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It's basically the same thing, just with a different process.

But just to answer, for SEO = 301's are always better.

I would give them what they want, and inform them of the possible outcomes

More often than not (with proper redirects in place) the new page will rank on the same spot after a while.

It's a win win for them. They get what they want, they have 1 domain to worry about plus they have built a lot of links to the separate domains.

It's like the traditional ecommerce strategy: build separate product specific sites -> after building enough traffic -> 301 to category page of main domain. We all know it's harder to get natural links to category/product pages so that's what I would do.

gazzerman1's suggestion would be my next play if that doesn't get approved.

Depends on the price. If it's affordable enough to acquire the link, then yes, I'll go for it. It's just 1 link and it's a strong one for the mean time. You can then focus on other cleaner links after that.

I'm less scared when it comes to local tlds as well. They tend to get passed on.

My answer: I'll get the link.

Hi Ruben,

Grab the link.

Industry Link - Check

Potential to Send Traffic in the Future - Check

Potential to get your link/post there to rank so you have an extra spot in the rankings? - Check

That's enough for me.

Looking at PA/DA/PR/MR etc aren't really that important in this case, assuming your site's niche is in the boring (high money but typically boring) side. I'd go get a link and build a relationship which will work further in your favor in the future.

Hi!

There are some terms that you just won't be able to rank for with a single page. It might be because of the competition or google might see the keyword as not as relevant so you'll be limited. I would look at it at a case by case thing. It doesnt mean you have to create a new page each time.

It's just an option and you can do tests for it if you want. If it ranks better (and faster) then you have a winner. If it's just an extra maintenance cost and doesnt give results, you might want to just scrap it altogether and redirect the url to the old, improved page that was already performing.

Hope you are having a great week!

My take, I'll just go ahead and start doing other things to improve it's current rankings. I could assign someone to go over links if another team member is available.

If I see improvements, within the next month, then that's a good sign already that you should continue and not worry about the dead links.

It takes google a long time to actually forget about those links pointing to your site. So if they are dead AND then you didnt notice any increases or drops in analytics, then they are pretty much ineffective so they shouldnt be a major obstacle. I think someone coined a term for it, ghost links or something. LOL.

Hi Igor,

Seeing ezinearticles in there is definitely a red flag that tells you that it probably has web directories, article networks, blog networks, pliggs, guestbooks and other links from that time.

Maybe you can dig up some old analytics data, check out when the traffic dropped.

If you did not see any heavy anchor text usage, then the site must've gotten away with a sitewide penalty, I would assume it's just a few (or many, but not all) of the keywords that got hit so either way, youll need to clean up -> disavow the links if they are indeed like that. So that's probably a reason for it's low organic rankings.

That, and since it's old, it might have been affected by panda too.

What's the exact day of the drop? Normally, I wouldn't really be concerned with a drop in webmaster tool impressions especially after a bump up, but since you mentioned you lost traffic on Bing, yahoo and social, it does raise some flags.

IF that happened around the final 3 days of the month, then you were affected by the update I mentioned which nobody seems to be talking about....

Anyway, did you check crawl errors on GWT? Did you crawl the site separately ? Did you see any problems with the index/noindex/etc?

As for injected codes, the easy way is to load pages (that you lost traffic on) in google. Check the saved cache. If you got some injected codes, they'll show up there.

There's really not much we can do but assume things. I do hope you could find the reason for the problem.

It usually take a long time for the disavow to kick in. Takes me up till the next major update usually.

I would not recommend 301'ing the old domain until I see signs of improvements (usually, a big bump in webmaster tools "impressions" change, since the penalty drops you to almost nothing, is good enough of a sign for me to take the next step)

I'll assume that you have a good reason for the separate local website so yes, I would actually create new pages to rank for specific keywords. Some of those pages can rank for a lot of local/related keywords, too so it's a win win situation

Hi Igor,

Do they still show up in Webmaster tools? Do you have a penalty because of those links that used to link to the site? If not then I wouldn't really worry about it and just prioritize other things and make that a side task.

Are the majority of them on bad looking domains? If you checked the link URL on archive.org, were they spammy links? Then go ahead and include them in the disavow list.

Did you mean that you want to get your new links to get indexed? Send good links (not just bookmarks)  to them, that'll work.

I can't really recommend the old school (when they send a new link 200 bookmarks) way of getting links indexed.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-social-stream/screenshots/

https://wordpress.org/plugins/rebelmouse-widget/

http://www.designchemical.com/blog/index.php/premium-jquery-plugins/jquery-social-stream-plugin/

Kind of similar -  https://wordpress.org/plugins/twine-social/screenshots/ but takes up some space

The one on code canyon is pretty good though.

Hi!

