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I believe that this is a clear demonstration that link metrics are a decoy that  pulls you away from what is really important.

i do not understand it as there is not much relevant content to gastric band hypnotherapy and also it does not have many links pointing into it

Everyone sees examples like this above their sites.  The reason is that google's rankings are done by a complex forumla.

The best thing to do is to work on beating it.  Improve your content, get more links.

In my opinion, the way to use social media is to produce best-on-the-web content and then introduce it to sites like slashdot, reddit, stumbleupon and let the crowd there decide if it is worthy.  If you have really good content it will bring a lot of traffic from those sites and that traffic will produce a lot of links, likes, tweets and bookmrks without any effort from you.  The difficulty is producing the right type of content.

The problem with bookmarking is that thousands of webmasters each have a very large number of products and each want a very large number of bookmark links into them.  That makes those links worthless.

I think that it would do me more good if we sent it to my competitor.

I don't think that doing social bookmarking for links is a profitable use of time.

Great news, Alan. Keep us posted if this holds. Looks like traffic is about up to normal.

(according to the tool) are providing link value to their sites...

You might see the links listed but who says the provide ranking value?  Google and other search engines determine their value for rankings. Many of these links are no follow and many of those blogs are probably untrusted or have so few links of their own that the links are worth almost nothing.

My question is this - Is leaving comments on blogs an effective way of generating positive links to my site?

Only if they are followed links and only of those blogs have valuable links from other websites.  In my opinion the value of these links is so low that they are not worth going after.

I would implement this without the word "catalog".  I don't think that it adds anything of value and the shorter URL might be very very slightly more effective.

Not a big deal but I like to toss dead weight overboard.

In this example your page would be relevant for "Granny Smith Apples" and might show in the search results.  However, you might rank higher if you create a special page about Granny Smith apples with only that name in the title tag.

I use lots of title tags like you suggest.  I consider them "shotgunning" plays for a wide range of keywords but not accurate plays for any of them.  If you have a powerful site this strategy can rank you #1 for all of the terms.

waiting for the new profile photo

They have over three hundred domains with all but lets say 10 of them consisting of basic 5 page sites with a link "directory" on one of those pages. - the directory page is the same on every single site/domain.

Three hundred?  I have a few competitors who have about three dozen.

Being new to this, should this pose any kind of concern for us?

Yes, my big concern would be that they discover how much time and energy they are blowing on these hotdog stand websites.  If they ever channel all of that energy into something effective you might be in trouble.

One of the links from that directory is going to our newly acquired domain

I would not worry about it.  Just don't link back to their rat's nest of sites.

I use two columns for articles.

Left column is for text with multiple subheadings. (scanable)

Right column is for images, captions, data tables, references, video embeds.

Really important promotions and links to related content on my own site are floated to the left side of the left column or roadblocking it.

This makes for easy scanning and a big stack of images/data/video in the right column gives a rich and substantive look.

This is too good.... I think you should delete this post. 

... or provide a little less information.

When the visitor arrives on your content the first goal is to let him know that he is in the right place with a very clear title and then let him know that he is in an interesting place with an interesting graphic above the fold.

Even before he determines if your content is gold or crap the appearance must pull him in.   Then as with a good book you need a "hook" and after that the real quality of the content and the presentation style will have to take over.

Then... if you want the link or the tweet or the like, the impact must be there.  This can be quality of content, substantiveness, engagement, impressiveness.

Bottom line... I think that you must have both academic quality along with aesthetic presentation - without stinking it up with too many ads and side-promotions.  Its a fine balance and hard to know when you have it.

The word "conformity" is not in the google vocabulary.

I am not saying this very loudly... but I sometimes toss out a little ditty of content to see if it pulls any traffic and to see where it positions in the SERPs.   I use these as "scouts" to identify easy targets.  If it works then I know that a larger investment in content will pay off.

I think of this question in terms of the effect that it will have on the visitor....  Will it motivate the visitor to link, tweet, like, share, email, bookmark.

If it doesn't do that then it isn't very good.

How about upgrading the content?

Look at your analytics.  Identify the pages there that are getting the most traffic.  Start with them and continue.

Most of the times that I need help with SEO, databases, CMS set-up, etc. I go to a forum like this one and identify someone who has a good long-term reputation and gives really good advice.  Someone who communicates clearly in a way that I can understand.

