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That's always a possibility and one of the drawbacks of personalization for SEO. However, if via third party checkers, if you are going up (from #8 to #2), then there's also a better chance of best visibility via personalization, too.

Ranking visibility only means visibility - people can be more likely to click because they can find you more easily.

Deeper pages that rank help lift the authority of the main URL/domain. (Think like a pyramid; the more "voted" content you have on your site, the better.) Obviously for you, links to your main URL (which can often be the easiest to get) should be manageable for you to achieve. Good luck!

This was a common practice for some a few years ago and many still do it. My understanding is that search engines started to figure out the interrelation and there's some SEOs I know who consolidated rather than risk being penalized because if it's not done well, it seems spammy.

Part of it also had to do with managing multiple sites, plus the user experience (why are there so many sites for what seems to be one company?) can be compromised.

I've noticed the trend of even major sites, with different business niches, moving under one domain - like Honda or Ford - rather than keep them separate.

Well, there's a lot of ways to look at this - this wouldn't result in more pages indexed, so the two issues are totally separate.

If the goal is to get more pages indexed, then a site map (either XML or event a text list) uploaded to your server for Google to find can help. Or, at least that makes sure that Google is finding and indexing the pages you want them to find. Your Google Webmaster Tools account (assuming you have one) will also tell you some data.

For example, we used to have 100K+ pages; many weren't quality content I wanted to rank. Like, a PDF of a catalog ranking about the product page. So, I reduced the number of pages indexed so Google would have better, more quality content to serve to searchers.

Using Xenu or Screaming Frog is another good way to help uncover pages. Those tools crawl your site like Google would,then you can download the file and not only see all the URLs found, but also if they are 301/404/200, etc. And, Screaming Frog can crawl your site and output a XML sitemap for you (it's an easier way to make one).

I prefer SF and it's about $150 US dollars for the use - well worth it.

As for why - well, if you have a lot of pages, Google doesn't always find them. That's where a site map can help  (it directs Google what to crawl). Otherwise, there could be technical issues to a bunch of pages and they aren't properly linked up or something and that could be causing the issue.

I think there's been some awesome views here and there's so many viable options. If I were the SEO you wanted to hire, here's an issue I'd force: I can't control if you keep your website working properly. I can't control if your back end measurement is accurate.  I would insist that if it came to light that you somehow couldn't properly calculate your sales (and my performance was tied to revenue) there'd be some lump sum or something payment to me anyway.

Why? I worked on a site where leads were the most important thing wanted; the coding to track leads got messed up and for four months there was no accurate way to calculate what leads came through SEO vs other channels. Also, there ended up being major instability issues with the site and it kept crashing, creating major technical issues (that flowed into the need for technical SEO support).

Anything can happen with a website. The SEO can only do so much.

And, if you are interested, here's a nice blog on it: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/301-redirect-or-relcanonical-which-one-should-you-use

A lot of SEO can be undone/is reversible; the kicker is it's easier to go down faster than it is to get it back up. Changing things doesn't automatically (even when done correctly) mean you won't see a drop before a pick up. Google claims to be moving away from "exact" matches in keywords and more toward understanding content (example: degrees and certifications often have to do with acquiring knowledge and learning).

My advice? Page title is one of the most important things Google looks at; make your count. If you are trying to do multiple things with it (location/keywords/NLP), then you have to wait out to see if Google figures it out.

I have seen cases where pages can still rank even without an exact title/content match, but since you've noticed a decline, reconsider consistency across your optimization and content. BTW, as a user, NLP doesn't tell me what NLP is - only the acronym is used and that's not necessarily a good thing. (Ex: GHS? Greenfield High School or globally harmonized system.) How does Google know if your content is relevant to a searcher if it's not clear what NLP stands for?

Also, check the technical and make sure there's no weird coding or broken somethings that could also be in the way. Good luck!

And there's less back end to manage, which can be a huge obstacle to SEO if you don't manage it well.

As someone who is currently dealing with the making a WP blog look like it lives on a subdomain, I will agree with Dr. Pete that it's very tricky.

As someone going through something similar right now, I'm going to throw out there to tread lightly. I got some great advice on setting things up, but the domain mapping with Wordpress has been a nightmare. Nothing wants to point correctly, or domain map, in the way that it should in theory.

My lesson is to test everything out first, and try the mapping and pointing before doing anything else.

I'm working on something similar right now and have a few random thoughts: I'm not a fan of using the same content; aside from duplicate content issues (and nobody wants to deal with those messes), what's the value for end users? Why read the blog if it's going to be on the site? Or, why have a blog if you're going to put the same stuff (even if it's only some of it) on the site? Obvious, but for a successful blog it's critical.

Linking from the blog to the site, etc. makes a lot of sense for SEO/link juice and there's plenty of benefit there.

