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The best way to handle this is via the URL Parameters Setting in Google Webmaster or a robots.txt file.

Google added this functionality to handle the exact issues your'e describing, so there's no need to drastically change functionalities which would likely require editing core files in your CMS.

If you click on URL Parameters under Site Configuration in Google Webmaster you will find a list of queries and for each one there available options that instruct google as to how to handle these pages.

To do this:

1. Click Edit for the Paramater you'd like to configure (i.e. course, cooking, etc).

2. In the Dropdown Menu, select Yes. Changes, reorders, or narrow page contents.

3. Choose the option that best describes how the parameter affects the page content.

4. Choose how GoogleBot should crawl these pages.

• I usually choose "Let GoogleBot Decide" as it's Google your trying to please ;). I've designed and optimized several eCommerce store with multiple parameters and this option handles the crawling and indexing of these pages correctly 99% of the time. If you still experience Duplicate Content issues after editing these settings, simply choose the Ignore option.

Dynamic websites are very common these days and this tool is designed by Google specifically to handle parameters in the best possible way and allow Google to understand the URL structure of your site.. The "Don't have dynamic URLs solution" isn't a solution at all, as many modern functionalities rely on dynamic URLs, such as layered navigation in Magento or other eCommerce platforms. How do you suggest filtering products by price, size, color, etc without creating dynamic URLs? These functionalities IMPROVE user experience and navigation. The text in the address bar isn't always the important factor when a user is navigating a site.

Don't overthink it.

Take advantage of the functionality and only de-index pages that are causing duplicate content problems. If you notice specific dynamic URLs are appearing in SERPs too often then create a 301 redirect from that dynamic URL to a landing page with more user friendly URL.

Hope this helps.

Anthony

Hi Jason,

If you've implemented the 301 redirect to the non-www version of your site, then you'll get credit for links that are pointing to the www version.

Open Site Explorer uses SEOMoz's Linkscape Index to provide the data you're seeing, and it hasn't been updated since February. If you've done the 301 since then, OSE will still be showing the old data. Remember, that OSE doesn't display the real-time data for the site, it's based on the last index update.

The next update is scheduled for April 27th, so if you'll check back then you should see that all your links are now pointing to the non-www version of the site.

You can check out the Linkscape Index update schedule here.

Hope this helps.

Anthony

Hi,

I think the reason you're getting this error is that your entire site is essentially "blocked" from agents.

It doesn't look like you've disallowed the path in the report via robots.txt, so I think it's an issue with the section of your document not containing instructions for robots to index and follow the site.

The perfect goes like this:

<title>Title of Page |  Free iPad when you buy Cheap Viagra Online Pharmacy</title>

Apple Tablet save money on the best online pharmacy price of Viagra erectile dysfunction ED treatment pill capsule sample. " />

apple steve jobs ed erectile dysfunction best price on viagra pills pharmacy cheap discounts cialis pill Viagra Pill Viagre Viagrah capusle Canadian Viagra save money ipad ipad2 new ipad free best website for viagra" />

Kidding!

I think it's just the last line you'll need to add that let's robots know to index and follow the page:

You might possibly want to use the entire URL in the first line...

content="0; URL=http://yoursite.com//shop/searchresult.seam"

But I'm not positive about that. Like Red Clay said, the 0 second refresh could definitely be the problem too.

Hope this helps!

Anthony

Hi Pete,

Good question.

First thing, don't worry too much about keywords in your meta descriptions. Google will make them bold, which might draw some attention to your listing on the results page, but keywords in meta descriptions don't actually improve rankings.

Instead, use the meta description area to entice the searcher to visit your site. What set's you apart from the competition... do you offer free shipping?... any special promotions? Using the Meta Description as an informative snippet and a call to action is much more effective in increasing CTR (Click Thru Rate) and Conversions than packing them with keywords.

Secondly, some pages (like the Shopping Cart or other customer specific pages), you don't really want showing up in Google, so it's best to instruct Google not to index these pages (either via the robots.txt file or meta-robots tag). If Google doesn't index the page, then there's no need for the Meta Description.

Lastly, I'd recommend investing the time in writing good Meta Descriptions for the pages that you anticipate will be receiving the most impressions and traffic, and use a default description of the site for the pages that will likely rarely appear in results.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Anthony

HI Pol,

You can check out the Linkscape Update Schedule here:

http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/25141119/Linkscape%20Schedule

Looks like April 27th is the day. You're not the only one holding your breath, I promise! But with the next index including over 100 billion URLs for the first time, I'm sure SEOMoz has a few kinks to work out.

Also here's a very in depth explanation of the reason for the delayed update, which was originally planned for April 6th:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/linkscape-index-delay-explained

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Anthony

Hi Guys,

I've got a friend / client / business associate who's website I helped develop. It's a three letter dot-com, so good trust, and an eCommerce site, so lot's of pages.

