Hi,

My advice to you would be to link to the separate top level categories if it is useful to the website user. Build the website for the user, not for search engines, and the rankings will come.

E.g on the green widgets page you could have a clear funnel to each type of green widget and then some text such as "Prefer red widgets? We've got a great range of red widgets available for purchase." Again, I would only use this if it was useful to the website user.

Another example might be if green widget 2 is exactly the same as red widget 2 except for the colour. You'd obviously want to link these 2 as they are related items and the user might want to visit the other colour widget.

Thanks

I've used the same basic tactics on some of my sites before. Sure it works, but you'll get caught out eventually. Half of these sites were hit by Panda/Penguin and now the rankings are way off in page 5+.

My advice - create a real SEO plan that is built with the future in mind. Don't go after short term gains. Try to predict where you want to be in 6-12 months and create a plan around that. Remember, content is king, so start developing some great content on your site and sharing it amongst your social profiles.

If you're unsure about the other more technical aspects of SEO, hire a reputable SEO firm. Have a look at their past clients, their site, their social profiles. Do they look spammy/too good to be true? If so, give them a miss and move along.

Hi Derek,

I have had a look at the backlink profiles of both sites. While yours is certainly much better than theirs in terms of number and quality of links - keep building links. 400 or so inbound links isn't a huge number. I suggest getting some high quality links from places like BBB.org (paid) or http://www.aboutus.org/DoFollow (free).

Now - looking at your on site analysis, you do pretty well for trophy terms like 'Bee Removal' - however I'm going to look at another term it seems you want to rank well for - 'San Diego Bee Removal'.

You're getting an F for this according to SEOmoz's on page reports. That term is not used anywhere on the page, in the title, in alt image tags, in a H1 tag or in bold/strong. Yes, you are trying to rank for it on this page - http://www.propacificbee.com/bee-removal-san-diego-bee-control.php - but if this is indeed one of your trophy terms (as I guess it would be by looking at your site) - why not try and rank for your homepage?

All those sub pages you have for different areas (Allied Gardens, Alpine, Bonita etc) should have more unique content too - there are way too many pages with VERY similar content. Google is going to frown upon this.

Hope this helps,

Brad

Hi Alan, I have not tested myself but I have read numerous articles and they all point to the same thing. Everything I have read from industry leaders such as rand and Matt cutts says sub folder is preferable. I'm just going by what they say. Thanks