Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Sure. It is www.wijss.com.

We run a training center. We had 1 main website and 2 dedicated websites to certain themes. The 2 dedicated websites are older and the main website is about 6 months old. The 2 dedicated websites had a top 5 ranking for their most important keywords.

2 weeks ago we imported all the content from the dedicated websites into the main website. Then immediately after we did a perfect 301 redirect of these websites to the main website. 2 SEO companies checked it for us and so I'm very sure this is done right. Google immediately caught this up and gave the main website a boost. We where in the top 10 for many important keywords for 1 week. The next week all our rankings dropped. We only have a top 50 ranking for 10 keywords. Before it was 75 keywords in the top 20.

Do you know what could have caused this? Any suggestion, thought, ... is welcome!

My weekly ranking report shows massive loss of SERP's on Bing. For most keywords I was no longer in the top 50 which where first top 5. But when I checked it out for myself, I'm still ranked top 5 for these keywords. I then used the Moz Rank Tracker and there it also says I'm still ranking top 5 for these keywords.

What should I believe now?

Interesting view. That would be correct if we where a shop or service provider. Yet we take our subscriptions online and manage everything from a distance. The trainings itself take place at this location. How could I know for sure if Google would find this a problem or not?

In Google Places, I can also select other working areas. Does this have the same effect on local rankings as a separate business profile?

Hi Mozzers,

We operate in Belgium and just recently we also opened a location in the Netherlands. This is a trainingslocation but there is no staff present.

We want to add this location to our Google Places account. It seems we need to enter it is as different company profile.

Does Google have a problem with the fact that there is no staff present on adres of this company profile and the location is managed by our HQ in Belgium?

I'm considering installing Wordpress for my website. So I have to change the static URL's from /webpage.html to /webpage/. Yet I don't want to lose in the SERP's. What should I expect?

Thank you for the response. Yet I'm looking for a tool which monitors new links, not old links. My preference would be to get updates on a monthly basis.

What are the best tools to find the links gained on (monthly basis) by your competitors?

What is a good ratio for publishing blog messages on our company website? Which ratio is "Panda-friendly"?

HI Seomoz,

Yes, this question is to you :-), but it might come in handy for the rest of us.

With the revamp of your service and website, you guys also decided to change your web address to Moz.com. Myself and perhaps others here consider to do the same. Yet I fear loss in the SERP's.

Did you guys experience any loss in the SERP's for your most valuable keywords?

What was your plan of action?

I have been thinking about changing our webadres for quite a while but I'm too afraid of the impact on my SERP. I understand I would need to use the Google Change of Address tool & 301 redirects. Am I missing something?

What is your experience with changing the URL of a website? How has this impacted your SERP? In the past I heard someone say it will damage the linkjuice by 20%. Is that accurate?

If you change the URL, is there a blank period of where your old site nor your new site are indexed? Or does Google handle this transition well?

I readed on Search Engine Land that Google is targetting advertorials. I know of 1 advertorial about our company which links to our site. Is this something to worry about or is it only a problem if it is used on a larger scale?

That seems like a good plan. In which timeframe should I expect results (if any)?

When I copied & pasted chunks of text in Google & Bing, I did notice that Google showed way more results then Bing. This could also indicate that Google is more tolerant to duplicate content in their index then Bing.

The links you checked were totally removed from the index on Bing a few weeks ago. They are now back in the index, but not (yet) in the top 50. What does that indicate?

Hi Marie,

Thank you for the tip. I will definitely check if there aren't too many keywords on the page.

In the theory of Marcus, it could make sense that Google recognizes the original content, while Bing does not recognize us as the original content. Google places us on top, while Bing places us below. This indicates that Bing is using different metrics which are not in my benefit.

I also checked Bing WMT, but no messages.

HI Marcus,

No, the pages are 2 to 6 years old.

I will send you a PM with the link now.

Thank you.

Thank you Tom and Marcus, for your responses. It was really helpful. I value it highly.

Just to be clear, the penalty is on page-level and only on Bing. Weekly I see 1 or 2 pages from my website removed from the index on Bing (page 1 or 2 ranking before). I use the weekly ranking report of Seomoz as an indicator. This has been happening since January. When I go to Bing I indeed can't find the pages that lost the ranking according to Seomoz. They seem totally removed from the search index. Also no messages in Bing Webmaster tools.

I have no idea what is triggering this page-level penalty. So I'm looking for an expert on this matter.

