Welcome to the Q&A Forum
Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.
Ideally one version of the site should redirect to the other version using a 301 to transfer any link juice from one version of the domain to the other. In an issue where both versions have links pointing to them, the best solution is to see which version has the highest domain authority and the most links and use that as your preferred domain.
Looking at OSE for that domain, both sites have links pointing to them. So a preferred version should be chosen, and as Dana suggested, a 301 put in place. Since G+ 1s were also considered a ranking factor in Moz's latest update, I would take that into account as well, but interestingly enough it looks like +1s are appropriately applied regardless of the www version.
You don't have a large amount of links or authority built up yet, so ultimately it will not make a huge difference which one you choose, but it is important to stick with one and ensure the other is 301'd appropriately. The non-www has more links, but the www has more links from different domains - so if you did make a choice I would choose the www to get the authority from more linking domains.
The www has slightly higher page authority as well.
www version:
Page Authortity: 35
Linking domains: 12
Total Links 22
G+ 1s: 36
Non WWW Version
Page Authority: 27
Domain Authority: 25
Linking Domains 4
Total Links 164
Google +1s: 36
In response to your WMT question, preferred domain settings are now in the top right hand corner as an option under the gear icon under "site settings"
There are some theories that pages with affiliate links suffer in rankings, but I haven't seen anything conclusive. It happens that many of those sites are also poor quality.
Depending on the press releases and directories you chose, those could be your issue. Sometime in July Google stated they are going to crack down on links earned from press releases:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
"Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites."
Many directories are seen as spam by search engines because it isn't naturally obtained. In that same page linked above, it states "Low-quality directory or bookmark site links".
An article about links from press releases from searchengineland:
It is hard to say for certain without seeing the site, the press releases, or the directory links but that might provide some insight. It also could depend on how recent your launch was, rankings can be volatile for new sites.
I see this with client sites a lot - Default VB is an SEO disaster, and the options they have don't really provide the webmaster with the tools to correct it. I have recommended a plugin in to clients in the past, http://www.vbseo.com/, which appears to have good reviews and is easy to use - though I don't have any experience with it myself. I'd suggest checking it out, as from my research I was unable to find other solutions for optimizing VBulletin forums.
Hi
When you first install Joomla, one of the things you should do in order to get more search engine friendly URLs is rename your HTaccess.txt to a .Htaccess file. If you have done this you should be able to locate it in the folder for Joomla's root domain (make sure you are displaying hidden files if using a cpanel like interface).
To redirect just add:
Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.html
Yes, keep this there permanently. A 301 is a permanent redirect.
With Joomla there are also a lot of plugins. SH404SEF is the highest rated one, but is not free. It will allow you to add redirects directly from the Joomla Admin panel, and also comes with a lot of SEO options.
I have a more detailed article about Joomla and SEO over at
http://searchnewscentral.com/20110118115/General-SEO/a-geeks-guide-to-seo-for-joomla-cms.html
A lot of SEO clients we have are real estate agencies. We always recommend that you diversify this information so as not to canibalize your own keywords. We generally suggest location (such as Edmonton) and then other top keywords for your area, usually stuff like
Edmonton Real Estate
Edmonton Homes for Sale
Edmonton Property Listings
etc.
We also suggest that you really take advantage of specific location searches, so if you have a property listing page in a specific area, it is a good idea to include the zip code. This is where keyword data provided usually fails and you need an intimate knowledge of your area/industry because people often perform searches based on yard signs they have seen - and there will be no keyword data for this.
Just FYI
Jomsocial is not Joomla, it is an extension for Joomla. Having a template that works with Jomsocial will not change the appearance of your Joomla site.
I cannot speak for SEOMoz, but I personally think one of the reasons they don't tell you what a good range to have is because a lot of it comes down to your site structure as well as authority. Telling people how many they can have based on domain authority, and knowing nothing of site structure, may lead to bad practices.
