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I wouldn't have thought a re-direct would have been the sole culprit. And don't forget, there are off-page factors as well, so if Google looks at your links, it may be that they need more work.

Dont forget here that there are 200+ primary metrics that Google look at, and each of those metrics has metrics of their own. For example, I did listen to Matt Cutts talking about this some time ago and hinted that some carry as many as 4000 individual rules. Not saying this is still the case as this was a few years ago, but it makes sense with Google working lots into page quality algorithms, that there are going to be multiple signals that will be triggers.

Hard to go into great detail about the SEO on your site without doing a thorough analysis.

Andy

Well, yes and no. If all that has changed is internal linking, then that might not have been enough to tip the scales for Google. There could be other on-page factors holding this back.

Correct - that can only do this piecemeal. Especially so on larger sites where a crawl can take place over a number of days. Even then, not every page is guaranteed to be crawled - certainly not initially.

I know they crawl everything, all I was saying is that they don't do this all in one go.

You have no control over what is in a places review. If you feel it has been done maliciously, then you could contact Google and explain this to them, but for the most part, offer a sparking service is about the only way to ensure perfection.

It might also be worth commenting on a poor review to accept it and give an assurance that this has been amended so as never to happen again. Sometimes this can be as good as a positive review - they look more natural as well.

Andy

This is a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' scanario with no quick and simple answer.

I understand fully where you are coming from and the way Keyword density / stuffing comes from is a total count of all words on that page, and seeing, as a percentage, how many times a particular word or phrase occurs.

I can only suggest that reviews are as close to the end of the page as possible, and place copy around there that explains these are reviews - perhaps append / prepend a name with the word 'review' or 'reviewer' etc. Might help alleviate the situation somewhat.

Andy

When Google crawl a site, they don't necessarily come along and crawl everything in on go and they have never released (to my knowledge) any specific time frames relating to this.

However, what I would suggest is share a few pages on Google+. This seems to send a spider along pretty quickly and could instigate a full crawl over a shorter space of time.

Andy

You can also read what Google suggest on how to tackle this problem here

Basically, you can add a rel=canonical tag to both a PDF and HTML documents to help overcome this issue.

Andy

Google have said that if they will change title tags to something more relevent if yours isn't quite doing it for them. This came as part of an algorithm update back around May 2012 I think it was.

Look at what they changed it to and think about re-writing yours

Andy

Just remove the pages - don't even bother to try and 301 them, but a good 404 page won't hurt. If Google have already penalised you, albeit a heavy-handed method, show them you are serious about fixing it. In the re-inclusion request, explain what you think has happened.

Andy

Have a watch of this video by Matt Cutts, where he explains that the one thing people should NOT focus on is keyword density.

Andy

No problems Christopher - glad I could help

Andy

Rel canonical is never a guaranteed way to redirect traffic. All this is, is just a signal to give Google to suggest that the rel canonical link should be the preferred one. Google can still ignore this if they wish.

For any redirect, you should always use a 301.

Hope this helps,

Andy

Ahh I see - if this is what they were referring to, I did misunderstand

I have never seen an instance where a span tag has had any negative effect on SEO as it is just a standard HTML element.

OK, perhaps some favour a style sheet, but raw code on the page is still more than acceptable.

Andy

If you have a 301 in place, as soon as someone clicks on a link from a social site, it will take them to the new page anyway. After the change has been made, you just start sharing the new pages as you have been doing previously.

Or have I misunderstood the question?

Andy

Hope you get this sorted out guys, but you are probably going to get a faster answer if you create a support request and let someone take a look for you.

Andy

OK good - well aside from just ensuring everything is present on that page, there is little more you can do with it, but don't try too hard because Google used to penalise for that - I would be surprised if they still don't.

Andy

Hi Jared,

Your posts on G+ will have no effect on your places listing - you are an administrator of that page and nothing more.

Do you have control of that page OK?

Andy

Anchor text should always be informative and descriptive no mater where it is and the page it is leading to.

Apart from a cleaner user experience, you will also find this wont feature as a negative with the page quality algorithm. Don't try to be deceptive, but where you can, a link within text is always going to be favourable.

For offsite linking, I can't say I agree that anchor text should be so stagnated that it should say things like "click here". That stinks of something that has been added with no thought to someone seeing it and knowing where they are going if they click on it.

Descriptive in-site and off-site all the way.

Andy

You're welcome David

Hope some of that helped.

Andy

Building a brand for a service isn't as easy as say, for a product and can cost huge sums of money. I have never tried to help anyone build a brand where it hasn't been a hugely expensive exercise.

I don't tend to worry about brand building myself though, just because I get my work through referrals primarily - however, I think I am more well known for my name than I am for my company name.

What would I do in your shoes? Without knowing what you already do, you need to dominate your field through articles, blog posts, social media, guest-blogging, public speaking, etc. - it's a never ending list of ways to try and gain publicity.

Andy

If you pulled that code off your page, you have spelt 'rel' wrong.

But as I already said, rel canonical is not a redirect - a 301 is a redirect. Rel canonical is a suggestion to Google with a preferred page meant for those times when - but if they look at what you are doing, you have very little chance of that working as it stands.

Are you not able to re-write the duplicate content or remove it altogether? Perhaps even think about no-indexing those pages.

Andy

A rel=canonical is only a suggestion to Google for which page is the preferred one to deliver the content, so there is never any guarantee that they will deliver content.

However, what I see are 3 pages of identical content - you shouldn't be too surprised to hear that this is duplication and as such, very unlikely that Google is going to rank those pages at all.

I would consider a change of tact that includes removing the duplicate content.

Andy

So you said...

