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Hi Patrick
I would just log in to SEOMoz next time you are with your client and ask them to go through the process of granting permission to their Facebook explaining what you are doing and why. I don't see this being an issue with your client...
If there is an issue maybe demonstrate what connecting their account will give you access to - show them another campaign with Facebook connected if you have one?
I don't see there being an issue if you are getting links to both of your sites from an independent site even if it is linking to your two sites that are on the same host. I have experienced similar without an issue. I take it that both your sites have different content and you have not tried to hide their relationship from Google? I also take it that you have linked the two but don't have excessive links pointing between them?
Going forward I would make sure that both sites have varied natural link profiles - I see there being a issue if you have two sites on the same host with almost identical link profiles with similar or the same anchor text...
If they are both in the same or similar niche and serving different purposes it is only natural that they will have some links that come from the same source.
I personally always use http://www.opensiteexplorer.org to judge what the quality of a site is and whether it is worth going after a link. The tool is great as you can get a feel for the sites authority, trust and by having a look at the Anchor Text tab you can see how natural their link profile is in terms of keywords in links which is imperative in the current climate.
Hi - what other redirects do you have in place - could you stick them on here and perhaps I can help you make sure they don't conflict?
This should do the trick
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^sub1 http://example.com/sub1/sub2/sub3 [R=301,NC,L]
No Problem Richard - Glad I could help - as you say two sites is twice the work to manage and market so it dilutes your effort.
Good luck with your new project 
Hi Richard - one quick question - are your sites going to be on separate domains and are these domains going to be linking to each other? I am just wondering whether you are trying to keep both sites completely separate or whether you are making it clear that they different parts of the same business? If so have you thought about having both sites on one domain with your homepage making it clear there are two separate areas you service - B2B and B2C? By doing this you will benefit in the long run from a more powerful link profile and therefore greater domain authority and ranking ability - one link will benefit both sides rather than just one domain if you have them separate. It is better to try and build one rich information resource for customers than split it in to several in my opinion. However this all depends on whether having both sides of the business sat under their own folder on one domain is appropriate to your whole customer base? Doing this would also resolve any potential concerns you may have about hosting mulitple websites under separate domains on one server. You often see sites that are trying to sell to customers and to potential resellers having both types of content for the same product on one site rather than separate.
If you have them separate and both rank well you are likely to get customers looking at each site anyway when carrying our research in the SERPs.
However if this is an issue then let put your mind at ease - there shouldn't be a problem with having two separate sites on separate domains as you are making sure that the content is unique. Obviously just make sure you don't have a mass of links between the two. A link to acknowledge their relation is fine though. The only time there would be an issue is if you are trying to hide the relationship from Google and you aren't as you are trying to serve to different customer bases with unique content. Shared hosting on the same IP is very common these days and the only time it has been an issue in the past is when one site on that IP has been penalised. This impacted on other sites - however this even seems to be less common now with more sites appearing and more shared hosting..
I am just trying to find out why you have chosen the structure you have from an SEO viewpoint and making it easier to build authority for your companies web presence.
I agree with smarties954 I would not try to reduce the number of links on your page. From personal experience I have done site redesigns that have increased the links on the page to around 160. The first version of the site was optimised and doing well but after the redesign rankings increased even with the increase in links. The site was also much better from a user point of view which I think is very important.
Hi Chris
You need to setup a 301 redirect from your none www.domain to your www.domain or vice versa depending on your preference. You should also make sure you have set your preferred version in Google Webmaster Tools.
Take a look here for SEOMoz's guide on redirection -
You need to put a 301 redirect from none www. version to your www. version.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93633
If for instance you have an apache server you can create a 301 redirect by placing the following in the .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^cushioncutengagementringsstore.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.cushioncutengagementringsstore.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Just checking when you say you specified it with 'no follow' you need to make sure you have noindex, nofollow meta tags on your pages if you don't want Google to index them:
http://www.robotstxt.org/meta.html
alternatively you can use a robots.txt file to block you whole site to stop it being indexed:
http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html
Hope this helps..