When I launched my new site about 6 weeks ago I put "Official IT Partner of MySite.com" in the footer. No keywords in the anchor text, just the domain URL...

There are no other external links like that on the site whatsoever, and I haven't been hit by Penguin. I'm ranking well for local targeted keywords a few weeks after launch, and traffic continues to increase...

I am worried that Google will see this is unnatural, but I've received no warning or experienced any decline in rankings. There's about 2800 pages linking from the site to my site, all in the footer of course.

Would it be better to remove the link from the footer and add it just to the home page and a couple of other high authority pages, or should I leave it be. It's not "unnatural", I am affiliated with the site and work in partnership with the site, but it does fit that profile.

I'm thinking about removing the footer link and adding a small graphic on the home page of the linking site which links to my root domain, with a couple of broad keyword anchored links in a description underneath that also link to relevant pages on my site...

What do you think?

2800 links w/ my URL as anchor text  from high Domain Authority / Low Page Authority pages (the homepage and a few other pages have decent authority) to my root domain

OR

Three different links from one High DA/ High PA homepage (one image alt, two anchored w/ broad keywords) to three different pages on my site.

Again, there are no other site-wide external links on the domain, and I'm pretty sure I escaped the Penguin.

Looking forward to hearing the different points of view.

Thanks,

Anthony

I'm getting the same issue.

The problem seems to be a "referer exploit". I found this on a Google Groups forum:

From Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help-UsingWS/browse_thread/thread/2219b91fc28ecb51?pli=1)

_"This sounds like the "referer exploit" where web-sites are hacked and files, such as .htaccess have been modified.  When trying to access specific sites through a link in search results, the redirect occurs. When typing the URL manually into the address bar, the redirect does not occur. _

_Here is a discussion on this from the Internet Storm Center: _

_http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5150 _

_These are discussions from Google Web Search Help: _

_http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help/search?hl=en&gr... _

_This is a similar discussion in the Webmaster Help Group: _

_http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_... _

_And here is one from Ask Dave Taylor: _

_http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_people_hack_apache_web_server_rewrit... _

_Hopefully, these documents will help you resolve the issue with your _
_web-site (and/or provide enough information for the web-hosting _
_provider to do so.) _

_Another user recently reported that it was necessary to scroll down _
_beyond the blank lines that had been inserted at the top of _
the .htaccess files, to find the code that was added. "

Hope this helps.

Hi Luke,

I don't believe that this would be considered over optimization but there's probably a better solution for your titles for a couple of reasons.

1. Google places more relevance on keywords closer to the beginning of the Meta Title, so you'll want to keep that in mind. Also do a little keyword research. I would think that Pizza would be searched more than Pizzas  or Pizzerias. If I were searching for a Pizza place I'd search simply for Pizza in Birmingham, or Pizza Restaurant in Birmingham.

I'd recommend XXXX Pizzeria | Pizza Restaurant in Birmingham AL and Coventry AL

XXXX = Brand Name

2. If a user is signed in to a Google account, or Google recognizes the location of the user's IP, it will usually automatically display listings relevant to that location, which is why I recommended putting those near the end. Using your Meta Descriptions to help users know that the location is near them.

"XXXX Pizzeria is conveniently located near Birmingham and Coventry at 1234 Whatever St, Birmingham, AL. Delivery, Carryout, and Dine In available... so on and so on.

3. For local businesses, Google Places results usually display before actual websites, so do your best to optimize your local listing by completely filling out the profile and by linking to the Google Places listing from your actual website.

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

Anthony

Hi David,

Great question. I'm not sure if that's possible or not, I know there are a lot of options via Linkscape's API but you're talking about Crawl Reports and that's a separate issue entirely. I'd suggest asking the SEOMoz Staff about it... I'd love to know my self.

To submit a ticket: https://seomoz.zendesk.com/home

Contact SeoMoz Help: help@seomoz.org

If it's not currently possible you might want to add it to the Request a Feature page.

Thanks,

Anthony

Two directions I'd go:

If you're looking to attract young writers:

Journalism, Freelance Writing, etc

If you're looking to attract readers:

News, Entertainment News, Opinions, Columns, Blog, etc.

You're looking at very broad keywords, and you're right, the individual article pages won't really require much keyword optimization. However for your home page and root domain in general, you should do some research about what phrases readers or freelance writers search for when submitting or reading news, and concentrate on those.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Anthony

Just like Bede said,

UBL = Inexpensive and quick, but can lead to some issues. It's more about posting your listing in as many places as possible, but not managing the content once it's there. Not bad at all for the money though.

YEXT = More expensive. More control. Better management of content.

If your goal is to simply get your business listed in as many places as possible to increase impressions and awareness, I'd go with UBL.

