For future reference, if you've got the Moz bar installed in your browser, all you need to do is click the pencil/marker icon and select the "Nofollowed (pink)" option. All nofollow links on that page will be highlighted.

Hi,

Generally speaking, any link that takes users off of your site should open in a new tab. If you send them away in the same tab, they're probably not coming back to your site. Especially with social media, they're likely to get distracted with something else and forget about what they were doing in the first place.

Hi,

I've never seen any evidence of title-casing being more attention-grabbing or of Google overwriting them because of it. If you're concerned with Google replacing your meta descriptions, use a NOODP tag and your problem is solved.

Regarding ALL CAPS, Google has never been a fan of this technique to improve CTR, you can even see this in their ad copy rules for Adwords. I'd steer clear of ALL CAPS in SERP-visible meta data.

No problem! I'm not too familiar with secure migrations in WP, but I bet there is some kind of plugin for that.

Hi,

Found the source of your issue: this URL (https://www.aerlawgroup.com/sex-crimes.html) has a link pointing to it from a HTTP URL (http://www.aerlawgroup.com/sex-crimes/new-allegations-emerge-in-sexual-misconduct-case.html), which is probably how SF found all the other secure URLs.

All of your HTTPS page return 200. If you want to go back to non-secure, those secure URLs will need to be redirected back to HTTP, the same as you probably did when you went to secure.

Also, looks like you've still got a couple HTTPS pages indexed: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aaerlawgroup.com+inurl%3Ahttps&oq=site%3Aaerlawgroup.com+inurl%3Ahttps&gs_l=serp.3...5577.15088.0.15655.24.24.0.0.0.0.150.1864.19j5.24.0....0...1.1.64.serp..3.0.0.bf5ZiosfHMI

Hi,

According to this article, John Mueller says Google doesn't weigh URLs that heavily when determining rank. I always advise against changing URLs unless it's absolutely necessary, as you'll lose about 15% of the page's current PR when you redirect it.

This article also directly says to not change URLs for SEO purposes: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-urls-seo-17889.html

It depends on the type of publication, but it usually works best to pitch it in ways that will benefit them. This post on guest blog outreach should help you formulate a strategy.

Hi Gary,

Regarding SEO specifically:

The sites that you've been submitting too aren't going to move the needle much for you, if at all. You might even see some negative effects of doing so. Those sites are kind of like directories, no one submits anymore, and Google doesn't value them. So from an SEO perspective, they wouldn't be helpful even if you did get them posted.

You should look for industry-specific publications and build relationships with the owners of those sites. This gets your content in front of the right people and for the right reasons. You're also way more likely to get published on a site that's relevant to what your business does.

Take a look at the bounce rates for each page in the Landing Page report. Run this with the same date comparison so you can see if any specific pages had a jump in bounce rate.

Hi,

Your XML sitemap should only contain 'clean URLs'. By that I mean only 200 status URLs.

You should not have any redirects or error pages. You should also make sure you've got the preferred format; i.e. www vs. non-www and https vs. http.

Good to know! Thanks!

Hi,

You might want to try the Google Adwords community: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-AdWords/ct-p/Google_AdWords

We tend to lean a little more towards SEO here on Moz