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We are combining the images in our header and footer into sprites. We noticed that when we include our header logo in the sprite, we lose the "alt" text associated with the header logo.
Is this undesirable? Would it be better to leave the logo in our header as an image with "alt" text?
Here's the link: http://www.ccisolutions.com
I highly recommend Brian Solis' book "Engage" - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470571098?ie=UTF8&tag=pr200f-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0470571098
It's brilliant.
P.S. Also David Meerman Scott's "Real-Time Marketing" http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Marketing-PR-Instantly-Customers/dp/1118155998/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365800642&sr=1-3&keywords=david+meerman+scott
Hi Kenji, First and foremost, congrats on getting the interview! 
As far as link building for a larger company, the first thing I would tell them is that you want to do a complete audit of existing inbound links, you versus competitors. From this, you will be able to identify some missed opportunities (i.e. low-hanging fruit that you could immediately harvest). You'll also be able to identify opportunities based on who's linking to competitors. For example, we had a competitor who had an inbound link from Columbia University. When I researched the link I found out it was from a professor who linked to our competitor (and several others) as a resource for his students. My company really belonged on that list. I wrote to the professor and told him that I thought we would make a good addition to his resource list and, simple as that, he added us and we got and inbound link from Columbia University.
In your interview, I would say that you will make an organized effort to be connected to the activities being performed by other departments that might result in linking opportunities. An example might be, if a department is reaching out into the community and mentoring a group of students, reaching out to them and asking when and where their work might be published online and just politely request an link back as a courtesy...They will say yes. The same goes for charity involvement. A company of 5,000 employees without question probably does a whole lot of #RCS. Find out where they are involved in the community and look for possible linking opportunities (i.e. donor pages on charity websites).
I bet you will cover so many existing "missed" opportunities that you'll be busy for a long time chasing them all down.
I hope this helps and GOOD LUCK!
Dana
Hi all,
Have any of you used
http://wearekiss.com/spritepad to combine images into sprites after your site has already been designed?
I can see how it would be easy if you were doing this work as you were building and designing a site. But, on a custom coded site (that is not running on any well-know platform or CMS), is it really going to be a piece of cake?
Interested to hear about your experiences with this tool.
Thanks!
Dana
Hi all, I just wanted to check in and say I have checked for the "Related Searches" option every day since I posted this and they have not reappeared for me, regardless of browser and regardless of whether I am at work or at home.
Anyone else seeing the same?
Agreed on all counts Jason, not to mention the improved customer experience because we won't have people landing on those God-awful ugly and useless pages!
From a server perspective, could deleting 8,000 files (pages, images, PDFs) results in our site speed improving too? Or would it likely have no impact?
Hi Rogerio,
Currently, Googlebot cannot crawl or index the content within an iframe. If your intent is to use your infographic for link-building purposes it is going to need to be a page or graphic. Hope that helps!
Dana
Thanks Don,
To summarize, we are trying to target the same keyword on too many different pages?
Would that be it, in your opinion, in a nutshell?
I am so glad Phil jumped in here. He's brilliant....and absolutely right of course. I think he's really got it the right way around with determining what you hope to achieve and what kind of content you want to produce and let that determine where you publish your vids. I happily defer to his recommendations and suggest you follow them.
Hi everyone. I seem to have a lot of questions the past couple of days!
Take a look at these two URLs:
Site B:
http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/product/roland-m-200i-digital-mixer
I will mail 2-dozen homemade chocolate chip cookies to anyone who can tell me why Site A massively outranks Site B for the term "roland m-200i" - Seriously.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Jason,
Ok, here is what I saw in Screaming Frog:
27,616 total spidered URLs, of which:
Google says we have only 7,540 URLs indexed (of all types) - I know for a fact that at least 500 orphaned pages are indexed in Google. It seems to me, then, that Google is indexing content that isn't important to us, and perhaps not indexing other content that is important to us because it's having trouble telling what's important and what's not.
Any insights on that Jason? What do you make of it?