I agree with Martin - I would have your existing blog as part of your new site so that you can benefit from the page authority that it has already gained helping boost your new site. If you leave the blog as an external site you would only benefit from one link whereas integration means you will benefit from all the links that blog has already gained...
It would be a waste to scrap something that has already had time and effort put into it in regards to creating a new one!
I think you will find this post by DR Pete helpful, as I know I did in the past -
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-wont-google-use-my-meta-description
Oops sorry I misunderstood - thought you meant Google, but at least Keri jumped in there and gave you the answer
There is no set time limit to how often a site is crawled by Google - different sites have different crawl rates depending on factors such as how popular they are. For instance a well ranked, popular news site with content that is regularly being updated and added will have a crawl rate that is higher than a small personal site.
Have a look at this article in regards to ways you can encourage Google to crawl your site more often - http://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-ways-to-increase-your-site-crawl-rate/7159/ (an old article but still applies)
Have you thought about using the URL removal tool in Google Webmaster Tools to quickly remove the test URLs - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164734
And finally in relation to speeding up the crawling of specific pages on your site you can use the fetch as Googlebot tool > enter a URL > click submit URL to index to speed the crawling of that content up. Here is a great article on this much underused tool - http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2198245/How-to-Force-Google-to-Recrawl-Your-Site
I would say it all depends on how natural your blog commenting is in terms of are you adding to the topic by adding a link and does a link on that blog in a related niche appear natural when it links back to you. In terms of using it purely as a link building tactic I think it is a low value and dangerous practice especially if you start adding links with keyword rich anchor text on any old blog. I have no doubt that there are some sites still using this tactic successfully but it will catch up with them eventually and they will end up dropping in the rankings. If the majority of their link profile is blog comments this will stick out like a sore thumb and eventually Google will notice...
So in conclusion a few links in a related blog are natural and will be fine but if you start adding loads, in a short space of time you are playing with fire in my opinion!
Yeah I think your list is looking good
Enhances ability for search engines to crawl the site.
Potential for Breadcrumb to appear in SERPs thus enhancing your listing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmOjX5DlN2A
Usability - users tend to attempt using a breadcrumb for navigation
Usability - users find it easier to understand how the site is built and how the navigation works
More pages are likely to be viewed by customers as breadcrumbs provide easy access to similar and alternate products
Successful popular sites such as Amazon use breadcrumbs alongside other navigation to help customers.
You might want to point out that you can make the font size and font colour subtle so it is clearly visible to users but doesn't impact on design and maybe send a screen shot with a few examples?
You are right not all sites indexed with breadcrumbs show breadcrumbs in the SERPs - here is Matt Cutts take on this which might be useful for you
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmOjX5DlN2A
I would put together an example of a few top preforming sites that are leading the way in e-commerce that have breadcrumbs in order to support your argument. It is hard to comment on whether your site looks good. Your client must remember that a good looking design is important but not at the sacrifice of usability else your customers will soon go else were as you will find it is all about how quickly and easily they can access the information they are looking for. If any parts of your design hinder this you will soon know about it...
Is the site not likely to preform as well in the SERPs - well Google has integrated them for a reason - improving their search results. On a very basic level you will have more information against your listing - including extra links so this is likely to aid the user and encourage them to click on your result.
Breadcrumbs are essentially a form of rich snippet and they add value to your listing -
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=185417&topic=1088474&ctx=topic
Also one other thing is that breadcrumbs don't have to be in a massive bright font from a design point of view. A smaller grey font in a white space above the product(s) can work just as well and get listed. If you do a search for products you will see some well known sites use this tact..
I would have said that breadcrumbs are a positive as they show the user the exact location of the product they are looking at and give them an easy trail to find similar/alternative products. The other areas of navigation in close proximity only show one level (presuming your client means nav menu etc?). Then I would also say that some of the most successful websites such as Amazon still use breadcrumbs in order to help customers from a usability point of view. From a search engine point of view; Google actually displays the breadcrumbs in the search results giving you more links in each search listing, which is a positive thing. Breadcrumbs in search results is likely to help increase click-through as the person searching might not be after the exact result listed but they can see you have a category for those products, so they can click straight through and see if you have exactly what they are looking for.
