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No index wouldn't be the best practice, especially if there are links pointing to that page. I would 301 redirect them or let them 404 off. 404 isn't always a bad thing. Its quite useful for getting rid of poor preforming content and unwanted material.
You could always combine the old with the new and just 301 re-direct the old URL
Hope this helps
Yes, absolutely. You will have the same search volume and most likely same CTR.
For instance you would rank the same for "video game" as you would "video games" if that were a term you are going after
Some of this question was a little confusing, but from what your asking I have a couple suggestions. I think you should stop using Sicily Cycling or Sicily Cycling Tours as I think you are over optimizing your keywords and I would image your anchor text as well.
I would go after longer tail keywords related to your area. For instance "Explore Italy by Bike " (590 search volume ) or "backroad Bike Tours " (1300 search volume) would be a good term to blog about or include on your website. Since this is similar to Sicily Cycling Tours it will work well in your website and will help in not using the same keywords over and over.
Honestly to rank locally you should also have broader topics around your niche such as health benefits to biking, how to fix a flat while on a bike ride, etc
Hope this helps!
Go to Moz Pro then Keyword Research then Ranking Keywords and type in your competitors URL.
Moz will provide you with all the results for your competitors top ranking keywords!
Hope this helps!
Google is much quicker to index than 3rd parties. It is most likely a lag in the rank tracker.
Keep in mind, SERP results change multiple times per day and URL's are always shifting rankings. If it doesn't show up in the next few days comment again on this thread and ill see if I can help further!
Is anyone familiar with class=X-hidden-focus?
Do these links still contain link juice or are they similar to no follow?
James, I would still make these as out of stock.
If these products don't get any organic search or traffic anyway, it is ok to re-direct them.
The message above was for established products that have been indexed by Google over a long period of time.
Please le the know if you have any questions. Also, if someone answer the question to your satisfaction you should mark the comment as a good comment 
The situation is this. I was featured on a high quality website. Immediately 8 other high quality sites copied the exact article which linked to me.. Now I have these backlinks
Now there is some conflicting beliefs here and I want to know what you think.
If I got a high spam website to remove my backlink, is a disavow through search console still necessary ?
Keep in mind if it helps even in the slightest to improve rankings im for it!
This has been a theme since Aug 1st. People are Yo-yoing around. I watched a site go to 8th page to 2nd back to 8th and finally crawled its was back to the 2nd. I would wait a week or so and let everything cool down. I have been extremely perplexed by the recent algo updates.
I am hoping for some predictability as well in the future. What I do see as a trend is sites with a lot of backlinks from a poor quality site ( Such as SEO by Company X ) are getting hit hard. Seeing a lot less backlinks from high authority sites ranking sites very well.
I would recommend 301 re-directing the purchase domain with relevant backlinks. Have you checked the spam score of the websites pointing to that domain? It is important to do some research and make sure that site has no manual penalties or backlink profile issues such as PBN's and a lot of backlinks in a short period of time.
If the domain is clear of that, then I would 301 re-direct to your money page and get the link juice from that domain. It isn't necessary to create a page that will backlink to you if you could re-direct the link juice directly to your money site.
Hope this helps!
Maureen,
Shannon gave some great suggestions, but I would also recommend using a directory service to make sure that your number is in the same format through all the business directories you are listed with.
In addition to that, I would recommend submitting your number to a service like white pages reverse number look up or true caller.
It is best to have as many people referencing your phone number as possible so the people searching for you can verify that its you.
Funny side note... If you Google "Call google my business" googles phone number doesn't even show up, but an irrelevant third party companies number does!
I have countless clients that get HUGE traffic form products that they have "discontinued"
You worked so hard to get those products to display on Google, why would you throw away all of your traffic with a 301 redirect to a different product causing high bounce rates or even worse taking your visitors to a discontinued product page.
I would simply put an "Out of Stock" notice on that product and have related products below to direct your customers to similar products or maybe an add to waitlist, so if you decide to bring the product back you have immediate customers.
Amazon is a perfect example. For the most part, they do not delete or remove products. If you search a product that is no longer in stock at Amazon it will say out of stock, still allowing you to see multiple reviews on that product or other sellers offering similar products.
I personally would not. There is no need to submit an additional sitemap when you can just ping google to crawl your site at anytime.
Google will put you in a que and crawl you almost immediately.
I would not recommend abusing this. Only ask Google to index your website when you have new content or Google is taking to long to index current content.
The more fresh content you provide, the more Google will re-visit your page and continue to index you
Hope this helps!
Hello!
Here is what happens when a URL is checked:
If none of these are being displayed, you want to first identify if their are any errors (Uses Incompatible plugins, Viewport not set, text to small, clickable elements to close etc )
After you fix all instances of a specific issue on your site, you can ask Google to validate your changes. If all known instances are gone, the issue is marked as fixed in the status table and dropped to the bottom of the table
If there are no errors and the page still has not been crawled for mobile usability, then simply ping google to re crawl the site. I would realistically wait 1 week as I have seen a delay in search console and waiting for results to be displayed.
Hope this helps. If you have any other questions reach out!
In response to your question, it really depends on how long his current page has been active and how long it has been indexed by google. If there are links pointing to his current bio, it will stay active in the SERPs longer.
Overtime the original page will not show in the SERP's but it will be replaced with the new page with his middle initial.
It is always better to have more information than not. It is just like long tail keywords. If you type his full first middle and last name into search, he will most likely rank for all three queries as long as his domain has relevant authority.
I hope this helps!
Is it possible to figure out the specific search volume of a keyword in a particular state ?