Ideally yes you do, but you will need to do this anyway as you have placed your geo-targeted content on sub-domiains which tend to be treated by search engines as separate websites so the root domain doesn't pass the same authority as if you had chosen to use subfolders.

Have a look at this interesting White Board Friday on International SEO - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday

Have a look at this from Google it will answer all your questions - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html

As long as Google can clearly identify the fact that the duplicate content is for different users in different countries you shouldn't have an issue. Make sure you register and set geo-targeting for each sub-domain in Google Webmaster Tools and you will be fine.

I tend to agree with Vanessa's answer (Hi Vanessa welcome to the community),

but out of interest how many links does Google Webmaster Tools say your site has and what pages are these links pointing at? I would have a look and also compare this to what opensitexplorer.org says about your sites link profile.

You might also find this article interesting in relation to this -

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-iframe-link-14558.html

I have seen much debate around this topic but it would interesting to see if your site holds a clue as to whether or not any link juice has been passed - does Google recognise any links in webmaster tools that come from pages that only contain your widget and no other link to your site?

First thing I would look at when considering the changes your are is how well is the current website doing in the SERPs - does it get much search engine traffic? Is the domain name itself important to the business?

I would look at keeping the domain and look at either addressing the current duplicate content issue with canonicalization or changing your CMS and pointing the old urls to new corresponding ones using 301 redirects. I have done this successfully in the past when changing the URL structure of a site and I didn't have a negative impact on search traffic, in fact quite the opposite. That way you are passing on most of the value gained by any links to the old URLS and then you can concentrate on the new CMS and all of its benefits including implementing a new user friendly structure, without having to worry about the old structure and following it..

Josh is right - when you export as CSV there should be a column in the spreadsheet -

|

duplicate_page_content

This column contains all the URLS that are considered duplicates

|

I completely agree with Marisa - I have an e-commerce site that recently went through a re-design and it now has drop down navigation for the sub-categories which makes the site more user friendly, but it also increased the links on the page significantly and SEOMoz issued this warning. However rankings are better than ever and this was a logical step in good user interface design, making it as easy as possible to get to the information the visitor is looking for in the fewest clicks.

Redirect the URLs to one version, for a start it will make your site more crawler friendly for search engines so they don't waste time crawling each version of the page fully and also as you mention it will eliminate duplicate content.

Why make Google do extra work? - your site architecture needs to be as clear as possible, so that Google can crawl it efficiently and not have to deal with duplicates..

This link says it all - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html

Here is a recent Q&A from some of the others in the community backing up the fact that you should redirect one version of the URL to eliminate duplicate content

- http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-content-issue-with-trailing

Hi Mark,

Have you considered using Google Experiments in Google Analytics to test the pages? You can test variations of pages and their effectiveness by simply entering the different URLs - https://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1745147&topic=1745207

(Experiments is under the Content Menu in Google Analytics)

If you want to go down the custom variable route here is a great how to that should explain it all simply for you (I used it myself) -

http://www.sitepoint.com/google-analytics-custom-variables/

What are you going to be measuring, in terms of performance, in order to be able to judge which page type has been more successful?

The reason I ask is because I am trying to understand how you will define one page type performing better than another.

Try the following

BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)([^/])$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1$2/ [L,R=301]

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

END WordPress

If that doesn't work strip it right back save your original htaccess and try just this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)([^/])$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1$2/ [L,R=301]

If that doesn't work your mod_rewrite module might not be working check server config..

Hi

Try adding this to your .htaccess

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteRule ^(.*)([^/])$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1$2/ [L,R=301]

Click on the number of duplicate pages displayed against each page that has duplicate content (under the other urls column) - this shows the urls so if it says www.domain.com has 3 other urls click on the number 3 in that column of the report and it will display them.

Campaign > Crawl Diagnostics > Errors > Duplicate Page Content > Other URLs Column - click the number

It won't have any impact defining the format of a class in terms of SEO as he is still defining the actual headers in the code. I have defined h1 and h2 headers as the same class before and had no issue with decent rankings for that content...

