Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Yes, ok. Then I vote up Asim's answer becuase that's exactly what I do

Hey Sebastian, I tried to do this a couple months back, and they're weren't able to do it yet. 
You might try the SEOmoz help desk though.

Hey Gordian. Although Google Analytics doesn't track any personal identifiable info, you can actually do exactly what you want!

Make sure your ecommerce tracking is setup correctly. Hint: use Google Analytics Developer Docs to help with understanding specific pieces of code.
Then, you'll be able to view order numbers and such in the report: Ecomerce -> transactions.
You could further define custom reports to slice and dice until your hearts content

Does this help?

Hey MetiX,

Danny Dover did a great video about brand search results. And Brian Patterson wrote about his online reputation management playbook. Hope this helps.

Hey Aaron. That's a good question for the SEOmoz help desk. I don't think there's a way to do that yet, but you should definitely still ask them to help.

Hey Michelleh, I'd like to help you. Can you be a bit more specific please?

"link distribution throughout a site" sounds like it could mean many different things (ie. follow vs. nofollow, external vs. internal, etc).

Thanks.

Hey Drory, I've recently been looking deeply into this myself, so here's a bunch or resources I have saved that I think will help you. Hopefully, some other SEOs with specific experience in this will share their experience

1) Milly Oye - IP Delivery [video]

2. Matt Cutts - Geo Location of Servers [video]

3. Matt Cutts - More on Geo Targeting [video]

4) Rand Fishkin - International SEO [video]

5) algogmbh_petra - International SEO (part two of Rand's video)

6) Tom Critchlow - International FAQs

7. Danny Dover - International Versions of Sites

  Jesper J - International SEO overview

Hey Michelleh,

Matt Cutts gives his advice about it in this video about publishing 100 pages at once....

Howdy. You're referring to 'site links'... and unfortunately, you can not manually add them. 
You can however, influence them by having clearly structured categories on your site, among other things

Does this help?

Check out Google's Help Article about this... Specifically, read under Business Location.

Does this help?

Here's a couple mentions so far...
#1) A New Approach to Structured Data
#2) Duane Forrester from Bing Talks Social, Schema, and Honey Badger Update

Does this help Eric?

Are you looking for the SEOmoz API?

Hey Garry, I asked the same question about wordpress plugins  Check it out, everyone had some great responses!

Lately, I've been using admin page treeview and advanced custom fields. I highly, highly recommend both.

For SEO, I usually steer away from plugins and prefer to code with php based on the page uri or title. Sometimes for meta descriptions, we use custom fields. Most of the time, if the site is 50 - 1,000 pages, we just hard code everything using php functions and variables... Perhaps I should post a Youmoz about that. Sound interesting?

Hey Ryan, I think you answered your own question. A wiki type page with links to forums could be pretty useful I feel. Good idea! Compare that to your standard forum category page such as Google's Webmaster Forum. I would not 'noindex' the page either, because you're likely to get a lot of useful links to that page, and could rank for some good queries with it.

Would it be possible to expand on your wiki idea, and possible have social type content on the page as well? perhaps for example, you could pull in a couple tweets about each, or something of that nature. Mostly, I'm thinking, how could the page be made more shareable.

What do you think?

Hey Adrien,

tuango.ca redirects to an inner page. And, that inner page has some links  
For groupon.ca, I found 66K+ links.

Does this help?

This SEOmoz webinar should be exactly what you're looking for

Anyone have anything else they'd like to toss into the discussion?

Any examples you'd like to share of detail page linking vs. silos?

[edit] Just found this (old) blog post by Google about the importance of (internal) link architecture... I quote:

Q: Let's say my website is about my favorite hobbies: biking and camping. Should I keep my internal linking architecture "themed" and not cross-link between the two?

A: We haven't found a case where a webmaster would benefit by intentionally "theming" their link architecture for search engines. And, keep-in-mind, if a visitor to one part of your site can't easily reach other parts of your site, that may be a problem for search engines as well.

I would remove it from your sitemap... and be sure to 301 redirect one of them to the other.

