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Nor was I.

If you have FTP access, you might then have to work in the .htaccess file and build the redirects in there.

-Andy

Hi Rasmus,

DO check your blog / articles over as I see they all have the site name at the end of them. This is either being pre-filled or you have put this in yourself; I can't tell which.

If you haven't added this, then you need to see where it is being picked up from.

-Andy

How long has the current site been live Varun? If it is just a few weeks / months, then you could just build a new site from scratch on Wordpress, but I would advise taking the old site down as soon as you have the new site live. Don't have two versions of the same thing in Google.

That said, if the current site has links pointing to it or is already ranking well, I would wait out the 2 months as you should take all of that over with you.

-Andy

No problem at all. Good luck with the move

-Andy

You're welcome. Good luck and you know where to find me if you have any additional questions

-Andy

Hi Amelia,

Which version of the site is it that has been verified in Webmaster tools? Google will see each as a separate site, so my guess will be that you need to choose the https.

-Andy

Hi Denise,

Without looking at your site, I just wonder if a simpler solution would be to have someone fiddle with the CSS on your site and make it Responsive, rather than having a second site to contend with? You will retain your normal site rankings then and just have the site render differently depending upon the type of device.

This is the route I take with all of my clients, so if this isn't an option, then I am sorry but someone else will have to chip in.

-Andy

Having worked on a very similar project (18,000+ pages,) I know exactly what you are saying, but no, Google won't penalise for this.

What I ended up doing is coming up with about 20 templates that I could use and spread around the pages that faced this issue. That way we were able to at least have some variation.

Perhaps you might not get the same benefit as if each had been hand written for maximum exposure, but that is all you will need to worry about.

-Andy

Hi Rasmus,

From what I can see, this only appears to affect your blog section and blog posts? Perhaps articles too?

I'm not sure what is powering your blog, but if it is Wordpress, or similar, then there is a setting where you can title your blog - this is normally your blog name and tends to get filled in when setting up and then forgotten. This problem then arises when you title a page and even though you haven't added the blog name in, it will be added automatically.

Does that make sense?

-Andy

Absolutely - Install this plugin: http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-301-redirects/

I use this on a couple of my own sites and it works a treat.

-Andy

This is correct. There is more and more use of subdomains and I make great use of these myself. I use just a single page design for my site, so have 8 other subdomains, each with a unique site and content on them. I find that I am able to get the sites ranked well within about a week to 10 days.

Look at www.inetseo.co.uk and then at linkbuilding.inetseo.co.uk.

Google certainly don't treat a subdomain like a new site any more.

-Andy

Absolutely Jeffrey. It is just an identifier so should be no issues with this at all. I have a large client who have done a very similar thing and 18 months on, SERP positions are still in the top 2

-Andy

Hi Ruben,

I only looked over a half dozen pages quickly and couldn't see anything that stuck out, such as empty pages, thin content, spammy use of keywords, etc.

The pages appeared to be a decent length and didn't seem to be trying too hard.

That said, I would need to do a complete scan of the site to check for other issues that you can't just see with the eye, such as duplication and canonicalization, spelling, plagiarism (I'm sure there is none).

-Andy

I wouldn't never suggest you put content into anything that is hidden (until revealed with a click) and hope to get any SEO benefit from it. But move away from any SEO questions for a moment and remember that there are occasions where this does work well, as you mentioned, for the user experience, and this is why it should be done - nothing more.

Sometimes they will work better than others. It all depends upon the application in question.

-Andy

Have you tried Yoast support Edward? https://yoast.com/support/

You are likely to have that kind of specific question answered there.

-Andy

You are fortunate to be in one of the few market areas where you can actually do this with with a good degree of success and not have to handle it all manually Jeffrey!

So that aside, I can't see issues with what you are planning, but as above, do remember that some link juice loss will happen with any 301.

-Andy

Of course Brant  - And the link profile is in a bit of a poor state I'm afraid. Lots of random directories and non-related site links.