Hi Jason,
I'm just following up as I get my ducks in a row on this one. Above in your comment you said "Google Count of Pages - Screaming Frog count of Pages = # of Orphaned Pages" - to be perfectly accurate, this would only give me the number of orphaned pages that are indexed. There could be many additional orphaned pages that are not in Google's index.
My follow up question is, should I be concerned about those too? Or are orphaned pages that aren't indexed not worth cleaning up? I think I already know the answer (Yes! Clean those up too because they can interfere with crawl rate and site speed...)....but I want to know your take on it please. Thanks so much!
Dana
Thanks EGOL. You made me chuckle, because all of these things crossed my mind. I did go home mad yesterday, and I don't get mad very easily or very often. I usually welcome the idea of explaining SEO strategies and tactics to newbies and laypeople (as is evidenced by my many posts here in Q & A).
Let's just say - my feelers are out looking at other possibilities.
EGOL, I thought I would just follow up on these thin content "Reviews/Ratings" pages. They are blocked from Google crawling them via the robots.txt file. Is this enough? Or are they still diluting the product page's authority just by being there?
Thanks!
Dana
Thanks EGOL,
And yes, they are.
The comment I received when trying to explain that those links were draining authority off the product pages was "No they aren't. Whatever PageRank the product page has, it has, regardless of whether the links are there or not."
What would your response be to that? I tried to explain it several different ways, but he just looked at me like I was full of malarkey...He is a visual person. Perhaps I should try a diagram?
It's difficult going into a situation like this when the opening premise in the other person's mind is that he knows more about SEO than I do, because all SEO is in his mind is a bunch of guesswork.
Sorry, moral's a bit low in my heart at the moment. I work too hard and study too hard at what I do to have someone who maybe read's a blog about SEO occasionally to come in and treat me like I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Thanks very much for responding. I appreciate it mucho!
Dana
Thanks Jason,
These are great suggestions and are exactly the kinds of things that will give me the proof I need to convince him that removing these is a worthwhile endeavor. I'm off to do them now and will come back here and post my discoveries.
Dana
I spent an hour this afternoon trying to convince my CEO that having thousands of orphaned pages is bad for SEO. His argument was "If they aren't indexed, then I don't see how it can be a problem."
Despite my best efforts to convince him that thousands of them ARE indexed, he simply said "Unless you can prove it's bad and prove what benefit the site would get out of cleaning them up, I don't see it as a priority."
So, I am turning to all you brilliant folks here in Q & A and asking for help...and some words of encouragement would be nice today too
Dana
I think that's wise Bruce!
I just wanted to add that my comment may have sounded rude and I apologize for that. It wasn't meant to be. I am just trying to make you understand that for an established site like SEOmoz, the standard and timing is going to be way different than it might be for the rest of us.
The answer IMHO is ...Yes....and Yes...but wait 4-8 weeks before posting on YouTube (if you really feel like you have to) instead of 1 week. Why? Because SEOMoz is fascinating content to Google, and they are going to get indexed very often.... You my friend are not. Establish your video via Vimeo, give it 4-6 weeks before posting on YouTUbe....if you must
Have you tried creating a lead gen landing page for Stumble Upon paid advertising? I think it's an underestimated resource with some very nice targeting capabilities and very low cost. Just a thought!
I really like Jason's response and I watched the video. Still, from sheer gut instinct, I would move those docs to the main domain. Call me crazy, it's just seems like the right thing to do.
Hi Sean,
My gut reaction is "Heck Yes!" I would move the documentation, but perhaps, if you can convert it to .pdf file types, so you can embed a link back to your relevant page or main website from inside the document. This will also keep a link in the document if someone decides to share it off site somewhere, making for some handy links back to your site.
Interested to know what others think!
Dana
Yes, I agree with Chris. Can you tell us what platform you are using for your site. Is it Word Press, Drupal, Joomal? It sounds like your CMS is automatically concatenating a title tag for dynamic page queries that include the property specific info. This is one thing that really drives me crazy as an SEO. Without question, whatever platform you are on, you need to be able to, as a site manager, SEO or Webmaster, be able to customize the title, description , canonical and Robots meta tags for every single page on the site. Unfortunately, there are many, even some of the best ones, that won't let you do that.
