Hi Claudio, I presume you mean to use the following as my full anchor text : "BroadbandSpeedTest.co.uk speed test tool" rather than just "speed test tool"?

I'll be sure to keep track and respond back when I have any useful data etc.

Hi Robert, thanks for the great reply and sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I was having problems with moz.com last week after I'd posted my question with the site not allowing me to reply despite being logged in.

Anyway, I will perhaps add that webmasters can no follow the link if they wish in the information for the tool and also change the anchor text too then.
With regards to the link will it not look spammy if I use my sites name and then a description of what the tool is considering my sites name is what the tool does?
For example: "BroadbandSpeedTest.co.uk speed test tool" as an anchor text do you think is OK?

Thanks for the reply again, very much appreciated!

On one of my sites I provide a free tool to other webmasters to use that allows them to copy some code to use the free tool on their website and under the tool on it says "Powered by: mysite.co.uk" with a link to "mysite.co.uk".

Now I have no real control over which sites can come and use this free tool (a tool to test how fast an internet connection is), on the whole though it is aimed at a specific niche but a range of sites do use it which means good or crap sites can pick up the free code to place into their sites.

The link to mysite.co.uk is now always mysite.co.uk as the anchor text, I used to use the websites name (which is the actual name of the URL - link to site at end of post) so the links were keyword rich but only to my sites genuine name, however I now just leave it as the URL to my site.

I am not aiming to do anything untowards with the linking other than to get the acknowledgement that it was provided for free by my site, however I'm wondering if google etc will be able to tell they are natural and not dodgy?

My site is: http://bit.ly/MsNQwS (n.b. a new improved test is being created before anyone says it's not accurate).

Thanks for the reply Theo

In my mind it made sence that I should be able to move host to a different country with not too many problems. Most of my other sites are UK based with a UK target audience I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be rocking the boat too much with a change of country and had it been hosted in a country where there was a decent level of traffic coming from then I'd have not considered thinking of moving it, the German hosting just threw me a curve ball I wanted to make sure I didn't ruin anything.

A fast US or UK server does sound like it would be OK to switch to. With regards to a CDN solution, there are no images or such on the site and the pages are very small file sizes so I'm unsure that it would make too much different to the load times, however a very good suggestion and once I get ownership of the site I'll check that that is still the case.

With regards to the .info domain, I know it's not ideal but the site I am buying is around 6 years old so I'm just going to have to live with it for this site, had it only been a year or 2 old I'd have given it a bit more thought.

Hi,

I am just in the process of purchasing a site from someone. The site has a global target audience (well global English speaking anyway).

The site is on a .info domain and is currently hosted in Germany.

Checking on SemRush it looks like 70% of traffic comes from English speaking countries (US, Australia, Canada, UK).

Now I need to move the hosting to one of my own when I change ownership of the site. Now does it overly matter where I choose my hosting as currently it is hosted in Germany (around 4% of visitors from Germany) but I want to do my best not to knock any rankings but I was thinking of moving it to a UK or US based host but still want to keep a general worldwide userbase. As the US accounts for the largest part of traffic (39%) would I be best choosing hosting based over in the US or does it not overly matter too much (I am in the UK so most hosting I use is UK based).

I have read a number of posts on server location but most seem to be for site which have a country specific target audience.

Thanks for your help!

Thanks for the reply Kriscons.

Yes the speedchescker sites is quite a bit older than mine and so has a lot more history, age and authority to it.

I'm guessing it's not just a case of trying to play "catch up" with links that will get me competing with them is it as I envisage that would be quite a mamouth task to do.

I'm not actually putting up a new site, I was saying that just the actual speedtest on there will be being developed (the site stays the same, the speed test just becomes a bit more accurate is all).

I'm after a fresh set of eyes and any suggestions to help me with my site on what next I should be doing to help increase rankings.

The site is: http://bit.ly/VR6xIm

Currently the site is ranking around 9-11th on google.co.uk for it's main term which is the name of the site. The site is around a year old, when it launched it went initially up towards positions 3-5 but has since settled at around where it is now.

I have a free tool webmasters can use to implement our speed test into their sites which also includes a link back to our site in it to recognise that we are providing the tool for free, I periodically change the link achor text so it is not always the same anchor text that every site uses.

Is there anything obvious I should be doing or that is missing that would help with my rankings?

*Just as a note, I am not after a review on the actual speed test on the site, a new one will be developed to help further increase accuracy.

Thanks for the replies Gerg & Irving.

The robots.txt block/exclude I take it I can just do that to the res.php page and not have to individually for the 30k generated dynamic pages off it (probably a silly question I know but wanted to double check).

