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Yes, adding both www and non-www to Google Search Console is absolutely best practice to ensure you aren't presenting duplicate content.

It's also the first recommended step in your check list after you've verified your property within GSC (which suggests it's pretty important).

Here's what Google say about this:

You may need to verify ownership of both the www and non-www versions of your domain. Because setting a preferred domain impacts both crawling and indexing, we need to ensure that you own both versions. Typically, both versions point to the same physical location, but this is not always the case. Generally, once you have verified one version of the domain, we can easily verify the other using the original verification method. However, if you've removed the file, meta tag, or DNS record, you'll need to repeat the verification steps.

Note: Once you've set your preferred domain, you may want to use a 301 redirect to redirect traffic from your non-preferred domain, so that other search engines and visitors know which version you prefer.

I hope that helps.

Hello and welcome aboard!

It's working here, (with hurl.it and others - and I can see the actual page content as you'd expect). I can also crawl it within MOZ: "Accessible to Search Engines"  - CHECK

Could this just be a temporary issue with your web host or perhaps an issue where you are/were connected where you attempted the crawl?FYI: Crawl results show all your pages with 200 status (apart from one 301). All is well

Sorry to hear of your woes.

Depending on the structure of the URLS you could create some simple pattern matches rules within .htaccess? If you could a few dozen rules could handle many thousands of redirects. If there isn't any easily identifiable pattern to match then a DB will, indeed, be your best option.

One of the web devs I used to work with  (who was considerably smarter than me) faced a similar issue (with a 'mere' 10k+ redirects) and used some Ruby on Rails middleware as a redirector: This may have been the solution he used:

https://github.com/vigetlabs/redirector

I hope that helps.

I hope you're able to get this sorted without too much pain. Good Luck!

I agree that it isn't necessary but I wouldn't automatically consider it spammy, either. (The content will determine that far more than the URL structure).

Considering the URL structure as above will not make the site look spammy. Consider a

www.myshoeshop.com/womens-shoes/ 
/mens-shoes/
/boys-shoes/
/girls-shoes/

It is relevant (i.e.) the page in question deals in mens shoes etc. All you have done is indicate to the visitor that this page relates to their search; no harm in that.

When you use the On-page grader: https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader, one of the considerations is keyword in URL so it's expected. One page for one keyword is still common practice (though Google's introduction of Rankbrain will see this diminish over time: https://moz.com/blog/optimizing-for-rankbrain-whiteboard-friday) and we will need to evolve our content and thinking in alignment with this.

You could, of course simply use mycouponsitename.com/walmart etc.  as you allude to in your statement. I'd worry less about the URL structure and more about the content as here's plenty of scope to make this look spammy, depending on how you deliver the content. Deliver relevance and engaging content, don't bombard me with ads and, most importantly perhaps, provide COUPONS THAT ACTUALLY WORK and you will have delivered a great user experience. Your/the clients revisit rate will go up and people will spread the joy, regardless of the URL structure.

If you haven't already, be sure to check the Mozscape API updates page, here: https://moz.com/products/api/updates. As one went live the day before this post.

I'd second what Gaston says about advising against this (and similar metrics) as a KPI.

Bear in mind that the Mozscape API Index was updated on 26th August. The day your sites (and other) sites dropped a few points. Thanks to ViviCa1 for posting a reference to this, elsewhere.

See here for details and date for next scheduled update: https://moz.com/products/api/updates

I'd second what Dmitrii says about backlink profile for site that dropped the least.

If you are concerned about duplicate keywords, download the Adwords Editor and follow Google's guidelines on identifying and removing them, here: https://support.google.com/adwords/editor/answer/47633

QS aside, my concern with duplicate keywords would be the cost implication as you'll end up bidding against yourself in the auction. As Alick300 has mentioned, keywords with different match types are not considered duplicates. Be aware that broad match keywords with the same words in different order, etc would be considered duplicates.

I hope that helps you.