I prefer not to share my website openly.

I'm having a hard time finding a (good) SEO company which specializes itself in Penalty analysis? Any recommendations?

I only found Bruce Clay, but they charge 8,000$ :)...

Hi Cyrus,

Thank you for the response!

I have taken the time to deeply review your comment. You did make some good points.

1. With reciprocal links, I'm not worried about a penalty but it would weaken the linkjuice if it went both ways.

2. I do believe bakeries will see the benefit in a advert in the guide, if only they need to place a link on their website, which is free. I would be amazed if this would been seen as buying links, let alone that Google could track offline publications. But but then again, Google never stops to amaze us :).

3. So many SEO's stress the fact that content should be something which your clients want to link too. I totally agree when your clients are consumers but not always if they are professionals. This market is way smaller and is less social vibrant. In this case I must skip my target audience and concentrate on their clients. Your tips are great. I will try to implement them!

I would love to digitalize the guide and have it run online. I have thought about before. But then you would get 3-way linking. This isnt very beneficial either.

Good points though... Will have to think on that.

Lets say I own a company that sells bakery-supplies. I would want links from websites with "bakery" as their main topic. So it seems obvious to try and gain links from local backeries.

Next step is: How do I convince them to link me? What is their benefit?

I can't link them back because it would weaken the linkpower. Therefor I was thinking about publicating an offline "Backery Guide" which includes all backeries in the area. Backeries which link us, would get more visibiliy and company information. That would be their benefit and we would get a 1-way link.

Is this an idea which could work? Any remarks are welcome!

Check PM please!

In the last couple of weeks Bing has gradually removed 5 webpages of my website from their SERP's. The URL's are totally gone. They all had top 5 rankings and just got removed out of nothing.

Have can I investigate what went wrong with these pages?

Are here perhaps experts who are willing to investigate this for a fee?

How can I restore a page-level penalty?

I have no messages in my Bing Webmastertools account.

Hi Peter, that owuld mean that it is already indexed? Then it would be too late. I want to avoid a problems before they are there. I will PM the exact url.

I recently gave ReachLocal control to manage my Adwords campagne. I didnt want "Reverse Proxy" on so I decided to go with the Remote Conversion Tracking. So they track my website in every stap of the way. Therefor I had to place a Javascript on each page.

But what worries me are these kind of URL's I see appearing in my Analytics account:

/webpaginaname.html?scid+29903&cid=12343&tc+13012316371028544&rl_key=32850e0a2d4499e02a711d0b969044d2&kw+8307565&pub_cr_id=16701148613&dynamic_proxy=1&primary_serv=www.website.com&rl_track_landing_pages=1

Could this be seen as duplicate content by Google? Or could it break any other rule you know of? Should I be worried?

Thanks a lot!

Many wordpress themes like mine have a homepage where the last 3 to 4 posts are displayed on the frontpage. Each post also has its own url where the post are shown seperately. How do I avoid beeing seen as duplicate content by Google?

Is there a software I should use for "Search & Replace"?

I just dont see how I can add a 301 redirect to a page. I thought I could only add it in .htaccess?

How about the pages on my website that link to the old directory?

The website itself is static but the directory is a CMS. What would be the best option then?

@ Highland: It is not a page, it is a directory.

How can I best change the name of a directory on my website (example: http://www.website.com/nameofdirectory/)?

The directory has lots of content included in it which has links from all over my website. I guess I have to adjust those links? How do I easily collect all of the links?

Which is the code I should use in my htacces?

Thank you!

With kind regards,
Dieter

I have a website where I post articles every few weeks.. Should I remove the outdated and unrevelant posts? I fear that google might punish my website in the Panda update.

Hi,

In my crawl diagnotics, I received an error for duplicate content:

1. www.website.com

2. www.website.com/

3. www.website.com/index.html

Which code do I have to add to my htaccess to avoid this?

Thanks for the tips, but I really would like a answer to this question:

if I would experience a drop in rankings, could I regain my rankings by switching to the previous website?

I have been redesigning my website in the last 2 months. I'm almost ready to finally launch it. Now I wonder how it will effect my rankings. I have taken a few measures to avoid problems such as:

1. I kept the page names as they are.
2. I kept the structure of the website
3. Optimized the structure of my pages which should benefit my SEO rather then harm it.

Yet, if I would experience a drop in rankings, could I regain my rankings by switching to the previous website?