"As above, you would think a 301 would pass over any build up link equity to help it rank, is this the case?"

I say yes...

"As far as I am aware, a 302 will never pass any link-juice on whereas a 301 will pass around 90%. Still pretty sure those are the case."

You say...

"Again, I know this."

... Maybe I am missing something, but if you know, then why ask?

No, not launched a mobile site myself, but have helped others with the SEO and setup.

Andy

Without mentioning the platforms you work with, you are never going to have brand influence until someone visits your website.

However, brand management is not a 2 minute subject as there are nuances that need to be looked at such as who your audience are, where they find you, opportunities to name-drop, how you advertise, how you are perceived - the list goes on.

So are you looking to piggy-back your service based on the platforms that you work with? or just build a brand of your own?

Andy

I would only use a 302 if it really is only temporary Craig. Stick with 301's as they will do a better job.

As far as I am aware, a 302 will never pass any link-juice on whereas a 301 will pass around 90%. Still pretty sure those are the case.

Andy

No problem

Let me know if you need any further questions answering.

Andy

Just having a quick look what Google say about them:

Here’s a list of steps to correct soft 404s to help both Google and your users:

1. Check whether you have soft 404s listed in Webmaster Tools
2. For the soft 404s, determine whether the URL:
   1. Contains the correct content and properly returns a 200 response (not actually a soft 404)
   2. Should 301 redirect to a more accurate URL
   3. Doesn’t exist and should return a 404 or 410 response
3. Confirm that you’ve configured the proper HTTP Response by using Fetch as Googlebot in Webmaster Tools
4. If you now return 404s, you may want to customize your 404 page to aid your users. Ourcustom 404 widget can help.

Have you followed these steps?

Andy

Sorry I can't help directly Sara - I have never used them myself.

Andy

Google+ can help with identifying who you are as an organisation and owner of content on your site. Might not help with this particular problem, but worth doing all the same.

If you are 100% sure that it is Penguin, then I would start with manually contacting some of the sites where you have questionable links and ask for them to be removed. If this doesn't work, or if links wont be removed, then it might be that you should look at using the Disavow tool and just get rid of anything that might be causing you problems.

After you do that, if can take a number of weeks for Google to get round to spidering all those sites to see you are no longer there.

Another blog post of mine on the Disavow tool with video from Matt Cutts and links to help pages on Google as well.

Andy

Have you tried contacting them to ask the question?

Hey Craig,

OK, so what Google say:

"A very common question we see is: Does it matter if the different types of content are served from the same URL or from different URLs? For example, some websites have www.example.com as the URL desktop browsers are meant to access and have m.example.com or wap.example.com for the different mobile devices. Other websites serve all types of content from just one URL structure like www.example.com.

For Googlebot and Googlebot-Mobile, it does not matter what the URL structure is as long as it returns exactly what a user sees too. For example, if you redirect mobile users from www.example.com to m.example.com, that will be recognized by Googlebot-Mobile and both websites will be crawled and added to the correct index. In this case, use a 301 redirect for both users and Googlebot-Mobile."

This just suggests that a search on a mobile device directs the user to the mobile version of the site, if it exists. I can't see any other reasons in there and don't think there is any hidden meaning of any sort.

Hope that helps a little.

Andy

Hehe thanks Robert... Was up working at daft-o-clock this morning so everything I had to get done today was finished by 10am

Andy

Unless you get a warning from Google in WMT, don't worry about trying to Disavow them - just don't try and create any more

If you are after a little inspiration on what to do, I wrote a bit of a link-building 101 that could give you some ideas?

Do you have Google+ setup and Authorship on your site? have you identified what it is that caused you to get hit? Panda / Penguin / Page Quality, etc.

Andy

This previous question might give you some answers Sara.

Andy

Well, I would try and fix why they are returning 404's as it would be a shame to block all results. Is this something you can do? Or is the a reason why just blocking is preferred?

Articles should reside on your own blog / site or in specialist sites. For example, it's perfectly acceptable to write an article and become a contributing author on SEOmoz, but if you start adding links to your site, expect to get a slap from Mr RandFish

Best way to get your articles out is to share them via Google+, LinkedIn Groups, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Collaborate with others, ask their views and if they would like to contribute to the article.

No quick wins any more I'm afraid.

Andy

Just looking at the names of some of those directories, I can tell you they are worthless - The Great Directory? i Web Directory?

I would be searching for sites that will benefit from what you have to offer and contact them - steer clear of directories of this kind. However, find a directory that is dedicated to your niche, and that is acceptable.

Andy

OK so when you search, you get back dynamic pages that are producing 404's, but you see the pages in the SERPs?

Just want to make sure i have this right

Without clicking on each link, I can't tell you if the directories still exist.

Not all directories are bad - Just the spammy ones that serve no real purpose

If you can find one that fits your niche, it's a good move to include yourself.

Andy

If they are ranking well, what is the reason for wanting to block them?

Andy

You could have a look at the list here:

Andy

That is far too high Jason - with 300 links, I would want to see no more than 15-30 using that anchor text alone. There should be variations such as:

• New mobility scooters
• Used mobility scooters
• Mobility scooter review
• Best mobility scooters
• Mobility scooter parts
• Electric mobility scooters

Then take some of these longer such as:

• Where you can buy mobility scooters
• If you need a mobility scooter

You get the idea

Andy

I would just update the information on the page rather than try and push people around via redirects or links. As long as Google sees fresh and up to date content, you shouldn't need to publish new pages. Much better for visitors to the page as well.

Andy

Just remember that rel canonical is a suggestion to Google rather than an order and can still be overlooked.

Have you thought about a 302 temporary redirect instead? This will guarantee the correct page is viewed.

Andy