To expand up the idea of find out what questions searchers are asking in your targeted niche, go to keyword explorer add the keyword 'psychology' (https://moz.com/explorer/keyword/suggestions?q=psychology) See all keywords, and select 'are questions under 'Display keyword suggestions that and then sort by volume (high to low). Then set about writing copy that directly answers those questions. Get it right and you may feature within the Featured Snippets: https://moz.com/blog/featured-snippets-from-start-to-finish, which would give you a real boost.

Beyond that, and based on your niche (which is a subject a lot of people are interested in) I'd consider creating a variety of psychology quizzes - the kind of things people share on Facebook: A psychopath test or things that flatter the ego - as people tend to share their results if they are flattering. (Apparently, my reactions are faster than a fighter pilots and I'm smarter than Einstein - It's true, Facebook said!) and the same sort of thing with Pinterest (Colour Psychology infographics etc.) Producing good quality content that people want to share with their peers and you'll be well on your way.

Guest articles on related sites would be a real boost, of course. The more, the merrier!

Beyond content and link building don't overlook your on-page work: https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader and https://moz.com/researchtools/crawl-test etc.

Good luck!

You haven't given us too much to go on (what searches are you performing and what results are being delivered - are they local results etc.) However...

The first step to replicating (and surpassing) a site's success is to understand it.

To get you started, take a look at Moz's Open Site Explorer, searching around this website and you'll see that this site has only a small number of established links from a handful root domains,  though the ones present almost all relate to Wedding Photography, none of them are spammy and most have a respectable Domain Authority. If you look Linking Domains and change Target to Root Domain (https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/domains?site=emilyhelen.com&target=domain&sort=domain_authority&page=1) you'll see a list of these, the linking pages and their DA.

You can also Compare Link Metrics for your site against this, here: https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/comparisons?site=emilyhelen.com

Quality, inbound links which pass on link equity from related sites are a big factor as they serve as endorsements, so you'll certainly want to develop as many of these as you can and the best way to do this is through building relationships with the humans behind the sites and getting them to engage with your content - if they like it there's a good chance they'd be happy to share it with their audience.

Also, be sure to check that your assumptions are correct. To do so, take advantage of the Rank Checker, here: https://moz.com/researchtools/rank-tracker which you can use to confirm your (and your competitor's ranking) for a variety of keywords, to check that what your seeing in your browser is a true reflection of what the rest of the world are seeing.

Beyond that, this site has nothing much in the way of text content (that I can discern at a glance).

I hope that helps give you a clearer understanding.

Good luck!

Jo's quite right, Google haven't gone live with this, yet:

"To make our results more useful, we’ve begun experiments to make our index mobile-first. Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results. Of course, while our index will be built from mobile documents, we're going to continue to build a great search experience for all users, whether they come from mobile or desktop devices.

We understand this is an important shift in our indexing and it’s one we take seriously. We’ll continue to carefully experiment over the coming months on a small scale and we’ll ramp up this change when we’re confident that we have a great user experience. Though we’re only beginning this process, here are a few recommendations to help webmasters prepare as we move towards a more mobile-focused index."
See: the full post, here: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing.html

Others are seeing the same thing after recent update.  See: https://moz.com/community/q/is-everybody-seeing-da-pa-drops-after-last-moz-api-update. Seeing it happen in proportion across a number of sites (and their competitors) suggest that this is an internal adjustment within the Moz API. If it was you alone (and your site alone) I'd be much more concerned. As that isn't the case I wouldn't worry. Let's see if we get any answers from Moz staff regarding any such adjustments.

Yep. All HTTP. Drops of around 3 - 4 points across the board. It's almost reassuring that we're not alone.

It never ends, my friend!

Good luck!

I'd also look to write content to take advantage of 'Featured Snippets' by creating content that answers questions that relate to wheelchairs - even those that aren't directly related to just their parts (using Keyword Explorer, with Display keyword suggestions that > are questions  with keyword 'wheelchair') and write copy that directly answers those: Here are some examples I found:
'Which wheelchair is right for me?', 'How do I get a wheelchair?', 'What to do with old wheelchairs?' etc.
without trying to shoehorn links in EVERYWHERE, instead, drop a link into the articles that do relate closely to this keyword. You'll gain more in the long run by establishing yourself as an authority on all things wheelchair related, and raise awareness of your service in doing so.

