Thanks for spelling out what I was too lazy too :). Also, love the rmoov service!
Posts made by WilliamKammer
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RE: Webmaster Tools V. OSE Backlinks to Disavow
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RE: Webmaster Tools V. OSE Backlinks to Disavow
Just to help explain my thought process: Google has admitted they don't show all links they find: https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq--webmaster-tools#links
Also, I tend to trust Google about as much as they trust SEOs.
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RE: Webmaster Tools V. OSE Backlinks to Disavow
I use multiple tools and disavow anything I find fishy anywhere. My current favorite is: http://www.openlinkprofiler.org/, but that's just one to use in conjunction with the others.
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RE: Using disavow tool for 404s
I wouldn't recommend using the disavow tool for this. The disavow tool is used to clean up spammy links that were not gained naturally.
A better solution is to use 301 redirects and redirect the 404'd pages to the new pages that work on your website. That way users will land where they should if they click the links, and Google will still give you juice from those links.
Here's a place to get started on how t do that: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93633?hl=en
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RE: Star Ratings Showing in SERP
The Schema markup is all you need. I've never had to do anything else besides that, and Google usually indexes the rich snippet within a couple weeks.
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RE: WordPress and Redirects
I've never done this specific rule, but it would definitely be a rewrite rule in your .htaccess file in your root. You can give this piece a shot:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /html/(.*).html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule .* http://localhost/html/%1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /html/(.*)\ HTTP/
RewriteRule .* %1.html [L]
Jeez.... how do I get rid of all the extra spacing?!
Anyway, if that doesn't work, there are some other options here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5730092/how-to-remove-html-from-url
And if you need to customize the regex a bit, this can help: http://www.regexr.com/
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RE: Google tag manager on blocked beta site - will it phone home to Google and cause site to get indexed?
We've never had an issue. We test tag manager in our dev sites, they don't get indexed, but the tags will still fire.
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RE: Moving Site from HTTP to HTTPS
We discussed this internally yesterday, and came to the same conclusion EGOL did. SEOs are so quick to panic and change everything on the slightest bit of real news. What's the harm in waiting and seeing how things are after the dust settles?
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RE: Multiple Domains for Real Estate
In general, I find it's always better to consolidate and build a nice big authority under one domain. In your case, it'll take some analysis of how those 10 sites are already performing. If they are well-built and already established, it may be better to keep them. If not, create pages on your one domain for them, redirect the old sites, and create listings for each one, pointing to the landing page for the property. This is, in general, the better route I've found 9 times out of 10... and now-a-days maybe more like 99 times out of 100. Especially in real estate, which is a very competitive market.
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RE: Duplicate Content... Really?
This is one of the things Panda was trying to discourage (creating pages strictly for SEO value as opposed to user value that have thin content).
Consolidating and building out a single page is the way to go. Google will still crawl the product numbers, and they will be on a much stronger page. Even if they're not in the URL and title, a more valuable page nearly always wins out.
Not only that, you're playing with fire right now. If you haven't been hit by Panda yet, your odds are much higher with the numerous little pages.
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RE: Duplicate Content... Really?
I think you're already in Panda territory. The content can't get much thinner. It seems like all those sub-pages that are linked to on the page you just shared are unnecessary, no? Couldn't you just have the one page, build it out with the cars it works in, maybe a diagram or instruction on how to put it in, and make a really valuable page?
What's the thought process of creating a bunch of new pages, even though it's the same product, just referred to differently by different companies? Just for the unique URLs and titles?
Consolidating all of that would eliminate thin content and likely strengthen your landing page exponentially.
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RE: Duplicate Content... Really?
This issue isn't duplicate content, Moz is just flagging it as that because of the severe lack of content, making the footer, sidebar, etc. the majority of the content on the page. This is not good, and the best way to remedy it would be to build out more content.
I realize with roughly 14k pages, this isn't realistic to do for every single page, but you could prioritize. What are your most popular products? Start with those and build out content to make sure they rank and perform as well as possible, and then continue to go down the list as you have time to do so, manually optimizing and building out the most profitable/popular pages first.
When it comes to unique content, there is no automated solution. Either you write stuff, hire someone else to write stuff, or do what a lot of places do: implements a review system for customers to use and crowd-source the unique content that way.
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RE: Can someone interpret this entry in my htaccess file into english so that I can understand?
Yep. Of course, as with any change, back the old rules up into a text file before making the move... just in case it explodes everything (but it won't). Just a precaution.
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RE: Can someone interpret this entry in my htaccess file into english so that I can understand?
Sorry to disappoint, Travis. Nothing too complicated, looks like it was just a botched www cleanup. A good old:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^legacytravel.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.legacytravel.com/$1 [L,R=301]Will do the trick.