If you're looking for more of a full fledged reputation management solution that allows for each listing to be easily updated with new specials, content, images, etc, then YEXT is probably the way to go.

If you've got the money - go with both.

Mark - Got ya man. Long day here too. Old No. 7's taking care of me though.

Hi FinalFrontier,

To fix this, you'll just need to choose which version of the domain you'd like to use and then implement a 301 redirect from the domain you don't want displayed to the preferred domain.

My personal choice is the "naked domain" (no "www"). Technically speaking, www.mysite.com is a subdomain of mysite.com and you'll notice that almost every major brand advertises their site without the "www".

When's the last time you saw an Apple commercial trying to convince you to go to www.apple.com? Seen www.eharmony.com anywhere lately?

The choice however is up to you... the key thing is make the decision and when you link to your site from another location stick with one or the other.

To implement the 301 redirect, the most common method is to edit the .htaccess file in the root directory of your site. Also, many hosting control panels (like cPanel) have this functionality built in where it can simply be activated by choosing the appropriate option in your server's configuration.

For www to non-www simply add this to your .htaccess file (replace mysite.com with your own domain)

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.mysite.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301]

For the opposite (non-www to www) add this:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Hope this helps!

Anthony

I agree with iPositions on this one, I don't think you'll be penalized for keyword stuffing in this case. A page about branding will obviously contain the word "branding" more than three times, and it's not a long-tail keyword. If you were to repeat something like "Branding Agency in Salt Lake City Utah" three times, you may have something to be concerned about.

Remember you're writing for your audience, and the repetitive use of "branding" in this case is a creative mechanism to portray a sense of importance, like the often used "Location. Location. Location." Keep writing for human readers and not Google's Robots and I think you'll be fine.

Hope this helps!

Anthony Holcombe
NorthSEO

Hi Blaine,

The best way to check (that I know of) is to run the following queries in Google.

**1. **To find the total number of pages indexed by Google for your site, search:

**site:www.yoursite.com **

Make a note of the number of results at the top of the page as Results 1

2. To find the total number of pages from your site included in Google's main index, search:

site:www.yoursite.com -inallurl:www.yoursite.com

Make a note of the number of results at the top of the page as Results2

3. Subtract Results2 (Pages in Main Index) from Results1(All Pages Indexed) to find the number of pages in the Supplemental Index.

Results1 - Results2 = Pages in Supplemental Index

Hope this helps and here's hoping for a big fat ZERO.

Thanks,

Anthony

I have to agree with you on this one, I've barely heard a soul mention it outside of Digital Marketing circles.

There's actually a short promo spot on a popular radio station here in Atlanta that goes something like this:

Generic deep male radio promo voiceover with delay effects and heavy guitars

**"Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter, and add us on Google Plus (whatever the hell that is)!" **

The Hangout feature can be a good tool if you're collaborating on a project remotely, but that withstanding I use Google+  SOLELY to boost SERP rankings for myself and my clients.

Hi SansonJ,

It really depends on the key phrase. There may be 100 local and global searches for that phrase, and 100 more for 10 different similar variations of that phrase. Also, ROI plays a big role. If the phrase attracts visitors that may purchase a product that is highly profitable, it's worth the effort. If you're just looking to attract a few more visitors, then it may not be worth the time to optimize a page or article for that specific keyword.

Are you looking at Exact Match or Broad Match results?

Great point Tom, and great handle.

While I've gotten a few leads from Facebook and Twitter, the true reason for my investing any time at all in those outlets is that potential customers often check these places to validate the popularity, or even the success of a business. If a fan page on Facebook has 4 likes, or a Twitter account has 17 followers, it's not a good signal to a potential customer, especially one researching web marketing providers.

The fact that Google now incorporates social metrics into their ranking algorithm also had some bearing on the energy and resources I've allocated to increase my company's presence on FB and Twitter.

The problem with Google+...

Nobody looks. Nobody cares. That's my experience.

I've invested a very little bit of time and money to add a few +1s to my website in order to increase the rankings, but that's it. I did see an improvement in rankings, and there wasn't much work involved at all, so I consider it a win.

The problem, in my opinion, is Google's almost Narcissistic approach to Google+. It's a Google product, so it matters. Why? Because Google says so.

I can't remember a platform that has had such little impact in the lives of real world users, yet such an effect on website rankings. Could be a good strategy on the part of Google, could fade away... we'll have to wait and see.

If you use Firefox for you everyday browsing and you're logged in to a Google Account related to your site, that's probably the problem.

For example when I'm logged in to Google (Analytics, Webmaster, Google+, whatever) my site ranks #1 for one of my targeted keywords. If I'm not logged in, I'm #9.

