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Hi Me again!

You wrote:

"the worst we've done is including links in the footers of some themes we've distributed"

So, perhaps you should start with the worst and see if that is it?

I have a feeling that these Client Footer Links used to provide rankings and now don't because of adjustments to the algorithm.  I think that rather than view it as a penalty, you may be best to view it as a previous gift that is now gone.  I am formulating theories as to why, and I am currently somewhere beyond my original hunch (which was that they look like paid links), and not yet to my actual theory (which is much broader, but I haven't fully formulated, so I will keep to myself for a bit).

Anyway, I have figured out how it would be quite easy for search engines to devalue Client Footer Links, along with the blog networks and paid links they have been taking down, by using some available metrics.  So, when my theory comes together, if the search engines are not using it, they will be forced to sometime in the next few years.  (Stroking my own genious ego here, I know).

Open Site Explorer only updates in batches.  They crawl the web, then they process it, which takes a lot, then they publish it.

Somewhere around here there is a schedule for the next planned update

With such an opening statement, I think you should hire someone.

those articles as northstarheadgasket and 4homebuilder look like they were written for search engines (as in, nobody would normally post an article there for any other reason than to get links - because nobody actually goes to those sites to find articles on sunglasses).

I don't have any idea if the Search Engines do it, but they ought to value a link from how much real traffic the source page has.  Therefore, a page that has a lot of traffic, is likely to only put on only good quality links relevant to the market - and real users might actually use those links.  Or perhaps they could value a link based on how often it is used.  Of course perhaps this could be manipulated by bots, but it would be another step in the right direction (instead of just knowing how to insert links, spammers would have to know how to program bots to click on certain links, or they would have to do it manually).

You have a cool product, and could probably get (and perhaps have) lots of interaction on facebook, and could have a cool blog, with videos, product demos, and with weird subject like "10 coolest celebrities wearing Gatorz" and "Gatorz Guys are Girl Magnets" or for the girls: "Gucci is old and busted - Go Gatorz Girlz!" or the other side of that "Every Gucci needs a Gatorz"

Are those "useful links" really useful to users?

Or are they there as part of a link exchange?

Hi,

I agree you have overoptimized.  I also think you may have a different problem, or at least you did.

Your redirect of gatorzwarehouse is working today, but did not work yesterday for me.

Maybe a fluke, but something to look into.

I have an opinion that many of the other sites that I have seen recently have one of a few things going on.

Either -

• They have crappy links that were bought on blog networks (which I didn't see in your case)
• They have footer links that they installed when people used their services (as in "designed by ABC web Design),
• They have footer links that were installed when people used their software (Powered by Wordpress MU)

The net result that I see from any of these scenarios is that the site in question gets lots and lots of anchor text links from lots of unrelated sites all over the place, which makes the "designed by" or "powered by" links look like an unnatural build, or possibly even look like paid links.

This is just my opinion and it could be wrong - but I am seeing it more and more.

I think your problem is crappy links. You will need to build some high quality content that people will want to link to. And get rid of the crap links if you can.

As I have watched you respond numerous times, I once again am impressed with your awesomeness.

You should change your avatar to have a bright light shining around your head or something...

Hopefully this does not come off as sarcastic, it is intended to be actual praise, and lighthearted

Just my opinion, but I would change a few things:

1. Get rid of the links you have placed at the bottom of clients websites, they don't seem natural, and the clients would probably not voluntarily put them there.
2. Get rid of feeder pages like this: http://www.brentwood-seo.co.uk/ and this:http://www.brentwood-seo.com/.  They are not built for users.
3. Get rid of these pages that you have parked for clients with your stuff on them, like this: http://www.lambro-contracts.co.uk/  and this:  http://www.argentumjewellery.co.uk/  They are effectively a private link network, which is being penalized like crazy.

Perhaps you could add a link to the original source on some of these where you have the permission.  This should send a signal to google that you are showing it on your site for the convenience of users, but it is from a different source.

