Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I've never heard of this before and I have created quite a few FB pages.

I would of suggested the same thing as Monica, maybe you clicked something you wasn't meant to but as you are saying you didn't I would try contacting FB - but in my experience it takes a while for them to get back to you.

Look on there developers forum and ask the same question - you might find others who have had the similar experience and got a solution.

Wow - that is a lot of questions within a question.

Trying to rank for highly competitive keywords is as the name suggests hard, I would either go for the long tail keywords or finding little niches within the industry and rank for these. While you are doing this you are building your DA, et al and therefore should start ranking for the more competitive keywords.

It doesn't in theory matter how many keywords you are ranking for, but remember the more you do, the less you can concentrate on them and you will spread yourself to thin and not actually improve any. Especially if its just you I would concentrate on a few keywords which will drive you high converting traffic.

I would track keywords in two sections (brand vs non brand), as branded keywords I would hope you are always in the top positions.

Ranking the pages, yes look at "Title, H1 Tag, Description, Meta Data, Fresh Content and using the keywords on the page" but also look to build decent, relevant links into the page.

Use the Page grader to find some quick wins to help boost these pages. They usually tell me some of the basic things I have missed.

Best practices for link building - http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links I would read this article, I could try and explain here but I would just be repeating the experts. I would recommend reading http://moz.com/learn/seo to further your reading.

Hope this is useful for you.

Thanks

Andy

quick way would be to type the url into the Google and see if it appears in SEPs or if you don't want to type in the url the article name and site:example.com

If the page has been around a while you can check to see its PA in Moz - but as the last Moz update was a while ago it won't have updated any new pages (not a great solution, but its a quick and easy - not always correct).

Alternatively send me a private message / post the url on here and I will have a look for you.

Hi

Mozbar as mentioned above is the best tool. Its simple and easy to use.

But the source code is always the best.

Thanks

Andy

First thing: Your sites authority will not decrease because you add an external link (otherwise no one would ever link)

Second thing: Exactly how much is passed is a little hard to determine and is not revealed by Moz, someone asked a similar question earlier this month and this has got some great responses and I don't want to duplicate their work

http://moz.com/community/q/how-much-domain-authority-is-passed-on-through-a-link-from-a-page-with-low-authority

Thanks

Andy

I am assuming you are not changing the domain name so you don't need to worry about any links pointing to the home page as this page will be live.

And for any pages you don't want but have links pointing to them, then yes 301, nope you don't need to recreate the urls, just add the 301 to servers.

Unfortunately if you are changing some of the site urls, you are going to lose some rankings in the short term but I am sure the new site is much better written for the search engines that you improve - but you will lose some short term rankings

In understand about dev time and trying to get things put into the priority list - its a real challenge in todays business especially for those in SEO as these days onsite factors help in ranking, its no longer all about links

But I agree about images that would be good, if and when you ever do move to a new platform and want some people to test the it, let me know I am always willing to help out where possible.

Hi Ryan is correct, it can be done by looking at the server logs, it's a bit tricky to set up so just checked your devs have done this before.

also and this is important do you want to show different data to organic visitors from Google or all Organic visitors from all search engines.

Hi Moz

Can we please have a new feature to moz when answering questions please, the ability to save as a draft. I am currently on the train from London back home and I was trying to answer a few questions and give my opinion and after writing a really long and detailed response to an area I actually have quite a lot to say on, my internet froze and the page refreshed losing all the content. It doesn’t help that my Mac I am working on isn’t the fastest, but my new one isn’t quite ready yet.

But if there was a simple save draft feature, it would be really great as I wasn’t ready to post my answer as it wasn’t finished and without checking wouldn’t have made sense. Yes I know I could of done it in word and pasted it across, but usually when I am travelling and answering questions I do it on my Ipad which isn’t great for multitasking.

While I understand you don’t want lots of ‘draft answers’ all over the place as this would take storage space up on your servers and doesn’t actually help the person answering the question, your system could purge all draft answers which have not been edited in the last 24 hours.

Just a little suggestion to help make this great forum even better.

Thanks

Andy

DA is based purely on links pointing to a site and not whether or not that site has a penalty. If moz knew exactly what would trigger a Google penalty (which bad links cause it), they would be a very rich company

Hi

Free samples are a bit of a grey area, and in my opinion it depends on who is sending out the product and what they really want from it.

