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Thanks Marie,

I've confirmed that the client is the content source originator. Their CMS won't accommodate canonical tags at the moment. If the URLs were the friendly URLs with dynamic params then it'd be no problem, but it's actually index.php on each one.

http://screencast.com/t/VuWv0gL7uq

I did take a look at their parameter handling in an attempt to optimize at that level. I modified the settings to this: http://screencast.com/t/hkjw258Bb5Qd and am considering blocking /command in robots.txt.

Thoughts?

TextMarketing, the page actually has quite a few authoritative links and very few "commercial terms". I thought "Penguin Penalty" at first too until I viewed the backlink profile.

Thanks you 2 - your help is beyond encouraging.

Here's an old page on a trustworthy domain with no apparent negative SEO activity according to OSE and ahrefs: http://www.gptours.com/Monaco-Grand-Prix

They went from page 1 to page 13 for "monaco grand prix" within about 4 weeks. Week 2 we pulled out all the duplicate content in the history section. When rank slipped further, we put it back. Yet it's still moving down, while other pages on the website are holding strong.

Next steps will be to add some schema.org/Event microformats, but beyond that, do you have any ideas?

I'm going with folders rather than subdomains, but I think we're both on the same page. A friend of mine suggested building out the content for the target domain (very well) first, and then starting the redirection process at a slow pace to test and to not send to quick or too large of a signal to Google.

Thanks for the quick response.

I have a client with nearly 100 geo-specific domains (example: serviceincity.com). The content is mostly duplicate, however they weren't affected by Panda or Penguin, and most of the domains have a PR2-PR4. Doesn't mean they won't eventually (I know).

My strategy is to centralize all the city domains and 301 them to their main website (example: brandname.com/locations/city/). However, their IBL profile shows at least 50% of their IBLs coming from the geo-specific domains, which makes centralizing quite a scary thing for short-term ranking.

Having these domains is obviously not scalable from a social media or video SEO perspective, and we all know that in the long-term brand rules and domaining drools.

Before I suggest they that they 301 these domains, I thought I'd get feedback from the community. Will all that 301 redirecting give more weight to the primary domain's visibility and sustain the ranking at a page-level, or will it send a flag to Google that the site might have been using it's own network of websites to game results? (which wasn't the case, the owner was just hyper with dominating in each city).

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

The politically correct response is that your strategy should be around relevancy, traffic potential and with a brand-focus rather than a keyword focus. Matt Cutts has shoved this at us many times, stating that Google treats .edu links the same as any other domain (though you and I know they carry more authority):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxTmZulcQZ0&hd=1&t=56s

That being said, I think the power of your campaign is going to come from the quality of it. Many of my clients have created a 2012 College Appreciation or University Recognition or other program that involves outreach, product use/attrition, and heavy content. Done well, not only will a site create 100 or more links from colleges and universities, but the brand exposure through that outreach program will resonate within the walls of those schools for years to come - because they were the important part of the campaign, not the link.

Go for the edu campaign if you have the financial resources to do so, otherwise, a simple outreach program to bloggers to build your brand, get product reviews and reach blogger subscribers can still be an excellent way to drive traffic and sticky links.

Stay away from blog ads and blog link buying. These networks are being identified and flagged daily. Stick to blogs that do not have a link list in the sidebar or footer, and focus on those in your niche with a reasonable subscriber base. Try this site for blogger insights by industry: http://www.invesp.com/blog-rank

Good luck!

I suppose you might also add:

• Product Data Feed Optimization & Submission
• Multiple Location Data Feed Submission

You mentioned wanting to appear for these variations:

hp cp2025n

cp2025n printer

hp cp20205n printer

or just cp2025n

Why not add them into H2 tags within the same product page, so that you cover each? Just a suggestion.

One H2 could be "Why the HP CP2025n?", another could be "HP CP2025n Printer Product Specs", etc.

Sounds like an excellent opportunity to use some h2's within the description, don't you agree?

In terms of worrying about Google picking up a product page instead of your category or keyword-themed "refurbished printers" page, just make sure you have a STRONG page with plenty of internal links, possibly even within a few product descriptions, blog posts, your HTML sitemap, etc. If it's a category, your breadcrumb system will automatically create dozens or hundreds of links to the page naturally.

