I doubt there's a filter against xxx, but that doesn't mean there isn't something in the algos that checks for a spammy link profile more aggressively if the xxx is there.

I ran through the first 5 pages of links in Open Site Explorer, and their highest authority links mainly contain the branded keyword phrase "xxx church". Could use some diversity in anchor text. Just because Penguin hit for exact match anchor text for spammy links (from spammy sites and tactics), it doesn't mean you can't use "Check out this porn addiction recovery site if you're having issues with porn in your house." and link to the site with the underlined text.

There may be some more questions to ask. What are their link building efforts?

A number of pages from http://blog.internetsafety.com with incoming links no longer resolve (404 not found). There are lots of links that actually do look Penguin bait.

It could be link diversity. It could be low quality links. It could be tons of links coming from pages that are now resolving as 404s.

Sorry the news isn't great, but I really don't think it's the domain name that is the problem.

Richard and Moosa are right, use a friendly 404 page to help your users when they reach a page that can no longer be found. Simply redirecting them to the home page doesn't fix the issue of the missing page. Here's an old, but relevant, post on the subject: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/personalizing-your-404-error-pages.

For your second issue, if you've permanently moved to a new product page, you should certainly 301 redirect to not only pass on all the link juice from the old page, but also to provide the best user experience for your customers - they were looking for the product so give them the new improved page :).

What Alex has described is correct. Also, congrats on moving to a CMS; you're going to love the time-savings :).

Sounds great, hopefully we provided some helpful information.

Good luck with the migration!

Hey Jonaz, use the plus (+) sign. I think it's your best bet.

Hi Tyler,

Sorry it took a while to get back to this thread. I don't think there's one "right answer" for how to proceed and you've obviously given this much thought.

But, I can give you my point of view and what I believe to be the best answer in this situation and likely what I would do.

Personally, I would use the new name. It sounds like your business is excited about it and now you just want to maintain your rankings.

Knowing this process would involve a migration to a new website complete with a new domain name, I would start reviewing all of the steps included in the posts I provided above. Make your 301s are going to be done right and will not miss any high-ranking, high-traffic URLs.

Prior to performing the migration announce the re-branding effort on your current site and let your customers know what to expect.. Ask for feedback. Let your customers know you are making these changes to better serve them you'd love their input.

Once you've tested the new site fully and are ready to go to production, announce the date of the change and then implement. You will see fluctuations in traffic, but if you follow all of the advice in the posts above you will have the best odds for success.

Hope this helps

Hard question there Tyler. There are many things to consider.

Have you already done marketing with the old name? How many repeat customers do you get? Is your intent to rebrand?

If it makes sense to rename, rebrand, and build on a new domain name, unless you are writing new content (e.g. product descriptions), you can run into duplicate content issues if you run with two sites. Additionally, the new site will not have any reviews or other engagement which may be present in the existing site.

If the only reason for the change is to move to what you believe is a better platform and to improve the design, then it might be best to go the 301 redirect route and maintain the rankings you already have. People expect websites to change (improve) as time goes by.

Here's a good website migration guide.

Google has provided some tips too.

Hope this helps!

Hi jonaz, I think I was editing my post when you were replying. Dashes are best, yes. I'd say underscores would be second-best. If your developers can't work with dashes, then my suggestion would be to use underscores.

Using a plus sign (+) isn't bad. The plus sign represents a space character I believe.

Hello jonaz,

Here's the short answer: dashes are best.

Next best might be underscores.

For the long answer, check this post out: http://www.seomoz.org/q/hyphens-v...

Hope this helps!

Read up on this Webmaster Tools guideline: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66353

Note the following from the guideline if there is a very important reason for why your developer wants to use CSS to move the text off the page:

"However, not all hidden text is considered deceptive. For example, if your site includes technologies that search engines have difficulty accessing, like JavaScript, images, or Flash files, using descriptive text for these items can improve the accessibility of your site."

If there is not a very important reason, and even if there is, suggest they populate the ALT attribute of the image with the text instead.

Hope this helps!

To answer your main question, content aggregation is not good SEO.

First, search engines are going to see scraped duplicate content. Second, if you add any ads at all, you will only increase the odds you will be viewed as a profit-seeking-curated-content farmer which may as well be equivalent to spam.

Panda and Penguin were released to deal with sites that provide no-value content aggregation.

If you aren't adding value, don't do it.

OK, all that being said, I do find Flavors.me interesting.

I think it might work as a personal website used to drive traffic through to other channels. Like About.me, but with a bit more oomph!

Provide a solid profile (unique content providing value) that points to the places I spend my time on the Web.

