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No followed links are links that don't carry any 'link juice'. A lot of websites like twitter and facebook as well as comments on websites have no follow links because they don't want people spamming them to get easy links.

Root domains are like www.seomoz.org or www.cnn.com. So if you have 300 links and 30 linking root domains that means that 30 different sites are linking to you.

This is From The SEO Moz SEO Guide. (It's under chapter 4)

" Rel="nofollow" can be used with the following syntax:

Lousy Punks!

Links can have lots of attributes applied to them, but the engines ignore nearly all of these, with the important exception of the rel="nofollow" tag. In the example above, by adding the rel=nofollow attribute to the link tag, we've told the search engines that we, the site owners, do not want this link to be interpreted as the normal, "editorial vote."

Nofollow, taken literally, instructs search engines to not follow a link (although some do.) The nofollow tag came about as a method to help stop automated blog comment, guest book, and link injection spam (read more about the launch here), but has morphed over time into a way of telling the engines to discount any link value that would ordinarily be passed. Links tagged with nofollow are interpreted slightly differently by each of the engines, but it is clear they do not passas much weight as normal "followed" links

Are nofollow Links Bad?

Although they don't pass as much value as their followed cousins, nofollowed links are a natural part of a diverse link profile. A website with lots of inbound links will accumulate many nofollowed links, and this isn't a bad thing. In fact, SEOmoz's Ranking Factors showed that high ranking sites tended to have a higher percentage of inbound nofollowed links than lower ranking sites."

As far as how to fix it, when you have no followed links that generally because that is the way the website has the structure setup and there isn't anything that you can do about it. If you have a lot of links and not many linking root domains, you just have to try to diversify your links through link building.

Being a web designer I think that a lot of designers really don't know a lot about SEO. Keeping up in one incredibly fast moving industry is hard enough none the less keeping up with both SEO and Design. That being said, it isn't impossible. If you say Panda or Penguin and they have no idea what you're talking about, they don't keep up with the SEO industry.

On page SEO disregarding content (think of it as your sites skeleton)is important but from a strict design & development perspective there isn't _that_ much you can do. Of course the code should be clean, semantic, and make sense without overuse javascript or any of flash, but what really matters is how they'll structure the site and place content. It also can't hurt to ask what they'll do about mobile. I recommend responsive design but that does tend to get pricey because of the excess work involved.

(Semantic code would be proper use of heading tags (h1-h6), use of alt on images, proper meta descriptions and titles. Flash is bad, stay away. )

For example the basics I would ask are what content management system they recommend using and how will they structure the links along with what will they do about your current links.  You want them to make the link structure so that it makes sense (/contact-us) vs (page?2329422.html) and that if they are changing your current link structure they'll 301 them. You'll also probably want them to say they'll use caches and a CDN along with limiting images and the size of images to keep page load speed time down.

If a designer is component and uses a CMS such as Wordpress, and aslong as they have clean code, it isn't that hard to make the site really SEO friendly by installing a few plugins.  I have seen some badly coded sites that have weird redirection issues and are just plain badly coded so you still have to be careful.

It really depends on what you're expecting out of the designer. If you want them to just build you the site and you'll take care of the rest such as off page SEO, content, etc, most reputable designers/agencies will do. However if you want them to link build and write content for you that is totally different and they would require much more knowledge and skills and a ton of other questions I would ask. If I design and build a site for a client it is SEO friendly. My code is clean and semantic and I use best practices. However that is only part of SEO and it's up to them to do everything else required such as link building, testing, content, etc. So you can't go strictly on what rankings they have achieved in the past unless you are paying them to do all the other aspects of SEO as well.

I would look at their portfolio and see if you like the work they do. If you're going to do all the other aspects of SEO by yourself that is really all that matters because you will be responsible for link building, content, etc.  Still question them about the basics I mentioned above and see what they say but most good designers should know those basics.

But most importantly, educate yourself. If you look at SEOMoz's beginner SEO book, you'll be in a better spot to ask the designer questions and save yourself from being upset with your choice in the long run. There are so many variables that come into play that being educated and perhaps even getting an SEO audit or consultation beforehand would be very beneficial especially if you have good rankings and/or an established site.

Good luck.

Yeah, I remembered reading something on their blog.

"More domain diversity. [launch codename "Horde", project codename "Domain Crowding"] Sometimes search returns too many results from the same domain. This change helps surface content from a more diverse set of domains."

http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/search-quality-highlights-53-changes.html

I've see this as well. It seems like google wants more diversity.

Search engines generally treat subdomains more like a separate site then if it was in a subfolder. The downside to the subdomain is that your link juice from the main domain may not transfer to the subdomain and vice-versa. Here's a good article from Rand, a little old but still a lot of info.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites

I would definitely suggest connecting your google analytics account and that'll give you a lot of keyword info.

