Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Scott, I am not saying you are. My point is about PR Web, newswire, etc. What they do is spam the world with their news releases and yes, some get a bit of traction. At the same time, I can tell you of individual pages of content I have written, placed on a client site, and watched as it got picked up by Google as a news piece and made my client some money. (No, that does not happen even regularly.) My point is that there is a news release or PR release that is real and then there are these SALES companies whose only motivation is to SELL YOU on their PR product of sorts.

If what you have is newsworthy, put it out there yourself or use one of them and see what happens. If I put out a piece about a lawyer who has decided to take a certain case (say tainted baby food) is that really news? Bob X has decided his firm the X law firm is now taking tainted baby food cases (then a rehash of something that has been in the news for a year), that IMO is worthless. If it is truly newsworthy, if you are the only one it applies to, etc. give it a go with them and then tell us what happened.

Or, pick up the phone or email several PR professionals where you are and ask what they would charge to put it out to their "contacts." I am guessing if you get half lucky they will get a better response for you than one of the PR Spam companies. It is simply a choice for you of try it and see or try something else and see. Then you will have the experience for the next time.

Hope that clarifies

Best to you.

If I may put a few words in EGOL's response, it is like this: You can do the quick and dirty SEO or the higher end longer lasting SEO. You do get what you pay for so: For the quick and dirty you quickly get dirty - When you do the longer lasting SEO (good site, content, etc) you end up higher end in more ways than one.

Yes, that is original!

The last time I answered a question around this, a PR Web rep sent me a nasty email. In spite of that my opinion remains unchanged. I do not believe they are worth the costs. Yes, I still see their "press releases" ranking occasionally for certain legal terms and I don't keep up with how long that lasts, etc. Even though Google says they don't like them, the results seem to say otherwise. But, I have yet to see the "few hundred bucks" plan you mention here.

I was looking at it some time back and you had to give them thousands up front and they tell you when you can or cannot put out a release, etc.

You can get links with good content and diligence. So, all you PR reps give us a call

AC_Pro,

I don't have time to read the whole post, what are the fees for the Premiumbeat? I know on Powtoons, you can create animated videos and that they have about 60 tunes under one of the programs. Those are had for $59/mo. or you can save a ton with a yearly. We are trying it for a month for giggles and it is cool. (We do video production and post production and are interviewing for vector graphics/3D/animation).

Just curious about Premiumbeat experience when you try it. You are welcome to PM me.

Best, (and thanks for a cool question).

PuzzleZoo,

Your question: The question is should we keep both domains separately running or should we use only one. In this case should we stay with PuzzleZoo with only looks like a Puzzle store instead of a toy store. Or should we use ToyZoo and redirect the PuzzleZoo links to ToyZoo links?

First, the business consideration is does PuzzleZoo send you a lot of business, or revenue, etc.? Does it do so in a way that the customer being redirected to ToyZoo will be lost and then go somewhere else? (My guess is NO, but you need to answer that.) If the answer is no, you can redirect without losing business from the puzzle searches. I would not ever suggest the two site option based on what you have. You are correct IMO in redirecting the traffic to the ToyZoo domain if you believe it is more representative of what you sell. Toy is going to be searched more than Puzzle for example.

Redirect the traffic to the ToyZoo domain if you believe it is more representative of what you sell. Toy is going to be searched more than Puzzle for example. Next, with a redirect, if done correctly you will not likely lose much rank or juice. Did I say if done correctly? Good. First, you need to run something like Screaming Frog and get all your urls so you know where you are and then develop where you are going to with ToyZoo urls. Remember it is not domain to domain but url to url. Here is a link to a moz page on redirects. This will give you a How-To, pitfalls, etc.

I strongly suggest that you record the PA/links of all pages from Puzzle and then watch the progression to Toy. It is a good lesson in how links and redirects work. If done correctly, in my experience it is rare to lose more than about a percent of juice. Did I say if done correctly? Again this is what is important.

Lastly, in GWMT, put in a change of address since the domain name is changing. It will last for 6 months and by then all urls should have been indexed multiple times.

Let us know what you decide and how it goes. 
Best,

Robert

You are saying the business has been verified - we claimed their address - is that correct?

