates revenue that they should consider investing some money in that direction"
Absolutely.
You're welcome Reed.
I am into my 14th year now, although got my first taste of UX & Design back in 1997.
So much has changed!
-Andy
If you read the original post again, Sara says "we don't have R&D capacity".
They wouldn't be able to do all this.
-Andy
Hi Reed,
I would do this more from a usability point of view than for ranking increase. If you were to get any increase, it would be minimal. If the URL's were long (4, 5, 6+ words), then yes, it would make more sense, but something short like this will be fine either way.
-Andy
Hi,
While it is a possibility, it isn't that likely to be a word in a URL that would trigger a penalty. In what you show above, they don't seem like particularly spammy URL's as they describe what the page is about.
Keyword cannibalisation is more about when you have many site pages that result in more than one trying to rank for the same phrases.
There is a really good post from Rand on this subject here. Well worth a read
-Andy
Hi Chris,
There are so many possibilities to what is causing this that is could be impossible to cover all points here.
For example, how old is your site - how old are your competitors sites? Which site carries the most trust in the eyes of Google? Who has the most unique and useful content? Have you ever ranked well but now might have a penalty?
-Andy
Definitely something to test. I'm not sure of the rules that Google will apply with this and which way round works.
-Andy
Google said some time ago that sites with hyphens in are more of a spam signal to them - more so with .com's
That said, your URL will have no impact on SEO at all. If you were a brand, then there are benefits to doing this then. I would also drop the -nv at the end (unless that isn't available).
-Andy
Did you notify Google of the site move in webmaster tools?
You also need to remember that when you do a 301, you always lose some pagerank - it is impossible to create a new site from fresh and have it immediately start to rank the same as the previous.
Also check that Google has the sitemap from the new site added in webmaster tools. If the old one still exists, just delete it.
-Andy
I haven't actually done this myself, but I suspect that pattern matching is your solution here.
However, what you want to be able to do is disallow the whole pattern and then allow just the first page:
Allow: /?p=1
Disallow: /?p=*
The thing I don't have the answer to, is if this will work by first allowing the page 1, and then blocking all others. I don't have a method for this in blocking via robots as this is normally handed with other solutions you mention.
You can try it though through Webmaster tools:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156449?hl=en
-Andy
I'm pretty sure it was February, when Yandex announced that they will no longer be using links as an SEO ranking factor. This was expected to hit March this year sometime - I am guessing this will be what has happened.
-Andy
After doing a "site:", I am seeing almost 1,000 pages indexed by Google. Does this sound about right?
It is possible parameters have changed, but I don't feel this is the issue.
What are you seeing when you look at your search phrases in the SERPs? Have key phrases dropped a bit, a lot or not at all?
-Andy