1. As long as the redirect is properly set, then it's fine. It's out of your hands on what Google will ultimately decide on. From my experience, it just indexes the new url, on the same spot. I drop normally a few spots but bounce back

2. It does transfer pagerank. Some say it doesn't transfer fully which is backed up by studies but for me, I just keep it simple. It does pass PR, how much, is irrelevant because it's usually good enough. Tradeoffs

3. For those that you can change, yes. But since there's a 301, the urgency should be put to your internal structure first. Fix the whole site, make sure there are no holes

4. I'm not sure what you mean, but Google will index the new url if your 301 is there. If you mean rankings, they yeah, it will pretty much appear on the same spot. You might drop a bit though

The usual, compile the links, disavow them

If you got a manual penalty, submit a reconsideration ASAP.

Find some other traffic sources for the mean time while building better links. You can also start with some other domains as backup.

There's really no way to protect your site from something like that unless you have a really good brand plus a lot of great links.

There was an update 3 days ago. It's not reported but it looks like a big one. Maybe that's it?

I dont think it was Penguin, as my sites that little links but great onpage SEO and branding got some huge increases.

Im still checking the others to identify the common thing.

In your case, it's sounds weird that you will drop even for bing and yahoo AND social. So that's probably not because of google.

• Check webmaster tools - impressions, how much has changed?
• Crawl your site - check problems
• Did you move to https?
• What else, besides link removal, did you do?
• Maybe check your htaccess/robots/were you hacked? Injected by an invisible code? Check Google cache
• Check analytics code are you using the universal code? Or whatever stat tracker you are using, be sure that it's compatible.

Yeah, practically every site out there gets those so I would look at the other reasons for the traffic drop.

If it's really bothering you then just domain:askives.com each of those and submit them.

Has this happened to you yet? If not, dont worry about it.

The penalty doesnt really pass all the time. If your site B is strong enough, you won't even feel it.

If it does happen to you, you will need to find the 301, report it to the registrar to get it off. I don't think there's an easier way at the moment.

What Tim said.

And be sure to add it again on Webmaster tools

What they said. or create another website. Link back to your site.

I'm thinking we got baited in to answering here as it might just be a random post lol.

Mods please check

Hi!

I would look at your www. and non www redirect

OSE is probably counting all your pages for both www and non www  + the blog subdomain.

Plus older pages that aren't there anymore. You might have done a cleanup and removed some old pages. Those might've gotten included in the count as well.

So if I understood this correctly:

• You want to assign a new page per review
• You fear that it's thin content

If so, then it is thin. Very thin.

Google will know if you update your page, much like how pages get new comments.

You are better off putting up a separate review page for every review that page gets but still, I would choose putting it on the same page to take full advantage of it.

Laura's suggestion of doing overflows like amazon is also a good one. Pretty brilliant actually. I would've forgotten about that.

Try checking it out with bing/yahoo and yandex. See what type of pages they were then go to archive.org to check them.

If it's indeed thin pages or pages caused by parameters/searches/sorting then that is usually an automatic algorithmic penalty, usually, panda.

You might also have some good pages with good links, so be sure to check for 404s. 301 good pages as needed. It's a really tricky situation.

You also have to see if there's trouble with internal links and inbound links (just in case there's a mix with penguin. I've seen sites with manual and algorithmic penalties for both wtf)

Try out tools like

http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/panguin-tool/

http://fruition.net/google-penalty-checker-tool/

to see when your drops really started. You should be able to identify your algo penalty at least and go from there.

Trello for mapping out plans, strategy stage and discussions

Coschedule for your editorial calendar, getting writers to follow schedule, assigning tasks, discussions per piece.

I hate spreadsheets when it comes to content ideation,creation,launches. LOL

that's the hardest penalty to recover from lol. You never know if you have done enough.

The last time I did it (i just got one to recover recently) I just flat out disavowed all those links. I made sure I got everything, even included yandex results.

I also made "for panda only" improvements.

It worked without talking or emailing anyone.

Hi

That's a lot of indexed pages. What were the bulk of those pages? Categories? Products? Random tags or thin pages?

Did you switch to https recently? Are all versions included in webmaster tools? With a preferred version? How about their sitemaps?

It's possible that it's panda. It's also possible that it's a technical side like a switch to https, improper redirects, etc.

I just find it weird to see a big site like that lose that much indexed content (assuming they were good pages) without incurring an algorithmic penalty or a technical problem.

There's always the possibility that Moz can get featured in the section of the frontpage results, like how google is doing it with other blogs. But I dont think it will for news, specifically.

If your site is qualified to be included then it'll definitely give you some help with SEO.

Hi Rufus,

If it's a minor drop, then it might just be temporary. Are you still building links to your site now?

Like you, I normally ignore scraper sites. They sometimes give me a lot of good links lol

ill gauge it again after 3 months. If it's effect is questionable, then I end up disavowing them right there if it's a really bad looking site. Some scraper sites are really structurally sound and have unique content so I leave those out.

Hi Emerald

Enter both www and non www to webmaster tools

pages like http://www.toursistanbul.com/bosphoruscruises.htm are set to noindex

There are 30+ pages indexed in google right now

It's a mix of www and non www

Webmaster tools treats this as different so you will see a drop.

Go to your webmaster tools and set a preferred version. (which is www.)