We send out quite a few products to be reviewed and we actually want them reviewing to find out what people think of them and to drive sales (if it gets a positive review). I like a link and only for the reason its easier for the customer to purchase the item, but whether that link is follow / no follow / affiliate - i don't really care. Its all about the review to build awareness of the fact we sell the products and sometimes to show the diversity of the products we sell, especially new categories.

Where it becomes and issue is when the person sending out the reviews start demanding followed links to certain parts of the sites, thee don't look natural and the only reason they are sending out the products are for SEO benefit.

Regarding your disclaimer, as someone who has sent out products I wouldn't have a problem with you putting that on there, and there was something earlier this month about vlogging now having to make it clear when they have been given free products to review.

I guess SEO isn't as White Hat and Black Hat as some claim, as this to me would be 'Grey Hat'. Plus review sites need to get there products from somewhere to review and these sites do add a lot of value to customers in the decision process of buying so I couldn't ever see Google penalising sites for either accepting review samples or sending them out - whether or not in the future the might a  'review follow' as well as 'follow and no follow' I don't know. This could be one way for the search engines to see that while the links haven't technically been paid for but are not 100% natural.

Great article here for aditonal reading on this: moz.com/community/q/soliciting-product-reviews-with-free-samples 

Thanks

Andy

I would disagree, I would prefer to be taken to the sub category page to show me similar products with a message saying the product you was looking for is no longer available, please check out these very similar products - but I guess we all have different tastes and thats why as webmasters we can never please everybody

Hi

Firstly Affilaite links usually don't help towards SEO as they go through the affiliate company i.e. Awin, so the link juice actually is passed to awin, not yourself.

Once a product has sold out on our site, we 301 to the category page as this is the best user experience, while they can't get the exact product they are after at least they are still landing on a relevant section of the site - I've seen some examples where companies 301 to the homepage, but this isn't a good user experience.

Time periods for the 301s is a bit hard to say, I would track and see if they haven't had anybody click on the old link for 6 months to remove the 301 - but thats my opinion. Some would argue longer and I have spoken to others who say three months. What ever time period you do chose, keep an eye on 404 errors and if a decent number of these keep popping up, keep extending your 301 window.

Thanks

Andy

Hi

From a previous company I can recommend https://www.facebook.com/SueCoVPA very good work and very well priced.

I haven't used in a while as I know have a full team of copywriters so no need to out source, however if I ever did need to, she would be the first place I went.

Thanks

Andy

Hi

This is a great article on Social Media: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media - hope this is what your after.

Hi

Sorry there is no 'x' date that I can give you. It all depends on Google and whether you have done all the 301s etc correctly.

When you say you are doing 'link building' strategies what do you mean, maybe this is the problem if your have got a bad link somewhere?

I wouldn't recommend going back - you wouldn't get the traffic back to what you had and as the 'experts' said it would cause you more problems.

I would check all the 301s are correctly, did you actually change anything on the site at the same time or was it just the url that you changed?

Thanks

Andy

no its not being unreasonable - what happens if the SEO guy changed something and broke the website - would would the client ring up and moan at the SEO guy or the web design agency.

If the guy was willing to take responsibility for his changes, then they would be unreasonable, but why would they allow someone to edit their work and potentially break the site - only for them to get moaned at.

SEO is 'secret' anymore - so I don't get what they guy has from not willing to work with the agency. To me it sounds like he will be doing stuff he isn't willing to share so either black hat techniques or doesn't actually knows what he is talking about so was going to bluff it until the client clicked on that the guy was b*ll shitting.

I agree, I wouldn't have given them access without trusting them, all it takes is for them to alter one line of code and the site could crash.

Sometimes SEO's ( and I used to be like this but have changed) look at SEO in silo and don't think about how the changes impact other parts of the business / website - so a change that is good for SEO isn't always good for the website or the business.

So nope, I wouldn't give him access - our developers don't allow me access, I have to put a business case forward each time to get changes done, which has to be present and approved by senior management. Without this I could ask for a change which could cause a lot of issues.

thanks all for the suggestions, i will put a plan together for the Saturday and Sunday of things to do.

Thomas - I am arriving a few days early hence why I wanted to know things to do, I assumed during the actual conference there would be loads going on

How about coming to the UK, make it an easier discussion with the MD about the costs

Hi Ryan

The 'duck' ride sounds fun, I will do some research on that later.

Thats what I was hoping for either seasonal Mozcon attendances or mozzers advice.