It could also be your cookies, cache, location setting etc. that's causing Google to serve a site they think you prefer higher in the rankings.

Try clearing your cache and cookies in Firefox and logging out of any accounts, then check again.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Anthony

I'll try to find a clip of it online somewhere and post a link to it here... I laughed so hard I almost crashed into the median the first time I heard it. But on a serious note, I think an advertisement like that sheds a lot of light on how the general public perceives Google+.

I agree with both Moosa and Aran. I don't think constantly changing your page titles on a site-wide basis is going to help your rankings. It may actually have the opposite effect, depending on how you interpret Google's mysterious and upcoming "Over-Optimization" penalty.

However if you're page title's need improving and doing so will help you increase impressions, I wouldn't avoid it. I just wouldn't make a habit of tweaking them and changing them too often.

Like Aran said, if you've running a special promotion, have a major announcement, incredible new content, etc... I absolutely think changing the titles on relevant pages to reflect those things is a great idea for increasing CTR and conversions.

Moderation is the key on this I believe.

Hope this helps.

Anthony

From: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/complete-guide-to-rel-canonical-how-to-and-why-not

There is usually a better solution

The canonical tag is not a replacement for a solid site architecture that doesn’t create duplicate content in the first place. There is almost always a superior solution to the canonical tag from a pure SEO best practice perspective.

Lets go through some of the URL examples I provided above, this time we'll talk about how to fix themwithout the canonical tag.

Example 1: http://www.example.com/quality-wrenches.htm

This is a duplicate version because our example website resolves with both the www version and the non-www version. If the canonical tag was used to pull the www version out of the index (keeping the non-www version as the canonical one) both versions would still resolve in the browser. With both versions still resolving, both versions can still continue to generate links.

A canonical tag, as with a 301 redirect, does not pass all of the link value from one page to another. It passes most of it, but not all. We estimate that the link value loss with either of these solutions is 1-10%. In this way, a 301 redirect and a canonical tag are the same.

I'd recommend a 301 redirect instead of a canonical tag.

Why, you ask? A 301 redirect takes the link value loss hit once. Once a 301 is in place, a user never lands on the duplicate URL version. They are redirected to the canonical version. If they decide to link to the page, they are going to provide that link to the canonical version. No link love lost. Compare that to the canonical tag solution which keeps both URLs resolving and perpetuates the link value loss.

From Rand's Article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps

• Whereas a 301 redirect re-points all traffic (bots and human visitors), the Canonical URL tag is just for engines, meaning you can still separately track visitors to the unique URL versions.
• A 301 is a much stronger signal that multiple pages have a single, canonical source. While the engines are certainly planning to support this new tag and trust the intent of site owners, there will be limitations. Content analysis and other algorithmic metrics will be applied to ensure that a site owner hasn't mistakenly or manipulatively applied the tag, and we certainly expect to see mistaken use of the tag, resulting in the engines maintaining those separate URLs in their indices (meaning site owners would experience the same problems noted below).
• 301s carry cross-domain functionality, meaning you can redirect a page at domain1.com to domain2.com and carry over those search engine metrics. This is NOT THE CASE with the Canonical URL tag, which operates exclusively on a single root domain (it will carry over across subfolders and subdomains).

Rel Canonical is a great tool, but I have to disagree here. www.mysite.com is a sub-domain of mysite.com. Adding rel canonical tags to every page on the site would only send a signal to search engines specifying the preferred content, but adding a 301 redirect to the root domain one time will send all traffic, robots, and link juice to the preferred domain on a permanent basis.

Hi Arti,

You'll just need to create a 301 redirect from www.yoursite.com/index.html to www. yoursite.com. This will permanently eliminate the /index.html version (which is a duplicate page) and fix the duplicate content error.

After that, build links to www.yoursite.com.

Hope this help. If you need more info on how to do the 301 redirect just let me know.

Hi Sebastian,

What eCommerce platform are you using?

To be honest, I think the best solution would be to allow users to checkout without being logged in. Most eCommerce stores allow Guest Checkout because a lot of customers don't want to be forced to create a permanent account in order to make a purchase. I'm pretty positive you'd see an increase in Conversion Rate if you enable users to make purchases as guests.

If that's not an option for some reason, you might try letting the user create the account during the checkout process rather than redirecting them to the normal account creation page.

I'm pretty sure there's a way to redirect users to a page without using a 302 via php, but I'm far from being an expert in that language. On my eCommerce site if a customer clicks a link like "Order Tracking" or "Order History" without being logged in they're first taken to the login page, and then after logging in they're redirected to the original page that was requested. I'm not showing any 302 warnings from these links though. I'm using Magento, and while I'm very well versed in that CMS, I've got very little experience with other eCommerce platforms and can't really help you out with anything technical.