Before I would even suggest looking at other possible on-page issues, I would get this link profile cleaned up. There is no doubt that some of these links will be hampering efforts.

-Andy

Hi Brant,

I see a lot of this and I am going to guess Penguin (bad link profile) over Panda. Just a cursory glance at your site would suggest this, although I reserve the right to change my mind if I was to spend any time looking at this

Happy to run a quick scan and give you a better idea if you wish?

-Andy

Hehe no problem at all Dana. Glad to have helped stand in for your coffee

-Andy

Hi Chris,

There is a lot to consider in the purchase of a domain, but you will not get any SEO benefit from having an EMD to a brand. Your positions are all to do with how good your site, content and link profile are.

The trouble with your example of an EMD, is that this then means you are completely tied to that as you move forward. Google have also started to give preference to Brand vs EMD, so I would say you should purchase the brand domain and then work on getting that brand known.

I hope this helps a little.

-Andy

I can't help but feel unsure about redirecting so many pages Jeffrey, utm_source or not. With so many URL's, has the mapping process been handled manually, or at least have an intelligent algorithm to handle this?

Google are very clear on their thoughts of 301's, as I am sure you are aware, so get this wrong too many times and you will see a drop in the SERPs. Also, it is worth remembering that you lose some link power with a 301 anyway.

But to answer your question, I have never come across any time where tracking code has caused SEO issues.

-Andy

Google appears to have the page cached, so I would say there are no real issues.

Just do a cache:http://www.vwarcher.com/CustomerReviews and you can see what Google currently has.

-Andy

Just to expand on what Vadim has said, this is (mostly) people trying to be a little sneaky when it comes to being listed in directories that favour alphabetical listings. You might find the odd one that is genuine and does have an "A1" in the business name, but you will find that there are those that don't as well.

-Andy

Hi Eva,

Like Google, it can take time for your site to be accepted into the index for the first time. There are also a lot of other reasons why this could be happening, but rather than try to go through them all here, have a read of this exact question over at Bing http://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/why-is-my-site-not-in-the-index-2141dfab

Hopefully that will be of use.

-Andy

Hi Rickus,

As long as you remember the https --> http redirects and changing any canonicals, you really shouldn't see any issues. There is no advantage or disadvantage to one over the other either way. Check out this MOZ post on best practice redirection for hints.

That said, do remember that Google will treat this like a completely new site and with it, you might see some bouncing around of positions in the SERPs while everything is settling down again. That might be completely unavoidable.

-Andy

Hi William,

During the transition period, he could always look at Adwords in order to keep enquiries coming in and until the organic side of things kicks in?

-Andy

Best practice is the only way with Wikipedia Julian, as each update is manually checked by an admin.

Just make sure that when you add a link, it is very much on topic. They aren't daft over there (sadly!).

For a page of your own, they will want to see you in the press, magazines, news - anything that is considered reputable. But this can also include off-line sources such as newspapers or books.

-Andy

If you want to setup a company page in Wikipedia, make sure you have lots of reliable sources that you can cite before you start. Lack of these will prevent the page from being accepted.

The links do add value though. I have been adding links into Wikipedia for some time now and have seen noticeable jumps in the SERPs for my clients. Wikipedia, and other similar sources, are where I always start a link building campaign.

Just be careful how you do it because someone will come and check the link to make sure it isn't an obvious attempt at just gaining a link for SEO purposes.

-Andy

You might find this from Matt Cutts of interest.

-Andy

noindex,follow is common for these pages. You want Google to be able to navigate their way around the links and pages, but letting tag pages in create lots of additional and unnecessary pages into the index. You never find these pages ranking in Google even when they are open.

Choose a good, logical category structure, promote your blog posts and the pages will all be found.

-Andy

Glad to hear it and do post again with any additional questions

-Andy

Always noindex these where you can Martin as it avoids lots of duplicate pages being created. Yoast makes this nice and easy

-Andy

If they don't have a Webmasters account, you don't need Analytics to set it up. Just just need your own Webmasters account and add it that way.

