Welcome to the Q&A Forum

I checked with my hosting support and they confirmed the alias is a 301.   So I don't need to do anything. redirect-wise.

After the new site is in place. is it worth it to re-work our old .htaccess file so it points to the new site?

Stephen

We are rebranding our store with a new name. We have purchased a NewDomainName.  Can I just make the "Old Domain Name" an alias for the "NewDomainName"?

The site will not change in any other way than having a new logo.  This is an e-commerce site with over 100 categories of artisan made products.  So once we move the site, the old domain will be empty.

Thank you

Stephen

Thank you--   That's looks like a great resource- still working on this and appreciate your input

Stephen

Dandelion-

I'll look at both those and let you know

Stephen

Hi Dandelion and Thank You for the response..

When you said "Then set up 404's for the popular but discontinued image" did you mean to say "set up 301's"?

And may I ask how do you discover exact images?  I am not using wordpress and don't know of any add-ons that help ..

Best wishes

Stephen 
(sorry for the delay in responding-- been having email issues..)

What do you lose by deleting a product and it's images from an e-commerce site? We have many product images with pinterest pins and shares or that show up on google images searches. Our site is an active American craft gallery with jewelry, art and handmade gifts from about 300 different artists. Most products are made in small quantities others are 1 of a kind. So we often have products selling out.  Most items are organized by artist.

Are there good practices to follow that will best keep our social media presence and links?  I'd also like to stop buying extra space for all those images on my server

Thanks so much

Stephen

Thank you- just what I needed

I am getting alot of hits from blexhn30.webmeup.com.   My web host says it could be a web service. Is this part of moz local activity?  Otherwise I want to block it. Have you seen this before??

Some of my art object products have words and phrases  engraved on them. The words  relate to the images on the product. In the product descriptions, I have been putting quotes around the entire list. Would I get better long tail results if I didn't use the quotation marks?   In other words, do the quotes make everything between them an exact match phrase?

For example:
Current product description: 
The worlds around the edge of the lazy susan read, "Explore nature. Dream big. Take time to smell the flowers. Enjoy the changing seasons. Seize the day. Relish the night. Live life to the fullest."

Thank you for helping with this, all comments on how to present this kind of content are welcomed-

Stephen

kSOjt5a

Thank you Jane-

Can you tell me what the "Options +FollowSymLinks" is for?

And by the way, after everything is 301'd would you keep the old site hosted forever?

Best wishes

Stephen

Thank you very much for sharing those results.

The key word is a xyz design measuring spoon.  The only difference is how they are displayed or attached to each other.  Actually, your opinion about the keywords made me see I could improve my keyword phrase "xyz design measuring spoon ."  I'll go with that and the 1 page.

Thank you JDP

I have a wordpress blog hosted on a separate domain.  I have a new empty blog on a subdomain of my-commerce  main site. The new blog has a different wordpress theme & categories than the old blog.

What is a good way to populate the new blog with content from the old?

What do I do with the old blog once the move is done?

Thank you for your thoughts on this

Handcrafter

This is a site with handcrafted home décor products. Is it better seo to have 1 product for each spoon style and use attributes to show the display options?

The decorative display details are important. How do you deal with the important details of the display options?

One set of products is measuring spoon sets. For each spoon there are 4 different display options: wood or pewter and hang on a tall post or hang on a wide wall hanger. And there are 8 different spoon styles.

The pewter displays have design details matched to the spoon style. (eg. the fish spoon has fishes on it's hanger, the fleur de lys has fleur de lys on it)

So the attributes do not change the product itself but instead change the look of how they are displayed.

At present each display option/ spoon style is shown as a separate item. That makes 32 different products on the category page.

What do you feel is the best way to deal with showing style details and consolidating pages for better seo?

Best wishes from Vermont

Handcrafter

Hi Jorge,

On our craft gallery site our category pages are most important because the products under them change.

We use the category pages to hold common information.  For instance, we have a category for handcrafted lazy susans.  On that category page we detail care, alternate sizes available and how they are made.

