Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Does anyone know of a good domain suggestion tool? I've tried some of them, but wasn't happy with the results.

I'd basically like to put in some key words, and get some suggetions.

Thanks.

I'm trying to do this, and I can't get it to work. When I upload the file to google docs I don't get a .pdf file..I get a odd string of numbers and I can view it, but when I embed it it doesn't load.

Like I said, the link doesn't look like the link on the google examples with the .pdf...I'm assuming you have to upload your file to google doc's first...then use the viewer to embed it right?

I think I'm missing something.

thanks!

What is the best way to embed them?

I have some posts where I'd like to include a downloadable pdf....what is the best way seo wise to do this?

I was thinking of just putting the file on my server and than just including a link to download it, but I'm thinking there's probably a better way.

Any thoughts?

Our website (noahsdad.com) has a very large and active Facebook group (http://facebook.com/noahsdadcom). Often there are more comments on the Facebook posting of a link, than on the blog post itself. I try to get people go and leave comments on the blog, but they don't get it. So I'd like to try to find a way to get Facebook comments to transfer to our site. I"m not sure the best way to do this....either via a plug in, or via these instructions https://developers.facebook.com/attachment/Comments_Best_Practices_FINAL.pdf/ I'd just like to get it going..and not mess up the comment's I have now. (Also not everyone has Facebook, so I'd like them to still be able to comment the 'old' way (name/email). Hoping someone can help point me in the right direction with this. Thanks.

I use site5.com and they 'unlimited' hosting also..but when you get a HUGE spike (I got around 80K views yesterday) they can't handle it on shared hosting they said because it effects all the other sites on the server...which I understand. They put the site up for now..but need to find an alternative asap so this doesn't happen again.

Here's the post ---> http://noahsdad.com/target-down-syndrome/

Hey guys,

Some of you may be aware of our story.  We have a website about or son who was born with Down syndrome.  Two days a go a post I wrote went sort of viral, and I woke up this morning to an email from my host saying they had to take my site down as an emergency because of the amount of resources it is using.

So now my site is down (noahsdad.com.) ...any ideas how to proceeded? I really need to get my site back online asap.

Thank you.

I know this is an older post, but can you tell me more about Zemanta...

Do you use it? What areas do you find it to be useful in?

A few of the sites that I 'compete' with have blogger accounts...and according to the research I've done they have over 500 million external, followed, links! These are mom blogs....and they aren't trying to do any SEO.

I've noticed that if you are using blogger (as opposed to wordpress) and adding embed youtube videos to your blog you can set it to auto populate to youtube and also get a link in return. From what I can gather this just happens with blogger accounts since bloggers...and youtube...and google are all related.  Does that have something to do with the crazy amount of followed external links they are getting?  They also have a domain authority of 96 (which is because blogger is a trusted domain....

Is the sub-domain a better number to look at since their blog is a sub domain on blogger?

Also, does anyone know who to get the same sort of exposure in youtube as blogger blogs get...or if it's even possible?

Thanks.

Thanks for the reply, but my site is a blog. I'm thought wordpress (or a plugin) was supposed to create the content in a way where those pages I mentioned wouldn't have duplicate content.

Plus these are entire categories that are showing duplicate....so basically I'm trying to figure out if the "duplicate content" that's showing is actually hurting me serp or not...and if I need to try to fix it.

Thanks!

I was looking in Google webmaster tools and it says I have 95 duplicate title tags for my site Noah's Dad.

When I look through the list it appears the pages with duplicate title tags are some of my category pages, archive pages, and some author pages...

Not sure if you guys can use some of the tools to see what is actually showing up duplicate or  not, and if you need more info just let me know.

But I wanted to see if this is something I should be concerned with? Should WMT also say 0 in duplicate content?

It seems like when I started my blog I was told no to be conceded with this sort of stuff in gwmt. Anyways...I just wanted to see what you guys think. (By the way, is there any way to tell what this duplicate content is having (or has had) on my SERP results?