Do you know which plugin (or combination) was the trouble?

I use a lot of wordpress, and this is very interesting.

I am going to disagree with the above.

The command <meta < span="">name="robots" content="noodp, noydir" /> has nothing to do with denying any access to the robots.</meta <>

It is used to prevent the engines from displaying meta descriptions from DMOZ and the Yahoo directory.  Without this line, the search engines might choose to use those descriptions, rather than the descriptions you have as meta descriptions.

Is Yoast generating another sitemap for you?

You have a sitemap from a different plugin, but Yoast can also generate sitemaps, so perhaps you have 2 - and one of the sitemaps lists the items that you are disallowing.

Hi,

Keri has a more complete answer.  Mine is quick.

I had a campaign: domain.com - SEOMoz only crawled one page

I changed it to *domain.com - SEOMoz crawled all pages.

Good Luck.

I believe that what Matt Cutts says is still true, that the location of your server can impact your SEO.

I used Open Site Explorer, which is available under the "Research Tools" section of SEOMoz.  (look in the main menu above for "Research Tools" then look on the left of the page for the Open Site Explorer.

Just put your url in there, and it will bring up lots of links.  Then just go and visit them to see what they are like.  You can also filter for follows vs nofollows, and other attributes, depending on what you are looking for.  I just opened up a half dozen or so of them to get a feel for your links, and found what I mentioned above.

There are other tools too, such as Raven Tools, which could also show these to you, but since you are a pro member, you might as well use SEOMoz tools.

Yes,

and

your involvement in Linkmarket and any other link enchanges you are on, I saw some others too.

and

the footer links you put on websites you have designed.

I think you are likely to have duplicate content issues.  All that subdomaining with the city name being the only change - probably not a good long term strategy for you.

First, you are diluting your authority on the various subjects.  The search engines will not know which pages among the many near duplicates are the important pages on a subject.

Second, you are risking future penalties from search engines.  They are constantly improving the algorithms to improve user experience, and all those subdomains with duplicate content do nothing for user experience, except to perhaps confuse them.

If you are going to do the guest articles then put on various sites.  Lots of links from one site is not as good as several from several sites - just think, what if ezinearticles.com goes out of business, and you have 100 links there and no others.  All 100 are gone.

Other arguments covering the value or non-value of article marketing are already well spoken here.

In my opinion, yes.

Here is a good article on it.

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/how-to-analyze-google-analytics-not-provided-data

To answer your question directly, I think (my opinion only) that Google would not penalize you for not having shares and comments, but in reverse, I believe they will reward you when you do get lots of shares and comments.

I do like your dragon post, I think you are getting more on the right track, it is more interesting for sure than how to save.  To improve even more, build the interaction right into the post (like what Matt is talking about).  The best thing about getting those other companies involved is that a few of them will really take off and tell people to come and vote for their patch.  I think Facebook has a polling program, but there are other ways to do it if you kept it right on your blog too.

My brother was in a submission contest something like this, and he told everybody he knew, all the time, to go vote for his item.  It was facebooked around like crazy!

All I can say is WOW!

If not for the rankings, change this for the users!

I can virtually guarantee that your bounce rates will go down and sales will go up if you get that load time down.

Hopefully that load time is with a slow dial up connection.  Nobody with a modem waits that long.  After 10-15 seconds the assumption is that the website is broken, and they leave....

Ahh, i misread that date.

Try viewing both sites in a search engine spider simulator.  I like the Foxy SEO spider simulator for FireFox.

When you use a spider emulator:

Their site actually says something about Japanese Imports a few times in the text, and then lists several (mostly Japanese) cars for sale.  And their menu lists other Japanese models.

Your site looks like a bunch of links with hardly any text, and many of the links are for non-Japanese cars.

Edit:

Plus, (don't take this harshly, I only looked at a few), but your backlinks are spammy.  They appear to be from very spammy sites.  Would you believe anyone would go read one of those sites and find value from your links?  My guess is that they these links are at best providing zero value to you, and possibly hurting you.