It's not a one-course-of-action scenerio. I've been building the business case for how we should handle ours since our site technology doesn't allow for hosting a blog. Sometimes it a bit of the lesser of  the evils, but ultimately there's still plenty of good to get from it.

Going back may not solve anything, given that enough time may have passed that enough content has been indexed and the "damage is done" so to speak.

The 301 redirect is a good step - search engines don't penalize, the issue is just that you essentially confused things and you have to now untangle, like with the duplicate pages and content.

You #3 - I'm not sure I am following, so getting back to the redirect, if you were previously "www" and now are without, then the "www" pages should redirect to the without URLs. It sounds like there may be a risk of a redirect tangle going on that needs to be fixed?

Once the redirect situation is taken care of, pull together a site map for the "www" (if you can) and upload it to Webmaster so Google knows to index those pages and then can make the association that you changed domains.

I have used disallow parameters for all kinds of things; you can set it up and test it in Webmaster tools under "crawler access" before you implement on your site to confirm it's done properly.  There have been a few times I've had to tweak it to get exactly what I wanted.

I'd test with the "/" in front of it as one option - again, just in testing, to see if there's any difference in results.

Since Google already got a hold of it, it'll take a lot of time to see results but don't be discouraged since they have to re-crawl and figure it out.

Good luck

And, if they are already indexed, you have to wait for them to be recrawled, then fall out of index, so it's not an immediate thing. Sometimes it takes days, sometimes weeks.

I understand the issue, however, you are going to create a lot more issues that will need more help by going this route. It's much harder to go back and try to fix things after the fact, especially since just managing a site introduces a whole separate set of issues that will require your resources and costs. I inherited a situation like this and it's probably cost us more in lost opportunities than it would have to build it correctly. Off soap box now.

The no index is a good start, and focus on the main pages you really need to care about to get visibility for and make sure you follow best practices for those.

Great points; we have top nav and it's never proved to be an issue. I'm working on a project where we've migrating from left to top nav and I anticipate issues because its a change for the user experience and we've already trained them on a different nav.

I think Ben outlines some great, actionable steps - there's one word of caution I'll throw out and that it's not necessarily that easy, depending on how your back end is set up.

I recently looked at something similar, and because of issues hosting WP (with PHP) on our server, we had to worry about hacking and the integrity of our shopping cart checkout system being vulnerable. So that wasn't a viable option to set it up as a sub folder and we had to look at a subdomain and pointing Apache at WP. (I don't want to bore you with all the technical vetting we went through, just suffice to say that theory and reality don't always go hand-in-hand.)

Contact SEOMoz help; their team is very responsive and great to work with and they'll need to see what the "hiccup" is on their end in order for you to get an answer. help@seomoz.org

The goal should be the fewer clicks to get to the RIGHT item. (Which is subjective, for sure.) People will do more clicks to get to better data, however we shouldn't put them through any more clicks than needed - so, if you can do it in two, great, but if you need 3-4, then do 3-4.

The one thing I have noticed is that (depending on how big your site is) more clicks to get to deeper content can make it harder for search engines to get in and crawl those pages, which can reduce ranking opportunity.

You know, it's hard to say because it could be apples to oranges of what your site is about and what that site you shared the link to is about. You have to design for your audience and fashion/manufacturing/educational/travel, etc. all have totally different sets of user expectations.

Rather than compare yourself to one site to mimic it, it may be worth looking at UX data and CRO tips and other factors to help determine what to do: http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/544-conversion-rate-optimization-tips/

I like using robots.txt for stuff. - mostly because our homegrown cms limits our abilities.s however, if these pages have already been indexed then disallow limits the outcome. Ideally, disallow or no index or any of those are done in advance so Google doesn't get their hands on it; doing it after the fact can take some time for Google to figure it out and put the pieces together. Can your site manage a canonical for this?

Thanks for confirming!

My answer, and I admit it's obvious, is to start carefully. Look at the project as a complete project and not parts. Meaning, before hiring or starting and focusing on content, look at the technical side, too. Updating content may not matter if there's technical barriers to your site being user friendly or search engine friendly. For example, I've increased rankings and traffic, but because of on-site issues that were out of my control (and ownership), conversions weren't increasing.

People will try to sell you one thing and it's not always the right answer - no different from any other business. While you may not have time to train your internal staff, having the high level insight you mentioned is critical so you can be a good client and be a wise client and having a handle on if something will work or not.

Define what you expect to see - higher conversions? Higher traffic? The ultimate goal is always sales, however how does this SEO help play into that - ranking improvements? Site UI changes? To say the goal is more revenue is like saying that the sky is blue; duh. You need to be able to map SEO back to something.