Hi Mike,
I know you guys use Wistia for the videos. Is there any particular reason you guys have opted not to use their transcription service? I ask because we are transitioning to Wistia, but one thing I don't like is not being able to add our own transcriptions if we want to. Thanks!
Rui has given two good answers below. Cheers!
Yes, use variations that seem natural.
Forget about 70-30 or any other algo methods. Write and use anchor text that seems normal and natural. Forget everything else. Period.
Why? Because tomorrow the algo is going to be different. Google's algorithm changes over 400 times a year and no one knows what it is. As a result, chasing it is a futile exercise. Be natural and interesting and you'll do great.
I'm probably going to take some heat for this answer, but it's just an honest answer, so I'm hoping the SEOMoz community will go gentle with me.
If your keyword is "Indian bridal sarees" and that is the best, most natural combination of those words, then for the sake of all that is holy in this world, use it. Don't make ridiculous iterations of it just because you think it's what Google wants.
Perhaps you could use these variations if you had to: "Indian bridal saree" - "bridal saree" - "wedding saree" or "Indian wedding saree." But if you start using anchor text that is like "saree bridal wedding" or "saree bridal Indian" I think it's just silly.
Take advantage of synonyms by all means, but don't feel like you have to start moving words around for your anchor text to the point of not making sense.
Does that help a little?
Dana
Hi Lisa,
I would argue that rubbish and waste can be completely fascinating to a certain audience...my boys for example, who are ages 14 and 10. They are completely amused by anything having to do with...welll..you know...
I recently saw a billboard here in town for a septic tank company that used the headline "Howdy Doody"
Yeah. I thought it was funny, but my boys thought it was hilarious. So hilarious that they kept talking about it for weeks. Guess who I called when I needed my septic tank cleaned out?
Need I say more? lol
Dana
Hi Theresa, First let me say, welcome to the best SEO community in the world. There are so many ways to build backlinks, that yes, if you read all the posts here, it will make your head spin. So, let me give you a link to the Mother of all link-building blog posts. I have this bookmarked and every time I feel "stuck" I go right back to it because I always find some new idea every time I read it.
http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies
I guarantee you, you'll bookmark this and go back to it over and over andover and still never exhaust all the possibilities. Hands down, the best, most complete list of strategies ever. Now, I'm not saying there isn't stuff missing off this list. I'm just saying, if you completely exhaust this list, you're going to have one kick ass link profile!!!
Hint - Investigate Tynt.com first....a fascinating link-building tool. Free. Easy to use. Yes, it's on the list.
Hope this helps!
Dana
Hi Godad,
Just from a basic usability viewpoint I wouldn't open that download page in a new tab. Depending on what browser you end user is using, that new page could cover up the old page and they won't even know it, and their back buttonwill be disabled, which could actually increase your site bounce rate.
I know Google uses opening in new tabs in their GWT forum all the time and also in GA and Adwords Help pages. It drives me crazy. Not having access to a working back button makes me feel like I'm not in control of navigating (from an end-user perspective) and that usually decreases my level of good will towards whatever site I might be on that employed the technique
Just my two cents!
Dana
Hi Ken,
I might be able to help with this depending on what platform your client site is using. Can you let me know?
Dana
Thanks again. Yes, we are definitely going to go for it. It makes complete sense.
One final follow up question EGOL if you don't mind. We also have a link on all the product pages that goes to an "Email this Product to a Friend" request page on another URL. It's a very similar scenario as the "Rating/Review" request links. Are these causing a similar problem? I ask because if we are going to fix one we might as well fix the other at the same time. Let me know what you think.
Thanks as always!