Incompetent people usually don't go around exposing their ignorance in a public forum.  Lazy people usually don't give advice for free.  Forums give you a chance to identify someone you can probably trust.  If they give such great advice for free then imagine what they would deliver if you pay them.

That's how I have found really good people for work that I am not able to do my self.  I have not been disappointed yet with anyone who I have found that way.

So, spend some time here.  Ask lots of specific questions related to the work that you need.  Pay attention to the people who answer, read their profiles carefully  It will get you an education and maybe you will find someone who will do great work for you.

Not everyone here is available for work.  Some only work on their own sites or are only allowed to work on the sites related to their employer.  But there are many competent people who are available.

Anybody interested in landing pages needs to subscribe to the periodic emails from http://whichtestwon.com/

I get them and we argue about them at my office - and are often surprised at which landing page does better.

I have not seen anything myself or heard people yelling loudly in forums or out office windows.

However, I read Alan B (somebody I trust) talking about some Panda recovery here.

My sites have not seen much change since this panda stuff started.

You don't see those footer links on sites for Nike, Medtronic, Best Buy, etc.

I agree.  I think that some of these companies have in-house talent or they address the "signature links" before the design contract is awarded.

In my opinion, the designer is still a "winner" if he/she can post... "I designed Nike or BestBuy" in their personal portfolio.

When you think of the value that such a link would have (as on Nike), the designer should be willing to do the work for free and pay a monthly fee for the link to be displayed.  (just taking the opposite perspective).

I can understand why some designers want to have a "signature" on their work.  It is somewhat of a custom for an artist to sign his/her work and that custom seems to creep into web design.  A lot of designers are really adamant about that link and do not want to give it up even if the website owner is willing to pay extra.   In my opinion this is something that the designer and the client should agree upon before work begins.

I have a very different reaction when I see an SEO company link in the footer of a client site.   I know exactly why they want that link.

Why should I hire an SEO who does that?  Any SEO who is proud of his work should not be sucking the linkjuice out of his client's websites.  He is being paid to do the opposite and do that job in a stealthy manner.

If you don't have a meta description, Google will grab some relevant text from your page and display it instead.  I know a couple people who would rather allow google to choose the description, however, I would rather craft it myself in an attempt to elicit clicks.

I don't know anything about Genesis... but if it does not provide for something as important as a description tag I would be wondering what else is missing?

My theory is the latest Google changes are affecting link value, and perhaps we simply got some authority loss...but was wondering if you could shed any light on this issue?

Without more detailed information, our guess would be about the same as yours.

This comes years after solidly dominating our niche

... or maybe your competitors are working harder to move up the SERPs than you are working to maintain them.

Sites like "keyword.info"..or "keyword-keyword.org", etc. seem to be gaining some of the top spots.

Keywords in the domain can help a little, but are usually only of real value when your domain is an exact match for the query.  Most of my sites are KW.com and I believe that the ranking value of the KW in the domain has declined recently.

Now that really is a job for 14k products.....;(

Yes, but since it will be a difficult job it should put you into a position where you have very few competitors.

I would absolutely do this if your website has a little power and you are currently getting some visible rankings.  However, if your site has a weak backlink profile when compared to your competitors then that problem will also need to be addressed too.

I think that people who reeeeally know the answer to this question aren't going to tell.

If this was on my site I would not change the URL.

You might gain a little from having a better URL but you might lose a little by doing a redirect.  Maybe you would lose more from the redirect than you gain from the short URL.

So, I would start using better URLs going forward and spend the time savings on new content.

I have a large site that gets most of its traffic from search - about 60%.

Articles and other static content on the site get about 90% of their traffic from search.

However, a blog on the site gets almost all of its traffic from daily RSS and email distribution by Feedburner along with a lot of direct traffic.   There is also a lot of direct traffic to the homepage that clicks into the blog.

So, different parts of the site attract traffic from different audiences and I believe that both of them are successful.

I try to make the URL match the most important keyword that I hope to rank for.

What concerns you about the graphs?

I see rising traffic which is good.  I also see a site that is getting traffic from a diversity of sources.  I like that.

I cant' give any more detailed comments because I don't know anything about the site or about the pattern of the traffic.

My reply probably isn't going to be what you are looking for but I guarantee that it will be 100% honest.

There must be some honest people still out there.

There are lots of honest people out there.  Lots and lots of them.

If you got ripped off you own part of the responsibility.  Did you check references carefully?  Did you have a contract?  Did you get proof that the service provider is successful?

Maybe a university student who knows alot about SEO/keywords and will get our sites where they need to be.