On a different category page we may have a glossary of terms used on the products page. This avoids duplicate content on those product pages.  It also sets the stage for linking from the product pages back to the common information. This ought to signal the importance of the category to google.

Best wishes

Handcrafter

Thank you Doug-

This site sells work by 100s of artisans under a url  like smalltownartisans.com.  The "/brandname" is one of our better know artisans with  a wide range of products. So it is not repeated in the url

Do you think the "smalltownartisans.com". brand should be included in the page titles along with the artisan-brandname? And could you expand on the simple ways to ttest what works best?

Thanks again for all you your comments

Handcrafter

Hi Joseph- What will people be searching for? Does each keyword have it's own unique focus? It seems you may want to create unique pages covering each keyword or group of keywords that stand alone. Within that content you might list locations or services unique to each city. If the services are all the same, could you make 1 unique page describing those services? That way you could simply list the cities and use text links to the services page. Good luck- Handcrafter

As part consolidating our site navigation, I have an opportunity to change how we name url s on child pages.  At present,  I think there are 2 problems that could be fixed. 
1.As you drill down, the brand name is not part of  each url.
2. Also, the urls show abreviations that are not customer friendly.

Are these worth changing? I am redirecting pages whether I change the naming or not.

Below  is my current navigation and below that the changed navigation I am considering.

Many thanks to all that look and share their thoughts.

Handcrafter

--- details --

This is an e-commerce site with on hand products and similar products which are custom ordered from a catalog:

Current Navigation Drill Down:

/ctgy/brandname.html

/ctgy/brandname-onh.html
           /ctgy/onhmir.html

then the specific products:
                    /onhmir/30322-onhmir92_741.html
                   /onhmir/30324-onhmir96_743.html

The catalog has more products and so has 1 extra level of child category pages:
 ctgy/brandname.html
     /ctgy/brandname-cat.html
                /ctgy/brandname-catmir.html
                       /ctgy/design1catmir.html
                        /ctgy/design2catmir.html

then the specific products:
                           /catmir/30322-catmirhappy.html
                          /catmir/30324-catmirhappy.html

Changed Naming Under Consideration:
On pages above the  product page, (category pages) spell out all words and place the brand name in the parent url.  The result would be:

/ctgy/brandname.html

/ctgy/brandname-on-hand.html
            /ctgy/brandname-on-hand-mirror.html

then the specific products:
                    /brandname-on-hand-mirror/30322-onh-mir92_741.html
                    /brandname-on-hand-mirror/30324-on-hand-mir96_743.html

The catalog has more products and so has 1 extra level of child category pages:

/ctgy/brandname-catalog.html
            /ctgy/brandname-catalog-mirror.html
                /ctgy/brandname-catalog-mirror-style1.html
                ctgy/brandname-catalog-mirror-style2.html

then the specific products:
                   /brandname-catalog-mirror-style1/30322-cat-mirhappy.html
                    /brandname-catalog-mirror-style1/30324-cat-mirhappy.html

I am using a miva merchant shopping cart. On the corporate blog, they advise against using wordpress on the domain because credit cards demand very high security.

And thank you for the link to http://www.michielgaasterland.com (marketing in plain language - wooo!)

I have an existing blog separate from my main e-commerce site. (mainsite.com).

Is there any advantage at all in moving the blog to a sub domain like blog.mainsite?

I know putting it in a sub_folder_ is best. I don't want to do that because of security concerns.

Handcrafter

I have a brand name "Smith and Jones". I am looking for the current best way to refer to the name in titles and text on my site.

The manufactureres website is smithandjones.com . The H1 on their home page uses Smith & Jones. The 2 versions are used throughout their site.

In a prior thread (http://www.seomoz.org/q/and-vs) the answer was to use nothing ie "smith jones".

I was thinking that a "-" might be better since google says it tends to show a strong relationship between the 2 words.

What do you think?

