Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I would highly suggest as EGOl points out looking into hiring a reputable firm to help you with this - As, what I have suggested will only get your domain under your control, to then configure it as you wish.

.htaccess is an Apache server side technology, this is what controls the actual 301 redirect (or through Vhost) but the nameservers of the domain must be pointed to a server you can control first.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/domain/reclaim-website-from-bad-web-designer-host.shtml

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/426118/how-can-i-take-control-of-my-domain-that-is-registered-to-me-but-controlled-by-w

This might help clear it up

If you own the domain - you have the rights to do with it as you please. If he owns it then he does.

I would not say he is "required by law" to do a 301 redirect, but you can forcibly take domain and registrar control, to then do with it as you please - by contacting your domain name registrar or current host. (unless developer is your host, then you will need to go straight to the registrar.

Be sure to have the new host/environment setup prior to this though as you will need to tell the registrar where to send domain control rights (name servers) then at that point you will have domain control at a Host/registrar of you choosing.

Yes,

you would most probably give them your IP, except that if they are an agency you would not want them to still have domain control - So just personally, I would get registrar access and get it switched to network solutions or some host like that.

Then, once the registrar transfer is complete, then you have control to point the domain where-ever you want.

http://moz.com/blog/achieving-an-seo-friendly-domain-migration-the-infographic

http://moz.com/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains

The above are more for SEO checks, but to answer the specific A-record question, the A-record is what you would change/create to point to the new server where Wordpress install will be.

Or, if you are swithing regstrars as well you would just change your name servers to point to the new registrar/host.

Most host technical support will help you with this (domain switch not SEO checks), and some even have "free migration" services

Hope this helps

Thanks!

Yeah it was a pretty big brand issue - Although, I cannot say with full ceartainty this below fixed it (since I do not want to put it back to test and have it possibly re-appear)

I changed the "Contributor" section link to our blog instead of root domain in G+ author account.

A few days later, even after removing publisher on homepage our Google + still showed up on the right side (G+ connect) for our brand terms and the correct author showed up for articles in blog.

But the internal pages (not on blog) with Publisher, stopped showing Author picture without removing publisher tag.

Maybe this will help someone else!

One extra resource is this article

http://moz.com/blog/set-it-and-forget-it-seo-chasing-the-elusive-passive-seo-dream

It gives a little more info in researching broken links from other sites, and even gives a great explanation of using the levenshtein distance to automatically correct incoming broken links on the fly.

As stated above, Rel Author is not anywhere, or rel Author association signals anywhere on the page, I know they "are testing things" right now (aren't they always) But wondering specifically anyone else was seeing this Rel Author/Rel Publisher transposition

Hi,

This is occurring on a few of my pages on a website I manage.

Our homepage, which only has the correct rel publisher code to our brand Google+ page, just started this weekend showing with Rel Author rich snippet.

Also, a test with Google's rich snippet testing tool shows the correct Brand Page and Logo, not authorship. Only is SERPS does it show incorrectly

Has anyone had this happen, and how did you overcome?

HaHa - did not even check, yeah you are indexed... recent though, no cache on some of the pages has been created yet, so prob within a week?

Homepage was crawled on April 25th

Getting G+'s on fresh QUALITY content is one of the best ways to quick index with Google in my opinion these days.

Just a suggestion, I would NEVER noindex an indexed site just because of content changes.

make a clone, point the domain using vhost, temporarily to a subdirectory make your changes then re-point domain in vhost (or if cpanel just use a pointer) - This way no one is the wiser to the changes INCLUDING Google.

Or just make the changes, the ramificatrions of noindex are much more long lasting than a content change (unless it was left in shambles for weeks)

4 letter words are appropriate at certain times, in certain situations..... Much like directories.....

Does this help?

http://support.volusion.com/article/seo

I would also try their support, it says with purchase, you get lifetime support on product, and SEO as you mention should be a hallmark of any CMS (these days)

"_RankPay uses proven SEO practices to achieve rankings and abides by industry standards, including: credible link building, relevant blog postings, trusted social bookmarking, and select directory submissions in order to build a consistent, customized SEO program for each and every customer. _

Our SEO Team has partnerships with hundreds of publishers, blogs, and directory sites. Nearly all RankPay SEO activities result in permanent exposure, even if the program is no longer in Active status. We work with our partners to identify relevant context for opportunities to further strengthen our customer's SEO programs."

So basically they use white hat, and on page to rank for terms they know they can rank for, they most probably do not take on all clients, only small to medium businesses that can see easy results in an easy market, by white hat.

