Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks for the insights.

It really helps

Hi Stu,

Why not approach one of these companies/individuals SEOMOZ recommends...

http://www.seomoz.org/article/recommended#link-building

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Pat,

Good question. Firstly, well done for being involved with two very high Domain Authority sites. However (get ready for cheesy quote) with great power comes..... etc.

Strictly from an SEO perspective, 301ing pages from the specific product site to the main domain will transfer about 80-90% of the authority. You should see an increase in DA when you do this. However because DA is an exponential scale, it's difficult to say by how much.

I would definitely do it, making sure the pages are 301'd to equivalent pages on the main domain, not just the home page. I'd do this because it's easier to expand the content, and target new keywords.

However, the question you need to ask yourself is, "Is it the right thing for the brand?" especially as you have loyal followers for the specific product.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hi L E Nieto,

First of all congrats on a no.1 ranking. The On-page tool gives recommendations for ideally optimised pages. This is often required for competitive keywords. As your keyword isn't that competitive, Google is just trying to find the most relevant page, which it thinks is yours.

I'd strongly recommend that you do follow the recommendations from the on page tool to strengthen your position.

How that clears everything up for you.

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Housing Interactive,

Good question. The answer depends on if you are targeting those paginated pages with different keywords to the main sub-category. It's highly likely you're not.

The other advantage of having those pages indexed is it's more internal links to point at your most important pages.

However, Search Engines only allocate a certain amount of bandwidth/processing power to crawl your site. If it uses that time up crawling less important sub-category paginated pages, it could miss the more important pages you want to rank.

Therefore in short, I wouldn't bother.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Carolina,

Jarno has nailed it.

Just on a side note, if you want to see the traffic for http://domain.com your web developer should be able to supply you with the server logs which will tell you similar stats to regular analytics.

This is achievable because log files record requests to a server. Google Analytics record requests for pages with the Analytics code installed.

Hope you can sort it

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Royboy,

It's a common issue with SEO, as we don't have the precise control the PPC guys do over our desired landing pages.

First step would be to optimise your internal links, make sure /cool-widgets is very well interlinked from within your own site.

Next build external links into that page. After awhile you may get both pages listed in one SERP, #win. Then you can re-target your home page to a more relevant competitive keyword.

Depending on your external link building, it can take several months though, but is worth doing.

In the mean time, put something very obvious on the home page pointing visitors towards /cool-widgets

Let us know how you get on.

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Greenhornet,

This depends on how the widget is made. If it's none accessible by Search Engines, i.e. it's made in Flash, then Search Engine can only read limited information from them. So in the Flash case, it's not of any really benefit.

If the widget is accessible to Search Engines, then better for the home page. However if it's on every page, you'll have issues with duplicate content. Therefore just have the crawlable widget on the home page, and start developing content for all your other pages.

Hope that helps, and good luck.

Iain - Reload Media

I know that pain! I imagine the perfect world, where all clients are on Wordpress.

Hope it goes well.

Iain

Hey Dean,

It's a common problem when dealing with a specific niche. Therefore you have to look to the wider industry they are in, home renovation.

As Keri says below, the articles will need to be unique to get them on sites that will make a difference to your SEO.

I can't stress enough, for your guest posting to really work, make sure the posts have valuable insights. One way to do this is to interview the business owner, they are the expert on the subject.

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hi David,

In short, yes it does need to be in the head. Unfortunately it's the basic structure of an html page. No way round it, you'll have to customise the headers.

If you did put them in the body, search engines wouldn't recognise them, and they would generate their own title tags, which would make it difficult to target your chosen keywords.

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Max,

Hopefully this article will be able to help...

http://devnet.kentico.com/Knowledge-Base/API-and-Internals/How-to-set-pure-extension-less-URLs-without-suppor.aspx

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Vladislav,

As MA is quite a wide area you have got a chance of getting a local listing in Springfield. Assuming you have verified you Google + Local page, it's all about getting as many valuable citations for your clients Business Name, Address & Phone number.

There is more details in this old post by Rand, but still all very relevant...

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/one-dead-simple-tactic-for-better-rankings-in-google-local

Hope that helps and good luck.

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Andy,

Good question. To answer we need to consider your intent for having a share or follow button. Shares helps attract new users, follow helps retain previous visitors.

Do you have a site that is likely to get repeat visitors?

You also mentioned the share button is on the thank you page. It's highly likely this is accessed by posting some type of form, so it could be tricky for others to see what the original sharer saw.

