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All great points. The individual sites are going to be re-designed as they are old designs and the content is a little thin. I will take all your points into consideration and make a decision.

Thanks for the great answer!

Also, Amazon is not a local company. Its a multinational company who does not need to rank on CITY Keyword`` searches.

Yes. There are certainly some positives and negatives to having one main larger authoritative site (with link juice from the other sites) Or individual sites with more room for geographic authority as well as a group site.

I cannot decide which strategy to go with.

Yes. Those were my thoughts as well. We wouldn't be able to target as many geographic areas on the main site but can on the individual sites.

Thanks for the  great reply!

Currently we have several single sites for each of our dealership locations as well as an automotive group site linking to each location(dealership) website. Currently there is no landing page for each location on the group site.

To save money we were looking into beefing up our group site and getting rid of our individual location sites. 301 redirecting them to location landing pages on the group site website.

Each site has about the same authority including the group site.

Each dealership location resides in the same province(state) but some locations are a 7hour drive apart so not all within the same vicinity.

I want to ensure we continue to rank well in each location. I won't be able to include all geographic locations in the title tag on the homepage of the group site due to the character restrictions.

What would you recommend? Keeping the individual websites per dealership location OR focusing solely on a group website. I need to ensure we continue to rank well in each city where each dealership resides.

Thanks for any recommendations! It's greatly appreciated.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts & opinions.

TL;DR - Is creating a page that has 80% of duplicated content from the past year's product model where 20% is about the new model changes going to be detrimental to duplicate content issues. Is there a better way to update minor yearly model changes and not have duplicated content?

Full Question - We create landing pages for yearly products. Some years the models change drastically and other years there are only a few minor changes.

The years where the product features change significantly is not an issue, it's when there isn't much of a change to the product description & I want to still rank on the new year searches.

Since I don't want duplicate content by just adding the last year's model content  to a new page and just changing the year (2013 to 2014) because there isn't much change with the model, I thought perhaps we could write a small paragraph describing the changes & then including the last year's description of the product.

Since 80% of the content on the page will be duplicated from the last year's model, how detrimental do you think this would be for a duplicate content issue?

The reason I'm leaving the old model up is to maintain the authority that page has and to still rank on the old model which is still sold.

Does anyone else have any other better idea other than re-writing the same information over again in a different way with the few minor changes to the product added in.

Has anyone heard anything about this Google warning that was supposedly sent to some Google Place owners recently.

The message says:

We are making some changes to Google Places for Business and Google Maps so we can continue providing people with the best experience when they're looking for local businesses. As part of this process, we're asking business owners to review and confirm some of the information in their Google Places accounts so we can keep showing it to Google users. We know this will be a few extra steps for merchants, and we apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your time.

We have sent business owners affected by these changes an email entitled "Action Required: You have 3 weeks to save your Google Places Listing". Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2327744/Google-Warns-Local-Businesses-You-Have-3-Weeks-to-Save-Your-Places-Listing

I haven't found much other information in the SEO community but I just wanted to see if anyone has actually received this notice or not?

Someone suggested it may just be a test in Australia/Austria. (Not sure which one it is as the comment in the above list references both countries)

Thanks for any information you have on this topic.

Hey all,

In the automotive industry...

When uploading vehicle inventory to a website I'm concerned with duplicate content issues.

For example, 1 vehicle is uploaded to the main manufacturers website, then again to the actual dealerships website & then again to Craigslist & even sometimes to a group site. The information is all the same, description, notes, car details & images.

What would you all recommend for alleviating duplicate content issues? Should I be using the rel canonical back to the manufacturers website?

Once the vehicle is sold all pages disappear.

Thanks so much for any advice.

I've read a lot of blog posts from a few years ago that Bing Business portal(maps) doesn't accept Canadian Business listings.

I figured by now they would be accepting listings however when I try and submit one you cannot pick Canada. It's defaulted to USA.

Are they seriously still not accepting Canadian listings?

Do you have a version of each page. www.example.com/page & www.example.com/page?   ?   Then yes this is duplicate content.

Having read this ( http://www.seomoz.org/q/blog-on-a-subdomain-vs-subfolder ) & countless of blog posts on never to put your blog on a domain because a subdomain is treated as a different site & your blog traffic won't help with your main sites authority. I've always pushed for subfolder blogs.