One thing we have no way of knowing i_s this a service area business or not?_ You cannot really set up a places account for a service area business at this time; that would negate the suggestion from AC Pro if it is a service area business. If it is not a service area business, given you would need both Local and G+ set up, AC Pro's suggestion is helpful.  So, a few more questions:

When when you search on the business - Joe's Tires and Dresses Houston TX - you do not see the map and info to the Right on the web serps page. (see attached).

Have you gone into mapmaker to edit the location of the business at all? If you do, are you seeing the business on the map? Go to mapmaker.Google.com (be logged in with your G+ or master account). In the search bar at top left put in the business name. Does your G+ info show up?

One issue is not knowing precisely what is occurring for you or being able to see the business, etc. If you can provide just a few more details that would help; if you can't I would be happy to take a look if you can PM it.

Let us know please,

Robert

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Vladimir,

Go into GWMT. Under dashboard go to Google Index. Then go to Index Status.

You will see your site's indexed pages over time.

Best,

Robert

I do not understand why you "shouldn't change urls." Yes, you can, you just have to do it correctly. Afterward, you need to insure the new is canonicalized, etc.
Honestly, I am going to say something and it has the potential to be controversial: Beware taking SEO advice from a webmaster. That is one of the reasons several years ago we went into web dev and design. I got tired of trying to show people how to improve their rankings and business only to be shot down by someone who knows little of SEO.

That is all, IMO.

Best

Daddy Smurf,

I like your question because I spent a lot of time asking the same one over the years. When I do a search in Google.co.uk, for wireless alarms, I get you with the "wrong" url at 36th (see I helped move you up! and when I search same for security systems, I get you at Number 1 and you have sitelinks showing, so good job in a tough vertical. (The search was done using incognito in chrome and screenshot attached).

Kevin makes a great point re the url (I think you really need wireless alarms in there since that is the query you want to rank for.) When I look at the page, I see opening content around types of wireless alarms without ever saying they are that. Yes it is in the H1, but I think that first paragraph needs it in the body content. Also, you are selling products and that presents the opportunity to utilize markup for products and or reviews on these which again would help you rank. I did a cursory check and say none on this page.

My experience tells me to use every possible advantage available except when there is a business reason not to. If you want to rank for wireless alarms in the way you are for security systems, get as aggressive as you were for that in the beginning and you will make it. You did not get where you are by being dumb, it is obvious you know what you are doing. My biggest enemy is complacency and I try to stay ever aware of that. I hope this helps you out.

Best,

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Bob,

If "Local" happened in a vacuum, you would be fine as we all would be. Unfortunately, it doesn't and Google is having issues daily in local. (Search disappearing G local pics, etc.). So, here is what I would suggest to you. First, you said NAP and you have no phone (and I am guessing you excluded on purpose). Here is how I checked yours:

First, I copied the address and placed it alone in Google to see what result showed up. When I look at G maps I see one listing in the middle of the road around construction. I see the location with multiple offices in the building. For Ste. H, I find a Yelp listing re weight loss. If this is the business, you need to go into Yelp and take care of the profile - pics, etc. as Yelp is important today in Local. If this is not the business you have run into your first problem. A suggestion would be to insure you have a different phone number and if they listed is as #H you list it as Ste. H.

So, that is the road as it starts . You must take a look at the whole of local and all the citation sites that may have this address given the building appears to have had vacancies and new businesses over time - that can cause you problems.

Hope it helps,

Robert

Demi,

You will not start from even close to zero if you do the 301's correctly. You need to do a couple of things: The redirects are url to url from old domain to new. Since you are changing the domain name, I recommend also putting in a change of address with GWMT. This will last for 180 days and will insure you have been indexed a few times prior to it going off.

From a lot of experience with 301's, if you do it correctly you should not lose more than a percent or so of link juice, especially given the current age of your site. I suggest running a link profile in something like ahrefs and then after you do the change, running regular ones for the new site so you can watch the progress. That way you will learn what happens with redirects first hand.

Hope this helps,

Robert

I always find these questions interesting. I think the best way to look at it is to remember that Penguin is algorithmic and not manual and that the algorithm is mathematical.