Hi Diane,

It loads quickly when I just checked it. Slow load times could be due to lots of things - have you had a look what Google Analytics says about your page load times out of interest?

Content > Site Speed > Overview

Have a look what the average reported is after setting it to the time period your new server has been live. How does this differ from your old servers average?

From experience of implementing this on several sites, the times can vary quite a lot depending how long it takes Google to re-crawl and index your site, so unfortunately there is no hard and fast rule to how long it should take before you see the benefit from it...

I have definitely seen it take longer than a month to fully change over.

Ann take a look here at Matt Cutts (Google) video discussing 301 redirects - he mentions that it can take anywhere from weeks to a few months for a 301 redirect to be fully recognised by Google, providing it has been setup correctly.

http://youtu.be/QyQs3tz7ZKo

It could be the fact that you haven't put the exact term in with accent on the **é ** as it is on your site? I just did it and your page got an A with this term  **privé chauffeur huren **and your site - **http://www.oceandrivers.nl/ - **though your screenshot shows your keyword without the accent...

Hi Alex - yes that is an exact match domain. Have a look at this great article about the subject for some pointers - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-exact-match-domain-playbook-a-guide-and-best-practices-for-emds

HI Mathijs - I had this once before and then went in and manually clicked on the Grade My On-page Optimization button and it fixed it. Have you tried this?

This previous Q&A response from Jennifer Sable Lopez of SEOMoz should help answer your question -

http://www.seomoz.org/q/what-is-the-time-range-of-social-media-metrics-of-open-site-explorer

Hi Mohamed,

Vahe gives a great answer to your question and you shouldn't just rely on the SEOMoz tool for your keyword monitoring, although I think the tool is great at giving an overview and I use it constantly.

You might want to consider using filters and advanced segments in Google Analytics, as it will identify keywords that are sending traffic to your site and what position they are, making it easy to do what you want. I did this after Bryan Casson produced this excellent, easy to follow post on here -

 http://www.seomoz.org/blog/show-keyword-position-using-filters-and-advanced-segments

I hope this helps and adds to Vahe already good answer

You have a duplicate content issue that is because of your pages being available on the www. version and none www. version of the page - to correct this I would look at placing a 301 redirect from the none www. to the www. version and this will fix the issue.

Here is some information on 301 redirects -

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

I would also make the selection on Google Webmaster Tools as SEO5 says

Hi Houses - I wasn't sure so tried to be none-gender specific - guys being used in the informal meaning persons of either sex - welcome to the community

Thanks Thomas - much appreciated - I have noticed quite a few people that I have answered questions for recently not giving any credit in terms of good answer or thumbs up, but marking the question as answered and I have been the only one contributing. In some cases the person has even wrote a thank you message, so you know they appreciate the help but they have forgot to give a thumbs up.

I don't blame these guys as I don't think they realise - as Houses didn't. Some times I have considered making a comment as such, but then I have felt that this isn't the right thing to do, as it looks like you are pressuring people for moz points.

Just for anyone that is only just coming to the community or getting involved -

"moz points (gained through thumbs up and marking an answer as good) are both an incentive and reward for contributors to get involved and help others, keeping this great community going and adding to its value".

Thanks guys,

Matt

Yes as they are permanent redirects and you could have links pointing at the old urls which aren't passing on any link juice through the 302 redirect.

Hi Stacey

What plugins do you have running - any caching plugins such the W3 Total Cache plugin?

Are you able to access your servers error logs to see if you can see anything there?

Ah I see - I personally think having it as a footer link will not help in the way it would as part of your main navigation which for a start would put it above the fold so search engines would give it more weight and also the fact that it will carry across your sites navigation..

Did you see the addition I made to the response above re your homepage?

Looking at opensiteexplorer.org your page only has a page authority of 13 and inbound links to your page look few and far between - have you thought about trying to build on this to help with your page ranking?

Have you thought about giving a direct link to varicose veins using this anchor text from your homepage http://www.collegeofphlebology.com because from what I can see getting to the page you are trying to rank for a competitive term it would appear that is several levels down the navigation structure of your site - unless I have missed it at a quick glance?