The second scenario is exactly that. Remove the code from the website and re-verify again.

-Andy

Have you tried the Bing SEO Analyzer yet?

Here are more tips for you as well

-Andy

Hi Lisa,

If you want to verify a website, then you need access to their Webmaster account. They will need to set you up as an admin, or you will need to add them to your own profile.

As an admin, you can do most things, but you will never be able to do things like send a disavow file - this needs the owner to do it.

-Andy

Hi Blenny,

What you have to think abut is that Google say never lead someone to a page, only for them to be redirected to somewhere they don't expect. Never try to bypass that.

However, there is no reason not to add some annotation to the post and link this to your current site, or even to a better blog post. Perhaps move away from links and just use co-citations and mentions.

-Andy

if you drop me a quick mail over David (address above) I can give you a little more detail. Wouldn't be something I could do here.

-Andy

Hi David,

I can run a quick scan for you and tell you what sort of shape your link profile is in, but what 'could' have happened is that since the penalty, another algorithm has come along and hit you for something else. A little awkward to guess exactly though, but have seen this happen on a number of occasions.

Edit-- OK, your link profile isn't too healthy I'm afraid David. One even listed as Malicious... If you want to drop me a mail over, I will give you a little more info info@inetseo.co.uk

-Andy

I wouldn't worry too much just yet. There is often a period of adjustment when lots of changes have been made and there is nothing there that would give me cause for concern.

My only suggestion would have been to try a smaller number of pages first of all before committing to all / lots of pages, but hindsight is a wonderful thing

I would wait it out for a little bit and just monitor keyword positions in the SERPs for now.

-Andy

Videos are really no different to other websites in terms of search and there are a lot of possibilities why this isn't ranking.

It could be to do with how many others are trying to rank for the phrase in Google, and how applicable Google feels your video is in relation to this search term. You also said it was quality back-linked, but has too much been done and it now looks unethical to Google? Did you build the links yourself, or have links happened from a more viral push? Have you used Social Media to seed the video and webmasters have decided to link to it off their own backs?

It's a little awkward to answer exactly without doing more research into it.

-Andy

Hi Eduardo,

I have just answered another question very similar to this one and poor links are very problematic. I deal with a lot of companies who have this exact same problem, so go through the process of cleaning the backlink profile up for them.

Google Panda has a habit of penalising for these backlinks and it certainly would be a starting point by the sounds of things.

You have to be a little careful when disavowing though as you don't want to remove good links, just those that will be contributing to this problem. There many be other reasons for it, but if you have a poor link profile, it is a little bit of a waste trying other SEO techniques that could do absolutely nothing for you.

-Andy

I can't see how linking to a specific anchor on a page is going to lessen any link juice than linking just to the page itself, and even if it did, the user experience is always going to be important.

Perhaps someone has some actual testing or confirmation of this, but I can't say I have come across any issues.

-Andy

So is there no https version of the site live at all now? You could use rel=canonical to advise Google not to index the https version.

Presumably the sitemap has been corrected and has all non-https URLs in there now?

-Andy

You're very welcome.

-Andy

But your keyword variations are for personal gain and to try and get as many people to your site as possible. Wiki's is just to correct what people search for. Trust me, Google will view this practice the same way.

I would never suggest using a redirect for trying to enhance a site in this manner. Use a 301 only to push someone from a page that no longer exists, or that has a genuine reason to be there.

Refer to Googles reasoning on redirects rather than Wikipedia's in this situation.

-Andy

Be very careful about trying to get any sneaky redirects in to a page. If this is found out, Google will come down on you. It is only similar to what Wiki do in the sense that Bourne Supremacy is also known as Bourne 2. What you are trying to do is trick Google into ranking you for more keywords.

The best way to do this is make a site / page about these restaurants, and make it as good as you possibly can. Make it a real user experience so that people want to come come back. Add those extra keywords in there, but do it sparingly, so it doesn't look like it has been written for the search engines.

-Andy