(I'd redirect /index.php to http://www.mydomain.ca)

Does this help Martin?

Hey Ryan, thanks for the ideas. Respectfully, I disagree however.

With something as simple as 'rand(1,4)' in php you can generate random #s. There's no telling what Google could do with their algorithm(s). Okay, so it's (relatively) easy to do, but why would they do it? After-all, they have heavily invested in complicated models that do the ranking for them...

Well, they've heavily invested in complicated algorithms, and if cracked, bump- there goes there flagship product.  I'm sure SEOmoz aren't the only people attempting to glean insight using machine learning. And perhaps, others don't like to publish their findings and tip anyone off.

Of course, I'm not an A.I. scientist, so perhaps I misunderstand how unsupervised machine learning works, but I'm under the impression that it very well can be used to logically explain all of those factors. I'm sure there's tons and tons of work that would go into it, but if you had the resources (and some do), wouldn't you do it?

This is why I wanted to post this question though- to get feedback and other opinions, so thanks Ryan!

Darn, I can't delete this comment

I believe, sometimes you may 'deserve' the first position, but get #3. And of course, sometimes you may deserve #3 and instead be #1. All due to a 'randomness factor' in search engine algorithms.

I've been holding this hypothesis for quite sometime. Really, it started when I learned about SEOmoz using machine learning to better investigate SEO best practices.

I suddenly found myself wanting to learn more about machine learning, and the implications of using it for SEO. I'm by no means able to utilize machine learning myself, but I it appears unsupervised learning would have a real chance of cracking search engine algorithms. Hey, even Stuxnet was cracked!

Surely Google/ Bing would know (and account for) this, right?  We can agree they'd obviously prefer a highly skilled mathematician not be able to crack the code.

Therefore, I'm led to believe that search engines use some sort of randomness in their rankings. Maybe not much. Perhaps not all the time. But if a random percentage of search results, had a random variable of sorts included in their calculations... wouldn't that be enough to prevent the vast majority of cracking attempts?

Thoughts, opinions, criticism? Thanks.

Yeah, your right. I would image those links aren't relevant when on store pages, and would definitely distract some people

On their product pages though, they use some cross linking to relevant topics. But I'm sure it's at the bottom- out of site- as to not distract people. So I would image those are mostly there for SEO. Would you agree?

I think you're right Alan, that makes great sense. Thanks. Do you think Etsy's sidebar is a good compromise between the two? I'm sure testing each site is the best way to figure out what users prefer on that specific site. But in general, do you think that's a good balance to use in order to keep too many links off the page, yet still keep detail pages within a category linking to each other?

Sorry for the confusion Alan, and thank you very much for the discussion.

To help clarify for others reading this discussion (and for myself), are we both agreeing that: in the attached image it is an 'SEO AND usability best practice' for the hotel detail pages inside the Tallahassee category/directory to link to each other?

*Of course, there are always caveats,  such the maximum outbound link limit recommended by Google, etc.

But as a general practice, would you have "Hotel 1", "Hotel 2" and "Hotel 3" (inside the "Tallahassee" category) link to one another?

D1i8j.jpg

Indeed Alan, that's good advice we all should follow. Thanks. I'll follow suit from here-on

Also agreed. However, when new SEOs enter the sphere, they must start somewhere. And, clearly there's value in studying other's work to help clarify, expand or even challenge one's own hypothesis and practices. I also avoid implementing a tactic/ strategy on a paid client project, if reputable SEO's and/or the community as a whole, recommend against it. I may try it on my personal site, but not a customer's. Thanks for all your help Alan.

Respectfully, what's the difference between the nearby hotels example and the cars example?
More specifically, If these 'nearby hotels' links might dilute that articles topical focus, why wouldn't a link to 'mercedes' from a 'BMW' page?
Thanks Alan.

I actually don't, because I've always thought it was a bad idea. But it seems other folks don't think it's so bad under the right circumstances.

I'd be interested in seeing a good example of an effective silo as well....
anyone?