Good Luck!

check to see whether you have personalized results turned on

check to see what location google says you are searching from.

Both factors affect what is shown to YOU.

Some guesses for you:

Your first thing at the top is an ad.  This is not really useful content for users.  Google Panda may or may not tolerate it.

On a related note, since you don't have much text, perhaps it appears to google like you don't have much overall content and are stuffed with ads, which is definitely not tolerated by Google Panda

You don't have an address, a phone number, or other trust factors on your site.

You can go viral there, according to Colby.

I think you should keep posting, and also promote the blog.

But also, I went to your blog page, and there is no link that I found to easily get back to your main site page.  The logo is not even clickable.  I was stranded there.  You might want to change that.

On your blog, who is the target audience?  I don't know much about patches, but it seemed to me that the blog was written to say "hey, here is another use for embroidered patches"  Spice it up a little, so people have a reason to come back.  Humor, possibly.

So, I am just on a tear, so I will try to write or rewrite some of your titles for you:

"Choose Embroidered Patches over Direct Embroidery and Save"  (does anyone talk like that?).  How about something like "Four Reasons why Embroidered Patches make you Smarter and Sexier"

"Biggest Patch You've Ever Seen"  article, on some stupid patch that was the biggest or whatever.  Get people to try to top it with their own super large patch picture that they send in.

"The Great Pumpkin Patch"  near halloween of course.

"The toughest Patch we Ever Made" with some crazy durable surface that you used and it had to withstand rocket fuel or buffalo snot or whatever.  Heck, make a video with you abusing it and it still holds up.

"Most Unusual Use Ever for a Patch" - also get people to comment on other unusual uses, or get them to submit.  Like maybe somebody took a bunch of patches and sewed them together to make a horse sweater or who knows what.

How to Make Patch Pants (maybe you could even use that video?  or make your own)

"Hip (or Chic, or Teen, or Goth, or Punk) Patch Fashion" show some cool way that patches have been used that art

"Funniest Patch You will see This Year"  with lots of possible interaction.

"I bet You Didn't Know This was Patch"  with some offbeat examples, like that tumbler thing in your soccer article.

"Most Patriotic Patch of the Century" article, or challenge.

You could even do things like "How Many Patches Does it take to stop a Bullet"  with slow-mo video.  Stupid I know, but people love that sort of stuff.  Or,

How about a suggestive title like "Oh Yeah, Size definitely Matters for Patches" and then go on to a boring article about how to measure patches for how much information you can put on them or pricing or whatever.

"Do you have a Sexy Patch?"  article, with some patches that have inuendos on them or something.  Try to get people to comment with the best inuendos they've seen, or maybe get them to send in pictures or something (heck make it a contest).  Depending on your market, you might need to tone this one down a bit.

"History of Smuggling Spy Information under Patches" (I just made that up, but what a great place to hide secret info, under a patch that is sewn on.)

"Early Historical Use of Military Patches"  or "Patches used in the Civil War" or "Patches used by the (Navy, Air Force, etc.)"

"Rarest and most sought after Patches" or "Highest Price paid for a patch on Ebay" or something.

The cool thing about all of these is that you can link back to them from future blogs, since they will still be humorous and funny.

Okay, the well is dry for now, good luck.

I hope you don't find this harsh:

The question is irrelevant.  If you are on page 2 or 3, who cares if it is page 2 or page 3, you might as well be on page 10.  Take some good action to improve so that you get on page 1, then worry about what nickname you wish to call the minor daily fluctuations.

Good Luck!

Looking at your site, I think you could get away with a lot.

I would be tempted to do something like:

"Girly Man Plan", then "Real Man Plan", then "Manly Man Plan" or whatever.

You would of course alienate the women, but I am guessing there are not too many there in your line of business.

Good Luck.

I tend to like it.  MailChimp does it very well (mostly after you sign up).  SeoMoz does it a some, but not as well as Mailchimp.

I might cringe at "boring", but in general I would say it engages people just a hair so they know you are real.