Again, I definitely think the best course of action would be to allow non-registered users to make purchases, which would eliminate the problem entirely and increase conversions.

Hope this helps and good luck!

-Anthony

I've been reading about and helping a lot of people who were hit by the Penguin update over the last couple of days, and the update seems to be accomplishing what Google intended it to accomplish... it's scaring people straight.

I've picked up two new clients this week who now only want to practice "Good SEO" and "Do it the right way." This is a good thing for me and for the quality of the net, don't get me wrong. It does make me a little nervous though that the SEO industry is going to be tarnished a bit. Google is making a pretty clear statement with Penguin, which I think boils down to "Don't do anything other than create good content, provide accurate descriptions, and establish good connections to SEO your site... or beware ." (other than technical stuff - 301/ canonical / crawler management / etc).

So riddle me this Batman...

As a proud Journeyman, how is the followed backlink on my SEOMoz profile page going to appear to Google? This is an SEO site with SEO content and SEO tools and SEO in the URL. The site listed below the first followed URL on my profile is an SEO site that's in development. So there's a link to my site and every bit of context around it screams SEO.

But... it is a very nice link indeed, I really do like it, and this is a white-hat kind of place. Do you think Google will start penalizing sites with inbound links from pages that are related to SEO, even if the page promotes respectable tactics?

If so, I'll be having nightmares about a very round Danny DeVito with a pointy nose and creepy hands chasing me through the sewers for weeks to come...

Hi Final Frontier,

Most hosting providers will likely add this to your .htaccess file for you if you contact technical support. I know HostGator will happily provide that kind of help. If not, I'd be glad to add the lines if you'll download the file and email it to me.

Hi Sajad,

Very good questions, and very relevant given recent industry updates. I thing Google is starting to get it right, and your decision to come over to the light side is a good signal of that. Bring your friends!

In my opinion, the key to implementing good SEO practices is to think like your target demographic... consumers and internet users that aren't involved in the digital marketing space, and simply want to find helpful, entertaining, relevant content as quickly and easily as possible.

I don't think any of the methods you listed would be considered black-hat, as long as you're doing them in moderation, on relevant sites, and not just for the sake of the linkjuice you're hoping to gain.

If you post something you think is genuinely helpful and original on a high authority blog, there's nothing wrong with linking back to your site and using a social bookmarking service to help users (and Google) find the content faster. No need for a hundred bookmarks though.

I think top directory submissions are absolutely white-hat. Yahoo and DMoz are still very trusted by Google. These sites are meant to be a place that users can find a business that provides the product or service they're looking for. There's absolutely nothing wrong with submitting your site to directories like these so that customers can easily find you. If Google were to penalize your for this, it would be like penalizing you for listing your business in the Yellow Pages, which nearly every business used to do. Top directories are just the digital versions of the old school phone book we still find on our doorstep once a year, and are viable forms of advertising. What you DEFINITELY want to AVOID are the "Submit your site to 50,000 directories for $5!" services. That's the kind of thing that Google is starting to penalize webmasters for.

Same thing with article directories, don't submit randomly generated keyword-stuffed crap to thousands of directories. If you have quality, original content then submit it to the trusted directories and give it a little time to be organically spread across the web by people who find it useful or entertaining enough to link to it.

As far as creating blogs on WP, Tumbler, etc goes... again just do it in moderation. I'd concentrate on a single blog and provide quality content and useful links to other resources as well as links to your own content. Three hundred blog posts about how your company is the best in the world for this keyword and that keyword looks spammy and totally untrustworthy to both users and Google.

The same principles apply for guest posts on quality blogs... if you've got a useful comment to post, by all means post it. Just don't post fake, disingenuous, spam on every do-follow blog you can find.

I think you'll find creating quality content, making your site attractive and easy to use, and engaging your customers will be a much better use of your time than filling the world's servers with gigabytes and gigabytes of useless information. There's no need to trick Google into increasing your rankings... if you provide content that's worth visiting, the visitors will come.

Hope this helps and good luck. Life just got a lot easier

Thanks,

Anthony

Hey Sebastian,

I took a look at your site and I see what you're saying about guest checkout. Very nice by the way. I'm definitely going to keep your contact info handy so I'll have it the next time I need a custom modules built.

I do think adding the login form to the basket.html page would be the best way to go in this case. The only problem with that is if the user clicks on the Checkout button and bypasses the View Basket page...

Again, my php skills are horrible but I guess the general idea for the rule would be something like this:

For basket.html - if userisnotloggedin then echo HTML for the login form above the current basket.html content.

For checkout.html - if userisnotloggedin then echo HTML for login form above the current checkout.html content.

The problem with this scenario is that if the user isn't registered, you'd aslo need to dynamically display the HTML from register.html on the basket or checkout page when a user clicks "Register Now", instead of redirecting to a new page.