I'd use the thank you page to retain visitors with follow buttons and add share buttons to useful content to attract new users.

As far as the value of the links of shares goes, you get little value from Twitter & Facebook. However it's fair to say in the not to distant future social signals from Google Plus will play a significant factor in SEO rankings.

Hope that helps.

Iain - Reload Media

Hey DDLUX,

I see where you're coming from. The important question is are any of these pages in Google's main index? If so don't remove them. Also check if any are receiving SEO traffic directly. If so, don't cut those either.

However thin/low value pages need cleaning out otherwise you'll get a visit from Google Panda!

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Paul,

Good to see you getting in to the mindset of an SEO. It's a challenging, yet rewarding job. I've recreated the filter OSE search you've done...

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?page=1&site=www.springer-marketing.co.uk&sort=page_authority&filter=follow&source=external&target=page&group=0

These are only external sites, but some are similar, for example 301 from www.springermarketing.co.uk/ (no hypen).

You can give yourself strong links, internal lining is a fundamental SEO strategy. Have a look at this great article by SEOMOZ http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/internal-link

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Kenneth,

Good news, Google loves people like you. You're making the Internet a better place, by focusing on the content.

You're sitting on something valuable, and the best thing to do is to rewrite them, as if the attracted links before, they attract more. If for some reason you can't write a page, our the subject is now out of date, 301 them to similar page. That will pass on the link value.

Hope it goes well

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Gerjan,

You're doing the right thing. There is a risk of losing some rankings with any site migration. Your job as an SEO is to reduce these and let the client know there is some short term risk.

301's are the main thing but if you follow this check list you'll be ok...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3546-SEO-Site-Migration-Checklist

Hope it goes well.

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hey PeachTree,

Sounds like you have a complicated situation there. However to answer your specific question, Canonical's only work for pages on the same domain, so it won't have any benefit.

You could 301 redirect pages from the hyphen domain to the equivalent page on the branded domain. This will pass the majority Authority of the hyphen domain to the brand site.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Paul,

You are linking your social media profiles correctly. However you have made a small mix-up between Social followers and Social shares & plus 1's. OSE only reports on shares & plus 1's, not followers.

Your Twitter profile link will show in OSE eventually, it just needs to find it (index) it first. This can take several months. Even though SEOMOZ do an amazing job with OSE, they are essentially trying to reverse engineer Google, which is no mean feat, as Google is quite well funded shall we say.

Give it a couple of months and it will show up.

Hope that clears everything up for you.

Iain - Reload Media

Well said Sean

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Bromtec,

You're not alone in this situation, lots of site owners have had to go through this process.

Firstly it can take several months for Google Webmasters to update the links it knows about. The time period depends on when the pages with the links removed get indexed. If they are back pages, that only get indexed every 6 months or so, it will take a while. Unfortunately you'll just need to be patient.

Google employees will be looking at live links, not what's reported in GWT. They have much more detailed tools to analysis your links. If they are rejecting your reconsideration requests, you have more links to clean up.

Have you been using the disavow tool?

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Diane,

Good question. It looks like you've been working hard on the site as you're getting an A using the SEOMOZ on page factors tool...
http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization

There are a few small tweaks you could do, running the tool above will show you these. Nothing major.

You mentioned before the upgrade you ranked no.1. I'd start by making sure all links pointing to your previous site are being handled correctly on the new one. For example are there any links to none existent pages which need to be 301'd to the home page?

You also need to diversify your backlink anchor text, as the largest amount of anchor text is "Lifestyle magazine". Pre Penguin this would of worked, but now your brand should be the most frequent anchor text used.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hey Dean,

It's good to see you're doing link building for your site. However as Vikas points out, you'll need to be careful not to stumble into the duplicate content area. Also unless the article directory is an authority in your niche, you'll get limited results with this tactic.

Try reaching out to blogs in your niche and write specific posts for them, that targets their readers. That should help you get better results.

Just another word of warning, don't solely rely on guest posting, article directories etc for link building. Make sure you get a diversified back link profile, so when the next update comes it won' t affect your rankings.

Thanks & good luck

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Joseph,

Streamline has made some great suggestions for rank checking software. In addition you can use the rank tracking within SEOMOZ or use Rank Tracker (http://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/). It will save you a lot of time.