However I've been seeing a lot of blogs now and days saying that Google is now treating subdomains as the same site as your main site.

http://www.brafton.com/news/subdomains-vs-subdirectories-for-seo-no-serp-benefits-for-subdomains-anymore

http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/34173/subdomains-vs-subdirectory-status-as-of-2012/34366#34366

ETC...

What does everyone think? Is it acceptable to have a blog in a subdomain in 2013?

Thanks!

After reading this article http://www.seomoz.org/blog/designing-for-seo some questions came up from my developers.

In the article it says

"One potential solution to this problem is a mouse-over. Initially when viewed, the panel will look as it does on the left hand side (exactly as the designer want it), yet when a user rolls over the image the panel changes into what you see on the right hand side (exactly what the SEO wants)."

My developers say" Having text in the rollovers is almost like hiding text and everyone knows in SEO that you should never hide text. "In the article he explains that it is not hidden text since its visible & readable by the engines.What are everyone's thoughts on this? Completely acceptable or iffy?Thanks

You want to put your most important keyword at the front of the tag. Most important to least important and under 70 characters (including spaces).

Each Title tag has to be unique. Since you already have a page about the Cheeses of the world The Cheshire Cheese page should begin with the keyword Cheshire Cheese. Also, since you already have a page called Cheeses of the world you could try using a completely different keyword that's similar to the keyphrases Cheeses of the world. Try and catch rankings for similar key phrases.

Cheshire Cheese, Find Cheese from around the world. Brand

I'd also recommend to not use | (Pipes) As Google see's those as stops. Its better to have a flowy sentence title tag.

One last thing.. I LOVE cheese too!

If you were a web development company that specializes in a specific niche & you were to have a link back to your website on all of the websites you have designed would this be seen as crappy links & would hurt you due to the Penguin Algo updates?

Or since it's a niche web development company, having links from the same industry websites be seen as decent links?

Thanks

Do you have a link back to your Google+ listing from your website? Try putting a link in your footer to the page & on your Contact Us page as well. You want to try and marry the listing to your site.

I'm trying to decide what would be the best option for my client.

They are a car dealership group who own 2 dealerships about a half hour away from each other. The dealerships have the same name but are just located in different locations.

One dealership is in a small city in competition with several other dealerships within the city. "Dealership name city name"

The other dealership they own (Same dealership name) is located in a small town close to an even larger city. "Same dealership name small town name"

My options are:

1. Creating 1 authoritative website optimized for all 3 locations. The 2 cities both dealerships are located in as well as the large city close to the small town.  This option would be less time consuming, we would only have to earn links, citations & blog for one website. However we'd still need to have citations using both dealership addresses. So that's still double the work. This site would probably be more authoritative and we could have a page promoting each dealership & have shared vehicle inventory. We'd attach 2 Google+ pages using the different addresses & have both location addresses prominently in the footer of the site.

2. Create 2 separate websites for each dealership & target the surrounding towns/cities in their respective areas (even though both dealerships are only a half hour apart). This option is more time consuming as we'd have to earn double  the amount of links. Work on citation building, blog for 2 websites etc. But we wouldn't be diluting our SEO by trying to rank for all 3 locations. We'd have a better chance if we focused on each locations separately on 2 sites. BUT the 2 sites would have less authority.

What is everyone's thoughts? What would you recommend to be the best option.

Money isn't an issue.

Thanks so much for any help.

All my Schema Rich Snippets are being validated in the webmaster tools Rich Snippet tester tool here http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

But when I go take a peek at the new tab in Webmaster tools when I'm signed into my analytics account it shows there are no active Markups on my site.

Has anyone else been having this issue? If it says it's working in the Google tool from the link above should I even be worried if its not showing up when I'm signed into my analytics account?

Thanks.

You should pick your top 10-20 most important pages on your website & link them from your footer. Since the homepage normally has the most domain authority you want to try to pass along some of the authority to the other pages within your site that you want to rank.

Don't put too many links in the footer as this will over-dilute the home page link juice.

Can anyone direct me to  a source on how to apply the Facebook Open Graph markups?

Thanks!

Thanks so much for reassurance. It's always great to ensure I'm on the right track with my recommendations.

Cheers!

Google frowns upon businesses that include keywords within the business name. You would get your listing deleted from Google if you include World Of Books in your title.

