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Hey Moz Community, My questions sounds pretty simple but unfortunately, it isn't. I have a domain name (we'll use example.com for this) http://example.com which 301 re-directs to http://www.example.com. http://example.com has bad links pointing to it and http://www.example.com does not. So essentially, I want to stop negative influences from http://example.com being passed on to http://www.example.com. A 302 re-direct sounds like it would work in theory but is this the best way to go about this? Just so you know, we have completed a reconsideration request a long time ago but I think the bad links are still negatively affecting the website as it does not rank for it's own name which is bizarre. Actual Question: How do I re-direct http://example.com to http://www.example.com without passing on the negative SEO attached to http://example.com? Thanks in advance!

OK so this is a really, really basic question.  However, I'm seeing some meta written differently to normal and I'm wondering if a) this is correct and b) whether there is any benefit. Normally it's like this: However, I am seeing it written like this is some places: So, the content= and name= are swapped around.  I assume the people that did this were thinking that bringing the content forward would mean that Google reads keywords first. Just wondering if anybody knows whether this is good practice or not?  Just spiked my interest so apologies for the basic nature of the question!

Hi all, We're seeing a very strange result in Google Webmaster tools.  In "Links to your site", there is a site which we had nothing to do with (i.e. we didn't design or build it) showing over 1600 links to our site! I've checked the site several times now, and the only reference to us is in the rel="author" tag.  Clearly the agency that did their design / SEO have nicked our meta, forgetting to delete or change the author tag!! There are literally no other references to us on this site, there hasn't every been (to our knowledge, at least) and so I'm very puzzled as to why Google thinks there are 1600+ links pointing to us. The only thing I can think of is that Google will recognise name="author" content as a link... seems strange, though.  Plus the content="" only contains our company name, not our URL. Can anybody shed any light on this for me? Thanks guys!

We had a message in webmaster tools to say our site had 'unnatural links' pointing towards it. I investigated and found a number of sites where we had uploaded articles, containing links, had been de-indexed.  As such we have suffered a few drops in rankings. I have submitted a reconsideration request and I'd like to get on with recovering any lost ground.  However, I am wondering whether it's best to cease any link building activity whilst the reconsideration request is processed. Please do let me know your thoughts and experiences on continuing to build links after submitting a reconsideration request.

If you Google 'Rightmove', you'll see they have a site search bar in the Google search results - please see image link. Anybody have any idea how they have managed to achieve this? jRz8l

Hi SEOmoz community, A UK based client will soon be opening an office in the USA.  We have advised them to create a new website specifically aimed at the US market, primarily because the way you talk to your potential customers is slightly different than here in the UK. However, this has also raised the question of hosting.  Of course we'll be advising them to host their new US site in the States, however does it matter where?  For example, if their office is in NYC,  would it matter if their hosting was based in Dallas?  I.e. does Google rank sites hosted in a US city / state higher for localised searches? Interested to hear your thoughts - thanks for your time! Mark

This seems pretty odd to me.  HTML 5 is not validating lots of the typical META content - including, amongst others, the META title.  This is typically seen as a standard 'must-have' for many SEOs, including the check-list on SEOmoz. Has anybody else had this issue?  And of course, did you find a solution? Thanks, Mark

When changing domains, there's the obvious anxiety about sacrificing the value of your old domain. A client recently changed domains, immediately killed the old site (did everything properly with 301s, Webmaster Tools etc etc etc) and lost rankings completely for weeks.  Turns out the site had been 'burnt' by the previous owner and it took a reconsideration request from Google before things recovered.  Cost them rankings and cash with extra PPC spend. My question is: In order to avoid this potential hazard, what are your thoughts on submitting a change of address in Webmaster tools, but then leaving old site live for a few weeks to see how things pan out? I have never tried it and it seems to go against the grain, but interested to hear other people's experiences and how they have managed to change domain with minimal temporary damage. Thanks.