Featured Snippets:

https://moz.com/blog/ranking-zero-seo-for-answers https://moz.com/blog/featured-snippets-from-start-to-finish https://moz.com/blog/what-we-learned-analyzing-featured-snippets

I hope that helps.

Glad to have been of some help. Good luck and happy hunting!

Synonyms are part of our everyday language. we use a wide variety of synonyms in every conversation without any loss of meaning or confusion; using them in our written communication (specifically, web copy) ensures that it sounds natural, makes it less of a chore to read, and not just something that has been hammered out, solely to try to gain traction in the search engines. Google knows that its continued dominance relies on it's ability to deliver relevant results and understanding how synonyms work is an integral part of that, so, unsurprisingly, this is something they are very, very good at.

(Here's a 2010 article from the official Google blog which refers to synonyms: https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/helping-comnds puters-understand-language.html.)

If you look at Google's example of keyword stuffing (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66358?hl=en) you can see how unreadable that is; much better to add a variety of synonyms throughout a piece of engaging copy.

To address your concern directly, editing your copy and replacing keywords with a sprinkling of synonyms is not going to result in you suddenly getting penalised for 'keyword stuffing'.
(Remember, that the notion of a keyword density % is a myth See: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/myths-and-misconceptions-about-search-engines

Don't forget to test your edits with On-page Grader: https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader.

Proceed with usability and readability in mind - write something a human being would enjoy reading - and you won't go far wrong.

Hi Eelco,

This extract is taken from an article on Search Engine Land "Google Explains How It Handles The New Top Level Domains (TLDs)": http://searchengineland.com/google-explains-how-they-handle-the-new-top-level-domains-tlds-225671

"Q: How will new gTLDs affect search? Is Google changing the search algorithm to favor these TLDs? How important are they really in search?
A: Overall, our systems treat new gTLDs like other gTLDs (like .com and .org). Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search."

Personally, I think it's inevitable that we'll see wider adoption of these new TLDs (despite them having a 'vanity' feel about them at the moment) because, quite frankly, all of the good .coms are gone!

I hope that helps!

Hi Jay,

When you say 'submit your website to" be careful you don't fall foul of Google's guidelines See: Link Schemes: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en) otherwise, all your efforts could be in vain.

Don't be tempted to submit your site to each and every blog or directory which has a dofollow link in the hope of a quick boost to your rankings (which, for many, was the "go to" method to fast-track their way to the top, a few years back).  Instead, spend some finding the 'influencers' within your niche and take some time to build relationships with them and see if you can get them to engage with you, to help you promote your product or service. A great tool to help you find these 'influencers' is BuzzStream: http://www.buzzstream.com.

I hope that helps.

Interesting article - thanks for sharing

You could install a trial of clicktale's mouse tracking and collect visual evidence of how users interact with your site. This could indicate where the share buttons would be best placed. http://www.clicktale.com/product/mouse_tracking_suite

You should have setup a subdomain (which is what you are very linkely to have done anyway) but this linking issue is a real sticking point for you at the moment.

It's difficult to give you concrete advise without knowing your friend's business model, marketing strategy and content, owever, lets just say for neatness he wants to keep his main squeeze page as it is - at www.kingofcopy.com - you could separate all of the squeeze pages from the 'subscribers' content by creating a sub folder called 'members-area' for example - so www.kingofcopy.com contains the squeeze page where it is now (and additional sqeeze pages reside at www.kingofcopy.com/maxoutsideusa.html etc)

and all of the opt in content is moved to www.kingofcopy.com/members-area/ ensuring all of the good info that shouldn't be visible is noindexed accordingly.

Of course, this advise is based on the assumption that you only want to rank squeeze pages.

If I were undertaking this project I would do things a little differently - as I believe that sqeeze pages have now lost some of their kick - perhaps due to the huge numbers of them I have seen... So instead I would have a lot of teaser articles and videos - which contain a lot of good keyword targeted content all SEOd to the max, making sure that there are some good nuggets of info in them - so that the reader thinks - Wow! If the stuff he gives away for free is this good then I can't wait to find out how much better the paid for stuff is!