Also, check this out. http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

-Joe

It may not be that they're buying links but because they have such a big following and customer base already they're getting linked to because they're just more popular. If 1% of amazons customer base links to them it'll be much more than 1% of a small businesses customer base.

Just my .02

Hi there,

Your best bet is to set the URL structure like this www.site.com/page-name rather than pagename.site.com. The first method is SEO best practice, the second way makes it seem like each subdomain is its own site.

Good luck.

It's not really that big of a deal if it's a blog title and I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Sorry if I misunderstood at all but here's a shot.

1. If you merged both pages I assumed you changed the url of at least one of them. Did you delete the old 'b' page? It may of had links to it that were helping you rank for it. Also, make sure the page titles are still as relevant as the old ones.

2. If the links were to page b and page b was deleted it won't really help unless you 301 it or create it  again.

I see you recreated them, did you keep the original url structure or did you change it? I would make sure that you have all the pages 301'd to the new ones you want to rank. If you really were penalized you would get a notice in webmaster tools, otherwise it's just the algo change. Google also changed a lot of things in the past two months so it may have to do with that more than with the changes you made.

Overall, just make sure that all your pages are redirected properly and hopefully you'll gain back those rankings. If you have any really shady links I would try to get them removed if not, it isn't a huge deal.

Good luck!

Some of the sites ranking on the first page are exact match or close to exact match domains which you can't ignore.

I also noticed that your site has a good amount of links but a lot are from the same domains while some of your competitors have a much more varied backlink profile. I'd open up open site explorer and compare your site to the competition, pay special attention to the links/linking root domains. I'd try to build a more diverse backlink profile.

You have a lot of likes, I'd add a google plus button as well, it can't hurt.

Good luck!

Yeah, I remembered reading something on their blog.

"More domain diversity. [launch codename "Horde", project codename "Domain Crowding"] Sometimes search returns too many results from the same domain. This change helps surface content from a more diverse set of domains."

http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/search-quality-highlights-53-changes.html

I would stick to one blog for most purposes. If everything is contained on one blog you'll build your domain authority. It will also attract people who may be interested in your other products.  As William also said, the fresh content will help a lot as-well. I would also always try to put some guest posts out there to build some links.

Good luck!

Not knowing to much about the client I would probably just scrap it and start over for a few reasons.

1. If I'm understanding correctly the website is like dentist32432.com which feels a little spammy for me if I saw it in the SERP.  I think that something with his name or another more unique identifier may be more helpful.  In my SERP page I get a few results for urls like www.'townnamesmiles'.com and stuff like that. Try to get a domain that is creative and brand building.

2. The links probably aren't quality and not giving much advantage plus, who knows when google will roll out the link disavower and how it will work.  It may just hurt more in the long run. If he has any links from local organizations it probably won't be to hard to get them change them.

3.  I think a lot of people will just type 'dentist' in which case you get the big block of local results. I would try to optimize for that by trying to get some reviews, having a little social media thing going, etc...

This is all assuming the the current domain isn't ranking well and not driving business. However if it is and it's a competitive market I would take my chances with it.

Hope that helps.

I use Chrome and it's usually on the bottom download bar when it's done. If it isn't there it is in the downloads folder in the finder, however that is on a Mac.

Regardless, usually there is some kind of indicator on where the file will be when you click download, either a box will pop up or it will be in the download folder. I would try searching your local system with something like 'Analysis' or 'On Page'. It should pop up somewhere sometimes browsers save to a temp file which will make it harder to find.

I've see this as well. It seems like google wants more diversity.

I'm not sure if the different domain strategy would work best for you. Perhaps having one .com and having subdomains on it such as site.com/en for english and site.com/it for italian would be a better way for you to preserve the link juice and authority the TLD has.

I don't have much international experiance so hopefully someone else more knowledgeable will help you with you approach. In the meantime, check this out.

http://tinyurl.com/7fzro33

I definitely recommend using google +1 on your website.  I think it will just be more and more important as your business grows especially for local search. I think as more and more people use it we will see a bigger impact in the organic rankings for those who have a lot of +'s.

Certain markets may be more apt to certain social sites. I think google plus has a larger user base in the computer/techie community verses your average person although they are pushing it on a lot of their gmail users.

I'd say put it all out there and see what works best.

You're welcome.

I also forgot to mention that your site has a very clean layout with a clear call to action. While you may have a hard time being #1 for some of those terms you can never forget the importance of usability and having your customers feel comfortable entering their personal information.  Compared to your competition I would feel much better using your site than theirs.

Hi there,

Your best bet is to set the URL structure like this www.site.com/page-name rather than pagename.site.com. The first method is SEO best practice, the second way makes it seem like each subdomain is its own site.

Good luck.