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That's a great study - thanks for sharing it with me.

Thanks Tom, yes it's Wordpress - I do manually edit the slug to take out stop words and irrelevant words but sometimes its just not enough.

If I use digital marketing as an example, I may end up having:

contentwhiz.com/content-marketing/keyword-optimisation/optimise-your-blog-posts-with-perfect-keywords

How long is too long? No idea!

I'll just Snapchat Rand and ask him...

p.s. (Sorry if contentwhiz is you!)

A client's site currently uses the URL structure:

www.website.com/�tegory%/%postname%

Which I think is optimised fairly well, as the categories are keywords being targeted.  However, as they are using a category hierarchy, often times the URL looks like this:

www.website.com/parent-category/child-category/some-post-titles-are-quite-long-as-they-are-long-tail-terms

Best practise often dictates (such as point 3 in this Moz article) that shorter URLs are better for several reasons.

So I'm left with a few options:

1. Remove the category from the URL
2. Flatten the category hierarchy
3. Shorten post titles two a word or two - which would hurt my long tail search term traffic.
4. Leave it as it is

What do we think is the best route to take? Thanks in advance!

Absolutely remove your links / disavow links from as many of them as possible.  You'll probably lose more ranking by keeping them, over the coming months.

Even if you have to work to replace them with quality links, it will definitely be worth doing!

So there's an obvious difference between a branded and non-branded search term, but I'm interested in the SERPs that are shown as a result.

Branded search only results in 7 listings on the first page - obviously because branded search is generally more navigational in nature and the lower results get minimal CT.

Are their any technical differences beyond this?

Also, how does google define a branded search term? Because a search for Vodafone or Dell show reduced results, but Coca Cola does not.

Thanks guys

Comprehensive... thanks!

If you're trying to create a site which is an information hub, obviously linking out to authoritative sites is a good idea.

However, does linking to a PDF have the same effect?

e.g Linking to Google's SEO starter guide PDF, as opposed to linking to a google article on SEO.

Thanks!

I asked a similar question recently, the response covers your question and offers some useful tips.

Good luck!

http://www.seomoz.org/q/quality-links-are-beneficial-but-are-neutral-links-detrimental

Provided the site isn't spammy and its content and link profile are of a decent quality, I can't forsee any problems.

Besides, what if a website was called freespeech.com? I cant imagine Google seeing that as spammy.

So obviously a link profile featuring quality / authoritative / relavant in-bound links is preferable, but here's my question:

If I'm starting work on a brand new domain, should I build links that one would consider neutral (i.e. from a non-spammy, but unrelated site) or should I not bother and only focus on quality links?

Thanks

Provided the site isn't spammy and its content and link profile are of a decent quality, I can't forsee any problems.

Besides, what if a website was called freespeech.com? I cant imagine Google seeing that as spammy.

My first piece of advice would be to appeal to their human side - state your case that it's your hard work they're stealing and that duplicate content may actually hurt both of your rankings.

If that doesn't work which I expect it wont, dend a strongly worded Cease and Desist letter, you'll find some templates here:

http://minnesotaattorney.com/cease-desist-letter-template-example-sample-forms/

Ensure all of your content has a clear copyright mark.

Use the letter to make the point that legal action may be taken if they do not stop.

good luck!

Shifts are definitely towards content marketing for SEO - i.e place more emphasis on useful and relavant content as opposed to in-bound link building.

That being said, incoming links are still a measure of authority. The argument for quality content is that this will organically increase links through shares and trackbacks etc.

To get the process started (and to start building links) comment on other peoples articles where relavant, share on social media and generally join / add to the conversation

Good luck!

All absolutely valid responses - we currently just write copy for our users and optimise HTML for the search engines, seems to be working well thus far

Thanks guys!

If you have no physical premises (i.e. operate online) but you only serve clients in a specific area, what is best practice for targeting a local area?

I know G. Places can be used if you have a premises, and that .co.uk / hosting server location make a difference, but beyond that... ?

Thanks!