Assume there is an algorithmic penalty to a page with lets say 50 inbound links of varying value; what would that look like? IMO given that there is mathematics involved, you can surmise what happens this way:

Lets say that the bot detects some combination of link values that equal a change in the equation from positive to negative at some level: So a page that once had link juice to it equaling some X value times 100, or 100X. That page ranked well and you were happy.

Now, due to the change in the algorithm, there is an added equation that says for any page with these type links and a value greater than 50X multiply the value times negative one. (Note: I am being purposefully simplistic here) You now have these groups of links equaling -100X.

Now you are unhappy and you want to find a way to "fix" it. You are facing a rebuild to a new page or is there any chance I could just change the direction of these links by changing the direction of the devalued page? Well, here is the answer: You can do a 301 and it will have the same value it had if you left the page up and alone. If your new page that you 301 to has something that intrinsically makes it so much better that the math result on that page when added to the math result (-100X) from the other page makes it strong, then you will be fine. But, if you did not do the 301 and you simply built a new page, you would likely rank quicker by virtue of not working against yourself.

Now, for those who will say, "How do you know it is an inbound negative number," I will tell you I don't. But, either way, you are adding a damaged page's links or link value to a new page, what are the chances there is no deleterious effect to the new page? At this juncture, it is a gamble. Your call.

Excellent points by EGOL.

Amazon, and Walmart, are two edged swords that cut one way (you). I understand why businesses go that route, but it is very difficult to win. Sometimes someone does though:

A lady who is a friend of mine about 15 years ago took over the US arm of a German toy distributor and they created a very cool doll. Everyone with the German company and all on the US marketing team screamed they had to take it to Walmart. She politely refused to and said, let Walmart come to me. She then went all over hawking the doll and ended up on HSN. (I think that is the original big TV sales channel). About a year in everyone wanted these dolls and Walmart did not have them.

When Walmart called, she named the price - she did not have to kiss someone's... They were pleased to do the kissing.

One of my favorite stories of all time.

Serkie

Given these are product descriptions, but apply only to you selling them (even if it is through Amazon/G) I think there are a couple of ways you can go. One would be to add author markup if that is possible; I don't know how many products, etc. you are dealing with or what type of eCommerce or other platform you may be using.

Secondarily, within your actual text, you could state authorship and place a link back to you.(likely at very end of description.)

Last would be that if you register a copyright (no not a circle with a c in it as most do - the real thing) it can be fairly inexpensive. Depending how you package it to the copyright office we find it can run about a dollar a page. That would give you ownership should you ever have an issue with someone using your description without authorization (obviously you give it to Amazon and Google.)

A final note is this: when you started rewriting the descriptions my guess is you wrote, changed, rewrote, etc. In the event you ever had to defend yourself or prove you are the actual owner, in a court the documents showing how you arrived at the final are invaluable.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for, but I hope something here will help.

Best

Matt,

First thing, is you said this started on 7/12. Was there anything done with GA code placement then or prior (say within the previous month)?  And, do you have a bounce rate that is at or near zero?

Second, Can you give me any of the KW terms that are showing for you (don't need other data on that).

Next, can you take visitor flow for a week, and then juxtapose it against what you are showing re KW terms and urls to see if you have any "ahaa" moment.

From experience I can tell you that if you have GA code in more than once it will affect things but I do not recall ever seeing this type of occurrence. You are obviously in the right area on GA so you should see KWs with amounts to the right. (I am assuming your GA code is in the head tag).

Also, other than GA, are you running any other type of analytics program?

Now, if you take where you are and select secondary dimension, then select traffic sources and then landing page. 
Does this change your urls on the left to keywords and the next item to the right being the url?

I am going to send an email to a person who only does high end analysis and is G certified in GA. With all the redaction there is really no info, but I will ask him generally if he has seen that occur before. Let me know on the above as I do not know when he will respond this close to the weekend.

Let me know. Thanks

You sir, now have a plaque in the offices of drumBEAT. 
Best and Thanks!

Josh, 
I use GA a lot and have not experienced that. If you can either put an image (use something where you can show everything like awesome screenshot) here or if it is better, PM me, I will look at it to see what is happening. If I don't have an answer, I will shoot an email to an expert (whose only works is GA and other analytics) with the screen shot.

