I agree, it doesn't make any sense. I would redirect everything instead to a subfolder:

example.domain.com -> domain.com/example

example.domain.com/page-1 -> domain.com/example/page-1

A few Webmaster videos ago, Google's Matt Cutts pointed out that that Googlebot should be treated exactly the same as if it was a regular person visiting your site, which you are currently doing.

However, you are now FORCING users to stay on "their" corresponding location, instead you should "suggest" but not force it.

Example: user access the naked domain: domain.com then you check his/her IP and redirect the the appropriate location, you must in this case, use some kind of "we already redirected him/her" method to avoid forcing the user to a specific country subdomain, you can use either sessions or cookies. Once you redirect, you create a cookie saving the option or a session variable. You now have the visitor in the location you want and you should offer an easy way to switch the location (check live examples, like logitech.com), a drop down menu for example on the footer. Now, IF a user accesses a location, say au.domain.com, you shouldn't do the automatic redirection, but instead, you could bring a lightbox pop-up suggesting the user to go to their "best match" location.

Using the above method allows Google to access any page, without forcing it to a specific location, plus, from my point of view, it is the easier and friendlier way for users too. If I type au.domain.com (while in the US) I probably want to see the AU version, if not, the page will suggest me to switch (and based on my response (closing the window or clicking a "stay here") the site should remember it and avoid re-asking).

Hope that helps!

Then you don't have nothing to do, nothing to noindex, as actually there are no extra pages. Is just one script that includes extra scripts "behind the scenes".

How are the pages in the tabs being loaded? iframes? Ajax? In both cases, they shouldn't be noindexed if they offer valuable content that can't be accessed from another page.

Restaurant names/brand names are different? If that's the case I'd suggest you stick with one Website for each one of them and if you'd like you can link them together with a nofollow link.

From an SEO perspective, you can get more authority if you use a single domain for both, but if I look it from the user point of view, 2 sites seems much more appropriate, and Google says every day: think, and build to users.

It is ultimately your choice, those are just my 2 cents

That should be an easy fix for your programmer. If your internal links point to pages with uppercase letters in them, then have the canonical tags with the uppercase. Almost always, uppercase and lowercase loads the same content as the rewrite rules use the URL to look on the products using a DB that does not distinguish uppercase & lowercase automatically (in MySQL, you can force the query to do so, but that will be actually more difficult to just change the way the programmed made the canonical tags). You should also redirect the pages that are duplicate to the original ones, if they have uppercase letters (the original) then the lowercase version should redirect to the uppercase one (once the canonical tags are properly set).

From MY OWN PERSONAL point of view, I always preferred lowercase URLs... if that's the case there's a little more coding to do, but you will end up with all URLs in lowercase (for some reason almost all CMS automatically convert uppercase letters to lowercase in a page URL, like Wordpress does).

Hope that helps!

How long have you waited since you applied all the rules to avoid duplicate content, as if it was just recently, then Google should be "rebuilding" the index of your site and stats may be a little crazy while that is happening.

If it was over 2 month ago and you are seeing the increase now, then I'd suggest you revise the rules you created to see if your own Website isn't creating all those new pages.

Hope that helps.

Every time you make a redirect, 301, some of the pagerank is diluted. So following your example, from going from A to C you should redirect both A and B to C, not A -> B -> C as you double the loss.

Redirects are just fine, and in my opinion, they should say for as long as the pages being redirected still get organic traffic (backlinks, search, etc.). The moment you see no more traffic, and the links pointing to that redirected page fixed (point to the new page) you can safely remove the redirection. For as on the amount of redirects, it won't be a problem if you have lots of them, unless you do multiple redirects from A to G going from one page to the other until reaching the final, working version.

If that's not your scenario and A redirects directly to G, then you are fine. Monitor traffic on A and see if at some point you can remove the redirection, otherwise just leave is there (I personally have redirects that have been there for over 3 years as the pages are still getting organic traffic (mainly from links).

Hope that helps! And a happy new year to you too!

That could be a problem, yes. static.domain.com is another domain that www.domain.com and therefore the sitemap should be in www.domain.com for URLs on www.domain.com.

I've seen image sitemaps in www.domain.com where all the images are on a subdomain, like static.domain.com and that wasn't an issue, but personally I'd suggest you put the sitemap in the www.domain.com.

The "idea" is still valid. You need a "Thank You" page that actually sends the transaction details to Analytics. Users must be redirected to that page after completing the payment, and I guess the return URL is just a variable you set while sending the order details to Worldpay (look into their docs for that: return url).

Then, in the "thank you" page you trace the order and create the analytics ecommerce call (with any programing language) depending on the version of Analytics you are using, it could be the ga (ga('require','ecommerce','ecommerce.js'); and then the rest of the transaction details) or the older _TrackTrans() (after the rest of the transaction details).

Hope that helps!

Hi Peter,

It is widely known now that any kind of compensation given for a link is against Google TOS (that includes affiliate links, "powered by" links, PRs, sponsored posts, etc). All of them should be not followed, in that way, you still get the people that may want the services you offer without affecting Google rankings.

There are some rel alternatives that could help Google recognize those links and not count them towards your rankings (or counting them differently). Take the case of Wordpress, most of their hosted blogs have a "powered by" link, but they use rel="generator" which helps Google distinguish between spam and "powered by" links.

Anyway, there are 2 sides of the coin here. Google said that affiliate links should be nofollow, but I still see sites that have hundreds of thousands of links (over 95% of their link profile) from affiliates, which are followed and not blocked by anything and the site ranks 1st.

I would recommend to nofollow those links, but that is my approach. I even created a javascript method to insert our affiliate links (including the nofollow tag), still, we are ranked 10th on the same query that the site I mentioned above ranks 1st.

Hope this answer helps you at least decide what is your approach and what to do...