Did you have any luck using this plugin to correct your issue, Jennifer?

This is a really common problem on shared Windows IIS-based hosting, Brian.

In addition to the web.config method Oleg mentions, there's another method if it's only for a few specific pages.

This method involves actually having a "placeholder" page on the server at the old URL. You then add a script to provide the 301 redirect. (Or just replace the content of the origianl page, if it's still on the server.)

For example:

On ASP.net you would create the page oldpagename.aspx and its content would be:

On ASP you'd create the placeholder oldpagename.asp and its content would be:

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "www.mydomain.com/newpagename.aspx"
%>

Obviously this method doesn't scale as easily as the web.config method, but it's generally easier if you're just dealing with a few pages every once in a while.

Paul

There are a number of issues that are likely causing indexing problems with this site, Eric, but I'm going to have to be up front with you.

The site's business model is so completely against the search engines' terms of service, and is contributing to the low opinion so many in the public have of SEO, that regretfully I must decline to provide any further help with this particular site.

This is my own judgement call and is not intended to reflect on you in any way.

Paul

You're right about him referring to what is actually a subdirectory, Woody, but then you go and confuse him by calling blog.furnacefilterscanada.com a subdirectory too, when in fact that IS actually a subdomain. Oops!

And as I mention in my other comment, what Jean wants to do is typically accomplished using a reverse proxy, so it is definitely do-able.

Paul

What you are talking about here is a subdirectory, Jean, not a subdomain.

Depending on your hosting and systems configurations, this can accomplished using something called a reverse proxy. Here's a SEOMoz post about it from last year.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-is-a-reverse-proxy-and-how-can-it-help-my-seo

This method is very effective, but it is not trivial to implement. You'll need someone with strong server expertise to make sure both your hosting accounts have the capabilities and access necessary to make this work, and to get it configured correctly. (It will be slightly easier given that you're just starting the blog, not reverse-proxying an existing one.)

Paul

Wp-includes doesn't include any user content, William. The wp-content folder is where all user-uploaded images, pdfs etc are stored, so removing wp-includes from the robots.txt won' t have any effect on whether posts/pages are indexing or not.

But even if such content were in that blocked directory, posts and pages are in the database and are output from their respective pseudo index pages, none of which are ni the /wp-includes directory.

I'm just on my out the door, Eric, but if you want to PM me a few example URLs/pages, I'd be happy to have a look. Or of course you could post them publicly here for others to give you a hand, if you're comfortable with that. It's pretty hard to address problems like this without being able to research the actual pages.

Paul

You could just try installing the No Category Base plugin to replace what the Yoast plugin was doing and see how much of your issue that corrects.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-no-category-base/

If it's just the category base that disrupting your paginated pages as well, that will solve it.

Let us know if it works?

Paul

P.S. an .htaccess rule could be written to strip out the /category part of the URL, but the plugin handles it much more simply and has very low overhead.

You can insert the canonical header link using your site's .htaccess file, Bob. I'm sure Hostgator provides access to the htaccess file through ftp (sometimes you have to turn on "show hidden files") or through the file manager built into your cPanel.

Check tip #2 in this recent SEOMoz blog article for specifics:
seomoz.org/blog/htaccess-file-snippets-for-seos

Just remember too - you will want to do the same kind of on-page optimization for the PDF as you do for regular pages.

• Give it a good, descriptive, keyword-appropriate, dash-separated file name. (essential for usability as well, since it will become the title of the icon when saved to someone's desktop)
• Fill out the metadata for the PDF, especially the Title and Description. In Acrobat it's under File -> Properties -> Description tab (to get the meta-description itself, you'll need to click on the Additional Metadata button)

I'd be tempted to build the links to the html page as much as possible as those will directly help ranking, unlike the PDF's inbound links which will have to pass their link juice through the canonical, assuming you're using it. Plus, the visitor will get a preview of the PDF's content and context from the rest of your site which which may increase trust and engender further engagement..

Your comment about links in the PDF got kind of muddled, but you'll definitely want to make certain there are good links and calls to action back to your website within the PDF - preferably on each page. Otherwise there's no clear "next step" for users reading the PDF back to a purchase on your site. Make sure to put Analytics tracking tags on these links so you can assess the value of traffic generated back from the PDF - otherwise the traffic will just appear as Direct in your Analytics.

Hope that all helps;

Paul