Thanks.

No disrespect, but how does your answer answer these questions:

1.  Why is an image ranking google search results as if it is a normal page?

2.  How did the image become it's on page? I''m not sure how this happened since that image was used in a page. Somehow the image itself has become it's on page and is getting ranked in google.

3.  When a user find that page (which is ranking on the first page of google) they will be confused since it's an image and there is no blog info on there.  I wonder if I should redirect that page to another instead. I don't want a lot of people going to that page and then quickly leaving, which will hurt my ranking.

4.  There are other questions I asked, that you didn't provide details either. You said I should focus on "writing quality content" and "improve my keyword research." Ha,ha...I already know this. That doesn't have anything to do with my question.

Ha,ha...I'm not sure you are really understanding what I am asking.

Of course I know that the more content the page has the better...but did you read my entire first post?

Thanks for taking the time to reply, but you didn't really answer the questions that I asked.

"lots of affiliate links"

This is what I meant....

http://noahsdad.com/gift-ideas-down-syndrome/

Nothing bad there....I had just read it's better to 'mask" those links (maybe with a url shortener) so google does penalize you for having them....

Thanks for the reply, I understand all of the general ideas you mentioned.

I was looking for more detailed feedback on how to use the current rankings I have.  Why those images are showing up as pages (is if they were a blog post) and what I should do moving forward with those pages. (Should I turn that image page into a blog post with more text, change the title tags, etc...otherwise when a user ends up there, they would leave because the way it is now it just looks like a random picture on  a page...if that makes sense.

I need some feedback on how to take advantage of some interesting rankings I'm receiving.  If you want to know more about my site, or what we are trying to, take a look at my first post on SeoMoz when I posted all about our site, and our story of what it is like raising a child born with Down syndrome.

Ok, my SEOMoz tools are showing that I'm raking number 3, 4, 13, and 14 for the keywords "cute down syndrome pictures." That is great, but the problem is it's ranking for pages that make no sense. For instance the number 3 spot is this ---> http://noahsdad.com/more-sitting/down-syndrome-boy-sitting-up-sofa/  but that is just a picture (do individual images show up in search results? I'm a little confused if the tool is showing me rankings in google images, or if that pic is actually showing up in the google search results.

If so, is that right? Should my images be ranking as pages?

Now my question is how should I move forward. This "page" (again, it's not really a page, it's just an image that has it's own page) is in no way the best page for people to get who are searching for that term. (or maybe it is...?!?)

I'm thinking it'd be better for that page to be a full post, talking about some of my pictures and having them show up.

Anyways, I'm just getting started on getting this site cleaned up, and really being proactive about the making sure the right things are ranking and people searching are getting the info they need.

So basically I just wanted to get some overall feedback on how to move forward, and how to take advantage of my rankings for these words. (I have some other random words doing the same thing, so the advice you leave here I'll assume can apply to the other pages where this is happening.)

Thanks for all the great info everyone!

Quick question, does anyone know how to tell Facebook what picture to show when someone shares your site?

Thanks!

I tweet a lot from several twitter accounts, and have a lot of traffic from my tweet pictures. However, I'd like to capture that traffic on my blog. I've tried a few plug in's that allowed me to use my blog has a host for the images I tweet out, but I've yet to find one that works very well.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas / suggestions on how I could send the traffic from all of the pictures I tweet out to my blog?

Also, I don't want this to clog up the home page. At one time I used a plug in that allowed me to do something like this, and I created a separate category (http://noahsdad.com/twitter) and excluded that category from my home page. There were a few issues though, the formatting didn't work well for people viewing the pictures on twitter. And the plug in conflicted with other plug ins I was running. I haven't tried it in a while, so maybe it works better now.

I hoping someone out there was some suggestions.

thanks!

What is the best practice to use amazon affliate links in blog posts? I have read different opinions on this, and want to be sure I'm using best practices.

