Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Andy

No, it is a Webstore site.  We have no access to code or to the site folders, so we cannot do anything at all with the current .co.uk site at all, but repoint it and then 301 the pages we had.

There are few ways to do this and I would like to ask other Mozzers if they have found the best way.

We have a site .co.uk and are moving it back to .com.  However we do not have any access to the site folders for .co.uk.  (We have to move it anyway as our provider is withdrawing their service).

We have built our URL 301 redirect file and it is ready to go, but how to impliment it?

We can repoint .co.uk to another site, and then redirect all traffic for each URL but this is quite messy, or just forget trying to 301 each page and just rediect the whole site.
the .com has more authority already, but we ready do not want to frustrate visitors who are using a link to reach a product, only to find they hit our homepage and not the product.

Your thoughts would be very welcome or other ideas

Bruce

Domain Authority is not really something you can control.  It is a view taken by Moz, Google etc using various algorithms.   So now you cannot influence the rank easily.

I would recommend stepping way way back and take a broad view of your site and look at some of the key Domain ranking factors that Google (might, as we can guess but they don't tell) use.

Dropping a factor of 9 is large, so something must have changed in the bigger picture.

Bear in mind that just because the numbers have gone down, does not mean that your site has had a penalty or other such disaster, it could well be that your Pond just became a Sea for some reasons, which you need to take a view on in your broad overview of your industry.

Please let us know how you get on as this would be very interesting to all Mozers I am sure

Bruce

This might be an aside to the main issue, but this is a search phrase.  Do your customers or webusers, actually search for this phrase?

I haven't drilled into this any more, but would be very interested to know which bit of the keyword they would be searching for.

Phrases are really hard to get a good score on in my experience

Bruce

I would look to see if the happy medium could be in the way "Calls to Action" are used within the pages of the site.

This way by introducing "signals" it indicates to the end user, that they can see the quality, experience the company and also enquire or buy.

I imagine what you really want is an advertorial style site with Showcasing projects, products, call to action at the end or sprinkled amoungst the narrative.

Hope this is food for thought

Bruce

Thanks for the clarification Mark.

So distilling down the motivation of the client, they ultimately are looking for sales?

If this is the case then everything needs draw the customer to the basic motivations to enquire further. This would suggest a cleint based presentation.

If sales are not the motivation, then the site surely must be a vanity site to show how good they are at what they do.  In which case showcasing to the industry their expertise is the important ellement.

I could be wrong, but I think that the client wants a sales introduction site, not a vanity site???

Bruce

(edit typo)

Looks to me that some mighty tinkering has been going on, on a regular basis to get these ups and downs and vast swings.

If you can refer back your change logs to see where what and when has reflected in the traffic flow.

Also look at your Adwords account too.  When a key word that drives traffic but no sales is eventually culled this can be the result.  Low traffic, but very good quality traffic remains

Please let us know more info,

Bruce

Really interesting post

What is the client wanting out of the Blog? The answer will help determine the content.

PR or Sales?

Bruce

It is a really tough one to deal with, although Google does recognise ecommerce data for products and recognises that duplication of product titles and descriptions happen and does not from what I understand have a major issue, although you will be competing with the others for the key word and phrasematches with your own site. (edit expand explaination)

Depending how your own site is structured, product popularity etc will give an indication of how well you will rank for your own site versus the big boys.

My view is that whilst you should use your own site to reflect your brand identity, expand the Brand / Category pages with fresh new text to add authority to your site, and look at all the channels collectively and do not worry if your own site is appears to underperform compared to the rest.  This is normal as the volumes of traffic and exposure will drive sales.

Hope that is useful

Bruce

Just seen the update to this question.

If you have a high value, high margin product, yes you might be able to afford a AU$20 cost per conversion, but if you are only making AU$15 on a sale, then this makes no sense at all.

Hope this keeps the little grey cells working.

Bruce.

Big Name sites are huge and Moz cannot index every page of these sites.  Often the link is buried deep in the Big Name Site and therefore will not be detected.

Try to build links with sites that have good authority, but are a bit more niche.  Remember that links are not everything.  Google is very keen on quality content too.

Hope this helps

Bruce

This is always the challenge for buying multiple domain variations.  Matt Cutts mentioned this on one of his webnars.

As long as the 301 redirects are working and also rel canonicals are in place and href lang tags where appropriate then Google will know which site is the primary site and that they are related. But you may in my opinion loose some quality as this will be shared between the different .com sites.

Google would really prefer that you focus your energies on building "One" strong site and develop links to that site. I am not sure why you would want loads of .coms active though.  I can understand brand protections, so buy the domain but leave them dormant.

If it were (edit typo) me, I would only 301 local domains to the .com site and not .com to .com.  This for me is confusing for the end user.  301 redirect for "www.brandservicename.ca" or www.brandservicename.de" with the right heading href etc. but not  www.brand-service-name.com to www.brandservicename.com.

Other Mozers' opinions will be useful too

Bruce

Hi

Many thanks for all the input we have had from the Moz expert team here.  We have had some great thoughts and we have finally decided that we need to move our site to an new provider and to go back to one single .com site for all our global traffic, as we cannot get round possible duplicate pages as we cannot use canonical nor alternate links with our current website provider and this has meant a big rethink in the last couple of weeks.

