Hi Cylo, I'm not sure if saying Google caches dynamic pages automatically is an accurate thing to say. I would say it like this: Google is more apt to cache and index a dynamic page if it is given a SEO-friendly URL.  Perhaps a Mozzer who is more technically adept than I can comment on the accuracy of that statement.

That being said I definitely wouldn't recommend using dynamic URLs (which it sounds like you are not). Here is how you can set up URL-rewrites in your .htaccess file if you are on a Linux server: http://www.webconfs.com/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls-article-3.php

Not sure if that's helpful at all. I hope it is somewhat

Dana

Having just gone through the pain of fixing a meta refresh on a large e-commerce site, I would highly recommend fixing the meta refresh and making it a 301-redirect instead.

I would strongly recommend against telling Google to de-index the vanity URL because, chances are, that's the URL people are going to remember and use if they want to link back to your client's site. Chances are, the link profile is already fragmented. All the external links linking to the vanity profile are giving clout to that URL, but it's not passing on to the flagship site. Have you put both URLs in OSE to compare the linking profiles of each? Definitely do this before you make any big changes. (You may have already considered all of this, I'm not sure). But I can tell you from experience, fixing the meta refresh and putting in a proper 301-redirect will have a significant impact.

Hope that helps!

Dana

Hi Bruce,

We are transitioning to Wistia and have about 20 Wistia videos up on our site already. To my knowledge, it is not necessary to do anything special in order to assure that the embed code any users might copy and paste into their own sites will link directly back to your site. This is one of the biggest advantages to switching to Wistia in the first place. Here's an example URL where we have a Wistia video embedded:

http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/product/allen-heath-me-1-personal-monitor-mixer

If you click the "Embed" icon just below the video you will see an iFrame code appear for people to copy and paste if they want to share the content on their own sites. This works just like a YouTube iFrame, in that it directs the visitor directly back to the site where the video originated...in this case it would divert people directly back to your site giving you full credit for the content.

I hope that's helpful. Did I understand you question correctly? Or are you seeking to do something different with anyone who wants to embed your content? Let me know, cheers!

Dana

P.S. Here's the embed code for the above video if you want to try it out:

<iframe class="wistia_embed" name="wistia_embed" src="http://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/fdnz3j82q4?version=v1&videoWidth=560&videoHeight=315&volumeControl=true&controlsVisibleOnLoad=true&plugin[socialbar-v1][buttons]=embed-twitter-linkedIn-googlePlus-facebook&plugin[socialbar-v1][logo]=true&plugin[socialbar-v1][badgeUrl]=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccisolutions.com&plugin[socialbar-v1][badgeImage]=https%3A%2F%2Fwistia.sslcs.cdngc.net%2Fdeliveries%2F39051b62d0e4f252affe3b7fe5b95279dc143941.jpg%3Fimage_crop_resized%3D100x20&plugin[captions-v1][onByDefault]=false&canonicalUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccisolutions.com%2FStoreFront%2Fproduct%2Fallen-heath-me-1-personal-monitor-mixer&canonicalTitle=Allen %26 Heath ME-1 | Personal Monitor Mixer" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="480" height="298"></iframe>

Any number of things could have happened William. How many links did you have before the drop. Some fluctuations are normal, especially if you released a new product or made it into a news story, your links can skyrocket for a time then settle back down. Or, it could be that you had a lot of links from bad directories that Google has de-indexed (same is true for blog networks, etc.)

Have you tried viewing your link profile in http://www.ahrefs.com ? You might get a better idea of what's going on if you look there. Interested to know what you see there? Hope that helps!

Dana

Good question BB. Think about how news stories are published. Say you make page one for something. That news site might have 3 or 4 thousand pages. Say they have links to all the latest headlines on the right hand side of their template and that your news is in that list. As long as you are a headline, boom, you are linked from 3 or 4 thousand pages. As soon as your story is no longer front page, those links from all the pages go away and you retain just the one from the article that remain in their archive. In this scenario, you lost a lot of links, but you didn't lose any linking domains.

That being said, my guess is that you might have lost 100,000 links, but those links were from a small handful of linking root domains. If you lost 100,000 linking domains, that would be truly alarming. I am guessing that's not the case.

Hope that explanation made sense. What were you able to see in Ahrefs?

Did you pay for any featured links in any directories? Or perhaps maybe someone did this prior to you coming on board. I can't say for sure, but this is a very likely scenario. Again, focus more on the number and quality of your linking domains. I have seen fluctuations like this before and they aren't necessarily cause for concern.

For example, I am in house SEO for a company that does audio video installations. For a couple of months our products were picked up and listed in a trade magazine online. This temporarily inflated our links being reported in Webmaster Tools. Here's what that looked like. While this looks like a decrease, the number of linking domains actually has gone up:

<colgroup><col width="68"> <col width="64"></colgroup>
| 4/17/2012 | 20,339 |
| 4/20/2012 | 20,156 |
| 5/1/2012 | 18,812 |
| 5/8/2012 | 17,576 |
| 5/15/2012 | 17,432 |
| 5/29/2012 | 16,280 |
| 6/7/2012 | 13,544 |
| 9/21/2012 |

13,362

|

Yes. I believe there is an advantage in choosing your second option, for exactly the reason you state. In other words it's better for you and your own organization of your content. It will also make it much easier when and if you implement URL rewrites to give you SEO friendly URLs because if you use any relative URLs on your pages, they will be much easier to identify correctly and update if they are constructed "/state/michigan."

I don't believe there is going to be an advantage or disadvantage to your campaigns or SEO if you choose one versus another. That's my personal opinion. I certainly don't pretend to know what Google favors or doesn't favor at any given point in time.

I certainly hope this helps!