Thanks Dave. This is exactly why I posed this discussion.... it seems as if a lot of us are getting something different from these architecture type posts.

I think it has to do with making same-level detail pages link to each other. Especially if you link to them using the anchor text they're trying to rank for.

For example, what I get out of an article like Richard Baxter's post on SEO Architecture, is that detail pages should link to each other, and that Silos should not be used. And the more architecture posts I read on SEOmoz, SEOgadget and Distilled... the more I think it's a 'best practice'.

That said, it seems from these comments that some folks read those articles differently. I think this is a serious discrepancy that we SEOs should address

I found where I read it. Thanks for that post, I hadn't yet read it. However, we have some misinformation going on here from the engines because on [schema's getting started page](2c. Testing your markup) @ '2c.Testing your markup', they say, "Google provides a rich snippets testing tool, which you can use to test your markup and identify any errors."

Perhaps, we're just too soon, too early of adopeters
Thanks oznappies

Agreed, absolutely agreed! Thank you very much Alan!

PS. Could you share the slides from your presentation at SMX Advanced please? If not, how about a link to a post of yours?

I think I read somewhere that Google's Rich Snippets Testing Tool works for testing schema's markup also. I'll see if I can find where I heard/ read this.

Take for example, a resort detail page on oyster.com. They have a section called "nearby hotels to consider", which I believe serves two purposes...
#1) it's likely helpful to users, as most people don't restrict themselves to staying at just one specific resort, and
#2) it helps search engines flow PageRank, crawl and index other pages in the 'Aruba' category.

What I can't figure out is, what benefit would it have to not include these links to nearby hotels? (Except perhaps, on checkout process pages of course.)

What if the 'Raddison' Resort for example, got a ton of inbound links and the 'Westin Resort' had only a few? Well, you could cross link them and help the Westin Resort page rank... and simultaneously show your users more relevant options.

Yeah, I agree Alan. I don't usually think it's a good return on invested time to practice PageRank sculpting either. One could for example, being building links or generating content with the time/ resources instead

I just re-read what you said, "Individual services details pages should cross-link to each other within that service section at that level though, for usability." To be sure I understand what you're saying.... if your architecture is for example
vehicles -> cars -> luxury -> bmw
vehicles -> cars -> luxury -> mercedes
vehicles -> cars -> luxury -> jaguar
then bmw, mercedes and jaguar would link to each other... correct?

Not at all, thanks Alan. I think we're in agreeance.

As long as one is not exceeding Google's approx. outbound links per page... and as long as the the navigation make sense to the users.... specific detail pages within the same category should be linked to each other. Is that what you're saying as well?

Here's one example of why I think this is best for indexation reasons. I've attached an image of the page where I circled some stuff

What do you think Alan?

nHQf2.jpg

Thank you dignan99. What's your opinion of silos? Do you like to cross link detail pages within a category to each other, or even category pages to each other?

I definitely agree EGOL. We like to meticulously plan out sites and SEO/PPC campaigns prior to launch, but over time a site's architecture definitely needs to be revisited. Usually at that time, we try to also implement any more advanced programming knowledge we might have accumulated to help ease the pain as well

Thanks EGOL!

Thank you Dave.

I guess it comes down to flowing PageRank within a category vs. restricting PageRank to the pages that have more links. Any idea why would someone prefer the latter?

Thanks Alan. You mentioned, "where all the pages in that section have a link to all the other pages in that section".........

Can you think of any reason why you would not want detail pages within a category to link to one another?

Great advice sir, thumbs up!

Howdy Brant,

You can update the website url by logging into your Google account, then clicking "account settings" at the top right. After that, click "Google Places", then update the listing(s) of your choice.

Citations aren't necessarily links to your site. SEOs more use the word to represent 'mentions' of your website, along with address, phone, etc throughout the web.

Here's a recent video I highly recommend you watch.... The Basics of Local SEO.

Also, David Mihm posted an updated version of the Local Search Ranking Factors, which I highly recommend you read. All of it

Don't forget to read every word in the Google Places Help Center as well.