This is a great question. Yes, you should use a canonical tag. But, I would suggest that your canonical tag needs to be:
Notice the addition of the '/"
THe, I would also make sure that these URLs produce 301 status codes when going through your server:
This is very important so as not to fragment your link profile and also not to produce massive amounts (potentially) of duplicate content in Google and other search engines.
Hope that helps!
Dana
Hi Umer - Welcome to SEOMoz - The first place I look for possible link-building is in my competitors links. I look at their inbound links and analyze which ones might be from good sites for us too. If they feel natural, I contact the appropriate parties and either ask for a link or decide what might earn us a link from their site.
Here's a real-life example. Earlier this year, we made a goal to get "X" number of .edu links this year. I proceeded by identifying .edu sites that were linking to competitiors and how. As a first step, after identifying possibilities, I simply wrote to the owners of the .edu pages. Within one week I gained a .edu link
See? It doesn't necessarily take anything more than a request.
Dana
Thanks AA
Yes, this explains a lot. I am an in house SEO in the USA. I don't have a need (yet) for this kind of thing. Quite frankly, if I got to the point where I really needed this, I might consider handing off the client to someone in a more relevant local or out-sourcing to someone in their local.
I think the ability to be able to check via tools like HMA has a limited horizon and that one can't build a business that relies on the ability to check rankings in this manner. Just my two cents, and I'm certainly not saying I am an authority on this particular subject.
the topic has been fascinating to me!
I'm sorry, perhaps I am misunderstanding, but these answers seem totally contradictory to me. One the one hand EGOL said that he agrees that "**putting your cart within a sub domain is not a good idea because any clout of the pre-existing domain will not be shared with the sub domain" **
yet he also writes "The day that my sites get hosted by a shopping cart provider is a day that you can bet big money that I am dead and under."
I am sure they weren't intended to be contradictory and that I am simply misunderstanding. EGOL, would you mind elaborating or clarifying please?
I recommend Matt, Oleg and the guys/gals at http://melen.net/ Matt and Oleg are pro members here as well. (http://www.seomoz.org/users/profile/357534) Hope that helps!
Hi A A, I'm sorry I am not posting with a really good answer to your question, but instead I have questions. How are you checking your rankings from multiple data centers? I have been doing SEO professionally for a long time (8 years), but there's certainly a lot I don't know.
How does one check one's rankings from a multitude of data centers? Is this really necessary in the US?
I understand that different regions might show different results even to Google users who aren't logged in to Google, based on their geographic location. But, I haven't ever heard of drastic changes in rankings from one data center to another unless it was for a location-specific Website.
Sorry to answer your question with a question, but I am just really curious about this. Thanks!
Dana
P.S. I am currently using SEOMoz Pro, WebPosition.com, Rank Tracker (sporadically) and AWR....but am not aware that you can set any of these up to search from different data centers?
Fascinating. It never ceases to amaze me that the better I get at SEO, the less I seem to know Thanks very much EGOL I very very much appreciate your explanation and help on this one!
Thanks EGOL,
Is it evaporating pagerank simply because those pages exist as many separate pages with thin/duplicate content? Or would the "no follow" be evaporating pagerank? If so, how? I was under the impression that adding a "no follow" attribute retained the pagerank of the page on which the no followed link resides?
Thanks for any clarification you can provide. I am trying to get my ducks in a row before giving marching orders to our IT director.
Dana
Thanks James! I'm going to keep an eye on it and I'll post back here when and if I see it return to my options in search.
Thanks Max - I must be experiencing a Google test (I hope!)
I know I just used this a few days ago, so I was surprised when doing keyword research today that I could no longer access the "Related Searches" feature in Google search.
Has anyone else noticed this? It's a pity if it's gone, although I think Google announced it was going to shut this down over a year ago. They said the same thing about the "Patent" search too, but it is still available.
I know using "Related Searches" was really popular with SEOs so I am wondering if anyone else is as sad-faced as I am? Or perhaps was it just bumped today so Google could have fun with their April Fool's beta test of Google "Nose" ?
Thanks Don! (and Chris too). I think your guess on the platform is probably correct
I appreciate both of your responses very much!