It looks great to me. However, there's still a long tail term repeated in the title, meta, breadcrumb, h1 and twice in the content:

• HP COLOR LASERJET CP2025N PRINTER

You'll probably rank well for that term with a little improvement to your internal linking and a few backlinks from other websites that list where you can buy this printer. It also couldn't hurt to experiment with comparison shopping engines. Google claims to not use browser data (Chrome), but has admitted to using traffic data in the past.

If it were me, I'd figure out a way to get more semantic variation of my keyword on this page, reduce the density for the phrase above and mix things up a bit. Unless of course you want this exact phrase exactly as it is to be the main inbound marketing traffic driver for this product?

I'd love to see what you come up for on your category page title and meta.

You're close. However, if 1 and 2 are the same then you just hosed your keyword density (wow, haven't used that term in awhile) and also just created a main keyword theme "1320 Printer - Refurbished - Q5928A". I suggest mixing it up a bit so you don't use the same modifiers twice.

I have a client who wanted to rank for "low vision" a year ago. He moved up 18 positions after realizing he had the word "information" in the title and heading and used the modifier within the context as well. He was #1 for "low vision information" - I wonder why?

At the very least, put one instance in front of your keyword and one after, this will help you avoid a phrase becoming your main page topic.

There's actually two opportunities here:

1. Paid Site Links
2. Organic Site Links

Paid Site Links

This one's not too complicated at all. Simply login to AdWords and create an Ad Extension under the campaign you'd like to add site links to. You can add several site links, so if you're SEO-smart, you'll create some awesome link bait on those pages for visitors who might be inclined to link. I created a plugin that does the job well for me (see http://www.seolinkrotator.com/).

Organic Site Links

Unfortunately, the vague answer of 'authority' doesn't cut it for me and probably won't for the novice user reading this thread. Here's how I have controlled organic site links in the past:

• Keep the main navigation on the website short, sweet and explicit
• Match your anchor text to the page title and heading (h1) as close as possible
• Leverage internal linking (or intra-linking) throughout your content, linking to those important pages frequently
• Nofollow the navigational elements you do not want indexed (Login, My Account, etc)
• Include awesome link bait on those pages
• Include buzz bait on those pages (Tweetmeme, Facebook Like, etc)
• Analyze your Internal Links and keywords using Google Webmaster Tools
• Hold your breath, check back in 2-3 weeks

Both paid and organic can play well together if you're using the same pages for both site link campaigns. The drawback is A/B testing flexibility you might normally be used to having in paid search.

Two places to start with determining what to use in titles and meta descriptions include:

1. Pay-per-click ads that are performing well (or possibly your competition)
2. Internal web analytics for the last 4-6 months

We took a major ecommerce site in August of 2011 and replaced redundant brand mention and blank space with two statements that created massively higher CTR in AdWords ("free shipping" and "no sales tax"). CTR improved by over 2,000% in some cases.

I'm a believer in strong title tag principles, that is using the following in titles to create higher CTR:

1. A strong call-to-action (for retail, "Buy" tends to work well)
2. The keyword theme and possibly 1-2 modifiers ("New & Refurbished" might be good in your case)
3. A value proposition or unique selling proposition ("Free Shipping", "50% Off", or "On Sale Now")

You've got a great start already. To expand on where you are right now with "HP 1320 Refurbished Printer", how about:

• Buy HP 1320 Printers Model Q5928A New & Refurbished Starting at $239

The above should give you enough unique information to avoid duplicate content issues, while exposing your pricing and obviously stating that you have the printer for sale (rather than accidentally coming off as a review website or catalog). The unique selling proposition is weak, but if your prices truly are the best, you'll be just fine.

Good luck!