I know it's a lot to study, but you're engaging in the optimization process, so it's crucial for you to understand as much as possible.

If you're still having trouble after all of that, I'd be happy to help you with some specific advice, just let me know (free of course). Otherwise, I'm sure some other mozzers will post some great ideas to this question as well

Does this help Brant?

Hey Jay,

Good question! I think the major benefits are 1) user interaction, 2) inbound links and 3) share-ability

Here's a few articles I can remember about the subject on SEOmoz...

#1)  Original Link Building for beautiful-looking websites

#2) Put Your Best Foot Forward

#3) CSS Galleries are Great for Traffic & PageRank

#4) Making a Site Link Friendly

#5) Making Product Pages into Great Content [White Board Friday]

Not at all Marcus, it happens to us all. When managing SEO, we tend to stay super focused on specific stuff

Howdy Wouter,

Matt Cutts says some url shorteners do infact pass some value. I know Linkedin isn't using a shortener, but I suspect Google treats those similarly (from Linkedin). That said, Google knows Linkedin well, so they probably assign values to their links in a specific way, regardless of how Linkedin marks them up. That's my hunch and of course, I could be wrong. But with high profile social sites such as facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc... Google knows best about how to treat their massive amounts of outbound links. Just a thought.

Does this help Wouter?

Hey Daniel,

"yes" and "yes" to the best of my knowledge. They're checking your keyword against the same criteria each time. So, to get a copy of each recommendation that would appear if the criteria wasn't met..... just create a 'test' page and don't put any content on it. And don't run a keyword for it either. Also, I'd recommend checking out this post about how to optimize a page 'perfectly'.

Does this help Daniel?

Howdy Ryan, the linkdomain query string is for Yahoo 

There's not a way to query search engines for nofollow links, but you can use OSE/ Linkscape.

And for getting citations from Google... you could do some "allintext" searches for your domain name and branded terms. Just exclude your site from the query results. Here's an example, allintext: seomoz -site:seomoz.org. It's not perfect, but you can study the Advanced Search Operator Guide for more info and ideas.

PS. another cool one to check out since we're on the topic is Bing's linkfromdomain operator.

Does this help Ryan?

Hey Cs, I'm not sue I completely understand your question..... but I think you should check out Google's instructions on adding Analytics to their shopping cart. Hope this helps.

Hey edeb, I'm not really sure without looking at the whole picture (site, code, GA setup, etc), but I can point you to the right direction.

Here's Google' Analytic's video on setting up Goals.

In case video #1 doesn't help, here's Google's Conversion University. I guarantee the answer you seek is in one of those videos.

Does this help?

Howdy Dunamis, I don't think you're alone with this at all. We use Google Calendars to manage our time carefully and to avoid slipping into the 'SEOmoz analysis paralysis'. That said, I personally feel like that's half the fun of being an SEO, all that study time! It makes me wonder how companies like SEOgadget, Distilled, and SEOmoz (when they did consulting) are able to teach and innovate soooo much. And yet they got stuff done as well. Distilled's new mantra seems to be Getting Things Done, so I suspect they've had the same problem also

I think a 50/50 time split is well enough. Perhaps, 70/30 (doing, studying) for those working by themselves. What do you think?

I'm curious to know what other mozzers think about silo's...

Can we first all agree that a flat site architecture is the best practice? Relevant pages should be grouped together. Shorter, broader and (usually) therefore higher volume keywords should be towards the top of each category. Navigation should flow from general to specific. Agreed?

As Google say's on page 10 of their SEO Starter Guide, "you should think about how visitors will go from a general page (your root page) to a page containing more specific content ." OK, we all agree so far, right? Great!

Enter my question: Bruce Clay (among others) seem to recommend siloing as a best practice. While Richard Baxter (and many others @ SEOmoz), seem to view silos as a problem.

Me? I've practiced (relevant) internal cross linking, and have intentionally avoided siloing in almost all cases.

What about you? Is there a time and place to use silos? If so, when and where? If not, how do we rectify the seemingly huge differences of opinions between expert folks such as Baxter and Clay?