I sometimes link to amazon with an affiliate link on some of my posts, and am working on a top ten Christmas gift ideas for Children born with Down syndrome with lots of affiliate links on it.

I'm want to be sure I'm using best practices when adding links like this.

Tanks!

Thanks!

So when I remove the redirect how can I check to make sure the new page gets the canonical? There will only be one page if I remove the redirect, right? So since it is just one page, wouldn't that page be the canonical?

Thanks. Like I said above I think my theme adds the canonical tag, because in the seo tools I can see many of links showing 'canonical.'

I'm not sure. I believe the wordpress theme I have does this...

Thanks for the info, it helps a lot.

I was under the impression that it was always best to use the / at the end of the domain when linking, etc. Is this not the case?

When I go to my wordpress settings I see that under general settings my wordpress address and site address both have http://noahsdad.com (no slash) - just wanted to add that bit of info just in case it made any difference.

Also, when you do a redirect I was under the impression that the link juice from the redirected page would be passed on to the page it is redirected to. Is this not the case?

I made a change last night regarding a redirect to http://noahsdad.com/down-syndrome and http://noahsdad.com/down-syndrome-1 (both with and without the slash) I'm not sure if it was something with a slug I changed or something, but I had about 4 different redirects going to one page. I deleted some of those redirects but left the /down-syndrome-1 there...I have no idea how a url was generated with the -1 at the end, but it did.  So i left it there (I may need to do something with that.)

At one point in my SEO journey I had noticed some duplicate issues going on in Google webmaster tools (I could have been reading it wrong.)

It looked like WMT was saying I had 2 versions of some of pages...it looked like pages that ended in a '/' ranking differently than pages that have no slash at the end.

So I downloaded the redirect plugin and redirected many non / pages to the page that end with the "/".  This was probably a mistake. but I'm trying to clean all of that up. (I'm also noticing that SEOMoz tools tells me my site has many, many redirected url's. I'm not sure why.

I was looking at http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/pages?site=noahsdad.com%2F this morning at my top pages and it shows 2 versions (one being redirected) of the page about my son who was born with Down syndrome. (Noahsdad.com/story and Noahsdad.com/story/) I don't know if I've built rankings for those pages separately and it would now hurt me if I did away with the redirect. I'm not sure why I did the redirects (I must have read something online somewhere.)

I'm wondering if someone wouldn't mind looking at the report and letting me know what the best way to 'clean' this stuff up...Should I go into the redirect software and delete all of the redirects where the non / page is being redirected to the / page?

Thanks.

Hey thanks so much!

And you are very correct...they are VERY kind and giving!

By the way are all the forums public? I wasn't sure how that worked.  You mentioned it's 'now public.'  Did something happen to make it public?

Hey thanks so much for taking the time to take a look at my site. I really appreciate it. Thank you also for the kind words, it's very motivating (and encouraging!)

I'm aware of my issue with the anchor text with my back links....but I can't really figure out any good ways to create links with the anchor text I really need.  When people link to me they usually say things like "Here's a great site about Down syndrome - Noahsdad.com" or something to that effect.

I leave comments on many blogs about down syndrome and i"ll often add a link and anchor text for some of those keywords..but I can only write so many comments..and I'm not even sure how useful it is since so many more people are linking to my site with  the site name.

Another issue is that the items people search for,  and the respectful way to say and write things are different. For instance many people search for "Down's syndrome" (some research will show lots of searches for this and not a lot of competition in this area..so my first thought was to try to use this to my "advantage" to capture some of those searches since I think our site would help them..) But...anyone that knowns anything about Down syndrome knows that the correct way to say and spell it is "Down syndrome" there is no 's. I could tell you the reasons for that if you would like..but just trust me One of the first thing a new parent of a child born with Down syndrome (and most news websites, blogs, etc) knows is that it's not "downs", "downs syndrome" or "down's syndrome") it's "Down syndrome."  But..people who are searching for this info and perhaps haven't had their child yet, but prenatal testing shows that their child may be born with Down syndrome don't..so they search for the incorrect terms...a lot!

