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I hope that helps.

Wow, I'm chiming in almost three years later, but I think my question is pertinent. When you stopped indexing your category pages...did sales "happen" on your main website? I ask because you wrote that sales don't happen on your blog. I'm just wondering why sales are not happening on your blog and if it's a matter of funneling or the lack thereof?

Hello Chris, you're absolutely right. It took me a while to conceptualize the process, but referring to projects where I've used 301's to redirect one URL to another helped me realize that I perform the task almost on a daily bases. The one twist that's a first for me is that of redirecting URL's from an active domain to another.

A note to readers that may have a similar question - the 301 redirect is implemented on the donor domain and not on the receiving domain (where content is being move to) explaining why the URL can no longer exist on the donor domain.

With much appreciation, thank you.

Wow, I think I experiencing an episode of "deer in the headlights". Whok

Thanks for the link, Chris, I'm still baffled. I also think, and please pardon if I'm mistaken, that there's an important factor that's being overlooked (my bad). The original domain (domain A) is going to remain in use curating some of the original content, and a new domain (domain B) is going to be established to curate some of the content migrated from domain A where the content was originally created. Implementing a 301 from one domain to another is not applicable since domain A is going to still be public facing with its own content.

l hope this is starting to make sense.

I have a client that wants to migrate some of his site's content to a new domain, not all of the content, just some of it. This is not an address change. He wants to continue actively using the domain name where all this content currently resides, so it's not a matter of notifying search engines of an address change.

The first thing that comes to mind is the use of the canonical tag, but it's not making sense. Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

Hello Lance, please pardon the belated reply.

Your answer is very precise, thanks for elaborating in such detail. Number 7 - "410 errors are reportedly a bit faster at getting content removed" - is a gem. I see the logic behind # 8, makes lots of sense, and so does number 9. Nice recipe for a recovery.

Again, thank you for the insight.

Hello EGOL, thanks for the resources. I bookmarked both for later reference, especially the article written by Marie Haynes.

I like to take a moment and update my findings. Earlier this morning, as I explored the subject site's hosting environment,  I found several backup copies of the site stored in "/home/alias". On a local host I restored the last backup and found that it did in fact undergo a restructuring of the URL's, not once but several times. Without looking further I suspect the site went through several (8) phases of restructuring and all within a period of 8 months making for linking and fluctuations in the SERP's.

This leads to another question which I posted here on this forum.

I have a site that has suffered several phases of restructuring. Apparently its owners were unsure as to which direction to take when it came to structuring their content and URL schema and subjected the site to several rounds of poorly thought through implementations (i.e. example.com/content/page-title, example.com/page-title, example.com/"silo"/page-title, etc.), all within a 8 month period. I posted the originating question here on this Q&A Forum. I want to thank EGOL and Cody for taking a stab at it.

What would be a good strategy to help a site like the one I describe above begin ranking again?

Hello Cody, and thank you for responding to my question. Yes, I've examined all inbound links and the inbound links of the link grantors and found no purchased or low quality links on their sites.

Just got a client whose site dropped from a PR of 3 to zero. This happened shortly after the Penguin release, June, 2012.

Examining the site, I couldn't find any significant duplicate content, and where I did find duplicate content (9%), a closer look revealed that the duplication was totally coincidental (common expressions). Looking deeper, I found no sign of purchased links or linking patterns that would hint at link schemes,  no changes to site structure, no change of hosting environment or IP address. I also looked at other factors, too many to mention here, and found no evidence of black hat tactics or techniques.

The site is structured in silos, "services", "about" and "blog". All page titles that fall under services are categorized (silo) under "services", all blog entries are categorized under "blogs", and all pages with company related information are categorized under "about". When exploring the site's links in Site Explorer (SE), I noticed that SE is identifying the "silo" section of links (i.e. services, about, blog, etc.) and labeling it as an anchor text. For example, domain.com/(services)/page-title, where the page title prefix (silo), "/services/", is labeled as an anchor text. The same is true for "blog" and "about". BTW, each silo has its own navigational menu appearing specifically for the content type it represents. Overall, though there's plenty of room for improvement, the site is structured logically.

My question is, if Site Explorer is picking up the silo (services) and identifying it as an anchor text, is Google doing the same? That would mean that out of the 15 types of service offerings, all 15 links would show as having the same exact anchor text (services). Can this type of site structure (silo) hurt a website post Penguin?

You would think...

Hey there Chris, thanks for contributing. I agree with everything you said, but something seems to be amiss with what's going on. There's the "should be", if we go by Google, and there's the "what is", when we look at how things really play out in the real world of ranking.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, the subject has been brought up many times before on how so many websites  seem to get away with what appears to be blunt infractions of Google's rules, but in all honesty, I never before had to consider hallmarks as a competing factor, I don't even know how they're perceived by search engines.

How would a website designer who builds high quality sites but in small numbers compete with a designer who spits out low quality sites in high numbers? Should hallmarks be a contributing factor? Do they have a rightful place in influencing rank?

Hello GKLA, thanks for your response.

What brought this topic to a head was a call I received from a friend who just happens to be a website designer. To simplify things let's call my friend Joe. Joe is a high-end website designer who builds an average of three to four websites a year, and despite what may seem to be a small number of sites, he makes a pretty good living. Joe's designs reflects this artistry and in addition to being a great designer he also as an eye for information architecture. He uses illustrators  photographers, and content writers who are on top of their game, so most of his creations are co-produced. His own website/domain is about 7 years old and though classy and well structured, competitor websites of lesser quality and substance are always out ranking Joe's site, so I did a competitive analysis to see what was going on.

In examining Joe's competitors, I looked at other probable ranking variables and found the hallmarks as being the major contributing factor to their superior ranking in comparison to Joe's website. Joe guards his links and is very selective when it comes to giving and receiving links. Surprisingly, Joe doesn't use hallmarks. When I asked him about not using hallmarks Joe replied that it wouldn't be in good taste considering his clients' stature, and I agree.

Obviously the placement of the hallmarks is assumptive on the designer's behalf, meaning that they were placed on the host sites probably without the direct approval or acknowledgement of the client, a common practice among web designers, so they're not really earned links by definition (merit). I too share the opinion that website designers who place hallmarks on the sites they create without disclosure or grant are taking advantage of their clients as well as taking advantage of a linking scheme available only to them, website designers. I mean, what other industry or practice on the Internet gets to use and benefit from hallmarks as a ranking factor?

Hello Moosa, thank you for your answer. Case studies in our lab show that both Panda and Penguin have fallen short of what they were supposedly programmed to do - meaning that despite the placement of exact anchor text throughout multiple sites, (hundreds) and on multiple pages of a site, Google's algorithm updates, Panda and Penguin , are apparently failing to devalue their ranking influence. Here's an excerpt from Google Webmaster Tools regarding Link Schemes...

"Your site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links influences your ranking. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity."

I guess with a comment like the one above you can read whatever you want into it. The part that says, "site's that link to you" implies the act of willingly giving a citation. Another is "relevance", if I'm a web designer and put my hallmark on a biochemistry site I built, how is biochemistry (health care, construction, pharmacy, etc) relevant to web design? I don't get it.

Can it be that Google and other search engines give web design sites and their hallmarks special consideration?

Website designers/developers place hallmarks (Website Designed by XXXX) in the footer region of the web sites they have designed/built, how much ranking value do these hallmarks have being that they're pointing from sites that are irrelevant to the web designer's, and why?