I always love to read your answer, Miriam Ellis

Cat Burhenne-Sanderson

is right probably you need to look for the source of those links

You are Welcome Miriam Ellis

It's a Yoast Advice, keep in mind that their main audience are small business websites, and bloggers, affiliates, so their course and content works fine for that audience. I've already ranked a couple of websites using their techniques. But it will not work on biggest websites with hard competition (This is my personal opinion I took 2 of their courses and read it a couple of their ebooks in the past)

According to Yoast cornerstone content are the most important articles on any website. This is the content that exactly reflects the business or the mission of a website.

Category pages or tag pages could make great cornerstone ‘articles’ as well. If you want to optimize your category pages for cornerstone content, it is of great importance to provide really awesome introductory content. You should make sure that this page is a compelling overview of the subject and invites visitors to read even more content on your site.

For example, on an Italian food blog, there might be an original recipe to make pasta. That recipe could be used in every blog post about pasta. So this original recipe would have the potential to be a cornerstone article. The bloggers should place it on the category page of ‘pasta original’. On top of that, they could add links there to all the blog posts that use the recipe.

Pasta Original  > Cornerstone Content > Main Keyword or Topic
    Place to buy ingredients  > **Long Tail Keyword **
    The history of the pasta   > **Long Tail Keyword **
    Alternatives for the pasta > **Long Tail Keyword **
    Healthy ingredients          > **Long Tail Keyword **

Cornerstone articles should be explainers, they should be informative articles. Even on a webshop, the cornerstone content should be informative articles. Perhaps you can write about the use of the products you sell or their history. Think about all the places you can link this cornerstone content, like in a blog post on new developments and in the actual product description in your shop!

Websites should have a minimum of one or two cornerstone articles and a maximum of eight to ten. If you want to write more than ten cornerstone articles, you should probably start a second website.

Linking structure for cornerstones

Cornerstone articles should appear very high in your site’s pyramid. Ideally, someone would be able to click from your homepage to your cornerstone articles instantly. You should link all your other posts about similar topics to that particular article. Subsequently, you will write tons of new blog posts focussing on new angles of the topic of your cornerstone article. From every single one of those blog posts, you’ll link to your original cornerstone article. Such an internal linking structure will increase the chance of your cornerstone content article ranking in Google.

Taking the Yoast website as an Example their cornerstone content is:

• _Yoast SEO for WordPress, _
• _Online SEO training, _
• SEO blog

All the content in the website link to those articles/pages/content, you can check it by yourself. Let's take the URL (https://yoast.com/academy/courses/) go to your MOZ Open Site Explorer filter the result ok the backlinks (Just Internal Links) and you will see that practically all the site point to that page if compare it with any other random article you will notice the difference, in that way they tell to Google hey this is one of the most important Articles in my website and of course, is about SEO training then Google will compare it with other SEO training websites and decide which will be in first place

IN SUMMARY

Answering your question. Yes category pages can be a cornerstone content (you can consider core pages and cornerstone content as the same thing)

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I think you should improve the content the France page... It's a pleasure to have been useful

The structure of a website or a blog is of great importance for its chances to rank in search engines.

1. A decent structure makes sure Google ‘understands’ your site.
The way your website is structured will give Google important clues about where to nd the most important content. Your site’s structure determines whether a search engine can understand what your site is about, and how easily it will nd and index the content relevant to your site’s purpose and intent.

2 A decent structure makes sure you do not compete with your own content.
On your site, you will probably write multiple pages about similar topics.If we would write eight different articles about bike tours, Google would not know which of the articles or page is the most important one. If you do not solve this by creating a clear site structure, you will be competing with our own articles for a high ranking in Google. Solving this problem requires a good internal linking structure and/or taxonomy structure, resulting in higher rankings. This means that you should pick one article (the flagship article/page/product ) for every major keyword you want to be found for and link to that article from all of your other content about the same keyword.