It must also be remembered that product pages can be accessed a number of different ways - search on site, search off site, links from other sites, through the navigation menu and so on. Therefore a clear trail for the user will help them locate other similar products and make it easier to navigate and engage with the website, meaning higher average pageviews and a lower bounce rate...
It all depends on the quality of the links that you are gaining as to how quickly Google recognises them.
In regards to speeding up Google finding links to your site that you have managed to gain I would say this is not possible as it is down to how frequently Google crawls the websites that links to you and Google actually crawling the page that links to you. This could take a while if for instance a site has thousands of pages and a low crawl rate from Google.
Hope this makes sense.
The links are treated as separate, so they won't cancel each other out and the link from website A to you will pass link juice. Even if you have a reciprocal link that is dofollow and they have one pointing to you that is dofollow they won't cancel each other out and link juice will be passed.
A few reciprocal links in the right circumstances are fine, it is only when a large proportion of your link profile is reciprocal that you are likely to get a penalty for attempted manipulation of Google's rankings.
Hope this helps...
Hi I personally would host them in a subfolder - especially the PDFs as they are likely to gain links and these links will help strengthen your domain.
However if you have them in a sub-domain they won't have the same benefit from the links as Google essentially treats sub-domains as a separate domain. This will also limit the ranking ability of PDFs as they won't benefit from your domains authority on a sub-domain.
Have a look at this article for a bit more insight into subfolder vs sub-domain
- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
I hope this helped..
Hi - yes the SEOMoz crawl report doesn't currently take into account canonical tags and it will report a page as duplicate content even if it has the tag on it. Have a look here for more -
http://www.seomoz.org/q/canonical-tag-and-duplicate-content-report
There doesn't need to be two physical pages when you are creating a 301 redirect as you are essentially creating a rule which is separate to the physical pages which says page version 2 is at version 1 permanently. Have a look at this guide - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection
I would redirect your visas/index.asp to visas/ as visas/ is also the address of a directory and so you don't want all directory pages redirecting to /index.asp as a directory will contain multiple pages..
Well a 301 redirect is a permanent redirect so it passes on 90-99% of link juice gained by the page your are redirecting. Therefore it would be better to 301 redirect an old page domain with a healthy link profile as you will pick up benefit from the multiple links gained as opposed to one link from a site of reasonable authority if you were to build a site around that page. The ranking impact from the redirect will be far greater as you are essentially gaining multiple links in one hit once the search engines catch up and recognize the redirects, thus having the greatest impact on ranking in relation to the two methods you mention above. Hope this makes sense...
Just a quick question Diane have you created and submitted a Google News Sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools?
http://support.google.com/news/publisher/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75717&topic=2527688&ctx=topic
You are targeting a term which looks quite competitive in the SERPs, so it is not going to be easy to rank well and will take some time.
Having a quick glance at your page it it clear that it is over-optimised as Sandip points out.
Running a quick on-page report with SEOMoz for the term gastric band hypnotherapyand your page it is clear you are **keyword stuffing with 51****occurrences **of the term on your page. You need to look at making our page more natural as over-optimization is something that has been under scrutiny of late with Google.
I would also look at your link profile for this page - running your page through opensiteexplorer.org it is clear that you have over done the use of anchor text with 7 linking root domain and 271 links containing the specific keyword anchor text - gastric band hypnotherapy.
Essentially you need to look at re-doing your on-page optimization to make it more natural. You also need to look at diversifying your link profile in terms of anchor textas it is clear too targeted at the moment.
I hope this helps Diane.
I think this will help with your question - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-wont-google-use-my-meta-description
Hi - I would definitely not place a no follow on the drop down menu. I have a similar issue when a site I work on was redesigned and this caused an increase in the on-page links, however the sites search engine rankings and traffic actually increased after the re-design which incorporated this. The site was doing well before the redesign as well.