Thanks

Handcrafter

Thanks Ben,

I'll try that and see if I get any effect on the next crawl.

Handcrafter

My site titles have 3 features in them.  Just 1 varies and I am getting duplicate title errors.  I'm thinking of moving the different feature from the 2nd position to the start of the title.  Doese anyone think this would help?  Any other suggestions for a simple fix?

Thank You

Handcrafter

The titles look like this:

1. Green Measuring Cups|Pewter Post|By JohnMiller

2. Green Measuring Cups|Cherry Post|By JohnMiller

3. Green Measuring Cups|Pewter Strip|By JohnMiller

Is this worth the effort or change in design?

Isn't it that google looks at the 1st link on a page?

So if you have 6 products and images this issue would only effect the 1st product seen?

Thanks

Handcrafter

On April 20, BOTW is having a 50% off day.  Anyone thinking of it might want to take a look:

Use Promo code SINCE94 starting at 12:01am EST on 4/20 and receive an instant 50% off discount on all directory submissions, local listings, bundles and sponsorships.

Thank you both- As a follow up, do you think landing pages like the newspaper wants to use are done because they don't understand seo?

We just started advertising on the web version of our local newspaper.  They suggest our ads go to a "splash page" they created for us on their site.  The page haslinks , images and text taken from each of  our main categories,. Plus links and feeds from our twitter and facebook pages. And a google map.

This page shows a page authority 1 with 0 links.

Is there any reason to link our ad to a page like this rather than going direct to our website page?

Thank you

Handcrafter

David-

Can you or others expand on the value of using rel="canonical"?  Does this only help blogs?

I have a similiar micro-site I want to move to a larger site in order totake adavnatge of better image handling on the large site.

Thank you

Handcrafter

That is helpful. In our store/ gallery we have hand made items which are often a quantity of 1. So I had been thinking of using ppc to advertise the artisan- and have a landing page based off the category page. When we get a new collection in- we could do ppc ads about the great selction and what the new style is about. Does that make sense? Or would you instead do several ppc adds focusing on the individual products? Looking forward to input / ideas on this-- Handcrafter

Before starting a new ppc campaign, I am working on making my site landing pages Relevant. I see some ppc experts suggest separate, noindex, landing pages. But aren't my dynamically generated product pages landing pages- They have a call to action "add to basket" button, a big photo, and orignal detailed conent- prodct description - below all that. Sometimes I would like to advertise we have a broad selection of a Vendor's line- so then my natural landing page is a categegory page with thumbnail photos and the call to action is clicking the photo or product name to go to the specific product page. Can an experienced adwords person help me understand this better? Do I really want/need to create seperate ppc landing pages? What would the difference be? Thanks as ever Handcrafter

Thnk you Sebastian-

With a separate page I would have links from x number of artists to the article.   Then in the longtail article are you saying link back to each of them them from within the article?

Within my e-commerce site I have jewelers who using uncommon techniques and maetrials.  I have a few long tail type article ready to publish about these niche topics.

My site navigation has each jeweler as a category with their often changing products within their category.  I am thinking I would add an article to the artist-category content.

But in the past, I have put "how to" or "what is"  content in an article section of the site.  This way I could link to it from several places.

With the long tail in mind, would I be better off adding the article to the jeweler's category page?

If I have a 2nd jeweler using this same technique, I am thinking I would rewrite the 1st article including different long tail phrases.

Thank You for Helping-

Handcrafter

I use google analytics- Is there something special I should set up to track this?  Or is it something to do with filtering?

Or any ideas on where to learn to set it up to track conversions and traffic for this 1 group of terms would be a great help.

Thank you for your comments EGOL

Handcrafter

Thanks Charles- This is really really helpful.  The products I show on www.stowecraft.com do not have have brand names and they are all artisan-made & unique. So naming the products and their categories is crucial - and this compund name issue comes up over and over again.

Your suggestion about using the plural on the category page and the singular on the product page may work. But after reading Rands "singular vs plural"  I am thinking that keeping my focus on the singular will increase conversions. I'll try to test it with ppc ads.