Thanks

Mike,

I am impressed, how did you get there on the new site? 
Thanks

Josh,

Under Traffic Sources - Search - Organic, You are saying your primary dimension is Keyword, and under that first column, there are urls as opposed to keywords? 
It is not under a secondary dimension, correct?

Just clarifying before going further.

Charles,

I would tell you that about two years ago I got an Epson EX71. While it is a little pricey, it is a gem of a projector and has every cable type except Thunderbolt (not sure on USB 3). 
I would also offer an opinion re the cost and another way to do things if you do not need to get large in your projection area (we have a conference area with screen that seats about 100 so that helps to be able to go large): For almost all other presentations we have gone to an LCD TV and bluetooth to our laptops (you could easily use a cable too). We use a 32 inch Westinghouse as it is very inexpensive, so if dropped or broken we are only out a few hundred dollars. It is not heavy and if you put into any kind of larger satchel with strap, anyone can carry it.
It is easier to set up and we can use it for booths, offices, etc. I like having both in the event we need them, but if I was doing smaller group presentations, I would go with tv and laptop because it is easier, no lamps running to cool, etc.

Hope it helps, good and different question too!

Robert

For your research, you can use the new Keyword Planner in Google Adwords and leave out the region to see how many searches for that term regionally. So, for nail salon Tucson, you can set the Targeting for USA, Tucson AZ or for that DMA OR SMSA, etc. (DMA is just a branded SMSA by Nielsen). I like to look at both with and without the region identifier just to have an idea as to how people are searching. This will teach you what will work if you use enough terms with it.

Now, when it comes to optimizing, there are multiple considerations and I am going to _generalize._First, if it is a situation where you can utilize the 7 pack or whatever pack, you first need to insure you are optimized locally. Then, if you have a url that you are wanting to be in that, you will want one in the organic search not associated with maps (so you need two different urls with different content but the same city identifier). For your title tag do not do Nail Salon Tucson | Tucson Nail Salon | Salon Tucson, etc. Use the city only once there. Then, be sure you do not overdo the city any more than you do the keyword. (KW stuffing).

Also, today only I am giving away two bonus tips and a set of ginzu knives to the first ... (Just kidding, no knives). For the page you want to show in the 7 pack I suggest having the Google map API in that page with address, etc. and I urge you to make sure you have good photos with exif data showing lat/long, etc. For the photos your alt text should have a location identifier and I would suggest an H-1 with a location identifier.

Hope that helps you out,

Robert

Edit, I forgot to add, if you are not using structured data, start.

Evgeny,

Instead of just writing it out for you, here is the easy way to get see the code set up in a situation like you have.

Schema.org/Place

The first example (scroll past the definitions) seems to fit your selling a product in a specific area. If you do not have a SF or a Chicago address, do not use that. For the region, you will still have either CA or IL. Make sure you limit it to those pages where you are focusing on those markets or you will affect others that you did not want to affect. So, if you are trying to sell all over US but have products that are specific to these areas, you need specific pages for these.

Hope that helps you out,

Robert

Thank You.

Thanks Nick, 
Back in June, Rand did a post on Generosity and Entitlement. These type of posts I find enjoyable on a couple of levels: they are not the same "How to link, etc." posts that we all see, and they are about the heart of business...The people in the business. They are about how do we develop conflict and how do we resolve conflict. They are about are we just in it to make money or can there actually be something greater?

So, Keep up the good work for all of you at Moz. Frankly, it's my third home.

Hello Nick,

In looking over what you have now it is a nice mix and obviously some great topics. One of the issues many seem to miss is the actual business of Inbound Marketing, Earned Marketing (thanks Rand), SEO, or marketing in general. Many of those who come to Moz are starting out as "freelance SEO's" and wanting to build a business around their profession or trying to establish a lifestyle business for themselves. Some already have agencies and are wanting to grow. And, others are working for someone and still can use some of the entrepreneurial knowledge.

Many seem to know a bit about SEO and, minimally, where to go for the data, but have little understanding of the business of marketing: Do's and Don't to customer acquisition, How to prospect, what are the best mechanisms to "get the word out" about your services? Or, How do I charge for this or that? What are the pitfalls I need to be aware of? What kind of contract should I have? Who do I hire first? How do I hire? How did Moz (or other companies) create the culture that they have? etc.

