Welcome to the Q&A Forum

My advice for keyword research is too not just factor on exact match and broad match, you need to factor in other forms of research to supplement your data.

You need to remember this data is only a guide from Google Exact match data is in no way an accurate determination of what traffic the specific keyword gets.

MY advice it the following -

Split up excel into the following:

1. line Exact 1. line Broad 1. line other research 1. line competitive analysis for the term.

You need to pull information from various sources, do not rely only on Google.

Kind Regards,

James Norquay.

To add too the comments above specific spammy backlinks can infact hurt your site,

For example if all of a sudden you see a number of links to your website with anchor text to adult terms pointing to your website with your url from adult based websites. I have seen targeted spam in this way affecting websites.

But from what you explain the links that have been built by the prior designer do not seem tat bad at all, I would not worry too much.

Launching a new site you need a strategy for your marketing, This would involve what type of things you want to use.

A few quick tips to get links:

• Blogs in your niche, see if you can guest post.

• Social Bookmarking websites.

• Upload your content to video sites.

• Make social profiles for your business, link back to your site via these.

• Link u via your linkedin profile to your site.

Hope that helps

Hi All,

One of my clients recently requested my team at our agency to do a bulk up load of business locations.

We did the bulk upload and it came to around 652 or so locations in the form.

I have done some serious bulk uploads in the past  around 500 locations but never this high.

My question is to SEO moz what is the largest bulk upload or single upload you have done on Google Places?

Think about it but Facebook Adult content is banned via user streams so if some one likes content then it is aggainst policy.

But yes Twitter and google+ the rules are a bit more relaxed in this area so I guess adult web master have been getting away with it and seeing good results.

I read an article recently saying that Tumblr was a very popular social place to syndicate adult based content too, so that could also be an options possible.

Sorry I do not really deal in the adult niche so I am not an expert I only read bits and piece online

Well I work with numerous large brands and it is evident that the up take is slow, yet people are clicking on them, in small numbers possibly by mistake too hehe

I think with tech and social sites you may see many more users click the +1's, look at Mashable/SEOmoz/Search engine land blogs for example.

Well yes I have seen numerous people say as they are logged in they are seeing websites from friends which they have +1's so it is evident that if you have a weak website and some one +1's some content it can be pushed up to page one.

It also links up to Google+ profiles and who is in your circles

Hi Mate,

I do not believe the sub domain for the shop is currently indexed, try this syntax in google search -: site:shop.surfcity.co.nz

It is evident that you need a bit of help in many sections with the website I noticed the cache issue with internal site pages too.

I notice you also have the default descriptions and titles from the CMS too for many thing.

From a PPC front I would not advise on it as if the term if trademarked Google will not allow it.

From a Organic front it is possible, yet really search intent comes into play think about it if the user is searching for a specific brand their is a small chance they are actually going to want to buy something from your brand correct?

It is like searching for "Apple Iphone" do you want to see the "HTC" come up?

Really it comes down to ethical lines and what the business wants to do, I have dealt with cases in other businesses I have worked at where competitors have had a generic sounding business term, so yes then it can be targeted.

But if the business brand term is unique, I personally would not advise on it.

In the end of the day it depends also about budgets, we worked with one client and did 20 different TLD domains for a global website, it is doable if you have budgets.

You need to remember in .com.au market links from .com.au will be way more powerful then links from .co.uk for example.

"Foreign entities can register com.au domain names with an ARBN or a registered trade mark."

Best way to do it from my experience,

www.example.co.uk

www.example.com.au

www.example.com

Then you have specific content for each market.

It will work more powerful then using a sub domain method especially if you come up against all .com.au websites in local SERPS.

Hi,

thanks for the message Daylan,

Well it is not really about building backlinks, its more about generating some money for the kids,

Also with eBay they remove the listing after 90 days, so it isn't really worth it

I hope to run more of these auctions in the near future too.

Regards,

James.

Hi All,

Decided to do something a bit different and run a SEO Auction for kids with Cancer over at eBay, 100% of proceeds from the sale will go to charit, bidding is currently at $36 with around 7 hours to go:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/110734547599?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_1362wt_1140

The auction includes the following:

1 x YouTube Note Pad1 x Google Pen (Black)1 x Google Necklace with clip1 x SEOmoz shirt Grey (Size Small) - You need 1000+ Reputation on the SEOmoz to get one!1x 1000th Tweet on my twitter account.So yeah Dig deep all =)I plan on running a few of these Charity Auctions each year, as I want to give back a bit.

Hi Mate,

Here are a few good blogs for PPC -

http://www.ppchero.com/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/category/search-engine-advertising/

http://ppcwithoutpity.com/in-praise-of-small-keyword-lists/

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog

http://www.semscience.com/sem-blog/

http://www.thesearchagents.com/

All have some great PPC information, SEER is more SEO focused but when they have PPC posts they are good.

To be honest adding &pws=0 is not as strong as it once was a few years ago, in todays market if you want one of the best ways to view non personalized results you need to use the Google Ad Preview Tool -

https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000

Their is no way logging out will totally wipe all the data.

