Just an update for everyone. We use sitemaps, rather than meta tags, to do the circular href lang mapping for our localized domains. In doing so, we've found the HREFLANG XML Sitemap Tool from The Media Flow particularly AMAZING! Talk about saving time! Just make a csv file with a comma for each language/locale, upload it, and then download a zip file with all your sitemaps. Beautiful.

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Thank you Aleyda!

Do you know which type of targeting has more impact ... language or country?

I don't know that we need country targeting because we don't display currency or sell offline in physical locations. Also, I doubt we would create multiple French sites ... even if we do want to target France specifically.

Kate,

What if I have one url translated into French but want to target French speakers in multiple countries? Would I do this with my hreflang tags:

Note: I generated these with Aleyda Solis's international sitemap generator. Does hreflang="x-default" ever get used?

Does Compete.com do that? I've never used them, but I know they offer competitive metrics. Traffic Travis does some link breakdowns, but it doesn't have a report exactly like that. It will tell you:

• Backlink URL
• Page authority
• Alexa Rank
• The number of urls the page links to
• Whether the page is indexed
• Follow/no-follow
• Anchor text
• IP address
• TLD (.com, .gov, .edu, and so on)

RavenTools also has a really cool link manager. However, I'm not sure whether or not you can use this on competitors' sites.

You may also be able to accomplish this in a moderately automated fashion with a combination of Excel and Majestic SEO. You could identify a lot of blog links, for instance.

Yes. The layout markup should not mess things up. Just put the whole street address within itemprop="streetAddress", and you should be fine.

You would do the first option. The "streetAddress" property needs to contain all the information, even if it spans two lines.

Check out the example over at Schema.org - http://schema.org/streetAddress. That address contains 2 lines.

Brilliant, Chris.

I know you can use Google's Adpreview Tool to see how your paid listings appear for different locations (down to zip code). I'm not aware of anything like that for organic listings, however. And anyway, there's no way to automate that process.

Here's a totally hypothetical, non-tested approach that might work: What if you used a proxy tool like Proxybonanza with a simple desktop rank-checking tool like Web CEO or Traffic Travis. (These really have nothing on Moz in terms of feature set, but rank tracking isn't terribly complicated as far as SEO tools go.) I would assume that when you run a desktop rank tracker through a proxy (especially if you can define where the proxy locale is), the results would be for that location. That said, I have no idea whether it's possible at all to find and use proxies for a specific zip codes. So all this may just be me being dumb.

Again, that's a completely non-validated approach. Just trying to help you think outside the box. My level of local-SEO expertise stops at the country level. And even there, I've got a lot yet to learn.

Thanks, Andy!

I would not use bit.ly or any other shortener for internal links.

If you want to track internal links, then you should use Google's enhanced link attribution or URL builder. I prefer the link attribution tool over the URL builder, though. This approach is more natural for visitors to your site, and it allows you to reap the SEO benefits of good internal site linking.

If you want to track external links, I'd recommend Google's outbound link tracking, a url shortener, or both. For Wordpress sites, Joost de Valk has an old (but good) post on one way to do this with a plugin. But the idea can be replicated on other sites. Basically, you link internally to a directory that's behind robots.txt. Then 301 those links to your affiliate or shortened url.

Hope that helps!

JVRudnick, your story reminds me of this cool new site you can use to see whether the NSA are watching you: http://AreTheNSAWatchingMe.com/.

Also reminds me of the T-shirt I wore yesterday.

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LindaLV is right. Here are some screenshots to help you out.

1. Expand the hamburger menu. Then navigate to Tools > Extensions (#1 attachment)

2. Either disable or delete the Moz toolbar. (#2 attachment)

That said, I recommend leaving it installed. I don't use it terribly often, but then there are those times that it comes in really helpful. So for most of my browsing, I leave it disabled. If you find it's covering up content while you're browsing, you can just click the toolbar icon to disable it and make it inactive. That's how I browse most of the time. (#3 attachment)

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I agree with alecfwilson, especially the part about superfluous directories.

One thing I'd add, since it's probably a wash whether you use "products" or "shop". See if either word gets used in searches for the products your selling. This won't be the case in everything you sell online, but sometimes the words "product, shop, store" get used in the searches.

If everything else is equal, I'd pick the url structure that includes the words most used in searches ... ONLY if you can also do that while maintaining a natural, semantic, streamlined url path.

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I'd like to get some recommendations on self-paced SEO courses. They need to be online, and they need to be rather advanced.

Moz has perks for both Distilled U and Market Motive. Has anyone gone through these? What are the differences in format, content, etc.?