I really like university students.  I used to be one myself and used to be a professor.  However, SEO is a competitive venture and you don't want to send a skinny kid out to face the heavyweight champion.  I would hire a pro who has been in the business and who has success promoting the type of business that you own. (there are some really good SEOs enrolled in universities but they are not very common - it would like going to the grocery story and offering an SEO job to the people who are shopping)

In addition to paying for honestly you need to focus on competence.

I don't use monthly keyword search volume when making optimization decisions.

As long as I have top-quality content my philosophy is like this....

"Do not fear competition because where there is competition there is also a lot of traffic and where there is a lot of traffic there is money to be made."

.... so, I optimize my pages for the most logical keywords that the content merits.  If they are easy that is good - I should get top rankings.  If they are difficult that is good too - because there will probably be a lot of searchers and I expect to get visitors from long-tail queries.

I usually don't submit my content however, some of my visitors will do that.  Some of my articles will get a big spike of visitors from reddit (a few thousand) but the real traffic for me is from slashdot where I have gotten a hundred thousand visitors over two or three days.  Stumbleupon is also a good traffic source for me but instead of delivering a big spike of traffic I get a steady flow of a hundred to a thousand visitors a day.

It takes a really special article or image or other type of content to get massive traffic from these sites.  Most of my content gets very little attention however a few times per year we see the slashdot effect.

Good point about multiple browser tags.  Thanks!

Most hosts can be lightning fast.

Slow hosting often occurs when the hosting company loads a large number of websites onto a single server.  That makes the websites compete for resources on an overloaded machine.  One cure is to get a dedicated server where you will have complete control over the amount of activity occurs on it.  That can be expensive.

There are also some situations of slow hosting when your host is in a different part of the world from your website's visitors - that is bad for SEO since the location of the host is sometimes used to determine your search engine rankings.  There are also still a few hosting services that are not genuine hosting companies, instead it is a  guy running a server on a machine in his basement with a slow connection to the internet.

The problem might not be with the host.  it is possible that you have inefficient programming, huge images, bad code or other problems that interfere with the processing of your website on the server or the rendering of the website in a visitor's browser.

This is a very broad question.

As a general answer you want to write descriptions that elicit clicks, communicate value, inspire curiosity, demonstrate expertise.... whatever it takes to get searchers to click.

When you read a description in the SERPs what makes you click?

Here are some challenges that stand in the way of getting good advice in this forum.

- It is very difficult to understand exactly what you have done because English is not your native language.  That makes us guess at a lot of things that you are trying to tell us. Precise information is essential.

- Without seeing your content we must make guesses about its quality.

- Without knowing where your links are coming from we must make guesses about their quality.

- Without seeing your website we must make guesses about how it is set up and if it is working properly.

Based upon the above I suggest that you find an experienced and successful SEO who speaks your language (and the language of your website) and hire him/her to advise you.

Finally, you have been working for one year.  Other people own websites where they have been working for five, ten or fifteen years.  Even if you have done everything properly you may need more time to catch up.

I have a blog that does really well too.... but I doubt that the platform would be a silver bullet instead of the content.

Or.... maybe Google thinks that everyone who has to use wordpress needs a handicap. 

Steve, I would not hold my breath waiting for someone to explain this.  Sounds like a mystery.

Is it possible that WordPress provides a better on-page optimization or better internal linkage than was on the original site.

The only reason that I am replying here is that we uploaded a redesigned site last week.  It had not been redesigned for many years and still had very heavy on-page formatting with tags and huge tables.  This was streamlined with a css file.  A few days after uploading it moved up and above a competitor that has us severely outgunned.  I know another person who is seeing this.  So maybe redesign gets you a temporary boost these days?

I don't believe it.   I am waiting for these sites to drop.

I was just nervous to tweak the title tag for fear that it would anger google:)

I experiment with title tags a lot.  I believe that Google will not be bothered if you tweak them once or twice.

Do you find that adding a word, like FREE to the title tag drops you at all?

We have lots of title tags with FREE in them - often as the first word.  They rank great and are in moderate competition.

More info on kickass titles here.

Over time, most of my first page Google rankings have delivered less and less traffic even though my positions on the SERPs have remained the same.

Google has placed image results in the SERPs, news results, product results, local map results, video results, left side bar options. Each time they implement these I see a drop in traffic.

Google is finally becoming a better webmaster instead of just a search engine.  They are learning how to keep traffic on Google.com instead of giving it to me.

