Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
You are right Craig, as a Digital Agency you should expect to get links from divers topics. As Ben mentioned this will be ok if it's part of a balanced link-building campaign. I would also make sure that they link back using different anchor text and perhaps to different pages on your site, not just the home page. Another thing to take into consideration is the strength of those blogs. Having a bunch of new links from PR 0 pages can look spammy and not have much value.
I agree with Streamline 100%. I would just add that if the URL you want is not available don't rule out the .net option. Sometimes URLs are taken but not being used. Being the first with an exact keyword match URL could bring big benefits. For now at least 
Great Point Steve! Consistency in address and phone number is very important.
To answer your first question: Yes a floor is "descriptive enough" for Google Places. There are many businesses that have a floor as their true address.
The problem is that you have multiple business on the same floor and no other unique identifier, like a room or suite #. Are the other businesses listed on Google Places and/or have other local listings on the web?
If you are the only business listed with that address you probably wont have a problem at first, but may encounter issue in the future if other businesses on that floor decide that they want to get listed on-line.
One solution will be for all the tenants on that floor to agree to a unit # system.
Thank you for the question. Rand answers it best in these two posts from the blog;
Good luck and happy domain authority building!
Ruslan-
1. Yes links from Facebook are "No-follow" but that they don't have ANY value is up for discussion.
Here is a great article on Sphinn where some very good SEO post some comments on their thoughts on the value of nofollow links. I would suggest you read though them and draw your own conclusions. ttp://sphinn.com/story/161185
2. "So don't spend your time on it and try to find some relevant websites for your industry and place your links there, and you'll see the result."
I completely agree. If it's strong backlinks that you are after focus on industry relevant sites for better results.
Simplastics -
3. There is plenty of SEO value in Social Media. Here is a great article on The SEO value in Facebook & Twitter. Placing random backlinks on Facebook will not get you the results you need.
Excellent response by Andrew. I would add that you should also create specif pages on your site for some of your long-tail keywords and include those keywords in your URL.
Example: www.gourmetstreets.com/food-truck-franchise-oppertunities/
or like the one you already have http://gourmetstreets.com/how-to-start-a-food-truck-franchise/
Wow! You guys look identical! You should run a "Who can grow the best Rand Fishkin style beard" contest.
I think they should be slightly different. Obviously on a case by case basis, but I tend to have more content in my page title then in the H1. I do start my page titles with the H1 but I may include a strong brand name or even a call to action in an effort to increase CTR. It's also good practice to match H1 with page name / URL.
Something like this:
Men's Watches | Overstock.com: Buy Watches Online
Men's Watches | Amazon.com: Omega, citizen, Cartier, Tag Heuer ...
Mens Watches And Watches For Men For The Holidays At - Macy's
In all my years doing local search marketing the only bad reviews I have been able to get removed on Google are those that include profanity or "inappropriate content" and even those have required many email exchanges with Google.
Have you read this: http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=187622
Also remember to make it easy for your clients to post review by placing you places link on email campaigns and social media profile pages.
Good luck!
How long have you been tracking the site's traffic? Could it be a seasonable change?
Also how do your ranking correlate with these changes. Have you noticed a drop in ranking as well.
How about referring sites? Could you have momentarily lost any significant links?
A good analysis of Google Analytics data should give you some good clues.
The best way to fight evil is with good. Focus your energy and efforts on getting / encouraging your clients to leave positive reviews for your company.
I also have set up my blog to "show an excerpt" and then "read more". The reason I do this is for better SEO site structure or site architecture. The idea is to target the main blog for broader keywords like "SEO blog" or "Internet Marketing Tips". When you click on the "read more" or "read full entry" it takes you to a page that is optimized (URL, H1, content, etc.) for what that blog is exactly about.
Example in this URL - http://www.seomoz.org/blog - the first blog is Using Emails to Build Links - Whiteboard Friday.
If you click on the "read full entry" you go to a page that is just about "Using Emails to Build Links"
Now do a Google search for "Using Emails to Build Links"
The interior page of the blog ranks #1 because it is more relevant then the Blog's "home page"
Have you place a rel="canonical" tag?
Here is a nice little video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm9onOGTgeM&feature=player_embedded
Try a Google search for "health supplement directories" this should give you some great ideas. Just remember to check your SEOmoz tools bar to check for PA DA etc.
Did you try this?
RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L]
or to add a trailing slash:
`RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.html
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /$1/$2.html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5}|/)$
RewriteRule (.*)$ /$1/ [R=301,L]`
What type of problems are you concerned with? How would repeat customers be affected by your optimization, in comparison to new customers? Sorry for the questions but just trying to better understand your questions and concerns.
Like Cisaz said I like to optimize all levels. Cisaz advice is right on point. I would just add to use these 2nd & 3rd level categories to target longer tail keywords.
I think you misunderstood me on "staying true to the page title"
If your website is about selling blue widgets and you page title is "blue widgets - johns widget corp" then you are "staying true to the page title" You are letting people and search engines know that this page is about blue widgets. Also "blue widgets - johns widget corp" is under 40 characters so this would not be the best example.
Your question was if you should change all your page titles to under 40 characters so that your entire page title would show. My answer / advise to you is; if you need more then 40 characters to properly describe your page then you should not change just so that all characters in your page title show.
I don't think you should change all the page titles on your site to 40 characters or less just to conform to Google's new local SERPs.
The 40 character limit is what Google will show not what you are limited to use. The best advice I can give you is to be "true" to your page titles. If you need more then 40 characters to properly let search engines and people know what your pages are about then you should. Just don't add (stuff) an extra list of keywords to the end of your page titles.
I have used Textbroker and I must say that I was very impressed with the quality or content that I received.
I think that their infrastructure is what makes it work. These are some of Textbroker's features I really like:
1. You can choose who writes your article basses on their interests and past writing experiences.
2. You have the opportunity to make 2 sets of changes after you receive the initial content back.
3. The writer only gets paid if you are satisfied.
4. Once you find a great content writer you like working with you can create an on-going working relationship.
5. You can select specific keywords for SEO purposes.
6. Automatic copyscape report.
All these + more, make Textbroker a great place to get good content at a reasonable price & fast.
If the part numbers are not important or irelevent to the product then you should not include them in yor title. But If the part numbers are industry used manufacture numbers and used by people searching for the product then you should include in your title even if it makes them 70 characters or more. Your title should be used to best describe what your page is about and be relevant to how people search for those products.
You may have the #1 ranking spot but for the moment Google is showing these Continental flight information prior to any organic listings. Notice that if you check the rankings for 4co, 4co.us officially ranks #1 organically not Flightstats.com.
How long ago did you claim and post changes to your listing?
In the case you provided I would make a page specifically for "upside down cars" and from that page have a link to another internal page that is specifically for "blue upside down cars". The goal is to be the most relevant for the specific search conducted. If one was to search "blue upside down cars" then your "blue upside down cars" page should be more relevant than just "upside down cars" and therefor rank better for that specific search.
Now the question is does "blue upside down cars" merit a page all on its own or should it just be a paragraph and or section in "upside down cars"? It helps to ask yourself these 3 questions:
1. Do you have enough useful informative content to fill a page just for "blue upside down cars"?
2. Is there enough searches conducted for "blue upside down cars" that I should make a dedicated page.
3. What does it mean to me or my client to rank well for "blue upside down cars".
Hope this helps.
I've only seen one site using that. Would be great if someone at SEOMoz can confirm if this is official or a knockoff badge.
Moving a site from one server to another should not affect your Page Rank as long as you keep everything (URLs, file structure, content, etc.) exactly the same.
Here is great tutorial from Matt Cutts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfqKKquA_R0&feature=player_embedded
Those are called sitelinks, they are meant to help users navigate your site. Google analyzes the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they're looking for.
You can read more here http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=47334
The SEOMoz Badge that is available is this one: http://www.seomoz.org/dp/badges
There have been talks of a Profile Badge http://www.seomoz.org/q/do-you-want-an-seomoz-profile-badge
Adding to what Alan said, For better results and to make your template page more relevent you may want to add a more descriptive keyword between THIS and TEMPLATE.
so "The tool you're using is great, but this (more descriptive keyword) template will help you."
and you would link the '(more descriptive keyword) template" part.
This would help both you human visitors and search engine bots better understand the what that template page is for.
The first thing you should take into consideration is that The Find was one of the most penalized sites by Google's Panda update. I manage various eCommerce sites that were seeing a good amount of referral traffic from The Find. Then came Panda and we literally saw over a 98% drop in referral traffic from The Find. Recently we have experience a gradual increase but still way over 75% less traffic.
