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Hey Everett,

Good answer - and it makes sense. Having once been banished to page four, I'm now being very careful about everything, especially over-optimized linking. Diversity is the way!

I once used no-follow tags extensively. And at one time there was some encouragement from Google on the use of these tags. Recently I removed all no-follows from the main sections of my sites. The exception is our blog which runs on a WordPress platform. Use of no-follows on purely redundant content is very sensible. Generally, they should not be used to manipulate page rank. You might want to read Matt Cutts commentary on the subject: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

Hi There!

I do not believe that the folder structure of your site will have any impact on the way the search engines rank your pages. Your site architechture sholud be logical, and built in the same way that you would create an outline (major categories, subcategories, etc.).

In addition, if you start building your site with all of your files in the main directory, as your site grows you will find it increasingly difficult to manage, and will wish that you had built a well thought-out folder structure. Your folder structure should also be a nice way to get each page raked for the product or service that is featured - as the url is a valuable ranking factor.

Regarding link juice and your site footer - you should make a user friendly footer, the kind that you would find helpful as a visitor to your own site. Forget about link juice. In the works of Matt Cutts, "let it flow free", and focus on quality and making your site nice for visitors.

On the other hand, massive numbers of links could be an issue too - so dont forget to use the seoMoz On-Page Report Card optimzation tool which will give you specific suggestions on managing links and page structure for the best SEO results. It was massively valuable for me.

Best Wishes!

Hi There!

The first link example is called an absolute URL, and the second is a relative URL. Search engines do not care about the form. One is as good as the other from an SEO perspective.

It is possible to make a case for the prefered use of absolute URLs for some technical reasons, which you should read about here: http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/646

Best Wishes!

Hi There!

It is true that you will get no SEO value from your meta keywords. The way to optimize your site is to write original content on the subjects that you want to be ranked for, making sure to use your keywords in a natural manner. It is also important that you NOT over use your keywords within your text. It is a bit of a balanacing act, and can be confusing, but there is help available...

The best tool that I have found - and used with amazing results - can be found right here at seomoz (I'm not paid to say this!). Just run the On-Page Report Card and follow the advice. You will get suggestions on keyword usage, and a whole lot more. I took every suggestion offered and have made it to page one - a move of about 40 spots.

The other thing that you might consider doing, given the diversity of your market, is to create individual pages for each of the services you want to rank for. You can create URLs with your keywords (like www.yourdomain.com/album-reviews.htm) and then optimize each page using the On-Page Report Card.

Good luck!

Hey Mike, Thanks for the thought. I'm inclined to agree that there are better ways to improve search engine rankings, including adding content to my own site, writing on my blog, etc. So, in the end, I am left wondering if there is any value at all from investing time in writing articles.

Our site fell from grace last July and landed on page five of the Google search results for our primary keyword. For 6 months I tried a number of strategies with no results, including reconfiguring our site based on the SOEmoz on-page grading tool. More recently, after receiving your advice in a Q&A, I took down all of my paid links and submitted a reconsideration request to Google. Interestingly, 3 days later we popped up 20 spots. This left us on the top of page three. Better than page 5, but still not prime time! A few days ago (two weeks after our reconsideration request was submitted) I got a message back in my Webmaster Tools, that they had completed a review of our site - but oddly enough they provided no info on the outcome, positive or negative. And there has been no additional movement in the rankings since I received the message. Was the original 20 point jump the result of the reconsideration request, or just a coincidence? Or, is it possible that they did a review and the results will only occur later during some organic re-indexing process? What do you think?

I write and publish artcles. Typically I publish them on a few top article sites like EZineArticles. The articles then get picked up by other sites, often numbering in the hundreds. All of the articles are published with a link back to our website using a keyword. Are there any SEO risks in this type of link proliferation?

Hi There!

It is true that you will get no SEO value from your meta keywords. The way to optimize your site is to write original content on the subjects that you want to be ranked for, making sure to use your keywords in a natural manner. It is also important that you NOT over use your keywords within your text. It is a bit of a balanacing act, and can be confusing, but there is help available...

The best tool that I have found - and used with amazing results - can be found right here at seomoz (I'm not paid to say this!). Just run the On-Page Report Card and follow the advice. You will get suggestions on keyword usage, and a whole lot more. I took every suggestion offered and have made it to page one - a move of about 40 spots.

The other thing that you might consider doing, given the diversity of your market, is to create individual pages for each of the services you want to rank for. You can create URLs with your keywords (like www.yourdomain.com/album-reviews.htm) and then optimize each page using the On-Page Report Card.

Good luck!