Best wishes

Handcrafter

What is the best way to handle keywords like "switchplate covers"? The key word may be seen as either a 2 or 3 word phrase, depending how you handle the compound term: "switch plate" or "switchplate"

In google KW it shows different results for switch plate vs switchplate as well as using cover vs covers.

I've tried using all the variations in my descriptions, titles and H2s  but I think this is diluting them all.  Can anyone show me best practice guidelenes or examples of good solutions to these kinds of compound key words?

Thanks

Handcrafter

$900K! That's impressive.

That sounds straightforward. About the C Block- That's something I never have really understood.  Both sites are now hosted by the same hosting company.  Would they have different C blocks? Or would I swittch the microsite to a different host someplace like godaddy?

The microsite has an exact brand name url.

The main site has a variety of handcrafted products with better navigation and shopping cart.

So I think I could keep the ranking for the microsite by leaving some static content on it.  Like background about the brand, news about the brand  and perhaps info on how to order custom products

All the categories of furniture and products would migrate to the main  site where the best shopping cart (and higher rankings) are found.  The brand name from the micosite would become a category of product on the main site. And I hope benefit from redirects and links from the microsite.

Does that make more sense?

I have an exact keyword match domain-

It has decent moz rank, original content pertaining to custom made furniture and has specific furniture products for sale.

I want to move the specific products for sale to my main site but keep the general content on the microsite.

It's a little different than redirecting All the Pages, isn't it?  Any ideas on best steps to take? Or mistakes to avoid?

Thank You

Handcrafter

Thank you for the reminder about http://getlisted.org/  . What a great resource it is.

Thank you Zack-

Using Google adwords & traffic estimator, the only search traffic found was for "Maple Street"

I found all the other locations and businesses list & advertise that way and that must be what the tourists use for searching.

Is there any other tool than google to use for this kind of question?

In Google places my address shows up in two different ways. I want to establish a consistent way of listing my business, but how do I determine what's best at this point?

My listings now show up as the street name: "122 Maple Street" and in other listings as the Route number: "122 Route 44 "   The locals all know this street as Maple Street, but we are a tourist business and tourists probably know the Rt. # better.

Is there a systematic way I can determine which is going to be the best way to list this? I have the same question about variations like using Rt. or St. versus Route or Street.

Thanks

Tio

Yes, Richard, that is very helpful.

My traffic comes mostly from organic searches.  So what I am taking away from this is to keep my focus on SERP s unless CSE results become more important.

And thank you for the reminder about 301ing deleted products.  It's one of those things that I hate doing, though I know I should.

Best wishes

Stephen

Thank you both for the replies.  Following the Rolex example.  I have a page for Rolex Watches.  On that page I have 18 watches shown.  My CMS (shopping cart) uses the product name as anchor text. This anchor text links to a  specific Rolex watch product page.

I name the watches like this: "18 K gold band & diamonds"," gold & silver men's watch"," gold & silver women's watch", etc.  The product page will have a title with both product name | and Brand.  The problem is the comparison shopping engines.

The CSE,s  seem to give weight to products named like this:"Rolex 18 k gold band & diamonds", "Rolex gold & silver men's watch", etc.  I am still confused about naming these products to show their differences on the category (Brand) page and still optimize for the comparison shopping engines.

Isn't this an issue for any site with multiple brands and product categories.?

I really appreciate your inputs.

Stephen

It seems Google base and other Comparison Shopping Engines like to see the brand in the product name.   But, on my category page for that brand, website optimizer tells me including the brand name with each product  is cannabilizes links.

For example; I have a page for jewelerABC with 20 pieces of jewelry listed as well as original content about jewelerABC.  I do not currently name these products as xyz by jewelerABC.  This page comes up nicely in the serps.

But in Google base The top listings for jewelry by jewelerABC seem to have  every product named xyz by jewelerABC  or JewelerABC xyzs.

What is the best way to optimize.for both?

Stephen