I have a client saying that there is a way  to link 3 separate websites (A website for each department of a company) in Google Webmaster tools to tell Google it's basically one site but really its 3. Or to tell Google it's the same company and all the sites are one.

I have never heard of this & I don't see the point in making 3 separate small sites & "linking" them as one in Webmaster tools.

Is there in fact a way? Am I out to lunch on what they might be referring to?

I am recommending they create one larger authority site with a page on each department & earn links for each department page & provide informative unique content for each page.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the help!

What is everyone's thoughts on creating several websites for your business for each department.

For example.. say you owned a car dealership.

You create a different site for:

• New cars for sale
• Used cars for sale
• Service department -mechanical repairs
• Parts & accessories department
• Financing department

Positives:

Having separate sites for each department would probably make it easier  to rank on the specific search terms. Since a whole site on one topic Ie. Used cars would rank over just a page with the same information on a dealership website.

Negatives:

• You would have to maintain 5 sites
• Link building
• Social Media
• Analytics
• ETC.
• Since they are all new domains & sites it will take longer for each site to rank.
• Google will see them as small lower authority sites since they are only a few pages & not larger sites.

What is everyone's thoughts on this? Would you create several small sites? Or would you continue working on one big main authority site & continue link earning to the specific department pages, blogging on the topics etc.

Thanks for any help & opinions!

Thanks all. This is what I had recommended to the client to begin with. I just needed some backup from all you smart SEO's out there.

Unfortunately the URL would not be for sale as it's a brick and mortar business.

Thanks again!

I'm trying to outrank a website with the following:

Website with #1 ranking for a search query with "City & Brand"

• Domain Authority - 2
• Domain Age - 11 years & 9 months old
• Has both the City & brand in the URL name.
• The site is crap, outdated.. probably last designed in the 90's, old layouts, not a lot of content & NO keywords in the titles & descriptions on all pages.

My site ranks 5th for the same keyword.. BEHIND 4 pages from the site described above.

• Domain Authority - 2
• Domain Age - 4 years & 2 months old
• Has only the CITY in the URL.
• Brand new site design this past year, new content & individual keywords in the titles, descriptions on each page.

My main question is.... do you think it would be be beneficial to buy a new domain name with the BRAND in the URL  & CITY & 301 redirect my 4 year old domain to the new domain to pass along the authority it has gained.

Will having the brand in the URL make much of a difference?

Do you think that small step would even help to beat the crappy but old site out?

Thanks for any help & suggestions on how to beat this old site or at least show up second.

Exactly. I want a wordpress integration however they are pushing for a Google Blogger saying it won't make a difference.

I'm just looking for peoples opinions &  thoughts on the topic as I'd like to prove to them that Wordpress subfolder is the best option.

Thanks!

Yes! That is what I'm pushing for is a subfolder. However my IT department is pushing back and saying they can only achieve this in a sub directory. Thanks for supporting my thoughts.

We are looking into offering blogs for our customers on their current sites that we have built & host for them.

My developers have given me 2 options.

1. Sub domain with a hosted blog.

2. A Google Blogger blog with our customers sub-domain pointed to it.

In my opinion I feel that a blog hosted on the sub domain is a better option as it is more authority then a Google Blogger blog.

What does everyone think? Having a blog hosted on the subdomain would help with authority building vs. a Google Blogger site?

Thanks for any help!

Thanks!

Is the above statement correct? I've read that its better to have different SEO titles & descriptions for mobile sites as users search differently on mobile devices.

I've also read it's good to link build, keep text content on mobile sites etc to get the mobile site to rank.

If I choose to not have titles & descriptions on my mobile site will Google just rank our desktop version & then redirect a user on a mobile device to our mobile site or should I be adding in titles & descriptions into the mobile site?

Thanks so much for any help!

Yes thanks. My question wasn't to stop using them at all. My question was if people were not using them with keywords anymore to simulate a webpage not being overly optimized.

There has been a lot of talk lately about making a website seem like it is not SEO'd to avoid over optimization penalties with the recent Google Algorithmic updates.

Has anyone come across the practice of not using Headings (H1's, H2's etc..) properly to simulate that the current webpage isn't over optimized?

I've come across a site that used to use multiple keywords within their headings & now they are using none. In fact they are marking their company name & logo as an H1 and non keyworded H2's such as our work or Contact.