The last one is very important in my opinion. You guys say a lot about the story of Moz and TAGFEE and that is good. But some may not realize that it takes work to create a culture and it takes a set of beliefs at the top that are unshakable. IMO, if you are to truly build a great company, you have to go far beyond "Core Values" and "Mission Statements:" You have to go to living what you say you believe. Moz has proven many times that Transparency is important (think bandwidth arbitrage-that one blew me away and I still tell people about the way you guys just said, "This is what happened.") The same is true for the rest of TAGFEE. But, it did not happen because someone thought it was cool and then sprinkled unicorn dust everywhere. So, Culture Acquisition is something you can teach.

I know because over the last few years I borrowed a bit from you guys. I walk into an office that I love to be in with people I love to work with. It did not get this way overnight nor by accident. It was deliberate, others had buy in, and it has taken and is still taking time. But, that culture is what prospective clients see when they sit in our offices. That culture is what brings people asking if we are hiring. That culture is what has interns showing up, working, and looking forward to coming to work here when school is out for them. If you can teach people the importance of a quality culture and how to achieve it, they will be flocking to your doors.

I look forward to seeing the end result.

Best,

Robert Fisher

Spencer, a most excellent question IMO.

I am going to stick my neck out here and say use it on both. It took some thinking and digging for me to wrap my head around it, but I think I have it:

You should only use rel=pub on one page of the site. Given that, you use it on the one that is your brand or which has the most traffic, gets lots of plus ones, etc. But, you said this:  We also have a community subdomain...

I think the subdomain should be treated as its own site and let it also have rel=pub to the G+ of your main site. The individuals who write, whether for UGC or your experts writing will be rel=author for their pieces.

By doing it this way you can aggregate the plus ones to your G+ from all which gives your site a better profile in the eyes of the Google. This opens a lot of doors for you (at G's choice obviously.  Now, I am certainly open to being wrong, but if you think about it for a moment it makes sense in this way: If your firm owns multiple sites (we are a marketing firm and we own a few properties ourselves outside of the main site) but your brand is what owns them, then you can be the pub of all. Again, the individuals writing will be the rel=author. 
I look forward to more comments. Most excellent question for forcing us to think.

Well done Miriam and I love the fact you can state you looked at the data and you decided that it said.... ? 
I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusions. It is truly becoming mind boggling. Even beyond the Yelp piece and the carousel. We tell clients the same thing you do, NAP consistency, reviews, videos, photos, etc. for local. When we look at verticals where the 1,3,7 pack still applies, I crack up. 
I see sites with no site, no verification, and and a link by Google to no real G+ page ranking in the 7 pack in fairly aggressive verticals. How does that make anything Google has ever said about what they want make sense?

So, where it leaves me is still looking and understanding that as we are growing and changing so is Google. My fear is they forgot the very salient thing you mention here which is good UI/UX. Person after person I speak with outside of SEO, etc. are telling me they do not like having to go to Google to click on something they think is what they want only to find they are on a site where they are in need of making a query. Hopefully, we will wake up in a month or two and it will have been changed.

As soon as we have our data compiled (thanks to great paid interns) and we have parsed the data, I will post a blog on what we found regarding directories and organic listings. Hopefully, I can be as brave as you if the results show... nothing really pertinent.

Best

So, what do we know?

We know that there are carousels for Hotels, Restaurants, and, I can get it for "gas stations 77077," but not for service stations 77077 or for gas stations with city name or gas stations 77024. Yes, they are testing some things out. The way I came up with gas stations was thinking about what do people typically need right now and would search from a phone. (No results with restroom and zip or city

I do think the bigger question is this: What is the reason for this type of play versus what they have with "places?" My thought is that it is revolving as always around monetization and Wall St. When you look now at any reasonably local oriented search it is rare you see less than 50% directory listings on page one and often it is 70 or 80%. The one I have looked at the most is Yelp, and when you look, they are running Google ads on their sites so it would make sense re revenue, to ensure they get better ranking. Yes, I know that is not supposed to happen that way, but as the saying goes, "perception is reality to people." (or something like that).