We where running two sites, .com which has been running for 7 years and a .co.uk site which was dormant since 2007 until 2013 and used from last year to serve our local customers.

Domain Authority for .com 19 and 23 for .co.uk

Our new site will serve 3 currencies so we can offer £ $ & € without the need for duplicate pages or local pages.

We plan but are flexible about using a 301 from the .co.uk site to the dot com. and have enough data to ensure we can do all 301 redirects at page level from our current .co.uk site to our new .com site.

Can anyone provide any SEO tips on ensure we grow our rankings when we make the switch in about 3 weeks.

Many thanks

Bruce

Hi Sarah

You will end up with two Google + pages, One Google Business Page and also a Google+ Page.

The Google Business page is very important as this is the one that will be verifyed to your website and old Google Places pages.  It is very very confusing.  All our posts on Google Plus go to our page and not to our Business and there is no way to join the too

Google have just launched a new update which starts to map locally to Business pages via local search, for example Timberyard London.  This then also brings in all your Google+ Business info, maps etc. Join a few of the groups and recommended is "Google+ Resource", you have to request to join and they are really helpful.  Create circles and share content from your sites via G+ on your site. Google Plus is very much part of Google search too, so if members of your circles are logged into Google plus too, then when you post, you posts up in any related search results, normally quite high on page 1.

Worth researching and learning more to get the most out of G+, as it looks like it is going to be very important in Googles effort to keep content fresh, new and unique.

Everything points to the first flush of youth.  New site, lots of new content and google loves this.  Now time as started to balance as your rightly say, to settle the site to where it naturally sits as a new kid on the block, but not that new.

What-ever you do, do not tweak, if Moz page rank scores are good for your keywords etc, as this will end up with you being totally confused about the stats you are starting to see.

Make sure each main page scores well for your keywords and build good content and update regularly to your main category pages.  Products pages are static, so use your entry pages to add fresh content.  Improve each page where you can.

Penguin is cannot penalise sites without spammy links, so this is not the problem if you don't have any.

Remember Google is about quality end user content, fresh and unique.

Hope this helps on the journey.  Look forwar to many more questions in due course I am sure.

Bruce

Hi Johnas

In our view add it to the main site.  If you go for a split solution you dilute all the great work done from both sites.  Adding a shopping section to the site will add more traffic to the XXX.com site and therefore will also bring in product specific links and recommendations.

There are some very learned colleagues here on Moz, who will be able to offer more thoughts about your thinking.

As always with SEO, distill the essence of your company and present it in a unique way.  Unique in respect of making sure all reading material is written with your own words, with a moderate sprinkling of keywords.

Adding your ecommerce to the site enhances and leads the reader from reader to buyer

Hope that this helps

Bruce

No sure why you would not include the street address.  If this is because the business does not have an office or place for customers to visit then they should make this clear elsewhere on their site..in the contact us section or about us section, stating that the address is a Depot only and does not have a customer service department at this location and to call xxxxxxxxxx for sales etc, will help solve this.

Search engines like complete data, therefore if the full address is ambiguous, then the business might be perceived as ambiguous.

Hope this is useful

Bruce

Hi Sam

They are updated on the 8th day after the campaigns where created and then on the subsequent 8th day, this allows for a full weeks data to be measured.  You should expect to see your update shortly

Moz emails you when all the updates have been run with a summary report once complete.

Bruce

Hi Alan

Sounds like a bit of a headache.  First things first...don't assume all drops etc are negative.  Often big drops in search via good SEO are a sign that you might be serviing better content and this must be also compared to other metrics like bounce rates etc.

Domain rank drops can also mean that sites which are also high ranking have been removed, because their links where not related to your content and therefore in the longer term, could be damaging.  Remember links should be from sites which are somehow related to your site.  Google is striving for better service delivery to all searchers and therefore does not want links from a site selling widgets to be linking to sites selling cakes, unless the widget is something to do with cakes.

Press coverage, tends to have no-follow links and therefore check out the value of a link before spending time trying to get the link.

Domain Authority comes from quality linked content and therefore high ranking links in your industry sector should be sought.  Links are like roots, tiny capillary fibres that grow to big anchor roots in time.

Improve your content and make it fresh.  This will do wonders for natural links and google serving up your site.  Track keywords and distil the essence of your site pages to ensure that not one hit is wasted.  I could be wrong but Google also monitors BOUNCE RATE.

Hope that helps somewhat

Bruce

Have you got your products loaded onto Google Shopping?

Adwords can eat cash if you get the ads wrong, so I would recommend distiling the keywords to be very specific, set a campaign up and test test test.  The Adwords Team are great at helping set up campaigns.

The best thing I can recommend is to really really understand your target customer and research what they search for and use only a handfull of keywords per campaign.  Don't be hasty in deleting keywords as customers buy seasonally so what might work for winter will not work for summer, so pause a keyword if it worked well and then turn it back on when the season is right, if that is how your business works

Like everything else in SEO and Sales: -  Prior Planning Prevents P* Poor Performance

Feel free to ask more about this...

Bruce