If you plan to move to https then you need to  also enter both https (www and non www versions)

BTW, be sure your analytics is using the new code as well.

Good luck!

It doesnt really matter....for now.

Obviously, you'll need to pay more and give more information to get the better certificates so THAT might have an effect in the future. Who knows when.

I'm currently moving some of our sites to different certs to test them in the coming year.

Getting the greenbar, say like Yoast's site or Paypal and many others, it does give you a more secure feel.

For regular browsers, it could mean that it's safer, maybe it could lead to better engagement/conversions

Would you mind posting the IP here? It "might" help.

It's kind of hard to understand this situation but Ill take a crack.

Dont worry about Panda as long as you aren't one of those that squeeze the same grammatically wrong keyword phrases, over and over and over. Optimize the new content for the weaker words -> include those target key phrases -> internally link to the main page you want those to be optimized.

You mentioned SS is your platform. Then it's probably an image/CDN problem.

The image will be given a page, since it will return a 302, it wont get indexed even if it's on the sitemap.

If you have a lot of images on your site, then a good chunk of page wont show as indexed in webmaster tools

Something like that

If it needs a redesign anyways (since it's ancient) then go do it.

Drops will happen. Nobody can tell you exactly what will happen because some experienced big drops. Some, none at all. I've experienced mostly positive with it. Dropping a couple spots but eventually gaining it back

The only thing we know is that there's a lot of work involved.

Just be sure the social branding is changed, make it consistent and be sure the urls are properly directed to the new urls. Let the thin pages die and direct them to a cute 404 page. Be sure to use their list to let their previous clients know.

Just warn them, let them know what's involved, the many hours that theyll need to pay and what CAN happen. Let them sign a contract if needed.

It might even net you some good local PR which will just be great links.

Yoast has an ecommerce plugin so use that.

It has a bit more functions specifically for ecommerce sites.

To answer the 2 questions:

Should i noindex the media and also the custom post type archives for product and gift cards and if so why?

• noindex is fine

What about the taxonomies for ecommerce? What's best practise? Noindex?

- noindex is also fine

On the sites I've worked with using that setup, those worked out fine.

Im completely with Lesley here. That's exactly how I would do it. Give him a beer!

As you clearly want to put ads on these pages, then I would expect that youll be sending it  organic traffic.

Then just make the content a lot better. Why settle?

Hi Thomas,

I would just look at the redirect's link profile. If there's nothing shady with it's links, then there's really no problem.

Redirects are actually really awesome. The biggest ecom sites use it often.

Noindex tags and your author page (if you only have 1 author)

For categories, leave it alone, just add a bit of unique content there, much like how ecommerce sites do it.

What happens when you load the IP address? Does it load your website or something else?

Hi Tom,

Are they on the same server and linking to each other? If so, then just canonical them. Im also assuming from what you said that it's just a few pages so it shouldn't be any problem. That, or just edit the pages a wee bit.

If they are on different servers and practically can't be traced to be related to each other, then I wouldn't even worry about it. Just being practical.

Hi Darren,

Linda already made the best suggestions but as you really want to get those other links, please reach out to them and ask them to change the URL. That should solve it.

Hi,

If you have already checked those (i would assume you have already checked everything, from internal linking, navigation, speed, structure, codes etc) then it might just be a temporary shuffle. It's also possible that those that are linking to you might have been affected negatively hence weakening your position.

Im not sure what you mean about preference. If you mean that if your "geo targeted country" has an effect on improving your chances for terms like "SEO Services in India" then my answer is not so much. You'll just have an improved visibility in the local engines but geo keywords will still take the same amount of work. I've played with this for my site recently. My geo targeting doesnt really affect my global geo related keyword rankings.

Back then, it needed a major panda update to finally see some changes. Personally, I think this is still the safer bet.

As it is refreshing monthly now, I've noticed that it still is a bit tricky to figure out. I've had sites that recover after 3 refreshes. I've seen sites recover after a full year. For what's it worth, I've never experienced a recovery right on the next minor refresh, possibly because it still needs time to fully crawl and reindex the pages.

Hi William!

Yeah, I still use them, mainly to supplement the content on the site. I dont allow the tags to get indexed though. It's a tad spammy for the standards we have nowadays. I've seen/worked on fashion blogs that spam tags (innocently) with no penalties but I've seen great improvements in results after tweaking them and making it noindex (sacrificing impressions, based on the webmaster tools, but overall, great for actual ranking pages)

Hi John!

Webmaster tools is definitely the accurate one.

Resources:

This link pretty much sums it up https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2642366?hl=en

For more information about the results it returns: http://searchengineland.com/why-google-cant-count-results-properly-53559

They normally show inaccurate numbers when site: search is used, mainly to prevent people from further learning about how they index pages.

I would also look at the sitemap you submitted there and robots.txt just to be sure that they had no reason not to index your other pages.

Invest that in other SEO work instead. I would buy that if it's 60% cheaper and will always be on the homepage hehe