Is anyone holding back on their old SEO tactics to not seem over optimized to Google?

Thanks!

I have  PR tool. I threw in some low PR sites & higher PR sites to see if anyone said there was a difference between all my links but I do appreciate the reassurance that I'm on the right track.

Thanks for the articles. I've read them through.

The articles I've been reading are all articles that have been written since May 2012 to August 2012 mostly on Search EngineLand & SEOMOZ as well as Digital Marketing webinars from Optify.

I've been doing a lot of research lately on link building & I've read a lot about having a diverse amount of links.

Social links, Blog links, comment links, footer links, No follow links, Directory links as well as links with Anchor text URL match, brand match, partial brand match, non-descriptive, and with keywords.

But there is a lot of talk of removing those links that look like a site that's built just for link building purposes.... but Directories are basically built for link building are they not?

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if they feel links from the following directories would be bad links. (Non-Paid)

http://www.yoganza.com

http://www.wkool.com

http://www.wee-directory.com

http://www.voicelet.com

www.hotfrog.ca

http://www.webdirectorieslist.com

http://multiplelistingboard.com

http://mozdirectory.net

http://freedirectorypr.info

Industry specific below:

http://bestautolinks .com

http://automotivedome.com

http://automobilebuzz.com

http://craigsautolinks.com

Thanks so much for the help!

I've been having issues getting my Google Places/+ listing verified as we have an automatic phone system. If you call our office you have to dial a number to reach an actual human being or before you can leave a message.

Whenever the Google Bot calls we aren't able to receive our Google Place verification code.

Currently.. there is no option to send a postcard.. which is weird because for awhile  that was the only option.

Has anyone had any success on an automated phone system & how did you do it?

Thanks!

Great!

Now is the only way to find old pages that weren't redirected to a new site is through webmaster tools correct?

Are there any other tools out there that would find old URLS.. URLS maybe even a year old that weren't redirected?

Thanks for all the reassurance so far.

Thanks.  I have a custom 404 page but what if I'm looking to pass along the link juice from pages on an old site to the new site. Will this pass along any page authority by just redirecting it to the root domain?

Yes. That's what has happened in the past. Once we've claimed it we were able to manage it. However it is doing what I explained above. We aren't able to manage it.

I'm wondering if anyone else has been having this issue & if they know what could be potentially causing this error.

Thanks

Yes. That is what should be done I agree.

But since it wasn't done.. instead of just leaving it & not doing anything about it... would it be better to redirect any 404 pages to the root domain in the mean time?

Or should it be left until we can redirect all the individual pages to their appropriate new page?

Thanks

After a new site redesign ...would it hinder our rankings if we 301 redirected all old URLS that are returning 404 error codes to the root domain (home page) ?

Would this be a good temporary solution until we are able to redirect the pages to the appropriate corresponding page?

Thanks so much!

Yes. All the Google Places pages were claimed and now its asking us to claim the Google+ version... which is weird in my opinion. Shouldn't we just have control over it as it was previously claimed?

The issue we are having is that when we go to claim & manage the page it asks us to enter the phone number of the business which was already on the old Google Places page.. now converted to Google+ page. When we enter the phone number an error pops up saying that this phone number isn't associated with any previously entered Google Places address so its prompting us to create a new page.

However we do not want to create a new page we want to manage the old page which has all our videos & such which were previously posted on the  Google Places page.

We don't want to lose all our stuff by creating a new page. INCLUDING reviews.

Also, At times we have had issues with some of our reviews not being accessible once the page was converted to a + page.

Has anyone else had either of these issues?

Thanks so much!

When attempting to claim my Google+ account, it asks for the phone number. When I enter the number listed on my business listing, it says that number cannot be found... It then tells me to re-enter all my business info. If I do this, will I lose all my existing photos, videos etc.?

Has anyone found this?

Thanks for the answer! I just needed outside confirmation.

Cheers mate!

I have been told that 301 redirects are always possible.  I've been told that it's a very time consuming process so developers at times will say that it's not possible.

Is there ever a time when it is not impossible? Perhaps using a specific server? I know it's do-able in Apache which is the server that is in question.

Would it be impossible if someone were using a templated type set of websites & if they made changes on one website it would make changes across all websites?

*Edit "due to a server configuration 301 redirects aren't possible"

Thanks so much for any help or answers you can provide.