The issue I see in this, is there is no longterm business growth strategy, only the putting of all eggs in the Google Keyword basket, in the hopes that these terms will make money.

I am with Matt, cannot give a opinion on whether to use it or not, but it really depends on is all you are trying to do is get keywords? Then it might work for you.....

I personally would suggest against youtube and vimeo embedding in your situation ---- read what SEOMOZ associate Phil Nottingham has to say in this thread on a similar topic.

http://www.seomoz.org/q/video-hosting-question-host-on-website-via-wistia-type-solution-or-upload-to-youtube-and-embed

In essence what you are doing, is not really the goal or audience of Youtube in my opinion.

Look into Wisita, not only do you get conversion integration, detailed analytics  that can help you make informed decisions about the videos future, Wistia is actually seen as content, so can be indexed as rich snippets.

With that said, you can also keep it in Youtube and VIMEO, and it will not be duplicate content, just use Wistia on your homepage....

Hope this helps

Starting Point -

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

Webinars are also a good way to get caught up

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars

White Board Friday is a very quick and dirty way to get campaign knowledge and tactics

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/category/whiteboard-friday

Before you can even think about tools and reporting you need to have a foundation for where you want to be in a year, 2 years ect.. -  these above resources can help you find what you are specifically good at in SEO realm and how to get better in other areas.

If you start with reporting, tools and just focusing on "Better Rankings" you will only be looking at the small picture and setting yourself up for a race you won't win.

"What are your thoughts on this does it really help and do you think Google will find a way to not count them as spammy?"

This really is not "spammy" possibly not the best marketing tactic, but hard to call it spammy, as this person most likely only has a base of friends and family anyway. So it is well within the "community" basis Facebook rules are based in.

But I do agree, that this is not a tactic as what "value" is this business providing by posting this to users - What is the reason they want to get to 200 likes, and how can they tie that to a campaign would be a way I would look at it.

Oh, I heard that too, but they still list it? Thought they might have added it back?

I believe this could be an answer to your question -

https://ifttt.com/wtf

If this, then that automation engine that allows you to set up action based on channel triggers

I would add, to say between a memcache plugin and an .htaccess solution you are comparing apples to oranges....

Total Cache utilizes memory to cache (so even the cache can be slowed by the system) But with Supercache it is a static copy served using .htaccess

So saying one is better than the other in a blanket response is kind of dead wrong --- They both do different things in different ways for different reasons/end solutions.

Also, I had never used Smush, but it increased my load time and dropped my score with both Google and Pingdom, but I could have done something wrong

"e.g keyword stuffing etc (if you go by all the webmaster tools guidelines and white hat stuff that is) yet don't appear to be penalised either which makes it hard to justify to the client why we are not 'copying', for want of a better phrase, the method used by higher ranking competitors."

Personal Opinion

Google is not the omnipotent source of knowledge it portrays itself as - It is a large corporation with communication, process, procedure issues just like any other large corporation.

But at all times, it must portray a sense of "omipotence" or constant understanding of its product...

The problem lies in the scope of the products "resources" (the inter webz)

So it relies on some Mcartyisms and Propaganda to get webmasters to "do the right thing" or even rat eachother out for their own gain, thus giving Google more easy intelligence.

So in response to NeilD i would say the reason for your clients or the question you let them answer in respect to this is "How Much Risk, and How do we Mitigate that risk, and how do we quantify it against ROI" If these questions are not easy for you or the client to answer, I would suggest running a very clean campaign. But if you have a set of disaster recovery plans in place, and the client is fully aware of what you are doing - then it is a gamble (hell half of life is a risk gamble)

Basically in short, the webmaster guidelines are just that GUIDELINES, one must make their own decisions on how to follow them.... as strict rules, or guidelines...

But the key to remember is Google is the gatekeep, and gets to change the rules at anytime, so this is the reason I personally follow them as Strict Guidelines, with a tiny bit of wiggle room is some instances.

In response to the initial question - The SEOMOZ authority rankings are based in data sets that are thousands (probably more) less intensive than the real algorithm - So the metrics you are referring to are merely a simple guideline to beginning a competitive analysis not a "source of truth"

Hope this helps!

Hi,

not familiar with a plugin that does just that for images, but http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/ creates a cache copy of the whole page and serves it gzipped.

There are some mods and customizations to be made, you can choose to use it in php or htacess mode.

Since WP is already php memory intensive, I would suggest using the .htaccess setup and making it compress.