The politically correct response is that your strategy should be around relevancy, traffic potential and with a brand-focus rather than a keyword focus. Matt Cutts has shoved this at us many times, stating that Google treats .edu links the same as any other domain (though you and I know they carry more authority):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxTmZulcQZ0&hd=1&t=56s

That being said, I think the power of your campaign is going to come from the quality of it. Many of my clients have created a 2012 College Appreciation or University Recognition or other program that involves outreach, product use/attrition, and heavy content. Done well, not only will a site create 100 or more links from colleges and universities, but the brand exposure through that outreach program will resonate within the walls of those schools for years to come - because they were the important part of the campaign, not the link.

Go for the edu campaign if you have the financial resources to do so, otherwise, a simple outreach program to bloggers to build your brand, get product reviews and reach blogger subscribers can still be an excellent way to drive traffic and sticky links.

Stay away from blog ads and blog link buying. These networks are being identified and flagged daily. Stick to blogs that do not have a link list in the sidebar or footer, and focus on those in your niche with a reasonable subscriber base. Try this site for blogger insights by industry: http://www.invesp.com/blog-rank

Good luck!

Hi Daniel,

This is actually a two part question, so here's the two part answer.

Linking to a Target Domain

Google's core algorthim is based on linking. The quantity and authority of links are presented in the form of PageRank, which isn't displayed by Google in any useful format nowadays. Having quality links from quality 3rd party domains add credibility and ultimately ranking for the target domain. Earning links to a target domain to achieve maximum ranking is ONE strategy and can produce great results by itself.

Creating Additional Micro-sites for SERPS Saturation

By creating additional domains simply to achieve higher ranking for a target domain divides your marketing efforts and can add confusion to your link building and PR teams. However, creating themed experiences via micro-sites and micro-blogging platforms as a way to increase search engine saturation while also boosting link juice, can be a powerful strategy (especially for an online reputation campaign). Take websitegrader.com for example. It's a micro-site built on its own domain that drives massive links from people who enjoy the tool. Yet, at the end of the day it's lead generation tool and could be a great link opportunity had the Hubspot gurus considered adding a keyword-rich link from their grader properties.

So I suppose the best answer might be to do both:

1. Build a powerful target website with the most influential links to earn top placement in the SERPS
2. Build one or more additional domains with a specific, non-salesy, theme in mind to earn saturation and organic links.

Just don't forget to add the link from the micro-site at the end of the day, if that's one of the strategies you decide to employ.

Yes, definitely have all 3 be different. Otherwise, you risk having the search engines pickup duplicate phrases as your keyword theme on the page. Search for "title tag principles" to find my old seoexpert.tv post that invokes the principles.

Notice the title and meta description say the same thing (essentially) but use different words or modifiers around the keyword theme (title tag principles).

The H1 is simply CTR and Title Tag Principles, though I would have done well to leave CTR out. Oh well, water under the bridge at this point.

Your H1 should be different on each page and be short and sweet (unlike the title where you have 70 characters to take advantage of). Perhaps your h1 could be:

• HP 1320 Printer - Refurbished - Q5928A
• or just HP 1320 Printer, Model Q5928A

All things considered, directories, blogs, articles, press releases, forums, social profiles, student discount pages, etc, what do you consider to be a strong, phased, link building strategy? I'm talking beyond natural/organic link bait, since many larger accounts will not allow you to add content to their website or take 6 months to approve a content strategy.

I've got my own list, but would love to hear what the community considers to be a strong, structured, timeline-based strategy for link building.

You mentioned wanting to appear for these variations:

hp cp2025n

cp2025n printer

hp cp20205n printer

or just cp2025n

Why not add them into H2 tags within the same product page, so that you cover each? Just a suggestion.

One H2 could be "Why the HP CP2025n?", another could be "HP CP2025n Printer Product Specs", etc.

You're close. However, if 1 and 2 are the same then you just hosed your keyword density (wow, haven't used that term in awhile) and also just created a main keyword theme "1320 Printer - Refurbished - Q5928A". I suggest mixing it up a bit so you don't use the same modifiers twice.

I have a client who wanted to rank for "low vision" a year ago. He moved up 18 positions after realizing he had the word "information" in the title and heading and used the modifier within the context as well. He was #1 for "low vision information" - I wonder why?

At the very least, put one instance in front of your keyword and one after, this will help you avoid a phrase becoming your main page topic.