Mostly, watch out for people who just want to sell one solution or suggest buying links. SEO isn't just one thing and one thing isn't going to get you great and lasting SEO. And link buying is something that I rarely see as being a good investment. Good luck!

I link back to my site, to help tie together content matches that I think can help the user/reader. I keep in in check depending on the length of the blog piece, the intricacy of the topic (is it jargon heavy or really technical?) and work from there.

Good content, to me, does match up to SEO because you're targeting what your user cares about and looking for. Using the same best practices makes sense. (You can have great content but if you didn't SEO it well, then how easy is it for people to find to know it's good?) Don't go overboard because it can seem spammy and be a reader turn off.

I agree with Ryan - you need a strategy. I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make when targeting SEO keywords is going too broad and hoping that we can capture things that quite honestly aren't the right fit. You really have to know them, their terminology and how they search. The article link Ryan shared is a great layout for how to go about a sound strategy, which will eventually answer your questions.

However, as for the global monthly searches - personally, I say ignore that. Check the "exact" phrase box and look at the local monthly searches. I want to have an idea of how small of an audience I can end up with if I select certain words. It's a very different perspective to find out a word you thought was really popular actually gets 170 searches a month and at best  I can only hope to capture a percentage of that.

Agreed; it could an after effect and stems from inbound URLs to your site from other sites. That's what the majority of the 404s I see in GWT come from (vs being bad pages within my site).

Google probably isn't using the old sitemap if you gave them a new one. What could be happening is that it still needs to "reorganize" and reconcile your old URLs and new URLs. The indexed pages don't just disappear overnight or get replaced immediately because of a site map change. Things have to work their way out of its system.

If there's specific URLs you want to try to remedy immediately, look into the GWT Remove URL option under the optimization section.

I've run into problems with news releases getting lots of inbound links and then ranking higher/better than core pages that I'd rather have ranking for similar subject matter/keywords.

Putting the same thing all over the place isn't a solid strategy. You risk confusing search engines and ultimately working against yourself.

You are welcome (you also aren't alone; I don't have problems often and it's great that the Moz team has such terrific service).

OK, that's different from what I was getting from your original post (which is why it never hurts to double check). I understood it as you wanted improve your internal linking and do anchor text to help your INTERNAL search results w/in your on-site search function/search engine.

Keep in mind that too perfect anchor text can actually hurt you, too: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2172839/Google-Penguin-Update-Impact-of-Anchor-Text-Diversity-Link-Relevancy

Creating dynamic product pages will compete with your regular product pages in rankings for those shared keywords unless you no index them (not the same thing as no follow). No index means that Google can follow the link but shouldn't index it but you want page rank to be passed along to links.

I'd consider reading up on the subject of no index to confirm your comfort level with how to do this - especially since I'm trying to interpret what you want and I may not be correct and don't want to possibly hinder your goals

http://www.seoboy.com/the-differences-between-noindex-nofollow-and-robotstxt-file/

http://eduardblacquiere.com/non-indexed-page-pass-pagerank/

Part of PR Web's price point includes (in my experience) how much detailed reporting you get. They should give you something; I will say that even though the initial cost is more, the best analytics I have gotten came from PR Newswire. And I also go a way broader scope of coverage that most can't match. However cost always plays a factor in these decisions.

They should share with you a sample of what reporting you'll get so you can see how comprehensive it is.

Keep in mind that there's a difference in being picked up and just getting a list of websites the release appears on. That's all part of their agreement with news outlets; getting your release re-posted on dozens of sites doesn't have the same "oomph" as a real news outlet opting to run it (you can usually tell the different because it's not a verbatim rehash of what's exactly in your release but rather a more edited version of the content). So, part of it also depends on what you want: a bunch of links or Web postings or real news coverage. Those have two very different intents.

Given how Google likes to be cagey with things an the fact that G+ is still evolving, right now we may not know the business impact, however, like anything, why wouldn't you want to claim your online brand if you have the opportunity? Or if the opportunity presents itself?

Do you use Google Webmaster? You can check page load times times there. It's not quite the same as section-to-section but gives a better idea of what search engines (I don't really understand the focus on what matters about moving section to section) experience -and users - with your site. And if you install the page speed browser add-on, you can get more data.

Have you done some troubleshooting? If there's that much of a % change, did you check your robots, tags, redirects, etc. to see if any of the technical side may be hindering indexing?

Yes, no question. It's the major leagues compared to minors as far as the quality and reach. However, I'll qualify that with this: I don't believe in sending out releases just to get links; I think there has to be news value (as these releases are actually sent to media outlets and they don't like their time wasted) so I'd rather pay the premium for better reach and reporting. BusinessWire also has great options. The rest out there I've never had the same kind of impact with.

Apparently yes and it's supposedly not widely available (they probably want to find a way to make money off of it).