But there are many options you can toy with to see if it improves loadtime

Alternatively http://www.picresize.com/ is a nice site that is free and allows you to compress to size/format easily, if this is an option for you.

Hope this helps

Yes, would suggest canonical as the easiest resolution -

And Irving is right PDF's are most definitely indexed, I am not sure how they are interpreted and if they would specifically count a dup content, but not sure this idea would EVER be something i would suggest as it it seems to have lots of negative repercussions.

I would most definitely agree that relative links is probably your issue, and if you canonical and remove inline relative links and make them http absolute this should resolve itself in a month or so.

I believe it will follow and pass - But Some people still say it does not.....

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-iframe-link-14558.html

I have not used it in a year or so, but I remember I always had to try 3 - 5 times.

I also think I remember reading somewhere, google asked people to stop or they revoked access to historical PR data.

But I could have dreamed that....

Probably not, but would run it through a Gbot emulator to make sure, as Google can parse some Jscript now - But not sure if it would in the section

Is PhP not an option? as it is dynamic and renders server side and echoes can be used for page by page basis

It is a brand, so would fall under the Trademark Policy, and will be held most probably and reviewed on a per case basis

http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6118

I say this not from experience, but because a Google Search with a few searches I did with Facebook resulted no PPC - So I assume Facebook has asked google to not allow this as part of TM policy - But a few queries like

"How to use Facebook" had a few advertisers.

So it probably is dependent on words used in conjunction and what you are selling/promoting - And I assume they always take the cautionary view, due to the competitve nature of these two companies

I also found some people in forums who said they were suspended for this.

Hope this helps

It depends on how similar the content is - I am not sure the threshold of content needed for canonical to be taken as a directive (cause I know Matt Cutts says a few differences are ago, but that is not really an answer)

It also depends on if you want your category page to rank for different terms.

I am not sure overall this is something I would do, cause the purpose of canonical is a more efficient way to deal with user necessitated duplicate content, or a precaution against duplicate content, and it seems you are trying to use it to change SERPS.

Although nothing I have said, nor do I have any proof this would bring negative or positive effects, I just personally would not do it.

A 301 is really the only way to safely change rankings, or just take a really hard look at your onpage SEO, as there must be a reason Google is placing that page above your Homepage, so in the longrun that tells me there is something not "optimized" for that keyword on homepage, so if you switch you could loose the ranking all together.

redirect 301 /page-a http://www.example.com/page-b

would be the .htaccess syntax for this, but canonical could also be used if both pages serve a user experience purpose

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

Yeah, I just had a site bypass me with a bunch of crappy shotty written artlicles on domains like

biz123.semi-relevant-keyword.com

ect....

Hundreds of them, but they also keep bouncing up and down and it is for a keyword that a shotty SEO must have thought it brought in good traffic cause of shotty keyword research LOL

The funniest thing is I think it is the same SEO making the rounds in this niche that gets people quick rankings and they are there for maybe a month, then plummet - cause the sub domain structure is similar.

In any case Thompson is correct, keep running a clean campaign and they will keep bouncing around from page 1 to 50

Shane

Hi,

Not to be a stick in the mud, but it kind of sounds like spyfu

but with that said good ideas in ranking most important to non, the issues I think you would run into is the geolocation change in serps (someone in dallas, might not get the same results as someone in new york for certain queries.)

Shane

If you do everything by the "books" then you should not see a huge swing, I just did this with a few sites, but I took some pre and post social precautions which I believe actually helped me in both these, but of course I cannot say that for sure, as overall in both very recent examples I moved to better servers, better code structure, nav structure and other items - So I would still caution and say it is always a possibility to loose some rankings, but it really depends on your end game and end goals.

That is tough, it is hard for me to say 301 cause of course you could loose rankings, but you could loose rankings in a re-design in general if precautions are not taken.

If you were an SEO, I would most definitely say 301 because you could work with any negative effects and chalk them up to "growing pains" but with little SEO knowledge I am afraid you could make a detrimental change that seems insignificant.

I am not trying to scare you into not doing it, I would ALWAYS suggest moving to a cleaner URL structure for MANY reasons not just applicable to search engines.

But this is a tough one, as there is risk, but of course not a HUGE amount of risk, but risk none the less......

"Basically what I'm asking is, this will be a terrible outdated badly SEO'd shop, but if a high volume of people are clicking on it and staying on it from their lingering ranking will Google just let it stay at the top?"

Maybe for a few days, until the index changes but it is tough to say for certain what would happen without knowing or seeing a before and after shot of sites code.

