Hi Shawn,

It is most likely going to be one of two things:

1. The On-Page optimisation for the Category pages is not direct enough to rank for all product pages and therefore you would need to re-focus the on page optimization and messaging to the products you are directly aiming to rank for.
2. You have built backlinks or internal links to the product pages so they hold more authority (you can check the PR and PA/DA of your pages vs. category pages for an idea)

Possible solutions are:

1. Re-optimise the category pages to be relevant for the products you want to rank
2. Build more powerful backlinks and authority to the category pages
3. Make category pages canonical page for product pages (probably not the ideal solution but just a thought).

I guess the real question is why wouldn't you want clients seeing the exact product they are trying to search for? If they are searching XL Blue Widgets and you would prefer they go to the Widgets page, then it doesn't make too much sense?

Hope this offers some insight.

Hi John,

You might have numerous pages displaying 404 errors if they are broken links. 301 redirect them all to the right page, then run the report again and see if it is displaying and information on meta descriptions missing.

Not especially for link authority as they will be "nofollow" attributed links. I would recommend doing it from a social link traffic perspective as any specific SEO benefit would be negligible, traffic is traffic though

Hi Ron,

Not a silly question at all mate!

It appears there aren't any "nofollow" attribute links on members profile pages, I had a look at this one as an example: http://www.instructables.com/member/JonnyBGood/. I'm not sure if that is for all member profiles though.

I only had a little chance to look at articles and couldn't see any links so can't comment on if they are "nofollow" or not. I would recommend downloading a "nofollow" toolbar extension on either Chrome or Firefox, that way when ever you view any site all nofollow links have a red dotted-line show up around them so you can instantly see the dofollow and nofollow links. It is helpful not just from a link building perspective, but also to see how authority can be directed around pages.

Hope this helps!

I would agree with Tim that your site is going to do a whole world of better than the article sites. I'd recommend if you are looking at the article sites for backlinking or traffic then you adjust your gaze to guest blogging for other great sites in your niche. This will give you far better ROI for time, backlinking juice and potential for natural traffic.

Hi Ron,

I have a pdf explaining, I will PM you, which should answer all those questions:

• Your link isn't hyperlinked - hence not a link, just text
• The link I have shown is a "nofollow"
• Link to member profile page is dofollow

Hope this helps out mate!

Another add on to Egol's post is the split of SEO resources. If you don't have the time to build the necessary online properties to rank both it may be an argument for focusing your efforts on one stronger site then splitting resources and having two "also-rans".