Hi Mate,

Here are some ideas how you can spend the money:

• Use PR content and syndicate articles about your product via different PR websites, would involve content writers writing PR content about your product.

• Use some of the funds and buy a link building service on related sites, I would outsource that to some where like odesk but do your research wisely.

• Generally just look for some people to buy social media based link building from, and really push it in related sections.

• Hire some one to write some guest post content for you and also hire them to find related sites to post guest posts on.

I mean their are millions of ideas out their just check out SEER for a great post about local link building ideas:

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/35-local-link-opportunities-you-missed/2010/12/06/

Probably the best place to look is: www.meetup.com and check the local areas you mention, it may be hard to get 100% SEOmoz specific yet you may have luck with meeting SEO's/ Search people in that area.

Depends what type of website you have is it a brand then I would opt for a .com domain if it is a more fun style site then go for the .net.

to be honest do not worry a whole heap about keyword rich domains and domain buying if the numbers are close.

hi good questions,

personally I like to have the same colour scheme on the company blog as you do on the company website.

I mean the best practice for blogs is to have them sit within the sub folder on your websites and within the navigation sure enough with .net ASP set ups it is a bit more tricky then other CMS's.

so my advice is: yes make sure the colour scheme is the same, make sure it sites within a sub folder, and also sites within the websites menu.

Regards,

James.

Hi,

Yes you can do this, it is all about targeting long tails.

The main thing you need to remember is that you want to have content which is about sleeping bags on the sleeping bags page and then when you make the north facing sleeping backs page make sure the content is unique to the other page.

you deal with issue across many niches not just ecommerce, just make sure you target 1 or 2 keywords per title and page and use unique content on pages and you will be fine.

Regards,

James Norquay

hi Mate,

the best thing to do is pull a report for both your website on OSE and Google Webmaster tools.

work out which current pages have links poiting to them then 301 re direct these pages to the new website, try and match up the page.

Once this is all done confirm it with GWT.

Well two things you can do is:

1. Make the domain in google webmaster tools US based.

2. Buy a .com domain and target it in the US market.

Overall it is not easy to target GEO specific domains to other areas I see it with .com.au domains they work great in AU yet ranking them in India is hard.

so in the end it may be worth buying a .com and making a micro site and then drive traffic back to the .co.in

Hi to be honest you seem to be relying on just competitive research.

What about some of the following -

• Making great research content for your niche.

• Looking for bloggers in your niche, to syndicate content.

• Using Article syndication.

• Looking for health based social bookmarking websites.

Facebook is good but really it has limited  SEO value just social traffic value.

Hi Mate,

My advice:

• Make all the domains similar layouts yet have different content on all.

• Try and link up to the main website via all the websites

• Try and split the hosting too is possible.

I don't think you will get punished if you use the right content

Just change the image sizes possible and use vaired alt tests.

I think it will help but be wary of too many sites on the same IP also same GA analytics

Play it smart and use design and content wise and it will work well.

Regards.

I think if you are having 10 links to external sites on the one site if they are all related companies it should not be that bad.

I would aim to have internal links on the main website first, and then externals coming second but.

Other areas such as varied anchors and dup content you seem to be on top of already

But in the end of the day the more links on page you have the less value internal pages will have.

Its usually Dejan SEO and Columbus posting on here Good to see more locals.

Hi Mate,

some advice:

• Get more content on the index page - lacking text.

• Check on site optimization too.

• Backlinks go to photography forums, post into and build links.

• Make a slide show of your photos put on flickR and youtube and other video sites.

• Link to your site on social bookmarking.

• link to your site via local directories for your niche.

• Ask models youve photoed for backlinks.

Also work out what keyword you need to target before you start building links, you site still needs alot of on page help.

hi Mate,

Some advice:

Try to get a SEO company which is local to your area, for example if you live in Sydney - australia try and get a SEO based local so you can have face to face visits.

I see horror stories when people in Aus hire a SEO in the UK and they have a complete link profile from .co.uk domains!!! and not one .com.au at all!!!

Check out case studies and prior work including link profiles, don't be afraid to ask questions, do some research, people can talk a whole bunch of sales BS and rip clients off I have seen some horrors in the past.

By all means go for some one from the SEO market place too, some good companies and consultants in that list.

Regards,

James Norquay

How many pages did you 301 too if it was custom?

In my experience we recently worked with a site that had a few thousand pages recently as it was very smooth the rank tracking showed in a matter of weeks we were on a equal level.

You aim to 301 all the top most linked to pages as per GWT/OSE/Majestic.

Notify the changes in GWT.

It can take a few weeks for the process to kick in, especially if you have duplicative content issues on the new website can delay things even further.

Hi,

Pretty sure it works better when you host the videos on your own website using a service such as Wistia.

Then you make a video XMl site map and add it to webmaster tools with the content hosted on the 3rd party website.

It wont happen over night yet video images do show in SERP's after a few weeks.

Kind Regards,

James.

I would try and look for design forums which have SEO sections.

I remember this forum from ages ago had a design section with designers who know SEO and link building http://myspacepros.com/

It is not that active these days but, try and search for other design forums with webmaster savvy users where you can host content within the forum them self in a post??