Now, when we look below the carousel for restaurants, we see one directory after another. We do not see restaurants. Imagine if we searched on book stores and that is what we got or anything else that is not as easy to scrape content, plug into a directory, and then start going after all to advertise in order to influence where you are listed. With those other queries, you get a series of book stores in the organic and local because that is what you are searching for.

In talking with people and showing them the organic and the carousel, most say the same thing: I do not like searching for something, clicking, and then having to search on some other site. So, the big question is: Is google making a mistake with this move? Do you really want to search on gas station and then get: mapquest, gasprices.mapquest, angieslist, houstongasprices, yelp, loopnet, etc.? I, personally, do not.

If you notice how the older demographic is going more and more to Bing, you have to ask yourself if any of it is driven by the huge change in the Google search experience? IMO, the worst thing you can do if you are trusted is to do something to lose that trust. If Google is losing people's trust, that could be very painful for them.

Lastly, anyone who reads anything by me knows I am not a "Google Hater." I am far from it and I laugh at those who are. First, Google created a new way for a lot of people to make money and create jobs. Second, if you don't like change, well...go see a psychiatrist because life changes every minute. So, this is not a rant against Google, it is the curiosity of a searcher, a searcher for many things.

Thanks Miriam,

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Well, that was quick. I shot him an email and asked him to see if he could recreate the search result.

He gets a ratings and reviews filter still. I have attached a screen shot.

Sorry I had given it a good answer and it shows as answered.

WSrbYSO.png?1

Hello awebdesign,

I am assuming you have campaigns set up in Raven and now want to use SEOmoz (Moz) instead? In terms of "migration" I am not sure if you are assuming some level of complexity that may not be there. You will need to save your data acquired during the use of Raven and start over with Moz. (Unless I am missing something entirely here). Typically, when we talk of migration we are talking about going from server A to server B.

I do not know of any utility that would allow you to plug in the data already acquired on Raven and then see it on Moz.

Hope that helps you out,

Robert

OK, that is officially funny.

My VP was sitting next to me with his MacBookPro 15 and I had a 17. Both with Chrome, same wifi, etc. He gets it and I don't. I am hurt by that Sergey and Larry!

Thanks for checking in with me on it. When or if we can recreate it, I will send you the screen shots.

Best,

When looking at the carousel for restaurants Houston, or colorado springs restaurants, etc. I am not getting a price, ratings filter. I am using Chrome, have extensions off, etc. Not in a non-personalized search, logged into Google as one of my accounts.

Someone else on different machine next to me (they are both MacBook Pros though) is getting the ratings filter.

Anyone else seen this?

Thanks

Gagan

I think this is a great and interesting question. First, you are adding functionality, etc. to a site and you are curious as to the effect of that on visitors to the site once they are on it. This is data anyone in SEO should want to see for their sites.

I would first say that you need to define the test period (assuming you already know what you want to measure) for the site. If it is a week for example, I do not think you need worry about whether a site with three major engines blocked will in some way run into duped content issues. (NOTE: If this is a large site and/or one with a critical revenue need - one that cannot afford to have any type of slight but temporary downturn - I would look for another way to test the changes. Even if I was sure there were no other issues.)

I am assuming that if an ecommerce site for example, there will be the ability for a shopper to purchase on both, etc.

I would not run the test for any long period of time for a site that creates leads, revenue, etc. as I think it could cause customer confusion which can be more critical than duped content.

Let us know how it works out,

Thanks

Paul,

I cannot find (other than a campaign) where the ability to crawl as site is as it was on the old site. So, send me that link if you know where it is now. But, that said, you should be able to see on page with a campaign. Once you run a campaign and get the results, when you click on it you will be in Overview. If you look at the menu under the name of your campaign, the 4th is OnPage and it should have those results there. 
You will see the A, B, C, ... page and scroll down for more info. 
Hope that helps,

Hey Sha,

Had to give you a thumbs up as I did not consider the issue with disavow links not influencing OSE. Great Point. Thanks,

Anthony,

I am not sure I am even understanding your question, but I will try to help. First, Your Google + profile is not statically local. Are you talking a human Google + or a business Google + profile? Either way, think about authorship and being a contributor to various sites; that is linking and that does increase the value of your Google + site. When you have a G+ that is gaining authority and you link to a site, you provide link juice the site. But...