I just don't like turning up to places and not really exploring the good parts.

Hi

I know this isn't technically an SEO question, but wanted people's advice.

As I am flying half way round the world I am actually arriving on the Friday and have Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday to go and explore Seattle.

I plan on going to watch a baseball game and visit the home of Starbucks (and I hate coffee, but thought might as well visit), but what else would people recommend doing / seeing in Seattle.

Thanks in Advance

Andy

I would agree, the site has very few links pointing to it, but it does have a low DA so with a bit of work, ranking above it should be easily achievable.

When I did an incognito search and this may be skewed as I am in the UK, but the competitor is 7th. Not sure what your clients url is, but I would worry about the other sites above them.

The site seems to do a lot of keyword stuffing at the bottom, with every location in the area listed.  Like I said I would worry more about the other sites, than this particular site.

The link you refer to above, has a low DA and by the looks of it, is there web design agency.

Hope this is useful.

Nope, they don't.

Good article here explaining it in more detail: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2325343/matt-cutts-facebook-twitter-social-signals-not-part-of-google-search-ranking-algorithms but basically any link from Facebook or twitter does not help your rankings.

Would be way to easy to manipulate to get rankings.

If your new to link building, then this is a great beginners guide to it: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

Thanks

Andy

Hi

I have to agree with both, having links to external websites isn't a bad thing, IMO it adds value to your website.

A simple way of looking at Google is that it was create by some university graduates who we're taught, like everyone at uni is to reference where you get your information from. So when they started 'Google' (I know it wasn't called Google initially), they used the fact if you linked of to somewhere it was like saying this website is a good source of information and the more links pointing at a page the more authoritative it must be, then came along SEO's who realised this and abused it and now you have a situation whereby too many spammy links will actually hurt your rankings.

But the core part of the algorithm which still helps rankings is outbound links, so if ever webmaster remove outbound links, google would suddenly struggle to rank websites.

Just image you are writing a university essay, does the link (source) add value to your article.

In terms of links in your footers, this is a bit different, this was an old black hat SEO tactic to stuff keyword anchor text links into your footer to boost other websites you owned, so links in the footer, think of more a user experience point of view rather than SEO, but a great question was asked on here (http://moz.com/community/q/sitewide-footer-links-bad-or-not).

Hope this was useful.

Thanks

Andy

I would agree with Pixel by Pixel, DA is all about links, but its not the quantity you need to worry about, its the relevancy of the links.

Also you don't want to get links, you need to earn links - then you don't need to worry about penalties from Google and other search engines.

To earn links there is plenty of great articles on Moz about improving your DA but I would start from this one http://moz.com/learn/seo/page-authority

Thanks

Andy

Hi

I would install it on part of your site so example.com/blog if possible, if you have to put it on a sub domain that is not as good, but still better than trying to embed (i.e. blog.example.com).

We use wordpress and is very easy to use, never used blogger so don't know what can and cant be done, but we was about to install wordpress on our server.

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks

Andy

Hi

That link is pointless from an 'link building' point of view, however I still go after links from places like the Sun even though I know they are behind a paywall because they drive a lot of traffic.

So if your looking at it from an old school SEO point of view - they are a waste of time, but if you are interested in traffic and sales then these links are still very important.

Thanks

Andy

While I do use GA, I am a skeptic and believe that the software does favour Organic and Paid traffic, to make you think you are more reliant on Google than you probably are.

But on the other hand, Groupon did a test and found 60% of its direct traffic was actually organic (http://searchengineland.com/60-direct-traffic-actually-seo-195415), but the problem is its all upto the browser passing the information back to which ever solution you are using to track traffic.

If you want to share your web url (either on here or in a private message) I will take a look for you and make sure when you switched you didn't make a minor error which is causing traffic to drop.

Which day did you see the movement, as earlier this week there was a lot of movement in the SERPs, Google hasn't confirmed an update, but its believed there was on (so it could just be related to this, rather than your implementation of UA).

Hi

Hitwise is a great tool for this, but its pricey.

The data I can get from this is amazing.

SEMRush is good for telling you Organic and Paid traffic to the sites, there is a free version and its not to expensive, if you want the full package.

But Hitwise is the best tool for this, but it depends on the country you operate in, they are not fully Global.