Could get a little complicated but it should eliminate the 302 warning.

Also, when I created an account I noticed I had to confirm it, so unless you've had problems with fake accounts, I'd  remove that step from the conversion process.

Personally, I use the robots.txt file to disallow robot access to all of my cart, checkout, and account pages (login, register, or after login). The only drawback is you don't have the "Register" page indexed, but I don't think it's very likely that a user would land on a Registration page from a search engine result and proceed to register for a site without viewing any other content first.

Removing those pages from the index, combined with adding a no-follow tag to the View Basket and Checkout buttons links should get rid of the 302 error and any duplicate content issues without having to change your conversion flow, which seems to be very straightforward and user-friendly as it is.

It seems like you've got the skills to make it happen either way though, and keeping a user on the checkout page instead of redirecting them somewhere else never hurts.

I don't think the 302 warning will be affect your rankings much as it is, but to wrap it up... I'd either add the necessary Login and Registration forms to both the basket and checkout pages (only if the user isn't logged in) or disallow indexing of those pages and no-follow any links pointing to them, so the 302 isn't an issue.

-Anthony

Hi Pete,

If you are referring to Meta Keywords and Meta Descriptions, the answer is mixed. Most major search engines have ignored Keyword Meta Information for some time now, so it's best to leave those fields blank. There's no benefit in adding them, and in one respect it can actually be detrimental...

Why share the hard work you've put into keyword analysis with your competitors by advertising your targeted keywords to the world??

As far as the Meta Description, that's a different story. While there's a no inherent boost in ranking provided by keywords in Meta Descriptions, this area can have a huge effect on your page's CTR (Click Through Rate) which can indirectly effect rankings. Remember this description is displayed directly below the Meta Title in SERPs. You should use the Meta Description to accurately describe the page, and to entice the potential visitor to click the link. Some keywords will surely help, as Google will make any words in the Meta Description that match the search query bold, which can draw attention to your page, but it's probably more effective to use this area as a call to action...

Why should I click on your link rather than the other links? Do you offer free shipping? Is your customer service excellent? Are you offering a special promotion? The Meta Description is the place to let your potential visitors know about these things. Be concise, as Google only displays the first 156 characters, and avoid using the same description for every page.

Meta Description - Make 'em count.

Meta Keywords - Leave 'em blank.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Anthony

Hi Will,

Looks like you've got it right.

Without the 301 redirect you'd have two versions of the same page (one with the trailing slash, and one without), so 301 redirecting all the URLs to the version with the trailing slash is definitely the best way to go.

If your crawl report shows the redirects are active you should be good to go.

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking if you should use a subdomain or a path for a particular set of pages or subsite, like a blog. I would recommend using a path (yourdomain.com/blog) over a subdomain (blog.yourdomain.com) because Google treats subdomains almost like entirely different domains, and the subdomain will only benefit slightly from the root domain's authority. Pages that are inside a path however will benefit more greatly from the root domain's inbound links and authority.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Anthony Holcombe

SEOmoz updates it's Linkscape index approximately every thirty days. The last update was finalized on May 31, so if you made changes since then, you won't see that data in any SEOmoz tools/reports that pull from the the index.

You're in luck though, the next index update is scheduled for Wednesday (June 27), so you should have a clearer picture of your site's inbound links then.

FYI:

The SEOmoz API / Linkscape Schedule

Google can take quite a while to update it's index, and sometimes four months or more to reassess penalties for violation of their policies (spam / paid links). You might consider filling out this form, which could possibly give you a "fresh start" by devaluing the numerous inbound links w/ identical anchor text. I haven't had any experience with the results, but I've read it can expedite a return to Pre-Penguin organic rankings and traffic. It's just an option, I'm not suggesting that you submit the feedback form without further research.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Anthony

Hi Michael,

I'm not talking about the product pages that make up the site, just the actual cart and checkout pages.

I'm not sure what eCommerce platform you're running, but basically whatever page is displayed when a customer clicks "My Cart" and "Checkout" or whatever it happens to be on your site... the pages that are dynamically generated when user's add products and purchase items. There's no need to have a My Cart or a Checkout page ranking in Google that shows an empty cart or an error when somebody clicks the search result. Same thing for customer account pages like order tracking or order history... anything that's dynamically generated and requires a user to be logged in or have an active session on the site.

Sha Menz of BF Design Studio just shared this tool with me last night. I've implemented it today it works great.

http://www.linkstant.com/

Here's an excerpt from her post.

"If you are looking for a tool that will let you know when you have new links, you might want to take a look at Linkstant, a cool tool put together by Tom Critchlow & Rob Ousbey from SEO consulting company Distilled."

Hope this helps!