I would also say that your homepage appears to have a title that is targeting varicose veins and treatments but you don't appear to mention varicose veins in your body text and it isn't a specific link in your navigation which would help...

In short you can't as that content requires paid access to be able to read it so anyone who isn't a subscriber that comes to it won't be able to view the content - Googlebot is essentially a none paying visitor so it can't crawl and index information that is blocked by pay wall.

You could allow a certain portion of each page to be visible to anyone visiting the site (maybe the first some many lines), this will get it indexed and has been carried out by other companies successfully. Call it a teaser to draw visitors in and increase subscribers if you want more search traffic...

I would ask your client if it is possible to get a 301 redirect placed on their old site to your new one, before you consider trying to get it deindexed - although you really need access to it for this as well.  A redirect will pass on link juice from the old site and will be of benefit to your new one.

Is it not possible for your client to contact their previous supplier and sort this?

I think we might be at cross purposes here, or maybe I wasn't clear enough in my response Marcus, sorry. I do agree with the fact that you can gain value and no penalties from forum links when they are used in a natural manner - for instance contributing/adding value to a thread.

I also have no evidence and wasn't suggesting that any exists in regard to contributing within a high quality forum discussion could lead to a negative impact on traffic. I note your inclusion of "high quality", which again would point to the fact that your activities were natural and adding value to the discussion, thus creating decent content, something that would never be penalised in the eyes of the search engines! Here's to a better web.

I was more referring to the original question that was posed, and it would appear that the poster is trying to gain links from multiple forums via comments posted - "Ive been try to get my links to my site in forums". They then go on to ask for techniques that can get links into forum,  both of which to me suggested that they are commenting for the sake of links - which I am sure we would both agree is a low quality, dubious practice.

What I think we need is more information on Hardleys strategy here and what the intent behind it is...

You are looking at it from a seasoned professional that is using this tactic in a sensible and safe manner, which will have a  positive effect in terms of referral traffic.

I was looking at it from the point of view that this could be a quick and "easy" way to increase links to your website.

One last thing is that I don't think anyone was suggesting that you should be scared of contributing to a discussion in a meaningful way - a link would again be natural in this case.

In this sort of situation the question would then be best put to the forum on which you are posting and not on here...

Hi Marcus -

I agree that there is no doubt that you can gain some decent referral traffic from a link placed in an appropriate thread on a forum - especially if you are a regular contributor.

However I think it still needs to be considered that dropping links to your site on multiple forums is likely to get noticed by Google and this could impact on your search traffic. Swings and roundabouts from this view point, but I still think you need to look at it and consider it from this angle, especially in the current climate (post-penguin).

Everything is OK in moderation, but as a link building strategy?

One link every so often would be fine, but if you were to gain numerous in a short space of time you are likely to get flagged...

Hi Kate,

I personally would aim to make your titles more natural in the way of an appropriate title that includes your keyword phrase and then brand. I wouldn't go for two keyword phrases as I think it makes your page look overly optimised, which Google is now looking at.

<keyword phrase="">|<brand></brand></keyword>

In regards to diluting the search results I would say it depends if you are actually targeting the same keyword phrase on another page (repeatedly mentioning it and including it in your  key on-page elements) or you are just mentioning it as it is appropriate to that page as well. Optimising several pages for the same keyword can essentially lead to keyword cannibalisation which will impact your overall rankings for the term you are targeting.

Have a look at this article - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization

It is old but still applicable - this issue has been around in the SEO world for a long time.

I would look at other methods of link building other than trying to get links via comments on forum as this is a dangerous tactic especially post Penguin when link profiles are under more scrutiny than ever - there is also little to no value in this method and essentially if you are commenting just to get links it is a form of spam.