You follow that with:

_If it does, then does that mean that all the traditional SEO factors that would go into ranking a site organically also work for ranking locally for certain keywords? _The answer to this is No. Local and organic ranking are two very specific animals and they have many specific requirements. Yes, you want the same types of things as organic for local but then there are many more issues and requirements. Also, it changes about every ten minutes with Google. If you are not familiar with the Carousel "beta test" wink wink that Google is doing, do a search on your city and hotels or restaurants or service stations. That in itself will show you what people who handle local are up against.

As to this question: _I am feeling like the differentiator for local SEO is UN-structured citations and links to Google+ profiles.  Any thoughts?_My thoughts are these: Start reading things from people like Miriam here on moz, Linda Buquet, Mike Blumenthal, etc. Don't "feel" as that is more akin to guessing. Follow the guidelines they put out and read all you can on local. If you do that, and if you work on about 50 to 75 local listings, make mistakes, learn, etc. you will begin to know a bit about local. Trust me when I say it is its own animal. Telling you how to rank for local in a Q&A setting is nearly impossible. I hope you understand.

Good luck,

Robert

David,

I wish I could see it as that simple, but I just don't. What I am seeing is there are situations where there are results that frankly are not relevant to the query and they are ranking with hardly any links, etc. Or, you see where a high DA site has a page that is PA of zero ranking ahead of more relevant pages, etc which have say a PA of 55, etc. A classic example in this is go look at practically any service business wherein you use a city plus a discipline: Tucson Plumber. (I have not tried that one). 50 to 60% of the time we see something like Indeed.com with 3 different urls ranking all of which have PA of less than 10. How can a major PMSA (say top twenty) with that type of search not return 10 listings for plumbers? 
When you look at queries, the relevance of showing jobs for plumbers is, well, not relevant for that search. 
What I am saying is there is no longer a way to speak with real certainty about a question like this re SEO. I think there may be a time when we have more clarity, but it is not now.  I miss those days.

When you say non anchor text manipulative, what is that?

Thanks,

Robert

Thanks for understanding I was not disputing you. I will let you know as soon as we complete. As to the A/B it is not a bad idea, but we are looking at rankings vs known SEO factors at this time. We are going to show what is present or missing from top 10 in multiple cities and categories (US) and provide it as a guide. I am not sure we will provide a conclusion, but likely leave it as a discussion and then each can decide for themselves how they address it for themselves or clients. We have four paid interns gathering data along with several staff members supervising and insuring accuracy and validation at each step of the process; this requires a lot from each of them. They are a good team, but it is a daunting task.

I would appreciate any insights or thoughts from Mozzers re the changes they are seeing in the SERPs. Right now, we are focusing on organic sans the local results, but will follow with Local. The problem with looking at both is the carousel beta, the 1 pack, 3 pack, 7 pack shuffle, etc. The biggest thing we are seeing is just a massive proliferation of directory sites for staggeringly important search terms. At the current rate, I could see page one of most service/professional searches to be all directories. That is where I am seeing all the duplicate content around categories and "About your business" pages and where it does not seem to matter in the least.

Take a look at any major US city plus: realtor, plumber, electrician, etc. and see how many directories now show up. It has skyrocketed even in the last 4 to 6 months.

Best to you,

Teginder

Before you revise and rewrite all I would say this: Chris is correct and I am not sure that Chris is correct any longer and here is why. We are in the middle of a rather interesting study around ranking and ranking factors for page one of SERPs. (More to follow on that later.) While doing this I am noticing that in many cases, a company who has identical info in directories and citation sources are ranking very very well. Because of the study I cannot show you an example yet, but it really discounts the "thin content," "duplicate content" info from Google. Frankly, I am at a point that I do not believe what shows as the result of local (not necessarily just in terms of your G+, etc., but the effect of local optimization on organic listings) is equal to what shows otherwise organically.

Yes, this flies in the face of all we hear from the Google and the pundits.