How this apply to your website ?
So you need to create a site structure who reflects that hierarchy. You mentioned that your main products/service is "bike tours Europe".Let's take an example

1. bike tours Europe

1.1 bike tours France
1.2 bike tours Spain
1.3  bike tours Italy

So probably in your case your case your homepage is optimized for "bike tours in France"
there are many links pointing to your site with that anchor text (Make a backlink analysis)
if Google is putting your homepage in the first place you need figure out why?

Once you do that you need to define your structure in order to make it easy for Google to understand your website.

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Thanks, Miriam Ellis

Domain Authority is calculated by evaluating linking root domains, number of total links, MozRank, MozTrust, etc. — into a single DA score. This score can then be used when comparing websites or tracking the "ranking strength" of a website over time.

Page Authority is based on data from the Mozscape web index and includes link counts, MozRank, MozTrust, and dozens of other factors. Like Domain Authority, it uses a machine learning model to identify the algorithm that best correlates with rankings across the thousands of SERPs that we predict against, then produces Page Authority scores using that specific calculation.

Is it calculated exponentially? Just the developers of the algorithm can answer that question. But I'm pretty sure the algorithm is based on a Statistic Framework and Not on Arithmetic, Exponential Framework

Depends let's take an example

website.com/cartegory-1/ with a DA=40 is better than 2

website.com/cartegory-1/sub-category-2/sub-category-3/sub-category-4
website.com/cartegory-1/sub-category-2/sub-category-3/sub-category-4

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I made a quick research and I founded 12 sites related to dental health care as link prospect who already accept a guest post with an average PA over 40 who accept guest post. so as I mention if the link has enough quality no matter the origin will help your site to rank and if this link has local signals or local keywords even better

No matter where the link is coming from your main concern should be if that link is relevant to

• your audience
• your content
• your goals

You need to understand that your main goal is your audience (not your brand)

Which keywords are using? (I'm talking about your possible patience)
How they make their research? (of your services of course)
Which site are they visiting? (I'm talking about your competitors)

Example: you have a link coming from a relevant blog with an article related to dental health
and pointing to your site with this anchor text keyword with your location, this blog has a lot of traffic and a good authority.

On the other hands, you have a local directory pointing to your site

Which one do you think is more relevant to Google?

No matter if the first one is local or not. From the Google, perspective it's a relevant website, with relevant content, giving you a vote of trust (link is like a vote) with a local signal "your location"

what would I do in your case?

Make competition research

Identify your competitors
First, you need to identify your main competitors, those sites who are in the first results of Google
and are taking those possible clients with those keywords that you to rank for

Backlink analysis
Then you need to determinate the site who are linking to your competitors I mean if your biggest competitor has 15 links will be easy to beat of course if have 200 you need to think in a better strategy

Keyword analysis
On this point, you need to determinate the competition level of the keywords that you want to rank.I mean with competition level of 0 to 30 is fine, with a level of 30 to 60 will be not easy and I will take some efforts but you can do it, on the other hands over 60 just forget it and found another keyword.

Performance analysis
On this day the performance matter so if your competitors have a poor performance then you have an opportunity, if don't so you need to think that you need, an outstanding performance, plus an outstanding content, plus outstanding structure.

Gaston is right, Great answer Gaston

It is common practice to redirect one URL to another. When doing this, it is critical to observe best practices in order to maintain SEO value.

there are a few salient points to keep in mind about Google’s change to how PageRank passes through 3xx redirects.

1. All redirects carry a degree of SEO risk.
2. While 3xx redirects preserve PageRank, 301s remain the preferred method of choice for permanent redirects. (It is unknown if search engines treat all redirects equally)
3. Keep in mind that PageRank — and other link equity signals — are only a portion of the factors used by Google in ranking web pages.
4. Beyond PageRank, all other rules about redirection remain. If you redirect to a non-relevant page, or buy a website in order to redirect 1,000 pages to your homepage, you likely won’t see much of a boost.
5. The best redirect is where every other element stays the same, as much as possible, except for the URL.
6. Successful migrations to HTTPS are now less prone to lose PageRank, but there are many other crawling and indexing issues that may negatively impact traffic+rankings.
7. Changing URLs for SEO purposes, including...

