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Thanks.  There are very few in my niche and most of them simply have a google+ presence to claim authorship.

Thanks, it sounds like you are making some connections there.

If you were paying a photographer employee to do this would her effort bring back more value in revenue and ideas than her hourly rate plus overhead?

This is a test post... Cheers!

I have been watching Google+ and see lots of SEOs sharing ideas and enjoying their circles.   However, I have not seen anything outside of the webmaster community that I would hold up as an example of business engagement - and certainly nothing that seems to be producing a good ROI for a business.

It seems to me that everyone outside of the webmaster community is on FaceBook and doesn't give a hoot about Google+.  And, since FaceBook  has the massive amount of people why should I open an outpost in the poorly populated Google+?

I am not looking for Google+ evangelist answers.  Just looking to hear if anybody anywhere has found Google+ to be a better use of their time than  FaceBook and working on your website.

I do believe that using Google+ as an author verification platform is a good use of your time if you have valuable content - mainly because it helps your visibility in the SERPs.  Beyond that I am looking for validation.

Anybody want to point to something good happening or telling a success story?

Thanks!

Whenever I type one of our 'uniquely written' product descriptions into Google, the affiliate website appears higher than ours suggesting Google has ranked them the authority.

You are lucky to have a powerful affiliate selling your merchandise instead of your competitor's merchandise. 

I am an affiliate of a couple of programs and my site always ranks above the program site and this is good for me and good for them because I can defeat competitors that they can not.

There are a few issues to think about related to the duplicate content.....

1. The affiliate might rank above you for quotes from the descriptions, however how do they rank for important keywords that have high search volumes and conversion rates?   I would guess that is where the money is being made.    If you are above them there then not so many worries.  But if they are outranking you there then they are an important rainmaker for your business.

2. This duplicate content could be causing Panda problems for your site, especially if many other affiliates are using it.  Some of the sites publishing it are likely to be demoted in the google rankings.  However, if your rankings are falling it could be competitors (and your good affiliates) are working harder than you.  Consider how much you have invested in making good rankings... if not a lot then your affiliates are fighting that battle for you.

3. The affiliate programs that I sell for have enjoyed the sales that I have produced for over ten years.  We have a great relationship and they are fairly confident that I am not going to leave them for a competitor program.  They have the best product in the niche and they pay me well.  I am one of many affiliates for their company who have been with them for a long time.  So, their attitude is....  let the affiliates to the SEO and the PPC... that is what they are good at.  We are good at making a great product and servicing customers... this is win-win.

They  know something else that is very important.  They know that they are THE BRAND and lots of the customers that I refer may make purchases in the future that no commissions are paid on.  That is where they win big time.

So, keep your affiliates happy.   Over the long term they will be responsible for a LOT of your best repeat customers (if you have a repeat type of business and treat the customer right).

Good affiliates are also really smart about SEO and converting customers.  They might know more than you.  So, if you ask them to do rel=canonical or some other trick that works to your advantage they might jump to another program or simply become retailers instead of affiliates.  I have done that a couple of times.

I agree... don't try to wear the client's hat.  Big mistake.  It doesn't fit.

If you are contacting "experts" they will know that you know nothing before you finish speaking two sentences.  Get your client to schmooze them,.

Do we really want to have 'leather billfolds', 'leather ipad sleeves' etc. at the top of every category?

I am very picky about what goes on my websites.... but it would not bother me very much to see a three column page with headings of "leather this"... "leather that".... "leather something else".    As long as you are using natural language everywhere else on the page.   Since "leather" isn't in your domain name you need to communicate what your product is made of.  I am sure that your client would rather tell the customer that the billfolds are made of leather than have customer assume that it is plastic.

So my response to your question is.....

What is wrong with having 'leather billfolds', 'leather ipad sleeves' etc. at the top of every category?

You might find something useful in this post...

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/unnatural-link-warnings-blog-networks-advice

Good luck.

If you get one client for a dentist that client might spend an awful lot of money.   I just paid nearly $1000 to get one tooth repaired.  They want nearly $100 for a six month check!  So, if you can get that dentist one patient per month that dentist should have positive ROI.

Your work gets a car sold... geez... they want $350 to do the $30,000 mile check!  If you get one car customer per month they should have positive ROI.

Now, at the end of 36 months that dentist should have sustained revenue of  72 cleanings a year and at least 18 minor repairs - unless he has bad breath that scaress away the patients.  The result of your work on a monthly basis would be ((722200)+(18*200))/12 ....  $2700 per month

So, if you are charging a few hundred a month then that might be a good return (for the dentist)... but if you are looking for $2000/month clients then you are fishin the wrong pond.

Just saying what I think and what I would do.....

There are a lot of links in that footer.  If that was my site I would remove them to protect my own rankings as well as those of my clients.

I remember what Google was like a few years ago.  The SERPs were full of relevant information (in my opinion).  Now they have a few relevant at the top and marginally relevant below... and some other things that are tangents.