Anthony

Hi Dave,

This is because of the way Open Site Explorer works. The data itself come from SEOMoz's Linkscape Index, which was last updated in February. However when you enter a site in to OSE, i will check the status of the site and let you know about 301 redirects, which is what your hosting provider implemented in order to display the site as www.learnbonds.com.

So what I think is happening is that www.learnbonds.com has not yet been added to the Linkscape Index, which is why no data is showing. The next update is scheduled for April 27th, so when this update occurs you should see your data for www.learnbonds.com rather then learnbonds.com.

I doubt this is harming your SEO as 301 redirect pass most of your authority to the new domain. The only potential harm is if you had a specific individual page on learnbonds.com that had you had built links to (i.e. learnbonds.com/example.html) and it hasn't been redirected to the correlating page at www.learnbonds.com.

I don't think you need to worry though, this looks to simply be an issue with old data in OSE's index, and isn't a reflection of the current state of your site. Remember OSE's data is not real-time. Check back on the 27th and I think you'll see that everything is good to go.

Hear hear. Thumbs up.

Hi again,

It's really hard to say what happened without any extra info, but it could just be one of those random occurrences w/ Google's API. If the hosting has been suspended or the domain registration has been renewed recently, that's a possibility. Perhaps another user on the account did something they shouldn't have... Good new is that everything should be fine once you re-verify, but as to the cause of the 'bug' it's hard to pinpoint without some investigation.

Thanks again,

Anthony

Hi Dave,

You will need to verify the www verison of your site through Webmaster Tools as well, as it's technically a different site.

It's the same exact process as what you likely did when verifying the non-www version, except the file that you upload to your server will be slightly different (it will contain a different verification code that Google generates for the www version).

If you used a different method, then you should just repeat the process for the www version and then you should be able to set it as the preferred domain. If you have any trouble with the verification, just let me know and I'll be glad to help.

Hey,

I agree that the best option, as Francisco mentioned is to <nofollow>the outbound links in order to retain the pages authority and not send any fishy signals to Google. </nofollow>

As far as the content issue goes, it could use a little bit better "text to code" ratio, but content doesn't always mean text. I'm also in branding and graphic design and found the post to be relevant and exactly as you described it..

80 Creative Logos for your Inspiration

There's 80 logos, and they inspired quite a few ideas as I scrolled down the page. So congratulations on pleasing your target demographic, which is exactly what you should be concentrating on.

A couple of extra paragraphs below the images wouldn't hurt, and definitely nofollow the outbound links, but the first eight words of the post say it all...

They say a picture speaks a thousand words...

A little bit different version of the saying I'm familiar with but the post's content isn't an issue, just get the technical stuff right and you've got a winner. Now if you'll please excuse me while I check out a few more of those logos...

Thanks,

Anthony

I think there's a very good chance that adding the Meta Robot instructions will resolve the problem. It's a pretty easy fix so I'd definitely try it out, and if it doesn't work, continue to troubleshoot.

Notice the last few lines of the report:

<dt>Recommendation</dt>

<dt>Ensure the URL returns the HTTP code 200 and is not blocked with robots.txt, meta robots or x-robots protocol (and does not meta refresh to another URL)</dt>

Though you're not technically "blocking" the meta robots, there's no instruction for them to index or follow the page. Also if the meta refresh is to another URL, that is an issue. well.

Hi Maarten,

I'm not extremely familiar .htaccess or the typo3 CMS, but it could be the issue is simply a result of misconfigured file permissions for a specific directory or path.

I'd check the permissions on all of the paths that are affected by the .htaccess and make sure they're readable and executable (7,5,5).

This could explain why you get the 200 status w/o the .htaccess but the 403 error with it.

Good luck!

Hi sftravel,

Good question.

There has to be some kind of keyword cannibalization happening if your custom 404 page is really ranking higher than the page you've optimized for those keywords.

In short... Yes. No-Index your 404 page. Users seeing a 404 error page as a search result doesn't really do anything but harm your site's reputation, as it more than likely makes them think that the site is ill-maintained.

The more important question is this:

**Is the 404 page itself ranking and receiving the traffic or is there a page on your site that has moved and is now yielding the 404 error? **

I'd suggest using the Queries and Landing Pages sections in the Traffic Sources (Search Engine Optimization) menu in Google Analytics  to track down what search queries are leading to your 404 page. Webmaster tools will work too. Im almost positive that it's simply a page that was ranking and has since moved that's causing the problem. If so, a simple 301 redirect to the correct URL should solve the problem without harming the ranking of the page or decreasing organic traffic. It may actually improve, as I'm sure the bounce rate for the clicks from that specific query will decrease.

Hope this helps.

Anthony

I have to agree with Kevin on this one...

Items 2,3,and 4 are days away.

Does it suck that OSE's Linkscape Index hasn't been updated since the end of February? YEP!