My main point to them would be -

What is the ROI in switching, and does it counteract the negative you might see from current ranking drop? (and how much traffic will you really get from this keyword)

It would all come down to end strategy, but if it is as you say "a terrible outdated badly SEO'd shop" I am not sure I see a great reason for switching, but of course I do not even know what your company does.

But to the question in your title

"Can I swap a website yet keep it's high ranking for a competitive keyword?"

I would first say what do you mean specifically by "swap" but it appears you are only talking about the Server and Architecture.

If this is the case it is VERY possible to keep rankings, but not sure as I have never worked with Amazon shop. So I am not sure how much control you have, but a very short broad answer would be yes, it is very feasible to even change domains and keep rankings.

It all just depends on if it is done correctly. (but of course I cannot answer the question as it pertains to Amazon shop, as I have never used it)

Hi,

My main advice to you is to not worry about they are doing to rank above you.... I know that might seem counter-intuitve, but at this point it seems that is not really helping you, it is only making you focus on a goal that might not bring you business.

As Eric says,

1. Are you sure these are good keywords that bring targeted traffic?

If so, take away the idea of forensics, since you do not want to emulate what they are doing, you want to do things that make you stand apart from them...

I am sure you have heard someone throw around the word "content"

Well so am I.... Content...... Make sure you are providing a user experience on your website that would garner true interest in content that people looking for you, or looking for information around items/services you may provide.

Build this content, and build a social circle around it, build relationships and the rankings will come, if they are truly using "Black Hat" tactics they will eventually either get penalized, or you will outrank them due to you will be providing a more genuine user experience with genuine content.

Also this more sets you up for the future, as Search Engines might not be the only game in town for long, so making a more well rounded "person-centric" strategy in my opinion is better than worrying about why competitor a or b is beating you for a single term in Google.

Hope this helps

It does not understand mod_rewrite R=301

[RP]

is the equilvalent

on the actual base syntax, I am not completely sure, but I believe it would stay the same

and it is not a correct rel=author link

[Example]([profile_url]?rel=author)

Another indicator for authorship is the use of the verified email address used on profile

If this is used, and all other authorship indicators are set up, this can show authorship

hope this helps

Hi,

Sounds correct, but the best way to make absolutely sure of markup is the rich snippet testing tool as it gives you debuggin hints or tells you if correct.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

5. No this should not prevent Authorship - Just make sure you have submitted the author

https://plus.google.com/authorship

LOL, I was gonna respond

"One Word, Don't"

Yours is much better

Hmm, not a mathematician - nor do I work for Google, but I think...

PR, would be the exponential expression of the algorithmic process....

But I believe the base number it expresses (PR1-10) is based Logarithmically....

I could be absolutely wrong though....

A quick search found this, to where they will even migrate the MODX site for you... I have heard of site5 before (nothing bad) but not sure as I have never used.

http://www.site5.com/p/modx/

There are reviews on the page and you can do a search to find others opinion.

But, just as a standard 99.9% of servers will "support" MODX, but it depends are you asking if the support staff is knowledgeable and proficient in MODX?

My favorite hosts are

Rackspace for enterprise and Hostgator for small business and fatcow/ipage/startlogic for personal or shared sites.

hope this helps

Fix it as quick as possible

Find any exploits you may have missed (keep WP Up to date, disable admin account, if on shared hosting check all file permissions, make sure you are using SFTP (port 22) ect...)

Monitor your traffic for drops and check web cache of Google to see if it was even indexed

If you do take a knock (which I doubt unless it was there for a while) I am not sure a reconsideration would do anything, so you will probably just have to do some damage control

(ie... get lots of social mentions on a good piece of industry relevant content)

Hope this helps

PS this can help you with hardening WP install http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

I would personally not look at this at how much "link juice" is passed, but the exposure, traffic and connections you create from such a powerful publication.

Personally, since it is already a subpage and a blog I am not sure that the amount of "Juice" is relevant as the difference between the two since it is already a byline and below the break is very small - So in my personal opinion they would be treated very similarly in the eyes of the algorithm with of course page 1 possibly getting more "juice" because it is linked to more. (so to technically answer your question page 1 would inherently get more "juice")

But I am just not sure, for now and in the future that what used to be referred to as "Link Juice" is really all that important on the grand scale of Internet Marketing. (but things do change rapidly) and this is just my opinion

Hope this helps

Hi,

I only use the CSE (Custom Search Engine) and have used the Maps API (free version) for a DB reference for a search.