Hope this helps.

If you are able to use domains from 10 years ago with even say 10 back links I have seen them to work well in comparison to domains which are registered that day hehe

But if you have a domain which is say 4 years old and it has 200 root domain links from quality sources, good content it will be better.

But it is not just about the age of the domain it is more so about the age the domain has been in the index's.

My Advice is to keep titles below 68 charatcers,

IF you go over the limit it looks like you have rushed the job imo.

Also if possible try to keep the Brand terms at the end of titles

Use - MAIN KEYWORD | CAT | BRAND

Regards.

My advice is not to use sub domains as Google treats them as a separate domain, when you have a sub domain you have no flow of direct link juice as you do when you have a sub folder.

You only really need to think about sub domains when you have duplicate content issues for example.

Example of a advisable blog URL:

website.com/blog

not advisable:

blog.website.com

Hope this helps, Regards

I would map out the current urls which are ranking and generating revenue, then 301 redirect these old URL's to the new URLS you will have.

It is not going to be easy but and it is evident that their may be a loss in ranking when the change over process happens.

Have heard stroies about chinese based sites which aggregate content been struck with a loss in rankings.

Yet also on a side note I have been hearing stories about .com.au sites been hit recently even though the roll out was April for the com.au side of the business.

I will have to chat with a buddy at work who runs some multi lingual websites for clients and see if any effect has been had.

Hi,

The thing about country level TLD's is they will rank well in that country, If you use a .com.br domain it may not rank well in Australian results or USA results only for the brand term, even if you geo target sub folders on the domain.

Can you acquire the .com domain? From my experience .com works the best on a global level.

My advice is to use the domains you have for specific markets on the CC TLD's yet for other areas which you are not able to acquire the domain use SUB FOLDERS on the .com domain and then GEO target these sub folders in Google webmaster tools.

Finally do not use sub domains it is not a wise strategy, you will have no internal linking value.

hi,

Was the post on the main blog:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog

Or was it on You Moz user blog:

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc

The main blog has the title tag:

SEO Blog | SEOmoz Blog Featuring Search Engine Marketing Tactics

hi,

It seems the competition is just syndicating documents via education facilities to acquire links. to be honest links on low end tutorial sections where documents can be syndicated are not that great, they will hold some value yet it will not be that strong. I have seen this with competitors it is the same as paying off students to make blogs on edu blogs about your brand their are soo many un ethical things in the market which I wouldn't advise people to do ever.

You can be smart about it and acquire far better links for example if you do free work for a uni or you sponsor a university event, you just need to brain storm quality ways to achieve links on edu sites.

Regards

Change them for sure, it is worth the effort.

302 is a temp redirect and will pass no juice.

301 is perm and it will be far more beneficial.

Some tips to increase B2B tweets.

• Make a blog on the domain, create good content which suppliers and friends will want to share.

• Contact suppliers about your content see if they will tweet things on their accounts.

• Make a document for B2B suppliers to download, to download the content they must tweet first.

• Make corporate video and link it via FB shares.

As others have stated Google tests changes for keywords. One week you can rank the other week you may not rank.

My advice for making a more stable rank is the following:

1. Build links for this specific keyword.

2. Build great content for this specific keyword.

3. Push internal linking for this keyword.

4. Research competitors see what they are doing for this keyword.

5. Test many SEO techniques to find out what works and what does not work.

Regards,

James.

Hi,

To be honest with you I do not think it will be a problem, I have dealt with one website where we have sub folders with 10 various languages.

If the sites currently rank in both markets it should also be ok imo.

Have you also set up sub folder GEO targeting in Google webmaster tools too?

Regards,

James.

Hi,

My advice is to have the blog on a subfolder within your website, it will have a positve effect for your SEO.

Example: www.website.com/blog

Do not have the blog on a sub domain i.e: blog.website.com or do not have it on a random website example: randomcmopanyblog.com

When you have the blog on a subfoler you can gather internal link juice and also have a positive range of fresh content on the website.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

James.

Hi,

My advice is to have the blog on a subfolder within your website, it will have a positve effect for your SEO.

Example: www.website.com/blog

Do not have the blog on a sub domain i.e: blog.website.com or do not have it on a random website example: randomcmopanyblog.com

When you have the blog on a subfoler you can gather internal link juice and also have a positive range of fresh content on the website.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

James.

Hi,

Algos do change around the world, different things can be seen in different markets.

For example Google will favour .com.au domains in the Australian market because it is country specific TLD's.

Sure you can GEO target the domain via webmaster tools yet it will not be as powerful.

Also country specific links will work in your favour and copy which meets the users language for your area.

Do some TLD's have more spamy things going on? Yes I agree some areas we see that .com market Google has really been fixing it up for a long time other markets are a bit slower to move, yet with all the recent changes to the algo like Panda we are seeing all TLD's come together in a more combined sense.

Hope this helps.

Hi turning off personalized search is hard because even logged in or logged out Google can still hold search results.

Some ways you can do it are:

1. Add &pws=0 to the end of your search terms.

2. View the keyword in your selected market via AD Preview Tool - https://adwords.google.com/select/AdTargetingPreviewTool