So I can't really title anything or use anchor text with that because it's not " correct" and will make me look like I don't know what I'm talking about...if that makes sense.

Also people search for "down syndrome facts" and "downs syndrome facts" a lot. I rank around 37 for "down syndrome facts" right now..which is pretty good for me a guy like me... But...it's hard for me to add anchor text with that phrase because the correct way to say it is, "facts about people with Down syndrome" --but once again people don't know that...so they don't search for it.

So that is a bit of what I'm running into. Not to mention I feel like I've read so much over the last 6 months and have heard many different opinions I sort of gotten overwhelmed. There is so much info, and it seems like everyone tells you something different that conflicts with everyone else. So you can start to feel like you'll never 'get it" and you get unmotivated.

However, I could share a 100 or more email messages we have gotten from people who have found our website and it would bring you tears...those emails tell me I've got to keep going..and learning..and trying. So I do.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me, and for your kind words, they mean more to me than you know.  I"m humble and open to any advice / feedback  / suggestions, and I'd appreciate any feedback on the road bumps I mentioned above.

Humbly,

Rick Smith

(Noahs Dad)

Thanks for your help, I've been doing many of the items you have suggested, and am aware of where I am for several of my key words. I struggle with how to use a lot of the data included in google analytics and webmaster tools. I see how the data, but not sure how to use it to my advantage.

Regarding subcategories, from the information I have seen online seemed to suggest its better not to use subcategories so I have stayed away from doing so. Do you think it hurts SEO? As someone else mentioned, no one really knows what "Noah's Minute" is, and although it helped brand my site (which I like) it seems like the 'branding" doesn't really help if no one knows what it means, if that  makes sense. (That's just what I'm thinking, I could be wrong.)

We have already created what I think is some really creative and helpful content like our new parent guide (http://noahsdad.com/new-parent-guide/) and our what is down syndrome post (including a crazy awesome picture of what my son's dan (And other's with Down syndrome) DNA looks like (http://noahsdad.com/down-syndrome/)

I can list tons of other posts on there that I've gotten great feedback on. With my wife being a pediatrician we are able to write medically accurate information that has some authority to it which is another area that really makes us unique.

Wow!

I can't believe you are reading this, and taking the time to reply.  Thank you.

I very much would be ok with you writing a blog or doing anything that you would like in regards to the site.  There is more to my overall plan, and my long term idea, but I already rambled to long and didn't want to add to the rumbling.

I'd be honored to talk to you (email, phone, Skype, ichat, etc..) anytime about what we're doing, and why I think this is an area where my family and I can really help hurting people (90% of babies born with Down syndrome are aborted because they are often considered to be "a burden" on the family) In my case I was very surprised to learn it was not only not a burden, it was the best year of my life. It was nothing like I, or any of my friends who know us, thought. In fact the most common thing I hear from people in "real life" and through the number of messages we get (almost daily) about our site and videos is "Wow...I wouldn't even know your son had Down syndrome if you didn't tell me..he seems so 'normal."  This is the view that I want the world to help see...Again, I don't want to turn this into a religious post or anything, but I really want to use the web to put a dent in that crazy sad abortion statistic.

Another thing is every single website about "special needs" I've seen (with the exception of maybe 1) is either very very outdated, or written by weird-o's. There family doesn't look 'normal' in any sense..not because they have a child with special needs...becuase they are just weird!

Not to mention there is NEVER any quality to the design...not that my site is super designed or anything...but even the Nation Down Syndrome society webpage is lame. My hope is to really step up the quality and be a great resource for people.