So, what does this mean for you? I, personally and the advice I would give a client, would look to see what my rankings are and what they have been over time. For what you presented the meta's showing in the SERPs are near identical. If you are ranking well (whatever your definition of well is as I am not handling similar business in that market), I would not change it yet. I would hold still and watch. If, for example, for home care Bronx, you rank in 7 pack and you have an organic url at #6, I think it is nuts to change that right now. With the beta of the carousel and so many changes in Local, I do not think rushing into rewriting all is a good move.

But, that's just my opinion. Let us know what you do and how it works.

Best,

Robert

Overboslaan

I am going to purposefully not get into what does or does not get indexed with an iFrame and just say it is not IMO a best practice. (Ok, yes Google will index a link in an iFrame...typically that is attributed to the source of the iFrame and not to the site it resides on. Again, whatever anyone believes about iFrames is true....)

With your question, my concern would be that the reviews are tied to the reservations plugin. If, your reviews are set up with structured data, are your reviews showing up when someone searches on the restaurant? Or, do they only show up if I happen to see the reservations page in the serp? With the change to the carousel in local for restaurants, I have to believe that review snippets are ever more important.

Hope this helps.

I would not worry much about them as I don't see anything really egregious. Alan makes a good point on the broken links. I did not see them (again it was cursory).

Best to you both.

We use Ahrefs.com as that shows links much earlier than GWMT. I will pm you a couple of screen shots. But an example is that on April 15 your .ca showed up with 500+ links all nofollowed.

You do have a few poor sites linking to you but I do not think they will necessarily hurt you in aggregate. Some are already 404 on the link to you.

Hope that helps,

Robert

Stephane,

Typically I don't respond to these type questions because they are a two-edged sword, but it's late and maybe no one will see it. 
First, I like the layout of the site and the fact you appear to be striving toward a reference type site for hosting questions (this is a practice we use with certain clients we have but not for ads per se.) Your content is fresh, original, and well written with the caveat I did a reasonable but cursory check. 
The UI/UX is good for a reference site on the whole, but you might rethink the menu structure toward making it a bit more "problem tabs" versus Home, About, Services, Archives, etc. (Again, partially a bias by me and partially looking at if I came here to find info on a hosting issue, I would want to get to that.)
Your link profile first scared me when I saw the big jump, but saw they were all no followed from your .ca. The anchor text seems reasonable as well. You could do with a bit better meta descriptions in some areas and your title tags follow the convention of branding first one time then branding last the next which is just not something I like to see. Understand that by doing the onpage when it is created, you help yourself out.

I understand you are selling other hosting services from the site and that seems to negate having more info on selling the hosting yourself. So, on the whole I think it is a good beginning for you.

Going after the WP community is a good idea.

Best,

Robert

Spencer,

Typically, I would say we probably should not throw out recommendations but keep them to PM's. But, Francisco is right so I cannot fault him. So I will say this:

When I have had a moment where clarity eluded me, or I was at a total loss on this type issue or a couple of others, I have called or emailed Ryan. He is a great guy and a great SEO. Given that I have been at this a while, I find he is a pro's pro and in this area I am not sure there are any better.

Best of luck,

Roert

Hey Nakul, 
So good to hear from you. I was talking with Amber, our Director of Local, and she said it is also happening with YP.com. At least if it is with Bing and Yahoo, I can say that maybe some of these directories are not all being bought by Google.

Hey, if you are up for coffee, lunch, a glass, etc. I moved a bit further West. Give me a buzz or email me.

All the best,

I hope I did not miss something and there was big news about this, but I saw something yesterday I had not noticed before. I was doing some research around Yelp and their ads and while in Chrome on a MacBook Pro I typed in Yelp.com and then hit space. Immediately there was a "Search Yelp:" that appeared in the Chrome nav bar. When I tried it in the actual search bar on a Google Search page I did not get that. 
When I tried it in Firefox and Safari I did not get that.

So, is there a deal between Google and Yelp or am I missing something?

Best to all, 
Robert

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RCN

There is no "penalty transfer" per se. It is just that those links will have no value, but you can still get people there. You could use 302's if there is some concern but don't really need to. Remember, you are redirecting a page and that is purposeful. You could also disallow the links to the 301'd pages if you want to be over careful. Again though, I would do the 301's and move on.

Best,

Robert