I would start by signing up to Bing webmaster central in there under Crawl Control you can set what rate and time of day your site is crawled, bearing in mind that if it is left on standard it will take a long time to crawl and index your site - if you have a large e-commerce site this will definitely cause an issue - I would look at turning this up "full volume" as it shouldn't have any negative effects. Though keep an eye on the impact this has on the load of your server - most reasonable setups will handle this fine. Another very good indicator of any issues your site might have with being indexed by Bing, in the Bing Webmaster Central, is the fetch as Bingbot tool which will allow you to drop a URL in from your site and it will show you what comes back from Bings point of view. If there was something that was hindering it such as a robots.txt it would inform you.

Join Bing Webmaster Central now and see what information it provides you with your site if you haven't already done this.

Also be aware of the Queries per second limit allowed on your server as this has been known to hinder/stop Bing indexing a site when they haven't been able to access the content sufficiently when preforming a crawl especially on larger sites which are constantly being refreshed and updated.

Glad it helped and the explanation below is nicely done.

My mistake Rod, but all's well that ends well, as it would appear sorted reading the response below

Not provided comes by way of Google protecting the privacy of those that have logged in and done a search which has resulted in the keyword bringing them to your site. It is hard to tell what that term is unfortunately and there is no definite way round it, however you might find this post interesting - be sure to read the comments as well - http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/how-to-analyze-google-analytics-not-provided-data

Hope this helps - sorry I couldn't be more specific for you...

Did you mean something like this one - http://seogadget.com/content-strategy-generator-tool-v2-update/

I don't think it would be wise hiding any content in the header as you are essentially cloaking, so I would either have all your H1 visible or I wouldn't include the part that you are trying to hide from visitors. The likes of Google won't look very kindly on this in my opinion as it is not much better than putting some keywords in a white text on a white background, which the search engines cottoned on to years ago....

just a quick check you have got wordpress visible to search engines set in the admin area? if not it will be set to disallow googlebot to crawl it.

it is in admin €€€- options - privacy and select appropriate box - default is no index, no follow.

have you made sure your robots.txt is loading in your browser by adding robots.txt after your domain same as a normal page and can you see contents? has your site been down in this period? have you changed the contents of the file just before this issue? are you sure googlebot hasnt come back since that date - whats your analytics say? do an index site: search for your domain to see if it is in google.

I think the issue you are having is because you are redirecting a dynamic URL and this is what is causing the problem. There was Q&A on here regarding this ages ago I will try and find it and let you have the link - unless we have an expert that wants to step in..

Try adding a rewrite condition before a rewrite rule:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} route=product/product&product_id=51 

try this below 

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.newdomain.com/newpage.html
```

If you are still after this I saw a note regarding Jessica's template - "Email presentations@seoinhouse.com to request the Excel template" - here http://www.sparkplugdigital.com/blog/mozcon-2012-liveblog/.

Hi - yeah place all your specific redirects first and then add you blanket redirect at the end.

Sorry my confusion - when you said "301 those 10 pages to 120 similar pages on the new site". Then your idea is correct it will be best to redirect your old page to a specific new one - I have done this successfully many times myself.

You can does this with your .htaccess - easiest way for you would be to use this:

http://www.webconfs.com/htaccess-redirect-generator.php

When using the tool you only need to initiate the rewrite engine once then just copy the last line for each url redirect:

include this only once:

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteEngine on

To me it doesn't make sense to redirect a page using a permanent redirect that tells the search engines the old page has moved to multiple new pages - the new page should only exist in one location from a duplicate content and link juice point of view. I think that would be an improper use of a 301 redirect. You could group pages and point the old page to the first page of each group.

Also note as far as I am aware this is not possible as a 301 redirect will send you to a single location not multiple when you type the old address, so you could point 10 pages at 120 other than creating 10 index pages which group those 120 and pointing one of the 10 original at each of them...

Have you used the keyword difficulty tool to help you see what the first page competition is for your chosen terms - it also highlights the PA, DA and links that the sites in the results for that term have..

http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty

"Go into google webmaster tools and click add a site. Then go to the home dashboard (the main screen) > click manage site and then click verify site > click on the alternate methods in the verification tab and there is the html file option"

This was my orignial repsonse but only works if not verified sorry > if verified click manage site > add or remove users > manage site owners > verify using a different method.

Your html file will be in your root folder of your domain do you have ftp access?