• Removing multiple query parameters
• Improving directory/subfolder structure
• Including keywords in the URL
• Making URLs human-readable

… is less risky now that 3xx redirects preserve PageRank. That said, always proceed with caution when redirecting.

SEO Learning Center On-Site SEO Redirection
https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection

301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know for SEO
https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo

It's a normal process when you start to optimize your website the more specific you are, the more precise information you get.

For example, when I started to optimize my website, I started using our brand keywords and the numbers were insane from 2% went to 80% of visibility, of course, it just was our main brand keywords.

Things changed when I try to use generic keywords then my visibility drop off and then I started to see real numbers

It is an arithmetic trick

Moz Search Visibility score represents your overall ranking performance for your tracked keywords. It’s calculated by:

1. Taking all of your keywords and the associated URL’s position and applying a CTR for each position.
2. The CTRs are then summed
3. This number is then divided by the total number of keywords.

Some useful links from the MOZ Seo Learning Center Related to your question

• Guide to Rankings
• Search Visibility
• Analyze a Keyword

• PLP > Product Listing Pages
• Search Console > Is the name for the old Webmaster Tools if you don't have it is a good idea to install it on your website

How do I decide where to create the internal links between the pages?
First, you need to determinate your site structure to decide how to make your internal links

Google Search Console

1 - Should we set listing not no index if they are not content rich?

I strongly suggest to optimize your PLP pages they are like the categories in your website, so they are very close to your home page and should be at the top of your content structure.

So what you can do it about

• Optimize the titles and description tag
• Add schemas to those PLP
• Then markup those pages using Search Console
• Create some internal links to those pages

This are some tips from the SEO Learning Center
https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

Optimal format
Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
8-foot Green Widgets - Widgets & Tools | Widget World

There are a few basic strategies that realtor can utilize to increase PLP SEO scores, site visibility, and conversions.

1. Increase the number of relevant keywords included on PLP pages by adding plain text descriptions and related keywords.
2. Embed keywords within the URLs of PLP pages
3. Raise SEO authority by decreasing bounce rate

7 Critical SEO Errors you should avoid

1. Lack of Properties Description
2. Lack of Properties Reviews
3. Not Optimizing Properties Pages Based on The Search Demand
4. Non-Unique Titles
5. Lack of “Speaking” URLs
6. A Lot of Duplicate Content

The Golden Rule of SEO – Make Usability a Priority
As you know, Google is a search engine that is very worried about its users and their experience. First of all, you should make your online store convenient and useful for customers in order to achieve its respect. What is good and unique to your clients – it’s good for Google.

The more time people spend on your site, and less they click back to the search results page is a great indication that Google is sending them to the right place.

Finally, people who like your website and what it has to offer are much more likely to link to it – and as we said before, links are what drive you to top the search results page!

2 - If we do choose to index them, should we avoid titles listing Square Footage and dollar amounts?

I don't have experience in Real Estate and don't live in NY.
But the first thing that comes to my mind is, did you study your main competitors?
Which are your top 10 competitors? most important
What are they doing?

Base on my experience and looking some of your competitors the best solution is to use Price Ranges

3 - Since local SEO is critical, should the titles always list New York, NY or Manhattan, NY?

There is no absolute answer to your question, because all depends on how your users make their research
So you need to make your own research, Moz and Ahrefs have the best keywords management tools in my opinion
with Moz Pro, you can create some keyword list and see the metrics

Go to your Moz account > Keyword Explorer > Create or upload new list

these are the question that you need to answer

Which keywords use your audience/users?
What is the volume of searches using New York, NY?
What is the volume of searches using Manhattan, NY?
What is difficulty level for those keywords?