As for optimizing your products I have two suggestions:
1. Remember to strategically place your most important keywords first in your product title.
2. Looks like The Find is now ALSO looking at Facebook likes and using that to determine search results.
I have a client who recently expanded to New York from Miami, so now they have 2 active locations. They currently rank very well for local Miami terms both organically and on local maps. Any specific recommendations as to how to go about optimizing for the New York terms without compromising the Miami terms? BOTH organically and on Local map listings.
Remember that Google is trying to pull up the most relevant result for the specific search. So we need to see why Google would think that your homepage is more relevant then some of your interior pages that you have been trying to optimize for.
Now when you say "I'd done everything right to get other pages on the site to rank for top keywords."
Can you be more specific as to the strategies that you have implemented_?_
Also I wouldn't consider being "stuck" on PR5 a potential issue_._ Many site perform better then others with higher PR.http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/beyond-pagerank-graduating-to.html
If the URLs are going to be changing (and hopefully optimized) then 301 redirects are the way to go. What platform are you changing from / to? What kind of server will it be hosted on?
Ranking #1 for what key-term or keywords? It makes all the difference in the wold!
Yes, it does go under the root.
Yes, just open notepad
Yes, change the .html to .php
Are you using Google Adwords?
If so these maybe one or some of the issues causing the Not Set Keyword:
1. Auto-tagging is on but cost data is not applied.
2. There is a redirect in the URL
3. The gclid parameter is altered or dropped from the ad
4. Auto and manual tagging are being used at the same time
5. Manually tagged URLs are missing a value
Remember that a Warning is just that, a "Warning". This doesn't necessarily mean that you are doing something wrong. It just means that you should be aware of a "possible' issue. If your navigation is intended to help visitors navigate your site and facilitates finding products, then I wouldn't worry about the warnings. If you have such a large navigation just for the purpose of stuffing keywords, then I would reconsider the strategy.
The best way is to do both but if you dont have access to the .htaccess file than just remove ALL of the link back to www.mydomain.com/index.php and replace with www.mydomain.com
Ah now I see. Outbound to other sites. Yes you definitely don't want to do that!
Great answer, I would just like to add that it may be best SEO practice to use: baseball.com/new-baseball-product instead of baseball.com/newbaseballproduct
Also a direct keyword match on the URL is very powerful. If the product merits the effort I would consider obtaining the URL and making a micro site in addition to creating a landing page on your main website.
2 (or even more) listing results on the first page is better then 1.
I think the posting you are referring to is this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization
The posting does not say that the use your anchor terms on other external pages will cannibalize your main page. The problem comes when you link to multiple pages on your site with the same anchor terms.
The suggestion is to use the same anchored term on multiple relevant pages throughout your site to link back to the home page (or desired page). The idea is not to optimize various pages on your site for the same keywords.
Your 1st question:
Go to www.google.com and type in the domain name, with and without the "www." For example, search for "www.domain.com" and then search for "domain.com" (without using quotes around the domain name). If the domain shows up in the search results then it is not banned in Google.
To investigate a domain further at Google, see what Google returns when you perform a site: search at Google. For example, if you go to Google and search for "site:www.domain.com" and then "site:domain.com" and Google comes back with "Your search - site:www.domain.com - did not match any documents," the site most likely is banned at Google.
Your 2nd question:
Was best answered below. Do not associate with any sites that have been determine to be spam, been penalized or even banned from Google.
Drop down menus do not typically effect SEO negatively. In fact a properly optimized drop down menu can be beneficial for letting Google know what your site and pages are for. Just a few things to check for:
1. Avoid Java script drop down menus - Use standard HTML or CSS driven drop downs instead.
2. Use live linked text and not images.
3. Use descriptive keyword in your drop down - For example a drop down for shirts use: Red shirt, Blue shirt, etc instead of just Red, Blue.....
4. Keep in mind the First Anchored text rule. Give seniority to your first anchored text link.
5. Make sure your links are absolute link. e.g.http://www.yourdomainname.com/services.htm
6. Use title attribute to describe the page the visitor will be taken to.
To avoid this, you can use the following ModRewrite rules in your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.html$ http://www.domain.com/ [R=301,L]
Also make sure that all your links back to the home page (both in your navigation and your internal links) are www.mydomain.com and not www.mydomain.com/index.php