Like Marcus says above:
"Now, only you can determine what a reasonable amount is for your site. If all pages have tons of authority, then great, but if not, you may want to rethink your navigation. "
I usually use two different ones:
Yootheme, because their themes are really nice. Over the years they have gotten a lot easier to figure out how to set up as well, which is great. However I really dislike their support, really unhelpful for the most part and often seem bothered and rude.
Rockettheme, I really like rockettheme because it has a BUNCH of features, but the one annoying thing with them is that their logos can be hard to add to the theme. I havent used their support.
I also recommend these because a lot of add-ons or extensions will often be coded to work properly with those two (as they are the most popular) while some themes may cause extensions or plugins to look really wonky.
I haven't used any of these services or tools, but I took a look at what you listed.
Removeem is more of a link management tool that lets you note who you've contacted and what the status is. That seems really useful if you don't want to keep track of all this another way, such as Excel.
I am personally a bit hesitant to use "link removal services" but that's just me.
I also haven't had a chance to watch this yet - bookmarked it for when I have time. It is a webinar from SEOGadget about link removal. SEOGadget really knows their stuff so I am sure you will find some valuable advice in here.
https://seogadget.co.uk/adventures-in-link-removal-slides-and-webinar-recording/
Just to make sure I am understanding:
You are trying to rank for the following 3 keywords:
Towels
Egyptian Cotton Towels
Personalized Towels
If that is the case, I recommend that you do not attempt to rank for the single word "Towels". This is too broad of a term and doesn't reflect buyer intent. You may want to look into keywords like "Bathroom Towels" or "Buy Cotton Towels" instead.
Since I recommend disregarding that keyword, you could take that single term out of your title tag to cut down on some of that keyword usage.
The 1 word in your URL category is fine
Meta description - don't worry about, that doesn't affect on page optimization at all. It is good to use for CTR though, so you may want to find ways to make it sound less repetitive and add a call to action.
There are a lot of references to the word "towels" in content though. You can definitely remove those or substitute other words, or just leave some areas as something like "Egyptian Cotton" because the user is likely to know you are referring to towels in that context.
For example, your top graphic with "Towels" could possibly be rewritten to say
We offer a variety of towels to meet your needs:
You can probably find other areas on the page to do this as well.
I think cutting back on these references would make your internal menu links fine. If you do change those as well, consider doing some user testing to make sure people can still find what they are looking for.
I think with that you would risk the chance of Google viewing those as paid links, so I would be careful. I think you should request that some of them be no-followed. Then work on attaining other types of backlinks with that strategy, through stuff like guest posting and writing quality articles on your own blog, doing some type of interesting study in your niche that may be posted to news outlets, etc.
I usually use two different ones:
Yootheme, because their themes are really nice. Over the years they have gotten a lot easier to figure out how to set up as well, which is great. However I really dislike their support, really unhelpful for the most part and often seem bothered and rude.
Rockettheme, I really like rockettheme because it has a BUNCH of features, but the one annoying thing with them is that their logos can be hard to add to the theme. I havent used their support.
I also recommend these because a lot of add-ons or extensions will often be coded to work properly with those two (as they are the most popular) while some themes may cause extensions or plugins to look really wonky.
Looking at OSE for that domain, both sites have links pointing to them. So a preferred version should be chosen, and as Dana suggested, a 301 put in place. Since G+ 1s were also considered a ranking factor in Moz's latest update, I would take that into account as well, but interestingly enough it looks like +1s are appropriately applied regardless of the www version.
You don't have a large amount of links or authority built up yet, so ultimately it will not make a huge difference which one you choose, but it is important to stick with one and ensure the other is 301'd appropriately. The non-www has more links, but the www has more links from different domains - so if you did make a choice I would choose the www to get the authority from more linking domains.