So, the format of the SERPs can really cut into your traffic.

In addition, the actions of your competitors can cut into your traffic and even more into your sales.  Here are a couple of examples...

One of my competitors is a publisher who sells at MSRP.  I will never beat them in the SERPs for their own brand.  However, I can rank #2 below them and shout a discount price in my title tag.  Guess who started getting LOTS more traffic and lots more sales after that price went up?  My competitor lost what I gained.

I also was able to give something away for free that other people were selling.  I was ranking #4 at the time.  When I placed the word FREE at the front of my title tag, traffic shot up and the number of links, likes and tweets that I received also went up.  Not long after I was #1 and my competitors took a traffic loss - even before my rankings improved.

So, go out and look at the SERPs for changes that Google has made or changes that your competitors are up to.  THat might explain it.

Finally... if this ranking drop was recent, remember that public schools and colleges just dismissed for the summer.  Academic search is huge for some sites.  Another seasonal change might also be at play.

You probably can't create a separate page of unique content for every keyword variant of "my destination (lodging, motels, hotels, bed & breakfast, etc.).  So, you must consider your business model, assess the competition, research your keywords, and create content pages that make the most sense.

If your site is about a single city them maybe you can get enough content and have enough time to cover all of the keyword variants.  However, if your site covers every city and town in a state like California you will probably have a hard time coming up with all of that content and making it profitable.

If you have a big brand name that impresses the pants off of everyone then using it in the title tag might have a benefit... but if you are a NoName or a MaybeWeKnowYou I think that it is of limited value.  I would rather use the title tag to flaunt a value proposition or a phrase that elicits clicks.

Good discussion on this topic here.

...unless I'm in a bad mood, and then it's not a positive response.

Haha... do you tell them to jump in a lake?

Start with the SEOmoz Beginner's Guide.  Read it completely.

Get a website and start experimenting.  Keep records of what you change and what's the results.

Go back and read SEOmoz Beginner's Guide anytime you have a question.

Then, only after you have reread the guide, ask a question here.

Also, if you are going to be a great SEO you should learn how to get your questions answered by searching the web.  Use that for questions that will  have a black and white answer.  Save your forum bullets for when you really need help.

General questions and posts with fifty questions usually don't get good replies on forums.  Ask one specific question and give full background details.

Forums are great places to get a question answered but nobody is going to write what you can learn through research.

I would not rewrite.

If your competitors are grabbing lots of your original content and using it you could contact an attormey to take copyright action against them or file DMCA complaints.

You need to be really serious about this to take these steps and have the ability to prove the the content is your own.

I think that the first question that anyone who wants to hire a linkbuilder should do is ask himself is... "Do I have any content on  my site that is worth linking to?"   If the answer to that question is "no" or "maybe" then you will need to find a linkbuilder who is either a freeking magician or a linkbuilder who will only get you links from spammy sites.

From dignan99:  I personally do not trust the links done by the vast majority of services that offer link building.

I agree.  If I needed a linkbuilder, I would hire someone to sit in my office and do it.  Then I could control the process and know that when they found good links that they would not be duplicated for my competitor's sites.     That's how you start an arms race!

If you have received some of the link requests that I get you would know that ignorant linkbuilders will make a fool out of you in front of other people in your industry.  Worse... turn an idiot lose and tell him to drop comments on forums and blogs with your name on them.  That can really damage the image of your business in the right places.

Getting to your question... I would ask where they are going to look for these links and I would want to see periodic reports of where the links are located so I can will know when to fire the linkbuilder for stinking up my domain by posting crap on other websites.

I think there are two issues here....

1. Google can not identify the original author of a document.  They can tell who got indexed first but that is not necessarily the author.  The author might have distributed in print or by email or on unindexed webpages before publishing in the open online.   If you want to declare public ownership of a document you should prepare an author page and link to it from each of your works using the rel="author" attribute on the links.  More information.  This could help your original content to outrank verbatim duplicates on the web - maybe.

2. Scrapers are usually pretty easy to beat in the SERPs if you have a genuine site with lots of links from other sites in your topic niche.  If they are beating you then the best way to fight it in the SERPs is to get more links.  The answer is the same when genuine, more authoritative sites beating you with copies of your own content.

In my opinion, people who syndicate their content are at greatest risk for this problem.  Don't syndicate your content.  It feeds your existing competitors and creates new ones.  Then your site gets lost in a sea of duplicate content.