I doubt there's a filter against xxx, but that doesn't mean there isn't something in the algos that checks for a spammy link profile more aggressively if the xxx is there.

I ran through the first 5 pages of links in Open Site Explorer, and their highest authority links mainly contain the branded keyword phrase "xxx church". Could use some diversity in anchor text. Just because Penguin hit for exact match anchor text for spammy links (from spammy sites and tactics), it doesn't mean you can't use "Check out this porn addiction recovery site if you're having issues with porn in your house." and link to the site with the underlined text.

There may be some more questions to ask. What are their link building efforts?

A number of pages from http://blog.internetsafety.com with incoming links no longer resolve (404 not found). There are lots of links that actually do look Penguin bait.

It could be link diversity. It could be low quality links. It could be tons of links coming from pages that are now resolving as 404s.

Sorry the news isn't great, but I really don't think it's the domain name that is the problem.

Richard and Moosa are right, use a friendly 404 page to help your users when they reach a page that can no longer be found. Simply redirecting them to the home page doesn't fix the issue of the missing page. Here's an old, but relevant, post on the subject: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/personalizing-your-404-error-pages.

For your second issue, if you've permanently moved to a new product page, you should certainly 301 redirect to not only pass on all the link juice from the old page, but also to provide the best user experience for your customers - they were looking for the product so give them the new improved page :).

Read up on this Webmaster Tools guideline: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66353

Note the following from the guideline if there is a very important reason for why your developer wants to use CSS to move the text off the page:

"However, not all hidden text is considered deceptive. For example, if your site includes technologies that search engines have difficulty accessing, like JavaScript, images, or Flash files, using descriptive text for these items can improve the accessibility of your site."

If there is not a very important reason, and even if there is, suggest they populate the ALT attribute of the image with the text instead.

Hope this helps!

You should be able to search by the filename and/or by the Alt text used to describe the image. I would start with the filename. If the filename is generic (e.g. 001.jpg), then it will be close to impossible to find, and this is a very good example for why your filenames should be more descriptive.

Hope this helps!

Hi Scott, yes, this should be correct. After updating this value, you may need to log back in to continue using the admin area. This is because you are likely logged in at the old sub-domain of simply onestopmuscle.co.uk rather than the new sub-domain of www.onestopmuscle.co.uk and with the new redirect, you have to log in again. It's kind of strange behavior I know :).

Hard question there Tyler. There are many things to consider.

Have you already done marketing with the old name? How many repeat customers do you get? Is your intent to rebrand?

If it makes sense to rename, rebrand, and build on a new domain name, unless you are writing new content (e.g. product descriptions), you can run into duplicate content issues if you run with two sites. Additionally, the new site will not have any reviews or other engagement which may be present in the existing site.

If the only reason for the change is to move to what you believe is a better platform and to improve the design, then it might be best to go the 301 redirect route and maintain the rankings you already have. People expect websites to change (improve) as time goes by.

Here's a good website migration guide.

Google has provided some tips too.

Hope this helps!

Excellent news that you were able to get it to work.

I'd say yes your social media links have zeroed out because they used the old URL without the www. It's not a Google thing though and won't be fixed by re-indexing the site. However, my understanding is that Wordpress 301 redirects the links from the non-www URL to the www URL so your link juice should still flow to the new URLs and the shared links will still resolve to the right page. The only caveat is that the actual number for likes and shares in your social share buttons has reset to 0.

In my opinion, it's a good move (you're just missing the "eye-candy" for now) and this number will rise again as people begin to share using the new URLs.

Hi Tyler,

Sorry it took a while to get back to this thread. I don't think there's one "right answer" for how to proceed and you've obviously given this much thought.

But, I can give you my point of view and what I believe to be the best answer in this situation and likely what I would do.

Personally, I would use the new name. It sounds like your business is excited about it and now you just want to maintain your rankings.

Knowing this process would involve a migration to a new website complete with a new domain name, I would start reviewing all of the steps included in the posts I provided above. Make your 301s are going to be done right and will not miss any high-ranking, high-traffic URLs.

Prior to performing the migration announce the re-branding effort on your current site and let your customers know what to expect.. Ask for feedback. Let your customers know you are making these changes to better serve them you'd love their input.

Once you've tested the new site fully and are ready to go to production, announce the date of the change and then implement. You will see fluctuations in traffic, but if you follow all of the advice in the posts above you will have the best odds for success.

Hope this helps

Hello jonaz,

Here's the short answer: dashes are best.

Next best might be underscores.

For the long answer, check this post out: http://www.seomoz.org/q/hyphens-v...

Hope this helps!