Thanks so much guys.

Please keep more responses coming

Cheers,

-Andy

Morning all!

I am doing some research at the moment and am trying to find out, just roughly, how long you have ever had to wait to have a page re-indexed by Google.

For this purpose, say you had blocked a page via meta noindex or disallowed access by robots.txt, and then opened it back up.

No right or wrong answers, just after a few numbers

Cheers,

-Andy

Hi Brian,

I have a client working on correcting this issue with his site at the moment. They run a big media site that allows access once paid, but so may of these sites suffer with the same issue and because they allow Google to index the whole text, but only show a portion of it, this means that if you just look at the cached version, you can read it without paying.

In terms of correcting it, I would first have a read on how Google handles subscription sites. You can find that info here. Google prefers the "First click free" model.

There is additional reading on this subject over at Search Engine Land. First Click Free (FCF) is what you want to be looking into in more detail.

I hope this helps a little.

-Andy

Hi,

While backlinks are a big factor, they are far from the only factor. It is as much about your content and usability as it is about links.

With the links, you could get just 1 really strong link that is much better than everything they have, and that might be enough - but I doubt it. It's just not that straight forward.

Best bet is to have a read though this MOZ guide on link building to get a bit of an intro into best practices and a more in-depth explanation.

-Andy

Hi,

I suspect this is a MOZ thing. Don't worry about the fact it is appearing in an H1, that is just coincidental. There is no SEO rule based around this at all.

-Andy

That's the wrong way to try and gain backlinks Geoff. You want to build links to your main site, but you want to be creating something in one place that is going to benefit you. An external site that then links back to you from duplicated content wont do it for you.

Good linkbuilding takes time, and it starts with your content - write something that is better than others have and take to social media to promote it.

I could honestly write a book about link building - it is that involved, but start by perfecting content that others will want to share and link to.

-Andy

Hi Geoff,

This isn't best practice at all. You don't want to have two or more copies of anything anywhere.

I don't even think that re-purposing any of the articles would be a good move.

Imagine that you are Google - if you see the same article in more than 2 places, what do you do? Penalise one site? Realise that both sites are owned by you and punish both sites? Don't show either article in a good position?

The only safe move here is to create amazing content for both blogs - but why have 2 blogs? Why double your effort when you could be using all the content to prop up the main site?

-Andy

Hi,

I heard RSS Feed helps in ranking.

No, this is not a ranking factor. I have never heard of or seen any research about this either. Think about all the sites that rank exceptional wall without one.

Use it if you seed your content around, but don't think it will do anything for your SEO.

-Andy

Ria gave a great URL to read there, but unless I missed them, it's missing a few points, like:

• Do you feel you have been hit by any penalties? Show stats and dates of concern.
• Do you have a monthly budget you are trying to work to?

There are a lot more that I would ask, but these are ones I couldn't miss.

-Andy

You can't use how a site looks or feels to you to get an indication of if it is safe or not...

You need to be checking, aside from the MOZ spam score, through something like SEMrush, what their traffic is like. Have they had any penalties that might be affecting them?

Use The Wayback Machine as well to check the history of the site. This can tell you if it was ever a site you would rather not be associated with or if it has been recently purchased because it has good history and links. Expired domains can surface very frequently and people will charge for gues blogging and lins etc.

You should also check who else links to the site. Are there reputable sites that link to it for a good reason?

Just a few more tips to keep an eye on.

-Andy