Because people who are 'faced" with giving birth to a special needs child are often very desperate to find QUALITY information, they look at everything when they show up to the site. And post, pin, share, like, etc..:)  For instance, this was a popular post:

http://noahsdad.com/nordstrom/

And my wife (a medical doctor) is writing a great new parent guide that is getting some decent views:

http://noahsdad.com/new-parent-guide/

Sorry for more rambling, but I 'm very passionate about this. I'm not interested in seo to simply make money like a lot of folks...I'm interested in doing this to do good. For no other reason that I simply love my son, and know that other families would love people with Down syndrome also..if they just had a window into what life is like raising a child born with it. That's what I hope I can do for the world...give them a window by doing this online narrative. I'm a little behind right now (we just bought a home and moved) but I'll be catching up very soon and will have a one minute video for pretty much every day of his life......an online narrative....a story being told daily in one minute nuggets.

Again, I can't think you enough for showing interest!  (And I'm amazed at how kind everyone has been..typically when you ask questions online about a site dealing with a topic like mine, you get trolled by people making fun of your son, people with special needs, etc...) So thank you everyone for being so kind, and helpful.

By the way, my personal website it http://rickwsmith.com and my twitter is @RickSmith

I think you are misunderstanding me...you could do it in a why where it "looks" like it's part of the graphic..you knew what i mean?

For instance you could have a graphic with a hole in it, and that hole would be the place where the like button shows up on the side bar..you know what I mean?

No, not a pop-up. I want to have a graphic (like in the side bar) that I make in photshop where my son is holding  a sign perhaps that and on the sign is the Facebook like button..if that makes sense. Bascially I want to embed the like button into a graphic...

My site is http://noahsdad.com/

Thanks!

what if I want to put it up in the header somewhere....like make it part of the header with a call out type of box...

I don't have any experience with that....is it possible?

I have a Facebook like button on each of my individual posts and a box on my home page where people can 'like' my Facebook fan page..but is there any way to have a Facebook 'like' button on my home page so people can actually like the home page?

I have a domain called DownSyndromeBlogs.com

There is nothing there now, but what I want to do is create a directory type site where I list lots of different blogs about Down syndrome (my son was born with Down syndrome, so it's a passion of mine.)

Is there a good way to use that domain other than just a simple directory? Is it worth it to do some sort of "all top" like site? Maybe listing the RSS of each blog and pulling in a spinet of info? Or have people rank and view them?

My purpose for buying the domain was two fold: 1. To give people searching for blogs about Down syndrome a good list of where to find them, and 2. To help direct people back to our site about Down syndrome, NoahsDad.com

Another thing I was thinking about was somehow asking people to submit their site to DownsyndromeBlogs.com and perhaps ask for their email address or other contact info (since the people wanting to put their blog on the list would be the same people I would want to know about my main blog - NoahsDad.com)

Or maybe there is another thing I'm missing all together..like making that some sort of 'social network' or buddy press for people wanting to blog about Down syndrome..but there are already many other sties out there like that.

One thing I was curious about is SEO...if it's not a blog, and i"m not constantly putting up new and fresh content, will anyone ever be able to find the site via google search? (If that makes sense.) If I just do a directory page the page will be some what static and only updated when I add a new url.

I'm open to any feedback / suggestions/ advice.

Thanks.

Hey guys, I want to give you a bit of background to help you understand what I'm trying to do, and the motivation why. I understand that there are a variety of opinions and beliefs regarding what I'm trying to do online, and I hope this post doesn't turn into a list of everyone's views, or a place for someone to say mean / disrespectful things regarding what I'm doing.  I feel like this group is a professional one, so I don't think any of what I've mentioned above will be a problem.

Last year we were surprised to learn (in the delivery room) that our first child was born with Down syndrome.  Not having any interaction with anyone with Down syndrome I had no idea what my new life was going to be like and set out to find some information online (videos, blogs, etc.)  I was surprised to learn that there isn't much quality content out there.  Much of the information is outdated, cheesy, lame, etc...In fact many of the videos that I found by searching online about Down syndrome were by people making fun of those born with Down syndrome (comedians, etc.)  Very few of them gave me any sort of idea what the future over our family was going to be like.