Thanks

Andy

Hi

I was going to write a in-depth answer, but this previous blog article is my bible for link auditing. I would only be duplicating everything that is mentioned and as we know duplicate content isn't good for SEO.

http://moz.com/blog/link-audit-guide-for-effective-link-removals-risk-mitigation

Thanks

Andy

Its not to do with losing links, its a score out of 100, so a drop isn't always a bad signal. Because the score is out of 100, you can't keep on increasing indefinitely.

Its probably Moz has crawled further and deeper and has a a refresh of data as it now knows more.

You have to compare your score with your competitors and hope your drops aren't as big your competitors and your increases are larger than your competitors, thats the only way you can really judge DA.

Hi

How about Facebook Ads, I have used this in the past and a good way to reach your target audience. It can be reality cheap as well to advertise.

Can you use the company's social media to post the articles.

Alternatively look at the key influencers in the industry (if you are in the UK, then Lad bible) and try get them to repost your content, they will be a relative audience that drives a lot of traffic.

Thanks

Andy

nope - you would be fine.

As these sites have very different audiences, why not spend the time writing individual articles to meet there readership (thus more likely to be used), for techcrunch, focus on the tech element, for CNN, the news part of it.

whats more likely is that most of the sites won't cover it especially BBC unless it is really news worthy.

Would be worth reading http://moz.com/blog/tips-from-a-recovering-journalist-how-to-write-effective-press-releases-that-help-seo

thanks, I thought this was the case - but wanted to double check as I have quite a few to add.

Thanks

Andy

Hi

I have just set up Bing Webmaster tools, and wanted to submit my disavow file.

However I can only work out how to add one link at a time, does anyone know how to add a csv file.

Thanks in advance.

Andy

yes I wouldn't wait for them to appear in WMT - just disavow them straight away.

thanks for this, I will book the hotel in the coming days and wait to book the flights, thanks for the link.

its more the principle I don't like - getting paid traffic to the site, they aren't causing any site issues and I will disavow the next time I upload a file.

None of the traffic can convert, as we only ship in the UK and not abroad and the traffic is usually from the far east in the early hours.

yeah, but as I am travelling from the UK, I could do with booking things early.

Thanks

Andy

is there any warnings in your Webmaster tools, this is the first place I would check.

I can see that on 29/8 you lost all your search visibility (according to Search metrics).

From looking at Opensite explorer - its look like you have a lot of directory links a high %, this would be my best guest to your sudden drop.

I would do a full link analysis, and remove any toxic links - http://moz.com/blog/link-audit-guide-for-effective-link-removals-risk-mitigation

I would then go about creating more natural links. Earning links through good quality content, rather than relying on directory links to boost your link profile.

Hi

The link to the hotel for Mozcon 2015 doesn't work - seems like its the 2014 link still in place.

Thanks

Andy

What is the best way to deal with these: http://www.goldenclicking.com/ and www.payclicking.com

They keep sending my site traffic, however I am not paying for it, and would prefer to stop these sites.

The traffic never converts, and I can't see anywhere that I am paying for the traffic (they are not an affiliate, and can't see them on the GDN) - so I don't even know whats in it for them.

Has anyone ever dealt with these types of sites previously, tips on getting them to stop. I was just considering black listing there domains so they can't even reach our site.

Thanks in Advance.

Andy

I agree reaching out is something we do all the time, however we did have a very good link as the DA was high and relevant and all we asked was that they used our named incorrectly, we also pointed out a typo on the article (we put it nicely).

As well as correcting the typo, not responding to our email, they deleted the whole section about us, and in the process removing the link.

So contacting them is something we always do, however sometimes there can be consequences, on this one I wish we had just left the our branding wrong and kept the relevant link.

Can you edit your urls to include a country part: i.e. www.palmatin.com/uk/example and www.palmatin.com/us/example or does your CMS restrict url edits

but Google actually for once give a very clear help on this topic - I would recommend reading this.http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html

Do you own www.palmatin.co.uk?

Just put them in a disavow file and forget about them.

Your telling Google that you know these are bad links and you don't want them associated with your domain. I would do this sooner rather than later.

If you get a penalty you have to show evidence you have tried to contact these and get them some removed - whereas if you simply upload your disavow file you can forget about them.

Simple guide here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

Thanks

Andy

Not unless your willing to de-index your site from the search engines.

You could look at deep pages where people have landed on, as they are less likely to have typed in that url, especially if its quite long, but this isn't 100% accurate, but for pages like your homepage you would have to de-index your site.