Will it be worth the wait next week when it is updated and contains three times the data as the previous crawls? YEP!

I consider SEOMoz a community, and though Linkscape's stagnant data is causing some issues, I realize that once those issues are resolved that I'll be getting more bang for my buck than I did before, and I'm totally willing to struggle for a month in order to have better tools at my disposal for many months to come.

Rand and SEOMoz are drastically improving the volume of data that we will have at our disposal. That takes time and resources. They aren't raising prices or making excuses, they're working out bugs and improving the service. I'll take it.

Anthony

Hi Streetwise,

I'd try a simpler, more semantic approach. There's so many "Win an iPad" promotions out there these days that most users find them spammy and untrustworthy. I think simply asking your visitors for help or employing a somewhat comedic strategy would be a better approach.

Depending on what kind of survey it is I'd suggest the following:

"Help us Improve. Gain good Karma"

"We value your Feedback"

... or if you do want to offer an incentive, make it something unique, rather than an iPad. There are literally millions of sites offering free iPads for this or that and 99% of them are scams. If there's a product that's relative to your site content that your visitor may be interested in, try that instead.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Anthony

Hi Mozter,

I tend to agree with Cyrus on this issue, and both answers have already provided a great deal of insight.

But.. I'll throw my own two cents in as well, just in case you're still torn. There are Pros and Cons to each approach, as already mentioned. This dilemma most commonly arises when optimizing eCommerce based sites with multiple categories and subcategories, and a lot of times the best approach depends on the industry in question.

A little bit of keyword research is always important and will likely shed a lot of light on how users search for products in a particular niche. Google's Keyword Tool and SEOMoz's Keyword Difficulty Tool are both great resources.

Cyrus already noted several benefits of a shorter URL structure, and I'll expand on that as it relates to commerce driven platforms.

Like over-optimization, keyword cannibalization can be a major issue when optimizing products within the same category. For example, the URL you mentioned will likely have several similar URLs:

Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/supertrader.html

Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/product2.html

Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/product3.html

and so on...

The result of this structure is that you have multiple URLs that are competing to rank for the same keywords (software, tablets, and ipad) and 9 times out of 10, all of the URLs will rank lower in Google, rather than a single URL ranking higher in the results.

If you were a potential customer, what would you search for? "SuperTrader Software for Ipad Tablet" or "SuperTrader for Ipad"? My guess would be the 2nd.

Assuming a more short-tail keyword search i.e. "Ipad Software", again you'll have multiple URLs containing those keywords, and likely a lower ranking for each.

Also remember, the shorter the URL, the more relevance that is placed on each keyword in that URL.

My suggestion is to use a flat structure that contains more descriptive keywords such as:

Mybrand.com/tablet-software/ (Category Page w/subcategories for each OS)

Mybrand.com/ipad-software/ (Category w/ software products for Ipad)

**Mybrand.com/supertrader-ipad/ **(Product - SuperTrader for iPad)

Mybrand.com/android-sofware/ (Category w/ software products for Android)

Mybrand.com/supertrader-android/ (Product - SuperTrader for Android)

This should allow better optimization for long-tail and short-tail keywords and help to avoid multiple URLs competing for the same keywords. It will be much easier to process for the user as well.

Also "Apps" may be a better choice than "Software" but I'm sure the competition is much fiercer.

Finally, on a side note, if you're using Magento as your CMS, I'd suggest removing the ".html" URL suffix from the URLs and Categories and replacing it with a trailing slash by going to System --> Configuration --> Catalog --> Search Engine Optimization. I'd be glad to help you with enabling the shorter URLs and Rel Canonical Meta Tags to best optimize this structure in Magento as well. If you're running another eCommerce Platform, I got nothin' for ya.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Anthony

Very strange indeed...

I'd submit a ticket to SEOMoz tech support or shoot a quick email to help@seomoz.org. They usually get back to you and resolve issues very quickly. I haven't personally experienced this, so I've got nothing.

Blessing in disguise though...

I did notice you haven't set up your Facebook page username yet, and you've got waaay more than the 25 fans you need to set one up.

Just click Edit Page under the Manage menu at the top right of your FB page, and then click Basic Information in the left menu. You should see Username near the top. I'm sure you can take it from there.

You'll be able to link to facebook.com/MariahCarlePhotography rather than www.facebook.com/pages/Mariah-Carle-Photography/162925300446877

... so at least the garbled up URLs will be shorter

-Anthony

I agree, Google is being even more vague than usual on this one. Funny that you mention the Journeyman link... I posted this question right before reading yours. I'll think you'll get a kick out of it. Same basic premise... WTF do we now? The answer is always the same though, in a couple of months we'll have enough research and analysis to have a good understanding of the update, at which point Google will change it again. Gotta love gettin paid to play a game