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Can you clarify what you mean regarding branded searches and Panda? I'm not aware of any Panda issues involving brand vs. non-brand searches.

I wouldn't mix those signals - it's nearly impossible to tell what's working if you do. If the canonical on the test page isn't working, there may be a couple of issues:

(1) It could just be taking time. Honestly, it's never as fast as you want it to be.

(2) It may be that the test versions got crawled originally, but now aren't being crawled (on the canonical isn't being processed). Check the cache date on the test page.

The big question is how they got crawled in the first place. It's often better to use some sort of cookie-based implementation so that Google never even sees the B version. That's how most of the A/B test implementations work (specifically to avoid this problem).

If it's just a couple of URLs and you can't shake them, you could request manual removal in GWT. That really depends on the scope and URL structure, though.

I think that scrolling box with the CSS overflow is a bad idea - it could look shady to Google, and it's very poor for users. I'd rather see you just put a single paragraph about the brand up top. You could add more to the bottom of the page, but I don't think I would. A few more keyword repetitions aren't going to work magic.

Personally, I'd drop it completely on the shirts pages, and similar pages, but you've got a few options:

(1) Don't use the same META data. You're basically trying to rank all the Armani search pages for everything, and it doesn't make sense. The shirts page doesn't have jeans, jackets, and boxer shorts. That's a bad TITLE tag, all around.

(2) Don't index the smaller search results. You could just index the main brand search and then META NOINDX the shirts, jeans, etc. These are near-duplicates at best, and are probably diluting your ranking ability.

Step (2) is a pretty minor fix, so from a cost-basis, I'd try that. Honestly, given the number of brands you have isn't huge, I don't know that this is going to make a huge difference, but narrowing your focus (from a ranking perspective) could help. Google isn't that fond of internal search pages, so it does make sense to focus your Armani ranking power on a smaller set of pages (and likewise for other brands).

Keep in mind that a lot of my organic SEO client work is helping people deal with massive-scale duplicate content problems (including Panda issues), so I'm probably a bit more hyper-sensitive than your average person

For some people, a "landing page" could have URL variants, like tracking parameters for affiliates. So, it's hard to talk about them in a vacuum. If you're talking about a regular main-nav page like "About Us", you'd almost never need a canonical tag.

I'd say it's a matter of risk. If you're on an e-commerce site, for sample, where the risk of a page having URL-based duplicates is high, a pre-emptive canonical can make sense. In a perfect world, I agree with Alan - it's better not to need them. I've just rarely seen that perfect world on large sites.

"Landing pages" is a loaded term, though, because landing pages can often have tracking parameters (such as affiliate IDs) and other URL modifications. Some landing pages are a perfect storm of dupe content. So, it's really situational.

I think it's good for some pages, especially the home-page, because you can naturally have so many variants ("www" vs. non-www, for example). It's a lot easier to pre-emptively canonicalize them than 301-redirect every URL variant that might pop up over time.

While Alan's concerns are technically correct, I've never seen evidence that either Google or Bing actually devalue a page for a self-referencing canonical. For Google, the risks of duplicates are much worse than the risk of an unnecessary canonical tag, IMO. For Bing, I don't really have good data either way. More and more people use canonical proactively, so I suspect Bing doesn't take action.

I don't generally use it site-wide, unless needed, but I almost always recommend a canonical on the home-page, at least for now. Technical SEO is always changing.

I'd honestly leave it alone. I've never seen a preventive canonical (even if unnecessary) cause problems. As you expand the site, it could help prevent future problems, implemented correctly.

In terms of SEOmoz, I wouldn't worry about the notice - it's just a notice, which we put even below a warning. We're evaluating how to assess canonical for future versions of the software, because it is confusing to people.

Just curious - where do you see the JS redirects? I'm seeing server-side redirects, but the interesting thing is that the return a 200 (not a 301 or 302), which could suggest they pass link-juice.

My gut sense is that Miriam's right - they probably mask direct link-juice but are still very valuable as a citation, especially for local search.

I think John is spot on, but just wanted to add a couple of things:

(1) The 100-link "rule" is really just a guideline. Adding nofollow wouldn't impact how we count or, likely, how Google counts. Nofollows still dilute link-juice.

(2) If the footer links duplicate main-navigation links, then they may not be counted at all. Google discounts any additional links to Page B from Page A, and will more or less ignore them.

I'm not seeing any issues. Your canonical tags seem correct. The "Notice" level is the least severe, and we may just be seeing a mismatched URL or two (we're crawling the non-canonical, in other words). In many cases, that's fine. I see no signs of duplicate content in the Google index itself.