This deck is a bit out of date (pre-timeline) but there's some info on it. http://www.slideshare.net/steph_king/facebook-parent-child-model

It could be a whole slew of things, as you know, and if you'd share actual domains, it could help uncover reasons. Better on page optimization? Fewer 404 errors or technical hiccups? They may have fewer inbound links but do they have more .edu or .gov which have more credibility? Do they freshen their content more?

Less words in the title tag is a moot point - do they have better keywords? You say "lower inbound links to that page" when if, as a whole, they have a better domain rank (vs just page rank), that can influence.

There's a lot of ways that this can be sliced.

The answer to if it's better to get the links removed or just change the anchor text is maybe to both. If there's an inbound link that seems spammy or doesn't really fit in well with the topic of your site (ex: your site is about cars, but a site about oranges is linking to you), then removing the link could be the better long term plan.

If it's a quality link from a credible source, you want to keep that link so look for anchor text diversity as far as the keywords used.

I agree with Jason and will raise one other consideration: give them a reason to care about the page beyond it being a good cause. Donating is nice, seeing some content is nice, but neither necessarily will catch someone's attention. Can you set up something where people can post to win a chance to have a chat with one of the celebrities? Is there some sort of contest or something you can promote? Think of something unique that will drive the conversations and want people to check the page and engage.

I, personally, have stopped liking most pages because I don't get much reason to actually engage, unless I have a situation I need to address (like, customer service). I want to see a unique opportunity, just because I donated to  a cause doesn't mean I want to read their status updates because sharing news doesn't equal engagement.

Just something to think about to get some "hooks" for the audience.

And given that Flash is on the way out, either they change now or they are going to be hosed later

Videos are absolutely content - and hot content at that. Videos have grown in popularity among Web users. If you mean ads above the fold on a Google search results page, no, that has nothing at all to do with search rankings. If you mean you have ads on your website that are above the fold, I wouldn't recommend that. Unless your goal is to just make money through ads.

Text should go with videos, for numerous reasons. I'd suggest reading up on the overall topic so you can build a strong video SEO strategy: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/video-seo-basics-whiteboard-friday-11080.

I agree - I think it's important to do more than just the home page. I don't agree there's a specific science / ratio to it for a few reasons: if it was that specific, everyone would do it and we know Google wouldn't let it be that obvious because people would game the system.

There's relative factors to consider: some pages on your site may be way more competitive to rank for than others. If your overall domain authority is a little lower, you have to compensate for that. On my site, I can get some pages to rank well pretty much just with on page optimization because it's not a competitive term. There's others that are taking tons of links, strong keyword hierarchy and such to even get into the top 20.

The best strategy for you will (I'd assume) be based on evaluating how competitive your field is and what pages you want to rank for the best user experience to drive conversions. Will just your homepage do that? Do you need other pages w/in your site to offer a better experience?

Here's a way you can try: http://scalablesocialmedia.com/2013/02/recover-facebook-page/

Trying to hide things from Google is not the way to handle any issue. They don't like it and it can come back to bite you in a big way.

While some of your content may be similar to other websites, that's the same issue any website has - we have that problem with competitors having similar content about our products.

Unless you are trying to rank for those pages, for which you'd need to take on a different type of project to rank well and drive traffic, as long as you have other unique content on your site that appeals to users (and Google) it shouldn't be much of an issue.

I agree about the "just make great content and people will find you" mentality. Really, it's that easy? No, it's not. Because people have to find you and links can help.

That said, there's a lot of different ways to get links. Good directories are fine enough. But I also think that's just a small piece of the pie. There's media coverage from online outlets, as another example. A lot of people I know don't just post to directories and call it a day, they actively go out and approach other sites and ask for links. That could be how your competitor(s) are doing it.

Fact is, whether you want to call it link building or whatnot, you have to market your site so people know it's there and can find it. Then if you have good content, and built it well, people can find it.

Be skeptical of paths that involve buying links - usually a sign that it's not a good route.

I think that if you can't naturally get likes and have to ask for them, then there's bigger business issues to address. But given that they can't make a value proposition as to why I should like their page, I don't expect these people to be smart marketers.

Exactly. And, the technical build of the site can help reduce duplicate content issues, even if there international SEO for the same language (think: US English vs UK English).

Here's some great articles on this:http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33358/9-Ways-to-Completely-Sabotage-Your-Global-SEO-Strategy.aspx,  http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-dropping-the-information-dust, http://searchengineland.com/11-considerations-for-international-seo-117798

Don't let it kill you - there's too many factors that influence ranking above-and-beyond just content. They're doing something right if they are ranking well so they are making it happen without, in your opinion, making it all about content. Which is also why I also find it questionable when anyone tries to make it just about content. Their domain rank may be high, they may have a better inbound link portfolio, older domain age, etc.