Hi,

I have a site, downorisitjustme (dot) com

It has over 30,000 pages in google which have been generated by people searching to check if a specific site is working or not and then possibly adding a link to a msg board to the deeplink of the results page or something which is why the pages have been picked up.

Am I best to noindex the res.php page where all the auto generated content is showing up and just have the main static pages as the only ones available to be indexed?

Is there any SEO benefits from registering a previously expired domain name that is still linked to form an authorative source and 301 redirecting it to another site on a similar subject?

Obviously first benefit is giving users who are clicking on the link to be sent to a site on a similar subject that just to a dead link.

Hi Sha,

yes it all works, I think my problem was because of trying it on a test server etc.

You have abeen a great help!

Thanks again for the reply and being patient!

It still isn't working for me.

Obviosuly magazines.htm hasn't been uploaded at any point on the new server but that won't make any difference would it?

Thanks for the reply again Sha!

So I have put

Redirect 301 /magazines.htm http://edit/~mysite/magazine-freebies

at the very top of the .htaccess but the redirect still does not take place.

This is how it now looks. I'm sorry if I'm being daft here by the way!

Redirect 301 /magazines.htm http://edit/~mysite/magazine-freebiesagazine-freebies

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (<|%3C).script.(>|%3E) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [F,L]

BEGIN WordPress

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /~freefsuk/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /~freefsuk/index.php [L]</ifmodule>

END WordPress

Options -Indexes

protect the htaccess file

<files .htaccess="">order allow,deny
deny from all</files>

protect wpconfig.php

<files wp-config.php="">order allow,deny
deny from all</files>

<files wp-login.php="">Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from ...**</files>

Yes this is correct. Although I've tried it with the old page on the new server and with the old page not there on the new server but I can't get the re-direct to work.

Below is the contents of my .htaccess file.

Thankyou for your help!

BEGIN WordPress

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /~freefsuk/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /~freefsuk/index.php [L]</ifmodule>

END WordPress

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (<|%3C).script.(>|%3E) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [F,L]

Options -Indexes

protect the htaccess file

<files .htaccess="">order allow,deny
deny from all</files>

protect wpconfig.php

<files wp-config.php="">order allow,deny
deny from all</files>

<files wp-login.php="">Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
Allow from ...*</files>

Redirect 301 /magazines.htm http://edit/~mysite/magazine-freebies

Sorry, I thought as I was typing it that it might come across slightly confusing!

www.mysite.co.uk (old versions) is still live on current hosting.

The re-design of www.mysite.co.uk is ready and has been uploaded to a new server.

I have not changed the nameservers of www.mysite.co.uk to point to the new server yet and so the new re-designed site can only be viewed by visiting the physical address of where it is located on the new server: http://123.12.123.12/~mysite

However, I tried to just set up a test 301 redirect on the new server to test my 301 redirects would be working when I do change the nameservers from old to new server but they don't appear to work.

e.g. I tried to test the 301 by

http://123.12.123.12/~mysite/magazines.htm (no actual page there but represents  www.mysites.co.uk/magzines.htm when I do change nameservers)

Set up 301 redirect to try and take this to http://123.12.123.12/~mysite/magazine-freebies

So really the existing old site doesn't play any part in this as I am testing it all on the new server first?

Does this make any more sence or made it even more confusing?

I have re-designed one of my sites, the old site is all static pages on a Windows server, I have made the new sites and it is on a new server and is running on Wordpress.

I have just finished testing it and so am nearly ready to switch over the nameservers to the new server, however I'm having some problems with 301 redirects.

I have tried to set up a few 301 redirects on the new server to test before I change nameservers but they don't appear to be working. I would have imagined that they should (even though the actual page isn't hosted on the new server) or am I being very stupid here and I can't test a 301 redirect until the nameservers have been changed.

Redirect 301 /magazines.htm http://.../~account/magazine-freebies

Obviously the above with the stars (*) is the server address and route to my account.

301 redirect to the home page?

Will that not be detremental when lots of the now deleted pages were for usual spammy items that have nothign to do with my site content or will google just see it as pages now gone and delete them subsequently?

A couple of my sites have recently been hacked with the hacker managing to overwrite lots of my pages with their own spam products and also adding in lots of (hundreds) pages that they have created themselves.

I have rectified this in so far as removing folders that the hacker used to over write my pages so my original pages are now back showing the correct content and also removed all the hundres of new pages that they had managed to instantly add.

I appreciate that google will find and re-crawl all my genuine pages so the correct content is being displayed and indexed for them but what is the best method for dealing with the hundreds of extra spam ages that google had managed to crawl but have now been deleted so there are loads of 404 page not founds in google?