In terms of onpage SEO and campaign management - separate content which you want highly visible from the members only content -  store non-indexed pages emembers pages within a sub-folder - link all of the content you want visible and indexing in some way

Immediately after the main content. This is exactly where your reader will end up at the point when they will decide whether to endorse the content with a share. Don't make them think, or search. Make it quick and simple - if they have to search for it - or they find it in an area that could relate to another section of the site they won't click it and you will lose the opportunity.

I see a connection between social bookmarking/share buttons and post comments too and as such this reinforces my thinking that immediately after the main content is the intuitive placement position.

Hey Bill,

Can you tell us what campaign type you initially setup: Sub domain, Root domain or Sub folder?

I believe you are going to struggle setting up your campaign to monitor all of these pages due to the current configuration - based on the link architecture/navigation.

Would it be fair to say that you are actually only concerned about monitoring the performance of the  visible Sqeeze pages in the SERPS - because if every other page should only be visible when you opt in then it stands to reason that you would be better to have all of this content hidden using noindex, to preserve the value of the content within those pages - to give potential customers every reason to opt in?

If we had a better idea of what your end goal was it might help us better assist you.

http://www.kingofcopy.com/sitemap.xml - references only 3 files (with the index and sitemap/xml link making it up to 5)

However the other sections of the site are installed into sub folders or are disconnected from the content referenced from your root www.kingofcopy.com

take a look at this sitemap further into the site from one of your subfolders http://www.kingofcopy.com/products/sitemap.xml and you will see what looks to be the 1000+ pages you refer to.

However, there is no connection between the root directory and these other pages and sub folders.

It appears that your main page is http://www.kingofcopy.com/main.html

Ordinarily you would want to bring them into one common, connected framework - with all accessible pages linked to in a structured and logical way - and if you have other exclusive squeeeze pages/landing pages that you do not want to show up in search results - and just direct users to them using mail shots etc then you can prevent them getting indexed - for example - you may want to prevent a pure sqeeze page like http://www.kingofcopy.com/max/maxoutsideusa.html from appearing in the SERPS.

To prevent all robots from indexing a page on your site, place the following meta tag into the section of your page:

Personally, I would consider a restructure to bring this content into the root directory - noindexing the squeeze pages as required - but this would need to be carefully planned and well executed with 301 redirects in place where content has moved from one directory to another

However, you could always shuffle around the first few pages - renaming main.html to index html and having the copy you currently have at www.kingofcopy.com in a lightbox/popup or similar over the top of the main page ?

I think the problem with the main.html page not being found as your default root/home page and the lack of connections between certain pages is the cause for a lot of the issues with your campaign crawling so few of the pages.

Incidentally, if you did restructure consider using Wordpress as would be a great fit with what you have produced already (and there are plently of wordpress squeeze page/product promotion themes available.

I would certainly incorporate as many human readable elements as possible in the URL - these can only help improve the SEO for each product page.

With regard to your concerns about keeping your URLs manageable - Could you not incorporate a unique element into the URL (such as the ISBN number or SKU reference) alongside a well structured keyword rich element - as you find on Amazon or Play.com for example:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-SEO-Mastering-Optimization-Practice/dp/0596518862

or

http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/90536/Four-Weddings-And-A-Funeral/Product.html

Using a unique identifier would prevent duplicate URL issues and in some cases - books for example - it could actually help your rankings - If the unique reference was one that could also be searched for by potential buyers - The ISBN 10 number is incorporated in the Amazon URL example above - and regular readers who want a very specific edition of a product are likely to search using this in their search query.

I would leave you with one suggestion - carry out any number of random product searches both within your niche and out of it - and note how many of the highest ranking URLs have a structure similar to the one you are currently considering versus structured, human readable URLs.

Ho ho ho! Very whimsical indeed

For your sanity you should know there has been issues with this for all of us recently - and Delete Reply doesn't work

( Hmmm, I wonder if SEOMoz will get penalised for all of this duplicate content??? )

Update your links to get back 100% of your link juice back.