I tend to also like SeoQuake for Chrome but I have it disabled most of the time, as I can find it to be obnoxious when I don't need the info.

Be careful on #2.  The video on Youtube may outrank the same video on your own site.

Looking at the table of contents, and the preview pages, it appears that a sizeable change was made to add a chapter on Social Media (new chapter 8).  About 50 pages.

The rest of the table of contents and preview content looks very similar to the current edition.

I may have missed something, so feel free to chime in.

Wow, I can't beleive I didn't see that before!

Note to Self  Learn how to use these fancy new things - Search Boxes on site.....

Check out points 1, 3, and 4 from this post

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beat-google-panda

Point 1 is that where is the content, your content doesn't even start above the fold - this is my first thought.

Point 3 is that Overlapping or Redundant articles are not all going to be rewarded - I didn't read yours to know how overlapping they are, other than you said above they are "related" you might be fine here, I have to say I am not inclined to read more about these things on your articles...more than I wanted to know!

Point 4 is a high ad ratio (I am not sure if this would apply or not)

I would take these things into consideration when I look at those two pages

Good Luck!

First edition was printed in the end of 2009.  Great Book.

Needs updating of course.

I would buy the next edition if it was updated in an awesome way that I know Rand and the others would do.

Cloudflare yes, could very much affect your analytics

There are a variety of help topics about this on CloudFlare's site.

I should have added that they should open and fulfill a Google Places account

One or both of you probably has personalized search results on, or localized search results on

Let me know how it turns out.

These are probably sites that are "Search Partners", so check your ad campaign to see if you have allowed both "Search" ads and "Search Partner" ads. I often feel that many of the "Search Partner" ads seem muchlike display network ads. The next thing I would check your ads to see if you have inadvertently put your display url into the destination url field on some of these ads.

Local = the volume within the whole region.

So, Local is not really "local" as you might think of it.

As you seem to be in the US, if you set the Local region to the US, that is the number you get back in that column.

Hi,

The first thing I would do is remove the double titles on all your pages.  Most of the pages have a duplicate of the title, but the home page has "Playground developments" in one title element, and "Home" in the other.  You are just confusing the search engine with this.

Plus, beef up that "Contact Us" Page and use the company identifiers in Schema.org to send a clear signal to the search engines.

I would also change the copyright to be copyright of the company name rather than the copyright of the website address.

Also, maybe an Alt tag for your logo image would be appropriate.  Something like "Playground Developments Logo Image" or whatever so that you are describing the image, and sending a message about the company name again.

I honestly don't remember the exact source.  I have done massive reading in the last few months, and I am sure it was in multiple sources.

One of the better books on Adwords is Advanced Google Adwords (although outdated, but an Updated Version of Advanced Google Adwords is coming in April)

If you waited this long, I would recommend waiting for the updated version, and then getting that.  It is always good to know something about any area where you are spending significant time and money.  I also would recommend getting it soon, as changes happen fast, and even the new book could be outdated in less than a year.

Surprisingly, your local library may have books on Adwords available to you as well depending on if you are near a medium to larger city.

I think something is going on with a space vs a %20

1. Copy and paste in the url that you listed above to Brent's recommended tool, you get a 404 response.
2. If you copy and paste that url to a browser, however, your page comes up.
3. Now take THAT url and paste into the tool Brent recommends, and you get a 200 (good) response.

The only difference that I see, is that when I copy and paste that url to a browser (Chrome in my case), it adds a %20 where you have a space.

Since this is the thing that makes these other url checkers work, I am guessing that the crawl diagnostics tool is having a similar problem.  See the comparison below (much abbreviated to the area in question)

ACO 3018  (from your post, and gives you the error)

ACO%203018 (when it resolves in the browser, and shows a good response in the tools)

I am just smart enough to tell you that these are different, but not smart enough to know why it causes problems for crawlers, but not for browsers.

The good news is that your pages work for users.  The bad news is that Google probably never sees them.