Thanks for your dad's perspective.

He thinks any weakness in the results returned are because he "must have types the wrong thing."

That is eyeopening!

Experienced people might enjoy the toggle feature you suggest... that will allow them to filter the "fluff" and get pure results.

I used to have a "clean machine" that I used to check rankings, never signed in and never clicked anything in the SERPs.  That has stopped working because previous searches are stinking up the SERPs.

I want a button to "turn off all bias".

I like it.  The Faveicons add character. (... and my sites rank well)

So, you would use vanoogle for the other 20%?

I think that most people would use it all of the time.... so if 80% of people use it all of the time and the rest use it 20% of the time that would be 84% market share.

Right!   It might replace StumbleUpon.

SEOs would like to have it to know "where they really rank".

The average guy would like to have it just to enjoy "crap-free SERPs".

ha...  That's really funny.... and I think you are right!

Never Seen BS tags before, is that a way to rank higher in Vanoogle?

Heaven's no!

We will need yet another search engine for that....  Bulloogle.com

Lots of what I write should be indexed there.

I was surprised last week when I searched for "georgia" and then searched for "guitars" a moment later and found that google was delivering results contaminated by previous queries.  http://www.seomoz.org/q/google-query-contamination

They monkey with the SERPs and don't tell.

So, I agree, sometimes vanilla is the best flavor.

That's why I want Vanoogle.com

I'd like to see google start a new search engine.  They  might call it Vanoogle.com (Vanilla Google).

This search engine would not be stinked up with social data, freshness inclusions,   crap from my last query, skewed based upon my IP, warped because of my browser, targeted because of my cookies, no personalization, no image results, product results, none of that stuff.

Ads are OK if labeled.

I just want a plain vanilla search.  Something that I know is "clean".

Just like the good olde days. Millions of people will start using it right away. 

Would you use Vanoogle.com?

Thanks!  That's a new variant - and I didn't know that it works on Safari.

I agree, it stinks up my SERPs.  I don't want my queries blended.

I understand why you plan to block the individual product pages from ranking.  I would probably do the same thing.

You can add multiple h2 tags to category pages but I don't think that you will get a lot of benefit from that.

Have you considered picking the best 50 products and writing unique content for the product pages and allowing those unique content pages to be indexed?  If you get a good return on them then do another 50.

That's what I would do.

I know that people have gotten into trouble with Google when the widget contained links that were not visible to visitors of the websites that displays the widget.

For the attribution link, I would use my domain as anchor.  That is how natural links are usually given.  It is also much more powerful for your brand.

(Just personal opinion... I think that those link warnings are going out mainly to people who are involved in an organized link network or who are heavily spamming blogs and forums.  I don't think think that a widget will cause problems.)

Expand the content.  Explain in more depth, give examples, add images with captions, add data tables.  The goal is to increase the number of words on a page and thus the number of words that combine to match queries.

After you fix these problems they should be making a lot more money.

Run the Bobby Vans site on Open Site Explorer....

Homepage has...  highest page authority, most linking root domains, most inbound links.  I would be taking full advantage of that.

Also, there is a gold mine of wasted links because the site has a lot of canonical and URL problems that could be solved by a good SEOing.

The homepage is usually the most powerful page on a website and it is a waste of that resource not to use it to go after one of the most difficult queries.

You can compete with an interior page but it generally is less effective.   NYC steak house queries are rather competitive and to go after them with an interior page will probably result in lower rankings.

If you keep the homepage an image the client will make less money.

If this was my site the homepage would have quite a bit of text that includes lots of steak and other restaurant keywords.  We would be making a lot more money with that text than we would be making with an artsy image homepage.

The decision is artsy versus money.  Simple.

The more words that appear on the homepage the more traffic it will pull.  Every word on the page can combine with every other word on the page to match queries typed into search engines by people searching for something.

It is possible to rank without content on the homepage and it is possible to get in trouble for hiding content on the homepage.

If client's goal is to rank for his name that will probably be easy with no content.  If client wants to rank for "new york steakhouse" then he will need to accomplish that by anchor text links, the power of an interior pages or a strong effort on local search (which I see has already been done).

I would never have a zero text content homepage because I know that I would lose a lot of traffic and as a result a lot of sales.  If client values the "artsy" look of his homepage he will pay for it with lost revenue.

Unlimited QUALITY content?   That makes me salivate.

Be sure that each new piece of content is going to do at least one if these things:  get you out in the SERPs for new keywords, provide information that visitors are interested in, be a magnet for social attention and links.

The cooking niche is enormous.  However, I personally would not give one page of QUALITY content those "smaller blogs, buying guides and social media accounts"  especially if they are "interlinked in a random way".

I would put all of my energy into building a fortress instead of building a lot of hotdog stands out yonder.

I wonder if some of the chaise lounge ads might have been triggered by remarketing cookies?