Bare in mind though with the ever increasing personalisation of results in Google, just use ranking reports as an indicator of performance. Not the ultimate metric.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload

Hi Raphael,

Well done on getting an editor account. Remember with great power comes great responsibility 

Yes they do get indexed. The way to check this is to Google the url in "" i.e. "http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.dmoz.org%2Fpublic%2Fprofile%3Feditor%3Dthehelper"

Some of those editor pages have great Authority. http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.dmoz.org%2Fpublic%2Fprofile%3Feditor%3Dthehelper

If it's related to your niche, then would be worth pursuing.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Kristopher,

Good question on link indexing.

For the sake of helping you out and the sanity of the SEOMOZ community, I'll pretend I didn't read you removed the links because of the change in relationship

Open Site Explorer updates about every month. However it's not a full update, as it can't recrawl every page on the Internet each time. So when these stop showing will depend on how important Open Site Explorer thinks to page is. If it was less important it won't get crawled for a while.

RE: The rankings. Google will most likely find the links have been removed first. The only way to confirm this is with having access to Google Webmasters for that domain. However I wouldn't sweat it, if no SEO work is being done it won't continue to rank for long.

Hope that helps you understand the link indexing process.

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Raphael,

The simple answer is yes. You can see this in the below link...

http://goo.gl/7JjAL

Thanks

Iain Reload Media

Hi Monster99,

It's a great question. As with anything is SEO/Life it depends on a few factors. Here are the main pros & cons of both..

Hosted

Pros

*** Others sites will link directly to your domain, when linking to a video* You have greater control over the videos, i.e. no ads, recommend videos etc **

Cons

*** Cost * Technical Setup **

Embedded

Pros

*** If you're a less well known brand, can help your video get shared* Can help build your You Tube Channel * It's free!* Very quick to setup**

Cons

*** Websites tend to link to You Tube* You can have ads shown* Shows other peoples related video **

If you're just starting out and you're not making very unique linkable content, I'd go with the embed option.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Are you getting any crawl errors in Google Webmaster tools?

Hi Andreas,

Welcome to SEOMOZ, we'd love to help you. What specifically do you need help with?

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

I agree with Edward here.

However for bonus SEO points if you 301 redirect the page where the external link is pointing to, to a relevant page, you'll take full advantage of that links power.

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Nadav,

Start with checking if they are a member of the local Chamber of Commerce. Are they part of a Lock Smith association, if so there is a great link to get.

Does your client partner with local carpenters or other tradies in the off line world. If so that will be a great online referral/link.

If you search for Locksmiths {location} are there any none competitor sites that come up you could get your client listed on?

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Sarah,

I wasn't able to find errors on that page. Just to confirm the CSV of the crawl, is that coming from Google Webmasters?

Iain

I see. To get the city-state pages indexed then they must have their own URL. If you can only access it via posting a form (assumed for using the search feature), the a search engine can't see it.

To get round this, you could put a links underneath the search box to popular searches. This will get them indexed.

Does that answer the questions?

Thanks

Iain - Reload

Hi Zach,

Rank Tracker is great for tracking Local results.

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Editable Text,

In short if you show Google a crawlable link to the content with the dynamic header/content, and the content is driven by the unique URL, yes it will index it.

As with any SEO/life question, there are a few t&c's with this.

1. The pages need to be unique enough not to be classed as duplicate content
2. Make sure it's intelligently linked internally
3. You have external links pointing deep into the site
4. You have a decent site architecture

To answer you second question, you'll need unique pages for each location, unless your content would be so thin, you'd need to group them. The URL doesn't have to include the keyword, but it's damn helpful if it does.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Fdep,

The server move could be impacting your rankings. However the ideal set-up is your site is hosted in the main country you want to rank (assumed Australia). However you have moved from the US to Asia Pacific Region, therefore the location shouldn't be an issue in this case, as you haven't moved from Australia to Asia.

Check Google Webmasters Go to Google webmasters and check the the error logs. If you're getting lots of issues in there because your host isn't handling the site/traffic correctly it could be affecting your rankings.

Algo Updates Check the algo updates here on the mighty SEOMOZ http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change If the ranking drop happend on the same date as one of these, then it's more likely this is the cause of the problem.

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

When was the CSV download of the crawl taken? Have any changes been made to that page since?

Did the same 404 show up when you used Screaming Frog?

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Chris,

As your keywords all include "lose pounds", go with the url "how to lose pounds".

As long as your keywords are in the key places like H1, H2 in your title along the lines of...

