Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks for taking the time to come up with a 'solution' to the problem

---> SEO's often say "build a blog" blah, blah, blah. If you believe you'll have a 'following' with your blog, or if you believe you can create 'compelling' content on an ongoing basis that is related to what your site is about, and if you can create unique (no duplicate) content on a regular basis... go for it. If not; don't waste your time.

Recently I heard an SEO 'Content Representative' for an SEO company advise a small local oil pipe fabrication company to build a blog... Well, I could have advised 10+ considerably more important things they should have been doing that would have been much more important at bringing in targeted traffic than starting a blog, for almost no one who could care less

"If they are good sites I don’t see why Google should penalize them just because of their domain name"
"If they made a really good site, would the domain name still be a problem? "
---> Google has done this to a good number of 'good sites'.

"a blog would make more sense on their main site because it would attract links."
---> that would not be the reason I'd create a blog. 
---> I wouldn't bother using the kw rich domain name if you choose to go with a brand name domain name.

• my name is Andy Kuiper, andykuiper.com ranks #1 for most (and in the top 4 for the rest) SEO related search terms in Edmonton 'and' Calgary Canada. (each city is 1 million+ population). "andykuiper" clearly isn't a commercial kw... I think you might be putting too much emphasis on the kw

* and - just reading the comment posted above, if you add a geo modifier to the KW, you're "unlikely" to have an issue with Google It wouldn't be an EMD, and Google (so far) has been pretty good about not giving a hard time to domain names that contain KW's and 'city name' (as an example) URL's

---> ..."dynamically generated string of random characters" instead of targeted kw's in URL's

ack! - I definitely wouldn't do that

yes you do

The 2 answers you have received are dead on - whatever you do, I wouldn't create an exact match domain name period. You're likely asking for trouble down the road if you do that. Partial match domain names are much safer. As for the company name - I wouldn't bother trying to create a company name with the intention of making it 'work'; as a domain name

Andy

---> build landing pages targeting the states you are after - as for other countries... that's a whole different topic, and requires considerable planning and implementation.

---> give it some time, moz will update your DA soon enough

"...duplicate content and penalize my website"
---> duplicate content is not penalized, it's often just deemed somewhat irrelevant as Google has seen the content before and has an 'older' or in some few cases, 'considerably stronger' version of the content in its Index.

..."about 301 redirection from non WWW to WWW using htaccess ..."
---> perfect solution (this is the correct thing to do), and if anything, your site will be stronger. While 301's do lose a teeny bit of link equity, any links to the non-www version of your site will now be making the www page that much stronger.

"I don’t want to lose my current rankings or organic traffic"
---> this is highly unlikely

*you may want to set your webmaster tools setting to "www "as well

All the best - Andy

It's not just PR that you have misunderstood, it's that, as I pointed out, everything your last post posited was incorrect.

As for your link to how PR works... a lot has changed since this article was published in ---> 2007 <--- no-follows weren't even a figment of anyone's imagination back then, let alone a reality.

The article closed out by saying, "__Rand and I both tend to believe that it is likely Google has changed and refined the PageRank algorithm many times."

I'm done spending time on this.

I'm sorry Alan, I don't have the time to update you on all that you have incorrect, which is most of your last post.

Link equity doesn't "amass" on pages, unless there is link equity sent there, either internally, or externally. If you no-follow a link (either by tag or other ways) from the home page (where the majority of most sites have the most link equity) the page you no-followed the link to will only get link equity from other internal (or external) pages that link to it.

If you're suggesting that no-following a link "keeps" more link equity on a page, you are incorrect. As I mentioned earlier to Kimberly:

---> All followed links on a page pass link equity, and will reduce the link equity on the page the link is on.
---> All no-followed links will not pass link equity, **however they will reduce the amount of link equity on a page the same as if the no-followed link were a followed link. **

Keep in mind, we are talking about navigational links, which the search engines treat differently than links within content. This whole conversation is sort of ridiculous; "how to PageSculpt navigational links..." nobody does this any more, for so many good reasons.

*Kimberly, As I mentioned earlier, "Responses you receive to your questions here, may be correct"... and some may be just nonsense. Learn about how link equity flows, as I suggested, and you'll be able to discern the facts from the nonsense.

"I would suggest having a real link to your contact page from your homepage..."
I suspect 90%+ of backlinks and social signals (link equity) lands on Kimberley's home page, so this sounds like a lot of work for almost no return. However, as you mentioned, she does seem to really want do this

You are spending waaaaay too much time on this I, and my clients, rank extremely well without worrying about link equity being lost from navigational links to a contact page. Removing one 'extra' set of navigational links may result in a tiny bit of link equity gain for the page. However Kimberly, what is much more important, would be for you to do some web research around "link architecture for SEO", and "siloing for SEO". Learning about all of this from a more macro standpoint will allow you to truly understand the why's and wherefores so much more than seeking advice about the micro aspects of all of this. Responses you receive to your questions here, may be correct (and often are), however they may just confuse you if you don't have a better understanding of how link equity flows on web pages.

