Hi there

Very true - but nofollow's do provide value and can potentially be great links.

I will add this though - thanks so much!

Hi there

Based on what you're saying here, I would remove this link and disavow it.

The best way to assess backlinks are to ask the following questions:

• Does this link help my website?

• Does it send quality traffic?

• Is this link relevant to my website?

• Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?

• Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?

• If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?

• Are the links from directory templates? (example)

• Inspect URLs with blatant spam words

• Free

• Porn

• XXX

• Submit

• Directory

• Paid

• Links

• URL

• Sex

• etc.

• Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs

• This can usually show link farms or spam

• Don't be quick to discount nofollow links - nofollow's do provide value, so as long as they pass your sniff test, don't remove them simply because of this tag

These links don't provide any value, and the higher the spam score the more reason you have to remove it. Although, you should get second opinions from tools like Majestic, Ahrefs, and Search Console as well.

Hope this helps - good luck!

Hi there

I definitely recommend using some A/B testing with trying different CTAs to call. Utilize those that work best for different pages.

I would also make sure that your mobile experience is great and that you utilize click to call on your site. No one likes filling out forms on mobile, they want to call if interested. Make sure they have that option.

Google also allows you to add phone numbers to your ads - make sure you look into that!

Look into call tracking options as well to see what channels are performing the best for calls.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

It's crawling for me. Here are a list of reasons why ScreamingFrog won't crawl your site:

• The site is blocked by robots.txt. A count of pages blocked by robots.txt is shown in the crawl overview pane on top right hand site of the user interface. You can configure the SEO Spider to ignore robots.txt by going to the “Basic” tab under Configuration->Spider.
• The site behaves differently depending on User Agent. Try changing the User Agent under Configuration->User Agent.
• The site requires JavaScript. Try looking at the site in your browser with JavaScript disabled.
• The site requires Cookies. Can you view the site with cookies disabled in your browser? Licenced users can enable cookies by going to Configuration->Spider and ticking “Allow Cookies” in the “Advanced” tab.
• The ‘nofollow’ attribute is present on links not being crawled. There is an option in Configuration->Spider under the “Basic” tab to follow ‘nofollow’ links.
• The page has a page level ‘nofollow’ attribute. The could be set by either a meta robots tag or an X-Robots-Tag in the HTTP header. These can be seen in the “Directives” tab in the “Nofollow” filter.
• The website is using framesets. The SEO Spider does not crawl the frame src attribute.
• The Content-Type header did not indicate the page is html. This is shown in the Content column and should be either text/html or application/xhtml+xml.

Run through your settings and check and see if you may have turned something on inadvertently that you didn't mean to. One thing you can try, is goto Configuration > Spider and then goto the last option Ignore robots.txt. Click the checkbox and try running it again.

It could just be a slow connection on your end. Give it a few minutes and see if any of the above suggestions work.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

One of the best pieces I have seen on this are from Rand's The Massive Ranking Factor Too Many SEOs are Ignoring Whiteboard Friday. It dives into a few indirect tactics and also helps walk your mind through how you can showcase your efforts.

The best advice I ever got was to experiment with ideas or hypothesis on what you think may move the needle - whether on your site or starting a new one just for the sake of experimenting. The beauty about SEO and digital marketing right now is that no one has it "nailed down". There are so many opportunities that there is no right way of doing anything yet.

I will say that you should always mind your annotations in Google Analytics - that way when you make a change you can see what changes had the most impact over time.

You asked...

"They speak of 'indirect but measurable', but does this signal continues to increase or will it remain as it is. I am anxious whether user engagement as ranking factor is further decisive or not?"

No one knows yet, I can only imagine (again, assuming) that usability and user experience will increase as a ranking factor over time as so many KPIs and quality signals can run through those two items, and there are so many different angles you can look at it.

The best thing you can do right now is provide a stellar user experience, engage your audience, empower your team to be thought leaders, and embrace change as it happens in the digital marketing world.

Hope this helps a bit! Good luck!

Great information, Rand. Thanks!

Hi there

If you have physical locations in those areas that would be fantastic from the standpoint of being able to list address / contact information (marked up with Schema - you can also attach organizations to a brand) to your site on a locations page, utilize Moz Local (for US) and Whitespark (for Australia and NZ) listings, and also build out Google My Business profiles for each.

If you don't have physical locations in these areas, or you work with service providers in those areas, the best you can do is again build a locations, partners, or an "Areas We Serve" sort of page on each regional domain and list specifically what areas you work in with a link to the page of the service provider, or their contact information. That way you're telling users the areas you work in and have a way for them to reach out to those specific providers.

Google My Business also provides Service-area businesses map building which you can look into as well.

Don't get too heavy into optimization for local specific content or tagging - sometimes people do this and go way overboard and create spam issues.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

Have you considered running a backlink audit to see if you have any backlinks that need to be removed, disavowed, or updated?

Go through your backlinks and ask the following questions:

• Does this link help my website?
• Is this link relevant to my website?
• Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?
• Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?
• If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?

A lot of this relies on common sense, but just as you take in the good, you have to be ready to remove the bad. Your backlink profile requires regularly check ins, so be prepared to do this every so often (I try to do it 2 to 4 times a year).

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi again

If they don't have separate numbers (as you said they are part of a larger company) I would focus on building citations for the main parent company, and attach the "subsites" as part of the brand through Schema on their respective websites. You can still mark up the address/contact information, but make sure that you utilize "brand" in the schema markup to the parent company on the "subsites" so that crawlers can associate the smaller brands to the larger brand.

There's also subOrganization opportunities as well.

Let me know if this makes sense.

Hi there

No, it doesn't. Try the resources above, look into citations, and also Google My Business for each business. If they have different numbers that's helpful.

I would see if there is a way you can figure out a suite situation with your landlord if possible.

Keep in mind, through Schema you do have brand opportunities as well as connecting products to a brand. So you could markup on the product sites that connect them to the brand. Does that make sense?

Let me know if this helps at all - good luck!

Hi there

Have you done any link building in the past? Or have you had any SEO companies do work for you?

With the 2 sites that are linking to the other sites, are there footer links or site-wide links of any kind?

I would run through a backlink audit and look into removing any potentially spammy backlinks or disavowing.

If you feel your site has been hacked, you can look into this resource from Google about what you can do to remedy the situation.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Hi there

If you are keeping your URL structure the same, then you should not have to update your redirects file, so long as all of the destination pages are staying in place. If you are removing any current URLs and those have pages being redirected to them, you will have to update that in your redirects file.

I would do a backlink audit for the old URLs, however, and see if any are worth updating to their new URLs so the new URLs can get equity.

Hope this helps! Good luck!