"How to loose 10, 30 or 100 pounds"

and your content is related, you'll be sending search engines the right signals that you want to join the race for those keywords.

By the way Google knows 10 & ten are the same thing, so no need to go spammy and include both.

To tweak every last on page element use the SEOMOZ on page test tool http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new

Then focus your efforts on links from other weight lose related page, and don't spam the anchor texts, otherwise you'll get a visit from our Penguin friend.

Hope that help

Iain - Reload Media

Does seem a little odd. Could you post the domain so we can have a more detailed look?

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Hardley,

Dana has listed some great factors to consider when choosing directories. However just consider the relevance of that directory rather than just the raw authority of the site.

Example (I've just been to Australia Zoo, hence this example) You're doing SEO for a company that transports Kaulas. The best link you could get isn't from a high authority site, with a PR of 8, & 1,000,000 links. It's from the most relevant sites. Out there somewhere will be a website on the perils of transporting Kaulas, written by the foremost expert in the world. Target that site.

In the case of directories, you target animal related ones. Because Google will know what the site is about, you won't need to worry about adding a list of keywords.

Hope that help

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Diane,

When I worked in the UK there was only one company to use if you wanted dedicated servers. Rack Space. The customer service they provide is second to none.

If you can't afford Rack Space, just stay away from 1 and 1. They lost a site when I used them and their customer service is just terrible.

Hope you find a new home for your site soon

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Hardley,

It's a good question, and one many people ask. Even though Joel's advice on using the link: search operator is a good one, you'll also get limited results with this. As Google will only show a handful.

As Dana mentioned, OSE only updates once a month. However as much as I love OSE and use it everyday, it doesn't have nearly as much data on links as Google does. Therefore it can take a while to find all your hard work.

Try using Majestic SEO. In my opinion they don't do as good as job summarising link info, they have a bigger index of link data. It's likely your links will show up there.

As with any SEO/life subject, get data/opinion from multiple sources and make an educated guess.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Joel,

Good to see you looking to take advantage of what will be the most influential social network on SEO. The good news is you're in the game early for your industry.

As Smart Locksmiths Solutions says from a technical angle, link your blog posts to your Google + profile. This will make your profile image appear in search results.

However from a strategic marketing perspective, post links and statuses that will help establish you as an expert in the field of Real Estate. Then start to interact with other Realtors on G+. Comment on posts, share things you agree with. Make online friends.

Google will pick-up on this and assign you Author Rank (speculative at this stage, but an obvious step for them to take.)  Because you've linked your profile to your site, via the blog posts, you'll rank better then your competitors.

Hope that helps.

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Katherine,

Try using Screaming Frog SEO software to crawl you site. That should pick up if you have a incorrect internal links.

For external links pointing to none existent pages, try Majestic SEO. It has the largest amount of link data (Sorry Open Site Explorer, but you know it's true).

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload Media

Hi Michelle,

By any chance are you taking impression data from Google Webmasters, or a the linked version of Webmasters in Google Analytics?

If so, these figures are extremely rounded up. For example I doubt any impression % are round numbers. Therefore I wouldn't pay any attention to them.

Focus on which group of keywords resulted in the drop in traffic, then focus your optimisation efforts on them.

Hope that helps

Iain - Reload

Hi Chris,

Brad makes an excellent point re regular organic rankings. RE local listings, assuming you've verified and done all the standard on page work to your Local page, it's time to start building citations. These are Name Address & Telephone references. The more places Google sees you're address the more likely you are to rank in local listings.

Here is an awesome resource for finding places to get citations...

http://searchengineland.com/top-50-citation-sources-for-uk-us-local-businesses-104938

Hope that helps.

Iain - Reload

Hi Raphael,

These are the steps you need to go through to first identify the issue, then solve it.

1. Identify if there is any seasonal variation in your target keywords - Google keyword tool will help with this.
2. Identify if there is a drop for keywords you're not racking. You maybe tracking 100 keywords, but it's a safe bet to say you're getting found for many more than you're tracking. Have the traffic to these dropped?
3. Has your (not provided) keyword traffic increased? Check in Google analytics

Once you understand where the drop has come from, you can then start to work out the problem.

1. If it's seasonal, were the search terms for Halloween? Not much you do.
2. If it's non rank tracked keywords, start making useful content that is about your long tail keywords and build some related links
3. If it's not provided, then your overall traffic probably hasn't gone down.

Following these steps will put you on the right track.

Thanks

Iain - Reload Media