It's clearly awesome that you care and are conscientious enough to seek the right way of dealing with link equity

However I get the feeling from your questions, that you would be much happier and considerably more adept, if you really understood how all of this link equity business worked. If you don't get the whole picture, it may be like that you could be making small changes that share a resemblance (hopefully not), to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Andy

@ThompsonPaul - My SEO Company is in Calgary, a stones throw from your place... a small World indeed

Here's what Matt has to say about no-follow on internal links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVOOB_Q0MZY

@ThompsonPaul ...makes sense, I agree with you, it does appear that Kimberley would benefit from a thorough, reasoned response. And I suspect, if I were in her shoes, your kind of response would be a lot more helpful.

@ThompsonPaul - what an awesome answer!... 5 thumbs up

Correct Kimberly, "just totally ignore the fact that Webmaster Tools is showing the most unimportant pages (rankwise) as the highest linked internally"

You have answers from two different people saying very much the same thing; I'll add my name to the list: ---> your instincts were right on this one, just do what is recommended from the two responders above, and your client will thank you later

*As for your client, Just because some of the 'others' are doing it, doesn't mean it's the right, or practical thing to do. Your patience and good practices will pay off with Local Search, in time

Andy

If you are trying to conserve link juice by using the no follows, it won't work. This type of thing was utilized shortly after no-follows were introduced, the practice was referred to as 'PageRank sculpting'. The search engines changed the way they dealt with no-followed links "with regard to link equity" as a result of page sculpting.

---> All followed links on a page pass link equity, and will reduce the link equity on the page the link is on.
---> All no-followed links will not pass link equity, **however they will reduce the amount of link equity on a page the same as if the no-followed link were a followed link. **

So your hypothesis, about not passing link equity to internal pages that really don't need it (contact, etc.) is a good one. However, you won't "save" the link equity on the page that has the link... followed or no-followed.

And, you are also correct in deciding to not use the no-followed links in this manner. I wouldn't bother using no-follow links for the purposes you've described. As for navigational linking, I wouldn't worry to much about link equity, as the search engines are getting better and better at determining the importance, or lack thereof, of links based on their location within a page. If you feel you might have too many nav links, perhaps eliminating a nav section might be a solution.

You may want to search around the term PageRank sculpting, as there may be more information provided to you this way.

Andy

I agree with Miriam, who btw, has an excellent reputation in the SEO community. You're on the right track with URL's something like:

website.com/butcher-mytown
and for deeper pages: 
website.com/butcher-mytown/suasages
website.com/butcher-mytown/pork-chops

Andy

Assuming you don't want to use the words "NLP Hypnosis Certification Training" in the title of this page, I'd consider:

NLP & Hypnosis - Mastering the Language Patterns of Influence

(61 characters inc. spaces - 5 spaces left).

Making sure to include "The NLP Institute of California" somewhere in the description tag.

Andy

Daniel, have a look at: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-emd-algo-update-early-data

and read some of the responses... this will give you some ideas

http://www.cardiscount.com is as safe as you'll get in this case. If you can't get that term, than vary what you can to words other than "car" "discount", but with similar intent; eg. auto deals, auto incentives, special automobile rates, vehicle cost reductions... the types of anchor text one might see naturally. If you try to game Google, the algo will likely recognize it

*this is one of the dangers of having a keyword rich domain name

Good points Andre

Google sometimes does gets confused with emd's combined with exact match backlink anchor text. I once had a domain (I sold the name and website) where I hadn't done any backlinking; it was strictly a non-monetized information site. It had the words "cellphone" and "barcode" in the domain name, and it naturally got "cellphone" "barcode" type anchor text backlinks. ---> it got hit by the 1st iteration of Penguin and traffic dropped by over 50%. The backlink portfolio was predominately exact match anchor text. People need to be extra careful with emd's now IF they are deemed to be keyword rich by the algo. Kraft or Michelin are not keyword rich, but something like "CarDiscount" might be

You'll want to make sure you have 'varied' anchor text for your backlinks. Too many of one type will be seen as 'unnatural'by Google and may result in less than rewarding behaviour by the algo.

Lately (since Penguin) many have found it safer to focus on the most natural anchor text backlinks, for example, http://www.domainname.com.

Having an exact match domain name and matching backlink anchor text is a recipe for trouble.

There are many posts and articles about Penguin and exact match domains, which you may want to look over to be certain this advice is the best for your situation.

I'll leave this with Miriam... she's one of the best Local experts around Jason

A really interesting question

h1's have been losing some strength over the past few years, and well optimized image alt tags can be quite powerful. It's worth testing.

I'd be inclined to go with the h1 (or h2) text and an alt image tag (somewhere near the first 200 words of content) to get the best bang for your buck.

Does each location have a separate phone number?

This article and video should help clarify: http://www.squidoo.com/authorship-is-the-new-seo

Hope this helps

Thanks for letting us know how things worked out Aspirant.