But it sounds like you would need the premium API access since you are actually needing to display locations as places does, which on cost or use I am not sure. But below is the google page where you can begin your research.

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/getmaps/compare.html

Hope this helps

Just personally I think this is the disconnect, just because something is nofollow does not mean it does not help rankings in an indirect way....

"Google probably still likes to see that you are active and people are talking about you on the web"

Not sure this is a "probably" i think they have come out and said it on many occasions

And this I believe is the point of YES they help, the Algorithm is becoming less and less robotic.... so thinking of it in a sense of Follow and Nofollow is not looking at it in the full perspective.

I also think #2 is not looking at the big picture of, are you in a niche that you could gain more traction from Social than in search?

I am just not sure an SEO answer is correct in an increasingly social world IMHO

So if we are looking at in perspective of what to do on 12/13/12 - #2 might be correct for some niches, but for 12/13/13 and beyond I think #2 and #3 will keep getting more and more wrong.... Not just from a search perspective, but from an Internet Marketing/Marketing perspective as well.

"I've read so much lately about social signals and got basically 3 completely different responses."

There is rarely one path to success, so as one of the best blogs I have read in a while stated today "Diversity" in all realms is the key in 2013. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/top-1-seo-tips-for-2013

1. is definitely correct, but not in a "Jump on the Bandwagon" sense, you would need to have a Social Strategy to gain the "buzz" - but I am sure you know that.

2. Should you focus 100% well it depends on the niche or even the strategy/ but I would not brush it off in a forward facing strategy.

3. Ehhh, yeah but it is not that hard to gain 1,000's of social signals with a good strategy and content/networking - But this probably comes form someone who is still using more old school tactics, which is cool and they still work (and I still use alot of em too) but I also know they might not always work and I will point out the blog from Dr. pete again, today where he talked about Google MIGHT not always being there, so again diversity.

to the last point on % of time spent..... That is such a tough concept for me personally cause I look at SEO/Internet Marketing more at what needs to be done to defeat competition or per "project"  as opposed to how much time i spend on each item to "rank well" generally But I spend about 40 - 75% of my time in "Social Endeavors" But I also do alot of the coding, design ect.... so I might actually spend more if I was only focusing on the aspect of "Internet Marketing: only - But I will say as Adam points out, I as well am competing with National Brands in the SERPS and holding my own with a probably over 50% "Social Strategy" but again % is hard, I would only say YES it is important, but don't ever put all your eggs in one basket.

I hope I gave some insight

Please let me stress though if your onpage and social strategy are not there link building is not gonna do it by itself.....

That is why I recommend really delving into SEOMOZ resources, as they give a well rounded idea of the intricacies needed for an "Internet Marketing Strategy"

I'm not quite at a "$2500/mo deal" so there has to be something between $2500 and nothing for building links around my content...

So I am in a much more competitive niche, and without giving to much away I do not spend a dime on link building, and compete neck and neck as a local business against national brands... With that said, my point above is you do not necessarily want to "Build Links" in the old school way, you want to create a content strategy that defeats you competitors crappy content strategy.

Copier Leasing

Copier Technical Whitepapers

A Funny MeMe Campaign about funny copier "offfice stories" or using the Office tv show

an infographic about the history of copying but maybe a funny take that goes WAY back to even Egyptian times

These may suck, but I am not in your niche Just be creative as your competition obviously is not

There are of course other white hat tactics you should be doing, that once again you have a plethora of resource material as a pro member that are not associated with content strategies (but many are)

If you cannot write these find a SEO copywriter or agency that can help but with even a 1,500 a month budget you could do wonders (in my opinion against a competitor like that)

and PS if you need a great copywriter I have a name I could pass you privately that she does great work PM me

"So, its hard NOT to want to throw up a blog farm and do as "the Romans do". "

Yes, but the Roman Empire fell, and fell hard

Content, Content, Content - Would be my advice to combat a spammer! But BETTER content and and EVEN BETTER content Quality not quantity, make sure you are smartly using social and trying to do everything the right way and the tortoise shall beat the hare!

There are hundreds of resources here on SEOMOZ that can help you with an Internet Marketing and Content Strategy Start with the Blog and work your way to Whiteboard Fridays and even last couple webinars have been really informative and timely

Hope this helps

http://www.seomoz.org/blog

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/category/whiteboard-friday

And I am sure others will add more sources and ideas

It does follow external, and tells you if it is a redirect (you have to check the box on the open link screen)

Look into the program closer and its documentation

But like I said, if you want a very feature rich program go with screaming frog