I saw "kayak" in your query and thought that you might know about this type of ducky....

http://www.komar.org/faq/travel/vacation/green-river-rafting/rafting-day-4/2009_06_05_6963-green-river-rafting.jpg

Several people each week visit Q&A to ask why their Google rankings do not match the SEOmoz data.

These two website ratings are based upon different variables.

I would like to see SEOmoz have an obvious link on the results page of their tool that clicks to an explanation of what their results really mean and why they don't match Google's rankings.  Would save lots of people lots of concerns and be a great way to educate on the value of their data.

Google is not Google these days.

In addition to personalized search there are many variations of the SERPs that you can see when logged out of any Google service.

Your location can change the rankings.

Your browser can change your rankings.

Your previous searches can change your rankings.

I also believe that if you have two sites in the same SERP that one might be demoted significantly.

Soon they will be able to display different rankings to right-handed people and left-handed people.  

ahhh.... now I might understand where "ducky" comes from! 

My best guess at your problem is that your site has a lot of content that has been copied by other websites or has been republished from other websites.

The result is that you are being hit by the panda filter.  That usually results in a site-wide reduction in search rankings.

I have seen this on one of my sites where we republish articles at the request of educational institutions and government agencies.  We removed a lot of that content from the google index with the following line in the of the html code.

name="robots" content="noindex, follow" />

Rankings went back up after a lot of those pages were deindexed (but deindexing those pages cut a lot of our potential search traffic)

No guarantee that this is your problem.  Just my best guess.

Read Alan Gray's answer and follow his 5 suggestions if you want other actionable ideas.

I believe that your problem will require surgery and hard work.

Interesting thread.  Thanks for starting it.

The people who I am puzzled with are the ones who have a big problem on their site and they ask how to fix it.  The answer to this type of question usually involves a lot of difficult work (like replacing their copied content with something unique and genuine - or the guy who thinks he should be at #1 in competitive SERPs with 200 junk links).   When they see your answer they respond harshly because you didn't provide an "easy" solution. 

Thanks!  I didn't know that!

Thanks!  I am seeing this with my location turned on or turned off.  However, we only see this in the FireFox browser.  We tried Chrome and IE... and Safari on phone but did not see this.

What do you say when a customer calls and says no two people can get the same SERP to appear?

I think that is much more true than it was a few years ago.  And, as time goes by few and few people are seeing the same SERPs.

Thanks!  Glad you don't think that I am crazy because some people do. 

Thank you!   I knew that google would geotarget SERPs for my physical location, but this is the first time that I have seen them geotarget based upon search history.

IMO this stinks up the SERPs.  If I wanted guitar stores in georgia I would have used that for my query.

Lots of people (philosophers) have an idea about how they think google "should" behave.  Then you have people who know what they are talking about and philosophers who are unwilling to believe that they are wrong.

Finally, just because we see something happen doesn't mean we know what caused it.

I have been searching on Google.com with FireFox this morning.

I searched for a state name....  like "georgia".

Then I search for a product... like "guitars".

For the Guitars query the first page of the SERPs include some music stores in georgia.

So, Google is contaminating your search results with information from your most recent query.

Are you seeing this too?   Has Google been doing this for a long time?  Or, I am going crazy?

Unlimited budget?

The first thing that I would do is get a big piece of framed canvas and a bucket of red paint... then paint on that canvas "Don't Blow the Money".  Hang on office wall.

Next get another piece of framed canvas and draw a big line down the left side and a big line along the bottom.  These will be two axes of your chart.  Label the left axis "profitable"... label the bottom axis "linkable".  Hang that on office wall.

Now, every idea that I get for improving the website, write it on a card and pin it on the chart , positioning it along those axes according to its potential profitability and potential linkability.  Work on those ideas that plot with the highest total potential - focus on projects that plot farthest to the right in the early stages then move north.

Right... when we lost a #1 position to a universal search result our video was hosted on youtube but embedded on our webpage.  The clicks went to our website.

Phil... great info in that blog post..  Now I know who to listen to about video.  Thanks!

Yes... I agree with Alan.  Canonical is a hint.

We put rel=canonical on about 250 pages in early February.   As of today about 1/2 of those pages are still in the SERPs.  The numbers are falling but this is really really slow to implement.

If you have done everything correctly it will probably work but requires patience.

Oh... doesn't that make you mad?

The same thing happened to me.

We held #1 position for a trophy term and had a video on that page.  Then when google decided to display the video as a universal search result, our #1 listing disappeared.

We lost a lot of traffic because the video appeared near position #6 in the SERPs.  We moved the video to a different page of the website.  Several weeks later our video result disappeared and we went back to #1.

If you have valuable content I believe that you should get your own domain and host your content there.

Then you have full control over format and the site will not be closed down because of a corporate decision.

I know a guy who lost a PR7 website making lots of money when the free service that he was using shut down.  Years of work down the drain with no opportunity to redirect the pages.  He lost thousands of dollars per month in income.