See here for more info: http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/48932/link-age-vs-domain-age

EDIT: DANG! How quick are you Ryan ;o) Were you at Vivid Lime's house when he started writing the question?!?

I would bear in mind that most people who are serious about undertaking an online degree are likely to search for an online degree in a specific field - Online Marketing Degree etc, rather than the very vague 'Online Degree', so I would target one main keyword (and related keyword variations) per page/discipline.

Potential customers who are further down the buying funnel will use more specific searches to find exactly what they want - afterall, they will know that a search for online degree will bring out LOTS of irrelevant results and not deliver what they are looking for - so they drill down using the long tail keywords.

Take a look at The Long Tail by Chris Anderson - http://www.amazon.com/Long-Tail-Revised-Updated-Business/dp/1401309666/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308771559&sr=1-2

You will also stand a better chance in the SERPS targeting the longer tail keywords.

It's easy to get blinded by numbers in SEO and it is very easy to all end up chasing the same keywords - when they might not be the best converting keywords - I have spent some years doing exactly that and it is only in recent years that I changed my tactics and started pursuing 'more of less' and as a consequence improved the performance of my online business considerably.

If by 'irrelevant keywords' you mean the words that occur naturally when discussing your subject area then it is absolutely not an issue if you provide quality information, written for the reader primarily - not the search engines. It is easy to get blinded by focusing on nothing other than keywords, which usually results in their overuse in an unnatural and spammy looking way.

Remember - Search Engines won't buy what you are selling - but your visitors will - IF you can show them ithat you offer what it is they are looking for using tried and tested sales copy, which is reassuring and can demonstrate the product features which will benefit your visitor/potential customer.

Think from the perspective of your visitor. They will be asking themselves 'What's in it for me?'

They aren't likely to surrender their contact details unless they genuinely want you to contact them. So they will either want information (quotes or technical information) People expect to provide contact details in forms - which is why free quotes work so well, so if you are thinking on those lines - i.e. you are trying to capture details during a request for information it might be better not to deviate too much from the tried and tested.

Of course if you are thinking in terms of innovative marketing and you have a budget there are endless possibilities.

So you can appeal to their desire to get something for nothing - YOUR OLD CAR STINKS! - Win a lifetime's supply of Magic Trees! Contact us for details of our SWEET SMELLING deals!

Ask for their help - by stroking their ego - acknowledge their automotive expertise.

Ask them to help you help others - Pick a local charity and place a bucket on the sales office and pledge a dollar or $5  for every free quote request you get that day - don't forget to show them the actual bucket - with some $$$$s in it!

YOUR WIFE 's car IS DIRTY! Bring bring her down to our dealership today for a free hand wash and part ex valuation (on the car - not the wife!)

Essentially you need to either offer them something that they already know they want, but cannot normally get freely elsewhere (without providing details) or something that is exculsive to your dealership - so they cannot get it elsewhere - or the chance to get something they didn't know they wanted, but now that it has been brought to their attention they don't want to miss out on  - like Naked Bear Wrestling or a similar family fun day?

1. Start here: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

2. Avoid keyword stuffing! (Don't overuse the same keyword within your pages! Do use diverse keyword variations - There are at least 7 uses of the keyword 'Vacation Homes' on the first page alone! THIS IS WAY TOO MUCH!

Create content with the end user in mind - not just Google! If that was an article in a newspaper or a magazine your reader would soon tire of reading it and look elsewhere for more informative content which flows more naturally. Google will recognise what your page is relevant for (and rank you accordingly) if you give if a few subtle signals i.e. some use of the main keyword in important areas - URL - page title - Meta Description H1 tag heading and variations within the body text. But shouting and repeating yourself will not get you any more attention from the search engines as a result.

Do take heart from the fact that one of the first things people learn about SEO is keyword use - and as such we all stuffed them everywhere when we started off ;o)

See also:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

Give Google content it strives/loves to deliver to it's users - the thing that is the core of their whole ethos: RELEVANT content - without that Google users go elsewhere to find it and you miss the opportunity to promote your product or service.