The www has slightly higher page authority as well.
www version:
Page Authortity: 35
Linking domains: 12
Total Links 22
G+ 1s: 36
Non WWW Version
Page Authority: 27
Domain Authority: 25
Linking Domains 4
Total Links 164
Google +1s: 36
In response to your WMT question, preferred domain settings are now in the top right hand corner as an option under the gear icon under "site settings"
Tags on blogs can lead to duplicate content, so can date archives if you have them. I generally suggest indexing categories but blocking tags and date archives from being followed, and setting options to show a limited amount of posts per category. Block these in robots.txt as well as putting "noindex" and "nofollow" on the pages.
I don't know what CMS you are using for your blog, but if it is Wordpress, Joost's plugin is an excellent plugin to use to help prevent dup content issues and help overall SEO efforts.
They are aware of the issue. Their twitter stream https://twitter.com/SEOmoz has a tweet from 8/31 about the issue:
"Uh oh. It looks like our Keyword Difficulty Tool is having some.... difficulty. We're working on it now. Stay tuned, friends."
So they are working on it! It is labor day weekend so it may take em a little extra time to get it up and going.
In the meantime, if you are in dire need of KW difficulty, you can get some basic insight the following ways:
Use Google Keyword Tool and look at the "Competition" level. While this area refers to competition within Adwords - this can also give you a basic idea of how competitive the keyword is overall. If it's a highly competitive Adwords term, chances are likely that SEOs are after it organically as well.
Do a quick check of the organic SERPs and check out the domains in the top placements or even on the entire first page. Are these really high authority domains, how well optimized are they, etc.
No, traffic itself has nothing to do with rankings. I am sure there is probably a correlation between traffic and rankings because more traffic = more exposure which can lead to more links - or to more user generated content on the site, if it has any.
Hi
When you first install Joomla, one of the things you should do in order to get more search engine friendly URLs is rename your HTaccess.txt to a .Htaccess file. If you have done this you should be able to locate it in the folder for Joomla's root domain (make sure you are displaying hidden files if using a cpanel like interface).
To redirect just add:
Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.html
Yes, keep this there permanently. A 301 is a permanent redirect.
With Joomla there are also a lot of plugins. SH404SEF is the highest rated one, but is not free. It will allow you to add redirects directly from the Joomla Admin panel, and also comes with a lot of SEO options.
I have a more detailed article about Joomla and SEO over at
http://searchnewscentral.com/20110118115/General-SEO/a-geeks-guide-to-seo-for-joomla-cms.html
It depends on what your branding strategy is, are you trying to develop more of a brand and reputation as Joe Smith, owner of Acme Widgets, or do you want Acme Widgets to be a well known resource for all things widget related?
I personally think doing both is a great idea - it takes more time but you get the benefits of both.
You will have a little bit of a harder time as a business rather than an individual though, people want to see human faces in their stream, not logos - you should still use a logo or mascot that represents the business though, otherwise this will be confusing.
People are generally leary about following businesses and dont want to be marketed to. Due to this uphill battle you will have to really focus on a great content strategy to connect with users, provide useful information and go out of your way to find and answer questions.
It also doesn't hurt to humanize your brand a bit. Use words like "We" a lot and not "our company" or "Acme Widgets" - make jokes and be transparent. You can also add a picture of the individual behind "@AcmeWidgets" to the twitter background to help give it that human element.
Also regardless of which account you are on, concentrate on connecting to users and sharing great content - don't spend the majority of your time talking about yourself, your company or your widgets. People will get turned off by the over-promotion.
Hi
I would say yes, I am of the belief that a sitemap is never a bad idea and submitting one (even later on) won't hurt anything. It also sounds like you have a rather large site, so this will help get those new pages added each month crawled. Even if all of your URLs are indexed, you can still use sitemaps to provide Google with information about other content such as videos and mobile versions of your site (if any). It should actually help the crawler rather than hinder it.
As far as generator sites, I don't have a particular one to recommend but doing a google search for "sitemap generator" pulls up a lot of results. You may want to test some of those and see what works best for your needs as many of them limit the number of pages crawled.
If you are using a CMS like Wordpress or Joomla there are sitemap plugins to help with this process.