We sometimes to recommend preventive canonical tags, especially on dynamic sites, but they're not necessary on all page. I do highly recommend using it on the home-page, as home pages can easily collect variants ("www" vs non-www, secure/https, tracking parameters, etc.).

I think our system is being hyperactive on this one, though. I see no reason to worry.

I think the reason that it doesn't happen more often isn't so much that it can't work, but that:

(1) Doing it right takes a lot of time, money, and skill. If you don't want to leave a trail, it takes even more. Usually, the money is better spent elsewhere.

(2) It usually doesn't work. So, you're betting a lot on a small chance.

(3) Whether or not it works long-term, building links to your competitor will almost always give them a short-term ranking boost. So, it's not just time and money - it's likely to backfire.

Here's an analogy I just made up - let's say I don't like you, and I want to get you into trouble (for example - I don't actually dislike you ). I craft a plan to stuff your pockets full of counterfeit bills at the airport. IF TSA checks your pockets and IF they notice the money is counterfeit (two big ifs), you could go to jail. In the 99% likely chance they don't notice, though, I just gave my sworn enemy a few-hundred bucks. That's basically (3).

The large-scale correlation data we've run shows no inherent advantage of the .edu TLD in recent years. I suspect this is in part because those links have been heavily gamed. A reputable institution does carry solid domain authority and trust, no doubt, but I don't think that the extension itself is a strong ranking signal. Would I rather have a link from Harvard than Bob's Bait Shop? Sure, but it depends a lot on where that link is, how deep the page is, if it's indexed, what the context is, etc.

I appreciate your transparency, but to me that looks like low-quality article spinning. It's ok to a point, and it may get you a short term boost, but those pages are going to be devalued over time. Plus, they have no other value (those links won't drive traffic).

As for the argument that Google can do whatever they want so that makes anything ok, I strongly disagree. There are link-building tactics that can create long-term problems. Should a client risk a full-on penalty for a low-quality link-building tactic that might get them a 5% boost for 3 months? For me to suggest that as an SEO would be grossly irresponsible. There are smart risks and there are bad risks.

Rand has a great post on link valuation:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links

There's no magic to .edu links, frankly - the data over the past couple of years doesn't really support that they're inherently better than .com's, etc. It's true that many .edu sites are high-authority sites, of course, but that's just a correlation (it's not that Google prefers .edu or .gov inherently).

Within any site, though, you have to look at the Page Authority, the number of links on that page, the placement of the links, the anchor text, the relevance (to some degree), and a lot of other factors. Let's take a non-edu example - DMOZ. People kill themselves for DMOZ links, but lately I'm seeing DMOZ listings where the entire page isn't indexed because it's so deep. No indexation means ZERO link juice. So, even though it's DMOZ, the link is worthless.

If it's just the home-page, it might be easier safer to put a canonical tag on it. A canonical on the home-page can help sweep up weird variants (which are coming). If you got the htaccess route, just test it thoroughly. It can be really tough to write rewrites for other people's sites (without knowing specifics or testing). That said, I think @webfeatseo is on the right track.

It's really tough to prove, but I've seen 2 cases in the past few months where I'm pretty sure this tactic did work for a while. As other commenters have said, it's rare and Google generally won't penalize you for a few spammy links or an obvious attack, but it's not impossible.

I think it depends a lot on your base profile and authority, too. If you've got a solid set of links and decent trust, it's very tough for a competitor to just hit you with a few bad links and cause problems. If you're borderline and have been pushing the limits, a big influx of spammy links could push you over the edge. I've had SEOs actually suggest this tactic to me.

Typically, these efforts are half-assed, for lack of a better word. It's good to monitor and be aware of the problem, but you'll often find these are low-quality links that just get devalued, and the competitor stops building them after a couple of days. In that case, you're 98%+ likely to be fine. If you see a concerted effort, though, over a period of time, you may want to dig deeper.

Read your additional comment (to @Highland). If you canonical from a known page (indexed and linked to, internally and/or externally) to an unknown page with no links, it would act a bit like a 301-redirect, in theory. The target page (of the canonical) would start ranking as if it were the source page.

The problem is that that page isn't really canonical. You have a tag saying "This is the page" but every single other cue (internal links, inbound links, etc.) says that the non-canonical page is really canonical. In other words, your canonical tag says the opposite of everything else you're saying. That's generally not a good situation. If you want a page to be canonical, treat it that way. Sending Google mixed signals can get messy fast.