When you answer those question you will have the answer that you are looking for

4 - Talking about your branding
In my opinion, you need to forget your brand and focus on your target audience
Google does not need your brand keyword in title to know who or your company are

you can use Shemas on your site with all your brand information

Schemas for Brands
http://schema.org/Brand

Schemas for RealEstate Agent
http://schema.org/RealEstateAgent

Here is shema generator for Real Estate Agency to make your life easier
http://microdatagenerator.com/realEstateAgency.html

Sources

Optimizing SEO for E-commerce Product Listing Pages
7 Critical SEO Errors of E-commerce Websites
9 Actionable Real Estate SEO Hacks for Real Estate Agents Looking To Get More Leads
Real Estate SEO for Beginners – Everything You Need To Start Today

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Always is pleasure to help : )

Always is pleasure to help : )

Always is pleasure to help

According to Google
There is No SEO Benefit To Adding Trust Seals To Your Site

Google's Gary Illyes confirmed on Twitter that Google doesn't have a ranking signal that looks to see if a site has a trust seal on it and then gives the site a ranking benefit for having one.

In simple words:

• Badges will not improve your rank
• Badges will not give you more traffic

But this just from the SEO perspective, from the CRO perspective is another history.

Studies have shown that people trust more in the websites, which show up badges (known or not know) to sort of show how trusted or big they are. This is especially common when it comes to e-commerce websites, where this constant demand of trust as an urge to buy is very important. Therefore these trust badges have a direct role in raising the conversion rates – meaning that more website visitors would turn actual customers after visiting the website. This method is vital for many websites: there are tons of online frauds on a daily basis. Landing and Checkout pages are the most prone to feature all these badges in order to plant trust in the souls of the shoppers

IN SUMMARY

So don't let people sell you trust seals to improve your SEO. It may improve your conversion rates and user's perceived feeling of online safety but for SEO, no, it does not help.

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Base on my experience can increase the trust and confidence of any some clients increasing your Conversion Rate, The BBB can help you with the backlink pointing to your site coming from your public profile on BBB. Can reduce your bounce rate

But from the SEO perspective, there are no big changes. I mean those badges will not create traffic to your site.

I had a problem like that in the past, I needed to verify a location but I was in another city, so I request an alternative verification I filled up a form, 2 or 3 days later someone from Google called me to notify me that my request has been approved.

In that case, it was a hostel with several public profiles such as Booking.com and Tripadvisor so they easily were able to verify the information and location

1.) If the business is brand new, and there is no record of it on the Internet as of yet, then I would only recommend creating practitioner listings if it is necessary to point out an area of specialization. So, for example if a medical practice has 5 MDs, the listing for the practice covers that, with no added listings needed. But, if a medical practice has 5 MDs and an Otolaryngologist, it may be good marketing to give the specialist his own listing, because it has its own GMB category and won’t be competing with the practice for rankings. *However, read on to understand the challenges being undertaken any time a multi-practitioner listing is created

2.) If the multi-practitioner business is not new, chances are very good that there are listings out there for present, past, and even deceased practitioners.

• If a partner is current, be sure you point his listing at a landing page on the practice’s website, instead of at the homepage, see if you can differentiate categories, and do your utmost to optimize the practice’s own listing — the point here is to prevent practitioners from outranking the practice. What do I mean by optimization? Be sure the practice’s GMB listing is fully filled out, you’ve got amazing photos, you’re actively earning and responding to reviews, you’re publishing a Google Post at least once a week, and your citations across the web are consistent. These things should all strengthen the listing for the practice.
• If a partner is no longer with the practice, it’s ideal to unverify the listing and ask Google to market it as moved to the practice — not to the practitioner’s new location. Sound goofy? Read Joy Hawkins’ smart explanation of this convoluted issue.
• If, sadly, a practitioner has passed away, contact Google to show them an obituary so that the listing can be removed.
• If a listing represents what is actually a solo practitioner (instead of a partner in a multi-practitioner business model) and his GMB listing is now competing with the listing for his business, you can ask Google to merge the two listings.

Source
Not-Actually-the-Best Local SEO Practices

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If I could, I would give you the answer to your question but unfortunately, I can't and as I see nobody is helping you, maybe the right place to look help is on Google Advertiser Community.