Have an issue with a large number of 'Not Found' webpages being listed in Webmaster Tools.  In the 'Detected' column, the dates are recent (May 1st - 15th).  However, looking clicking into the 'Linked From' column, all of the link sources are old, many from 2009-10. Furthermore, I have checked a large number of the source pages to double check that the links don't still exist, and they don't as I expected. Firstly, I am concerned that Google thinks there is a vast number of broken links on this site when in fact there is not. Secondly, why if the errors do not actually exist (and never actually have) do they remain listed in Webmaster Tools, which claims they were found again this month?! Thirdly, what's the best and quickest way of getting rid of these errors?  Google advises that using the 'URL Removal Tool' will only remove the pages from the Google index, NOT from the crawl errors.  The info is that if they keep getting 404 returns, it will automatically get removed.  Well I don't know how many times they need to get that 404 in order to get rid of a URL and link that haven't existed for 18-24 months?!! Thanks.

A client owns around 10 different domains, each a slightly different version of their company name.  The main site is itself a new domain, therefore they'd like to know what the implications of redirecting the 10 other domains to the main one would be. Any thoughts?  I have never done this before, so interested to know whether a) there's any benefit and b) if there is a penalty for implementing too many domain 301s. Thanks.

This may sound like a stupid question, however it's important that I get this 100% straight. A new client has nearly 6k duplicate page titles / descriptions.  To cut a long story short, this is mostly the same page (or rather a set of pages), however every time Google visits these pages they get a different URL.  Hence the astronomical number of duplicate page titles and descriptions. Now the easiest way to fix this looks like canonical linking.  However, I want to be absolutely 100% sure that Google will then recognise that there is no duplicate content on the site.  Ideally I'd like to 301 but the developers say this isn't possible, so I'm really hoping the canonical will do the job. Thanks.

Something I have not come across before, but hope others here are able offer advice based on experience: A client has independently created a series of mini-sites, aimed at targeting specific locations.  The tactic has worked very well and they have achieved a large amount of well targeted traffic as a result. Each mini-site is different but then in the nav, if you want to view prices or go to the booking page, that then links to what at first appears to be their main site. However, you then notice that the URL is actually situated on the mini-site.  What they have done is 'framed' the main site so that it appears exactly the same even when navigating through this exact replica site. Checking the code, there is almost nothing there - in fact there is actually no content at all.  Below the head, there is a piece of code: <frameset rows="*" framespacing=0 frameborder=0> <frame src="[http://www.example.com](view-source:http://www.yellowskips.com/)" frameborder=0 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0> <noframes>Your browser does not support frames. Click [here](http://www.example.com) to view.noframes> frameset> Given that main site content does not appear to show in the source code, do we have an issue with duplicate content?  This issue is that these 'referrals' are showing in Analytics, despite the fact that the code does not appear in the source, which is slightly confusing for me. They have done this without consultation and I'm very concerned that this could potentially be creating duplicate content of their ENTIRE main site on dozens of mini-sites. I should also add that there are no links to the mini-sites from the main site, so if you guys advise that this is creating duplicate content, I would not be worried about creating a link-wheel if I advise them to link directly to the main site rather than the framed pages. Thanks!

Reading around the web, there are many sources that suggest all images should have an Alt tag attributed to them.  This is good for accessibility etc, however there appears to be conflicting interests between this and what works for SEO.  Hence many other sources suggest that you include a keyphrase or two in 1 image Alt tag, and then leave the rest blank so as not to dilute the alts on the page. In my experience, the latter appears to be true.  However this seems wrong when the Alt attribute really should be used for accessibility reasons and not for SEO - why would the search engines encourage us to provide poorer quality information by harming our rankings if we try to make a website accessible? Interested to hear your opinions and experiences on this subject. Thanks.

A client has a load of duplicate page titles on their site.  However, to cut a long story short, most of these pages are pointless and therefore we don't need ranking for them. As such, I'm not concerned whether any of the pages with duplicate content on them are ranked or not..... unless having duplicate page titles / content on these pages could mean that other pages on the site, like the homepage, don't rank as high because of this. Do I need to worry about duplicate titles on these pages, or can I ignore duplicate content on pages that I don't want to be ranked? Hope that makes sense!