Rand states "We plan to have an updated version ready to launch in the next 60 days." posted on the 6th June - so Early August 2011 looks to be the target re-launch date.

Interspire Shopping Cart. Built in SEO is excellent! (Though the support are a touch slow in a number of other areas.)

With Interspire and a good domain name I get a great number of extremely good rankings on the first page of the SERPS (alongside the likes of Amazon.co.uk) for almost every one of our targeted keywords.

Do not overlook this solution, or their hosted version www.BigCommerce.com

NOTE: SEO 'GURU' Aaron Wall had some involvement (as a consultant?) in the SEO aspects of Interspire too.

The on page analysis is showing you this URL as it is the one that you are currently ranking 37th for. The Grade applied to this page is determined by many on page elements that can be better optimised to improve your Grade - and in doing so the likelyhood of improving your rankings as a result.

With regard to better optimising your page to best match your keyword - I would suggest that you first (and foremost) look at focusing on first selecting a small number of potential keyword variations that are the most relevant to your niche, your content and your customer - make sure they are targeted keyword/s rather than a very broad keyword/s (especially if the broad keyword is one that is highly competitive.)

Then I would take my shortlist of keywords and do some keyword research using something like Google's Keyword Tool or similar and examine the popularity of these keyword phrases (I would also consider selecting phrase and exact matches for these keywords) to best determine the most popular variations based on the number of monthly searches.

Try and build a URL structure that matches this keyword too - for example www.mydomain.com/villas-in-florida/

(If this proves to be a different keyword to the one you are currently using and you want to change the URL structure, page title etc and some of the copy on page you should create a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new.)

If both of your sites have a mixture of original and duplicated content (and also when dynamically generated urls are creating duplicate content) the surest thing to do is to declare the original source of the duplicate content using the rel=canonical tag. Now, if you are using duplicate content across domains you would use the cross domain rel canonical: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html This will prevent the .ie version showing up in the SERPS. See also this link for info on the rel canonical tag: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139394 And this article on duplicate content: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html

Generally the .xml.gz format is the one stated in examples there are a few references to this here : http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php#index

Most sitemap generators that create both compressed and uncompressed sitemap files name them sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz respectively. It also makes it clearer what the content of the zipped file is. I don't believe it is essential however, as you will direct tools such as google.com/webmasters to your xml sitemap - rather than expect it to find it of its own accord.

I always use the .xml.gz format when compressing. I would argue that (if both formats work) neither one is 'BETTER' than the other, rather one is more ACCEPTED than the other.

This is a very useful article:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankings

Are you using a third party SEO plugin? Or are you using Permalinks - if permalinks try using /%postname%/ under custom permalink.

Please advise us of your findings and give us some details of the history of the problem. Is this a new site? Have you moved it recently? Added new plugin? Upgraded anything?

I would avoid displaying the dynamic URL and re-write to create Search Engine Friendly URLs - so www.aspecialgift.com/subcat.php?PageName=GiftPage&ProductID=ABCDE becomes www.aspecialgift.com/category-name/product-name-1.html or similar

You want the URL to the product to remain constant too. Dynamic URLS usually appear when you use search and sort functions on your site and these results will be considered duplicates anyway - so you are best to exclude them from the index.

Depending on your ecommerce solution there is likely to be a SEF URL solution for it.

Dynamic URLS are also not very Human Readable either - another good reason to avoid them (have you tried reading one over the phone???

A readable URL also helps customers  as it is an additional signal to customers that this page relates to the product they are looking for.

Well, if he is expecting conversion from fake followers - tell him to think again!

If he is looking to build credibility through numbers and THEN gain converting followers after the fact, then that may not be so silly (based on the psychology that people follow the crowd.)

Don't forget the SEO benefits of having a larger number of followers/fans is known to give.

@EGOL - You are absolutely correct. Quality is always preferable to Quantity. Now, we all know that the BEST WAY to make gains in the SERPS is to stick to the straight and narrow and work hard and eventually you will obtain the results you want. However, in the real world, we are competing  against huge numbers of SEO companies that all promise fast results - and deliver them - by using a variety of dark practices - and many of these companies are not getting penalised for it (and I have watched them prosper over the course of nearly 4 years using less than pure techniques.)

