Hi there

Redirecting a site depends on a few things:

• Is this competing brand now gone and over with?
• Is the old site relevant to the site you wish to redirect it to?
• Does it compete for the same queries you have?
• Does the new site have a place for old content to redirect to?

If yes to all of the above, redirect it, but make sure that you follow the steps in Moz's Website Migration Guide. It will help make sure that you move the website properly and take advantage of optimization opportunities, such as URL mapping. I would also look into the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console. Also, read through Google's resources on site moves.

I would perform both a content audit and backlink audit as well on the old site - what content can be updated, removed, or consolidated from the old site? What backlinks currently pointed to the competitor's website should be updated to yours, and which links could be removed & disavowed because they are spammy or irrelevant? Remember, if you inherit a website and redirect it, you don't want to inherit their spammy or toxic links, you just want the good ones!

If you redirect the site and migrate it properly, the old site will fall from the SERPs, but your site should capture the vast majority of that traffic and rankings. Especially if your on-site SEO and content is as good, or better, than the old site's.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

I would noindex your category pages and also canonicalize all tags or category post variation URLs to the proper post URL. From there, I would run through this resource from Moz on WP optimization.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi Joshua

Google actually offers a Website Optimizer service. You can read more about that here.

You can also look into services such as Visual Website Optimizer, Optimizely, and also Hotjar. All offer great tools and features that can get you up and running fast. Also, they all offer good resources and ideas to help you think of different tests to try.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

According to Google...

Avoid errors**:** use absolute paths rather than relative paths with the rel="canonical" link element. However, they then say (under "Prefer HTTPS over HTTP for canonical URLs)...

Google prefers HTTPS pages over equivalent HTTP pages as canonical, except when there are conflicting signals such as the following:

• The HTTPS page has an invalid SSL certificate.
• The HTTPS page contains insecure dependencies.
• The HTTPS page is roboted (and the HTTP page is not).
• The HTTPS page redirects users to or through an HTTP page.
• The HTTPS page has a rel="canonical" link to the HTTP page.
• The HTTPS page contains a noindex robots meta tag

Although our systems prefer HTTPS pages over HTTP pages by default, you can ensure this behavior by taking any of the following actions:

• Add 301 or 302 redirects from the HTTP page to the HTTPS page.
• Add a rel="canonical" link from the HTTP page to the HTTPS page.
• Implement HSTS.

To prevent Google from incorrectly making the HTTP page canonical, you should avoid the following practices:

• Bad SSL certificates and HTTPS-to-HTTP redirects cause us to prefer HTTP very strongly. Implementing HSTS cannot override this strong preference.
• Including the HTTP page in your sitemap or hreflang entries rather than the HTTPS version.
• Implementing your SSL/TLS certificafe for the wrong host-variant: for example, example.com serving the certificate for www.example.com.  The certificate must match your complete site URL, or be a wildcard certificate that can be used for multiple subdomains on a domain.

Since I don't know how your SSL is configured, I can't tell you one way or another, but if you have a https version of your pages, then head that direction. Having a relative protocol won't seem to work here for what you're asking.

Read the above and let me know if that helps! Good luck!

Hi there

Ideally, create one page that serves both search engines and users, because you want users to find your page via search engines and you want search engines to be able to crawl your content. It's thought that Google is getting better at crawling Javascript, but you need to make sure that you text or content is readable in a text-based browser or is visible to Google with Javascript off. Here's a resource for you.

That being said, focus on having one page for the content you're trying to create, so you can put more SEO efforts into building the equity in that page. You can also build other pages around variations of that topic that link back to that page, and link to these new pages from the one main topic page as well. This will help build your site from both a topic standpoint and passing linking equity throughout your site.

Let me know if this makes sense or helps. Best of luck!
Patrick

Hi there

Look into hreflang attributes - if you have the same site with multiple languages, this is a best practice.

You can also look into setting up Webmaster Tool accounts for different sites (if they have different country codes or subdirectories) and geotarget those for the country they are supposed to appear to.

Does this help? Let me know - good luck!

Hi there

Are you sure you are using all of the tools above properly? Not saying you're not but people make mistakes and it's just something to look into.

When did you implement all of the changes? Was it recently or was it a long time ago?

How is your organic traffic and rankings? Did you check if you have a manual action at all?

Let me know - thanks!

Hi there

Testimonials are great - they help build trust in your brand and work from a user standpoint, and can also help bring in search traffic by mentioning specific development, design, or industry elements in their critique.

You can also use these testimonials to develop case study or white paper content to showcase more benefits of using your business or your competition.

Hope this helps - good luck!

Hi Joost

Did you happen to take a look at SEO Guide to Google Webmaster Recommendations for Pagination? There are some great tips in there that can help you implement this.

Also, View-all in search results & 5 common mistakes with rel=canonical from Google also has some tips.

Hope these help a bit! Let me know if you have any questions or comments! Good luck!