You are sort of in an odd situation. You could tell Google that the "p" parameter is for pagination and they would better understand that. However, the canonical tag usage sort of tells Google that all of your paginated pages are actually duplicates of the first page.

Removing backlinks, especially ones with money anchor text, will most definitely cause your rankings to decrease. I can only assume you did this because you viewed the links as spammy or something that could eventually cause you future ranking problems at an algorithmic or manual level. If that is the case, you probably made the right decision if you are hoping this site will rank for the long-term.

Instead of restoring those links, try to find a way to create a few new ones that you feel are safe for the long-term.

Hi Sophia,

I want to warn you to avoid just finding places that allow you to 'submit articles' even if they appear to have an established domain authority. A lot of these sites have been overrun with spam over the years and lost their ability to improve your site's authority. Not to mention they will send very little referral traffic.

Instead, you are going to want to focus on finding real websites where you can see visible signs of readership and interaction. Look for comments and social shares on current posts. Make a connection with the webmaster and eventually, pitch a guest blog post.

Here are some great resources on guest blogging:

• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-evaluate-guest-post-opportunities
• http://blog.kissmetrics.com/guide-to-guest-blogging/
• http://www.viperchill.com/guest-blogging/
• http://www.blueglass.com/blog/guest-blogging-guide-to-leveraging-expertise-influence/
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/guest-blogging-strategies-whiteboard-friday

I hope these links help you out. You are on the right path to helping your website. You just have to be careful though, because sometimes the right path is very close to the wrong path.

Note: I'm not sure why you ended your question with (except blogs). Is there a particular reason you don't want to be published on other blogs?

The answer to this question will depend a bit on how you have your current blog post URL slug set up. If you are using domain.com/category/post-title-here and then change your categories, this will cause 404s (which you can fix by redirecting).

If you are using a domain.com/post-title-here or other option, you will be just fine to clean up, edit and alter your category and tags. I would suggest NoIndexing your tags. The decision of NoIndexing categories will depend on how you plan on using them.

If the site is only a few months old, I strongly suggest fixing this now and setting yourself up for better long term success.

Adwords is definitely an option and may help a bit.

Some other things I would try is to create a Facebook Page, Twitter Profile, G+ Page, Wikipedia Entry, YouTube Channel and Linked-In Company Profile. Official company pages on a strong domain like these, often has the ability to rank quite high and push down the other profiles.

Create these profiles and do a really good job filling them out. Full of information about your company. Then, link to them from your actual website. Build a few other easy links (comments, forums, whatever) to these social profiles. Get some link equity flowing their way.

Also, create your own YouTube video. Perhaps a newer video with a good title will push it out of that spot. Put the video on your website.

Good luck!

Adwords will help a bit. Many people don't click on Ads that often, and a video thumbnail is very enticing for a click-through. Especially one that appears negative.

You can use whatever you want for your domain name. The most important thing is going to be the content you end up putting on the site.

My recommendation: using an abbreviation is fine if it's commonplace (NY for New York) but I would avoid it if you are just sort of making it up (nchs for nachos).

Focus on creating a name that is unique and memorable for your site. I wouldn't worry too much about the name 'for seo' unless you are getting an exact match which still carries some weight for the time being.

Tag your URLs with utm tags. Use a consistent naming convention like this.

• Source: YouTube
• Medium: Social
• Campaign Name: Name of Video Series, Video Game, Some Grouping to Reference the type of video it is
• Content: Video Title or Reference

I agree with Mat on this one. Also, building links to one page and making it stronger can lead to it ranking well for those same long-tail terms that are only in the on-page copy instead of in the page titles.

Also, I think the one page approach is a better experience for the users.