A few months went by, I met many many parents and others who personally knew someone with Down syndrome whose lives have been greatly enriched by their interaction.  In addition to that I realized that our life was much more normal than I could have ever imagined.  In addition I released that there have been tremendous medical advances in the last two decades and today children born with Down syndrome can attend regular classes, attend college, get married, have jobs, and live productive life's.

They no longer ride "short buses", forced to stay in special needs classes, or destined to live a life in some sort of institution.  I was surprised that our son (at 3 weeks old) was going to physical / occupational / speech therapy at such a young age.  The idea today is that children born with Down syndrome work hard at a young age to stay ahead of the curve. I couldn't believe the things they had him doing at such a young age. (At just a few months old they had him on a treadmill so he could get a head start on learning to walk! ----> http://noahsdad.com/treadmill/)

All of that to say, I decided I wanted to be an online resource to help give people an idea of what life is really like raising a child born with Down syndrome. I do a daily one minute video where I'm creating an online narrative by telling his story every day. 
I have a growing Facebook page (http://facebook.com/noahsdadcom) and twitter account (http://noahsdad.com/) and our blog readership is growing everyday.  
I own a lot of good domains, and am trying to figure out the best way to use them to create awareness.  I've been trying to read about SEO as much as I can. I've only been going on NoahsDad.com since May and my page rank is 4. (I'm not sure if that really means anything, but just wanted to share it.)

All of the SEO info can be a bit overwhelming and I'm not sure  I'm doing things the best way. I was wondering if someone would mind taking a look at my site and I'll be happy to give any info you need (info from google webmaster tools / antlytics, etc…).
I think I'm doing all the 'basics."  But I'm not sure what I need to be doing to really step it up. I think the tag line / title page for the home page could be changed up, and perhaps doing some different things on my home page.

When I first started my idea was to have a few different categories, Noah's Minute (which is where I was going to put my daily video), resources (posts counting helpful info), Noah's Mom, MD (medical posts by my wife who is a doctor), twitter/iPhone photos (I used one of these catigories and excluded it from my home page to post random pictures form twitter)..

Not that I'm 6 months into it, I've relaized that it didn't work out the way I thought at first..every post is a Noah's Minute post pretty much (and lots of twitter pictures)…and the Noah's minute posts could be broken down into sub - categories. Or…I could not have a "noah's minute" category and change my catagories to "resources" "therapy" "toys" "how-to's" etc…and break up what I used to call "Noah's Minute" into those categories..if that makes sense.

The reason I didn't do that before is that I wanted someone to be able to watch every video in the order they were created to see the whole story..since I'm doing one minute every day, someone could come and watch his story unfold from birth until present day..but I guess you wouldn't really need a category for that…you could just go to the last page of the blog.

The key words I'm trying to rank well for (and I know some of these wont't be possible) are:

Down syndrome

Down syndrome videos

Down syndrome facts

Down syndrome information

Down syndrome Blogs (I actually own the domain downsyndromeblogs.com as well..I wanted to make a list type website where i list out a lot of the good blogs on down syndrome)

Down syndrome families

Down syndrome pictures

Down syndrome toys (I own this domain also…thinking of doing an amazon affliate page or something..)

Down syndrome physical therapy

Down syndrome occupitonal thearpy

Down snydrome speech thearpy

Also there are some mis-spelling of these terms that I would like to try to rank for as well..and I'm not sure how to do that in a post without my post looking like I made an error.

I know that is a lot of info, but I wanted to lay everything out there. I'll be happy to post any more details that anyone needs to help me out.
Thanks again and I'm looking forward to the feedback.

Rick

NoahsDad.com

UPDATE: I thought I would include a picture for you guys to see what your dealing with...!  Warning: His cuteness is contiguous!

down-syndrome-cute-boy-halloween1.jpg