Andy

I've used the review markup quite a bit, and Google Places has added a link to the reviews on one of my client's Reviews page. I know Google Places also factors some (who knows how they choose?) of the reviews into their local algo. I also use some geo tagging and author type markups (see the main and contact page of my site). It works, and it will only get better

Hope that helps

Andy

You cannot 'reduce' the link count (from Google's perspective) by the use of nofollow (you used to be able to do this somewhat - 'link sculpting'), or meta tags. You'll need to reduce the number of links on the page. Sorry for the bad news.

Hope this helps

Andy

...however, if these are internal links, and I suspect they are, Google has recently made efforts to reduce the 'impact' of navigation links SEO wise - you might just be ok.

Google sees the addition of a trademark symbol in a meta title tag as a separate keyword; I've never heard anything about how Google see's its use in content. I'd avoid doing this in cases where SEO is more important than usability (or legality).

Hope this helps Mike

Not to me LOL I think you'll need someone with a bit more expertise in this area than I to assist in this case. Kyle, I'm sorry I couldn't offer more assistance... but I don't want to tell you something if I'm not 100% sure. I suspect one of the many bright SEOmozer's will quickly come to the rescue on this one.

Andy

I think the PA (of the 'old' 301'd page) in this case will be more important than the DA. High PA on the 301'd page would 'likely' (and I say that with much trepidation) result in a quicker de-indexing.

Andy

Hi Kyle Yes, you can block an entire subdomain via robots.txt, however you'll need to create a robots.txt file and place it in the root of the subdomain, then add the code to direct the bots to stay away from the entire subdomain's content.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

hope this helps

Hi Blaine My experience has been for 'relevant' landing pages, that is pages Google deems worthy of a decent rank, the 301'd page is usually gone from the index within 2 or 3 days. However, as Alex pointed out, if the page is thin, weak, or not considered all that relevant from Google's perspective, I've been seeing anywhere from 10 to 21+ days for the 301'd page to be removed from the index. I hope this helps

All three answers are correct Adam Google changed the way they deal with no-follow links a while back. Links will pass the same amount of link equity whether the other links on the page are followed or no-followed. The difference, as others have indicated, is whether or not you want the equity to 'flow' to the page the link is pointing to, or to end at the link... either way the same amount of equity will flow to the other pages you have links pointing to.

As Andrew indicated, if your site is very strong (and I mean really, really strong), then 200 links on one page will be ok. Otherwise I'd seek to reduce the amount of links you have on that page.

Andy

You're assumption is correct Patrick, Once Google identifies the content on page B as being unrelated to A, it will lose relevance for the initial keywords. The A page SERP's will diminish as soon as Google updates their Index.

You'll be just fine the way you have it now. Google may deem the contact info (the duplicate content) more relevant on one of your pages over the same info on some of your other pages...  but that won't diminish the relevance of the content on any of your other pages. I hope that makes sense

I agree with the two responses you've received already. If you have good content, you'll want to put it on landing pages on your site. then seek to find (some will find you) sites that will link to your good content/landing pages. This is a much better way of doing things then seeking sites to submit your content to. Duplicate content issues and Panda really make this type of process outdated. I a firm believer in keeping your good content on site.

I really like Joe's response. I would focus on his second recommendation to have the content added to important landing pages (your commercial pages), then 301 the resource page/s to the landing page/s. Or, you could follow Joe's first recommendation and seek to add good 'llinkable' content to appropriate landing pages from here on in. You have a 'good' problem here and if you go about handling the link equity properly, your landing pages will become your authority (resource) pages.

In my opinion, and it's just an opinion - clearly not gospel ;-), hosting images on the site is better. You may also post the images on sites like Flickr for the traffic. Flickr links do not pass link equity and you will lose link equity by having the external links on your page/s. The Flickr domain may be strong, but the page/s you host your photos on may not be strong (re: social signals). However I would agree with having photos (tagged) on as many good sites as possible for traffic, links & signals. In the past Rand has suggested hosting images on Flickr... not sure what he thinks nowadays.

Ryan; there are some who believe in hosting images off-site, and some who favour hosting images on-site. There's a lot of discussion around the topic; I haven't seen anything definitive one way or the other.

Having the images on your site's pages is better SEO wise. The algo takes into consideration 'engagement objects' such as photos, video, etc. in a positive way. The same goes for videos. If bandwidth is an issue, I'd suggest handling it in ways that will still allow you to keep your photos on the site.

Andy

I think you'll be just fine using the strategy you've described Brian. I think Rebecca's concerned about having several landing pages for the same keyword. Her example described using the kw "space needle" in the title tag on several different landing pages... thus confusing Google as to which should be the relevant landing page for queries regarding "space needle". You'll have different cities in each title tag; no issues there.

• if the search kw you were targeting was "driving lessons" - without some qualifier (eg. city name), then yes, Google would have a hard time ascertaining which was the appropriate landing page for "driving lessons". Having the city/locale name coupled with "driving lessons", multiple times, while not perfect, will be just fine.

Andy

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Andy

You are right zharriet, time to give your host a call

All great responses   Here is a neat tool to see who is sharing space on your present server (it will also indicate potential 'bad' sites in red) http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/web-sites-on-web-server/

Andy