For further peace of mind have a look at this previous Q&A -
http://www.seomoz.org/q/should-i-nofollow-the-links-in-the-drop-down-nav-menu
It all depends on how long it takes Google to re-crawl those pages with the no index tag on them.
I would do this along with the steps you have already taken in order to help speed the process up if you are in a hurry
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663419
No problem George - I thought it would as I know a few people have had this concern, as you can see from the link.
Hi
I wouldn't worry about this being an issue as the SEOMoz crawl doesn't currently take into account rel=canonical tags and will still report duplicate content and titles. This is something they are looking at adding - here is some more information from the SEOMoz staff for peace of mind -
http://www.seomoz.org/q/canonical-tag-and-duplicate-content-report
Fairytale of New York - The Pogues for me - though Mariah Carey - All I want for Christmas is You! has a certain charm about it haha
Well if it is easy enough for them to change the URL to your new one then I would go down this route, as it will pass 100% of the link juice. However I would still put 301 redirects in place as it will make sure any visits to your old pages will get to the new ones and any links that you can't change will still be able to pass the majority of the link juice that you have already gained.
Hi Zora
Yes I would 301 redirect your old URLs to their new corresponding ones (passing around 90-99% of the link juice from your old domain) and then set change of address in Google Webmaster Tools under configuration for your old domain. You need to be patient as it will take time for Google and other search engines to catch up with this change.
For more information have a look at this blog post which is very useful in your situation - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/achieving-an-seo-friendly-domain-migration-the-infographic
I saw the duplicate and posted in the original as I thought the other might end up being got rid of, but maybe I should have posted in both as you have Chris. Anyway I hope both our answers are of use to Pedro..
I personally would stay away from such directories that require a reciprocal link.
I definitely wouldn't have a page for links, as you want to keep your link profile as natural as possible, whereas a page for links looks spammy and it will be easy for Google to indentify low quality reciprocal links to directories.
I would have a look at what Google says regarding such links schemes -
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356
Hi Adam
Yes you are correct as your query string is changing and so is the page you are directing to.
Hi Adam,
Try this:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^everything-after-the-question-mark$ RewriteRule ^shop-online$ http://www.new.com/new-page? [L,R=301]
so above would be
Options +FollowSymlinks RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=69164&category_id=303$ RewriteRule ^shop-online$ http://www.new.com/new-page? [L,R=301]
Have a look at this Alex - http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress
You will then need to create 301 redirects from your old domain to your new one - linking your old pages to the their new locations to pass 90-99% of link juice you have gained previously and helping build your new sites authority.
Thanks Robert - it is a tool that I have found very handy in the past!
Hi Brett - have a look at this - http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/css-sprites/
Meta descriptions don't affect your rankings in search engines - they just help entice people to click on your results in the search engines - have a look here for further peace of mind - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/meta-description
So you can change them at anytime and it won't affect your rankings.
No problem Cyto - there is a lot to consider with this project.
I agree Chris, that is why I would only place a followed link on the homepage of the blog acknowledging the association. If you were to link on the other pages then I would tend to no follow them as you don't want hundreds of links from one of your sites to the other - I have done this successfully previously and this is clear that you are not trying to manipulate rankings. That is why having a blog that is integrated on your own site has the greater potential in terms of gaining links as mentioned, but there are the other factors to take into consideration too..
Obviously as you say making it part of your existing site would be ideal helping to further strengthen your sites authority with the links that you pick up. However setting your blog up as a standalone site could still work well and help drive traffic to your site. You may even find that you can encourage more guest posters if your site is standalone helping to build interaction and setting your self up as an authority/influencer in the niche. Linking between the two shouldn't be a problem as I have done the same with previous sites in the past with success as it was a natural think to link between the two.
So the long and short is that you could make this tactic work for you, you just have to weigh up whether the extra spend adding it to your site would be worth the potential links and added authority your site is likely to gain or not? Obviously as a separate site that links to your existing one you are only getting one linking root domain, whereas there is the potential to pick up numerous to your existing site if the blog is part of it and if you do the blog well and market it...
