Welcome to the Q&A Forum

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

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

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

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

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 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

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: Green Measuring Cups|Pewter Post|By JohnMiller Green Measuring Cups|Cherry Post|By JohnMiller Green Measuring Cups|Pewter Strip|By JohnMiller

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

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

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

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

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

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

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