So as time passes I watch them continue to reap the rewards, thinking to myself 'Any minute now Google will see what they are doing and drop them off the face of the earth...' Well, I'm still waiting, and waiting, and waiting...

So what does the honest, wholesome, whitehat SEO do?

How realistic is it for an SME with say 400 inbound links and 50 facebook followers to HONESTLY outgun a competitor who has 320,000 inbound links and 3,000 fake facebook followers?

I have fought quite a number of battles for some time with clients and employers, all the time resisting the easy path in favour of the long haul, but I am getting rather worn down by it. The addage if you can't beat 'em - join 'em springs to mind.

There are certainly scenarios where a quick boost to your fan base numbers for credibility are essential - especially if part of your pitch to potential clients will be that you will be marketing product X using social networking sites (Let's say we are selling a targeted property listings site, which will also use facebook and twitter to further promote its listings) Now your potential client will want to see the audience you plan to promote their product to - BEFORE you win their business and therefore have a product to promote - so  you are faced with a dilemma - spend a lengthy and non-revenue generating period  while you earnestly build a following, or, spend $50 and build the numbers in a matter of days - show the customer your thousand/s of eager followers fans - win the business and THEN invest your time in gathering genuine interested followers and in turn build a number of followers who are genuinely interested in the products you promote.

There is safety in numbers at play here - for all parties - as @Dunamis said 'if I see a page that has cool stuff and is followed by thousands of people, I am more likely to follow it.  I'm  not as likely to become a fan of a page with 100 members even if the content looks decent. '

We can't fight human nature with the argument 'Hey, I might only have a few followers, but one of them is the Pope!' Numbers are a very quick indicator of Credibility  and we are manipulated by the power of numbers dozens of times a day and this will not change!

To be clear -  I am NOT a fan of trying to game the system - I'd rather take the long haul than the short cut everytime -  but it's difficult see the results these fake fans bring and not be seduced by them (the results - not the fake fans!) and  it would be fairly difficult to categorically determine the validity of these fake accounts - they aren't overtly spammy - though they certainly lack some originality when they create names for the accounts - and quite frankly Facebook aren't likely to tackle this issue any time soon - They love to boast about their huge userbase: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics and as such they aren't likely to purge the untold MILLIONS of fake accounts as this will suggest a dip in popularity or, perhaps as bad, Facebook is riddled with face accounts gasps - which is bad for business and terrible for Sharholders. - However, I wonder what they will do when their stats show that facebook has more users than Earth has inhabitants???

It lookls like you are using Yoast's Wordpress plugin for SEO. Are you also using it to re-write the URLs?

I would update Yoast's Wordpress SEO to v0.4.2 - See the changelog http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/changelog/

Take a look at that and feedback please...so we can assist further.

It does work. I have seen it in practice (aherm!)  'An associate'.... AHERMMMM! used http://www.socialkik.com/facebook_promo.html - and got tangible results. My 'associate' says don't bother with the targeted fans package as they are clearly ficticious accounts, so they cannot possibly be targeted. Furthermore it's amusing to see how many of the 'fans' have a surname that is also a forename Brian Christopher/Christopher Brian etc etc - they sound like a load of fancy hairdressers!

BTW Result was a No 4 position in Bing US for a facebook.com/exactmatchkeywordphrase - from somewhere on Page 3...

These sites all sell themselves very well, but they are all going to be either made up of fake accounts and/or 12 year old kids - signing up for some crummy scheme which will promise them a free iphone5.

However, these 'fans' do help boost your numbers, so you look credible/established to the real fans you pick up later.

Interesting article on the influence of Twitter and Facebook on Google rankings here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankings

It will be any part of the URL that doesn't handle navigation, so look at what you can delete off the URL without breaking the link to the product page.

Take a look at this: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-parameter-handling-tool-helps-with.html

Remember, this will only work with Google!

This is another interesting video from Matt Cutts about removing content from Google: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/01/remove-your-content-from-google.html