Also think whether it would work better to be standalone or part of your site from your current audiences perspective? Are more people likely to read and comment if it was seen and branded as a separate entity or part of your existing setup?
Hi Savio,
I think that you will find this whiteboard Friday very interesting in relation to comment marketing - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/comment-marketing-as-an-inbound-tactic-whiteboard-friday
In terms of links carrying any weight, I think it is important to think about quality and building trust in a community before posting links. I would also be very careful with anchor text. What you have to remember is that since Google's Penguin update link profiles have been under more scrutiny than ever so having some blog comments from appropriate blogs in your niche will carry weight. If a link is no followed then it won't pass link juice and so help add to your authority but what you have to look at is what other value it passes in terms of referral traffic, recognition etc.
People have tended to stay away from using blog comments as a form of link building because this leads to spammy practises of just posting for links sake. If you have a lot of anchor text from random blogs then it will stick out like a saw thumb when Google looks at your link profile and you are likely to get hit. However if you use comments properly and it is appropriate to link to your site occasionally then you are more likely to add value to your site in the eyes of the search engines...
As you say you are leaving good comments and adding value so this is a natural practice, but purely looking at it as a good form of link building then I think you need to rethink things. As Rand says; using comments correctly will help you build authority and gain recognition in these communities which will help with exposure to your site and work. From this you will pick up links naturally.
_"_You are not, not trying to build links. No, not directly anyway. Eventually, over time, one of the goals is hopefully to get some links, maybe to get a blogger to mention you, point over to your stuff, not to build profiles, which, essentially, is just a form of link spam or of reputation management where you're building all these profiles across different sites, and not to comment without adding value." A quote from Rand's WBF from the link above.
I personally wouldn't worry about this as that feature makes your site more user friendly even though it will be considered as having to many links on-page. From experience of having two many links reported on a page when changing a design of an e-commerce store I have found that the site actually preformed better in the search engine results pages.
I believe that making your site more user friendly is the key and there are lots of top e-commerce sites that have a similar feature which will take them over the recommended limit for links on a page, but they still do very well in the search engine rankings...
Here is a Q&A from earlier in the week that might help - as it is in relation to too many links on a page within an e-commerce store http://www.seomoz.org/q/should-i-nofollow-the-links-in-the-drop-down-nav-menu
I would create 3 separate pages providing one of those 3 terms isn't your main key term and already targeted on your homepage. Then I would look at creating an internal navigation structure that pointed at these pages using the keyword anchor text as their label as long as it appears to be natural. I would place the keywords as the url - www.domain.com/keyworda.html (or whatever extension your site has). I would then look at gaining links to these pages, but I would be careful with the anchor text that links back to my pages especially since the Penguin update when link profiles are under more scrutiny than ever and it is important to look as natural as possible.
Going back to your pages I would look at optimizing your critical on-page elements such as title and h1 header so that it contains your keyword but do not stuff these elements and try to make them as natural a possible.
When linking building I would do more research on here as there are so many different ways that you can create good natural content and get it in front of an audience so that links will be gained. It is hard to give you suggestions without knowing what your site is about - is it car accessories or was that just an example? Think of things such as building a good social following on networks such as twitter and try to pick out influencers/authorities in your niche and then build a relationship with them so that you can create content and put it in front of them so they will spread it to their following and so on.
Could you create a blog in relation to your niche and encourage people to guest post? Could you boost your content by encouraging reviews/testimonials? Have you thought about creating how-to videos or guides if appropriate? Are there any communities around your products and have you thought about getting involved?
Remember when linking building:
great content + exposure = links
Exposure is key and this is where building things such as a social following and a decent email list will work wonders..
Hope these suggestions help - I have had success with the same formula myself..
Hi Sara,
I am assuming that you haven't used the noarchive tag in your new pages source code?
How old are these pages?
Is there any chance of an example so I can see exactly what you mean?
Please keep in mind the fact that if it is new content it will be indexed on Google before it is cached, so if you are getting a 404 not found error when you click on the cached version this is because the cache hasn't caught up on your new content but should within a few weeks.