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RE: Can someone interpret this entry in my htaccess file into english so that I can understand?
Escaping characters isn't a big deal with newer version of Apache. No need for all those slashes, unless it's something more complex. From what I've seen, at least.
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RE: Can someone interpret this entry in my htaccess file into english so that I can understand?
Alright... just give me a day or two since you don't have me on retainer
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RE: Can someone interpret this entry in my htaccess file into english so that I can understand?
I'm determined to master htaccess and regex... feel free to pm me the file
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RE: Can someone interpret this entry in my htaccess file into english so that I can understand?
It looks like the rule is attempting to rewrite www.legacytravel.com and legacytravel.com to legacytravel.com/carrollton-travel-agent, but it's not working. This is likely due to the piece on line 3 before the final URL (unless the person was attempting something else I'm not familiar with). Others issues could be the rewrite engine not being turned on, the .htaccess file being in the wrong place, or some other issue, like server settings.
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RE: Will subdomains with duplicate content hurt my SEO? (solutions to ranking in different areas)
Subdomains are seen as completely different websites. This means you would be diluting your authority. Using duplicate content on these subdomains would also definitely be an issue.
You're best bet would be to have different pages for each location, and make sure each of those page have unique content. This way it's all on the same website, fresh content on each page, and you still accomplish what you were looking to.
You could also go one step further and link each of the location pages to individual G+ pages and take advantage there as well.
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RE: Better to use specific cities or counties for SEO geographics?
I'd listen to EGOL and Kemp. Sounds like they know the rural places better than I, and these rural people don't know how to search good yet
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RE: Better to use specific cities or counties for SEO geographics?
Wait... the town and county have the same name? Then there's no issue.
People don't search by county and rarely put in the state when searching a city geo. Your money term is variations of, "cleaning services in Winona". Even though this phrase and others like it don't have a high search volume, experience and years of data tell me this would be the way to go. Unless you wanted to focus on carpet cleaning, which is a different ball game.
To sedate your client, maybe discuss a local SEO play with G+. Then you can define the exact area you'd like to cover, which would include both no problem.
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RE: Competitor Recently Changed his Title to Match Mine
Yes, your meta description should focus 100% on getting the users to click on your result, because it convinces them it's what they're searching for.
Google doesn't use meta description as a ranking factor, so there's no worry there. Just make sure to stay within the allotted character amount of around 156.
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RE: SEO and page redirects from a high ranking site quandary
It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I'd go with option #2 if you're looking to transfer your rankings from the old site to the new. Once Google reindexes everything, you should have most of your ranks back.
If you're keeping the same content on the new site and the old, then option #1 isn't really an option, unless you canonicalize the old pages, which will have the same effect on ranks as the 301s.
So then it comes down to what's better for users? Do you think they would rather clickthrough the old site and its calls to action, or would they prefer to be automatically redirected to the new property?
I would think that you would want the new website to rank instead of the old, since having the old site continue to rank would just create an extra step for users.
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RE: Competitor Recently Changed his Title to Match Mine
Do you use your brand in your title? Is copying your brand too? If so, he's shooting himself in the foot. If not, there isn't much you can do to address the title specifically, but there are some other things you can do to make your result more desirable to click. .
Don't change your title if you believe it's the best title for your business. If you aren't using your brand in the title, this could help users with confusion. Also, if he's copying your title, make sure to beat him out in the meta description to siphon off more click-throughs. Also look into the kinds of rich snippets you might be able to put in there to make your result stand out while you work on over taking him.
This title won't have negative repercussions for you from an SEO standpoint. I usually just smile when I see something like this happen. Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.
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RE: Is it okay to copy and paste on page content into the meta description tag?
I also do this. The meta description is supposed to have a nice sentence or so that is relevant to the page and makes people click. If the content on your page can't do that, you have a bigger problem than meta descriptions.
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RE: Switching from .co to com?
I've never tried it, but I don't think that would avoid the temporary dip.
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RE: Switching from .co to com?
It's usually a few weeks, but there are factors that can make that longer or shorter.
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RE: Multiple domains for the same business
Yes. Unless you've noticed that a couple of those domains have gained traction. Then you can redirect a couple, but not all 500.
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RE: Multiple domains for the same business
This is not a good approach. Instead of 500 different domains, it sounds like those domains should probably just be pages or paragraphs on a single domain. You're effectively splitting your link juice 500 ways by trying to get ranked for 500 different domains.
It's impossible for you to take the time and effort on each domain, so the entire campaign will suffer. Instead focus on a single domain, and build that up to cover the areas you want to.
Google knows all about people who try to game the system by buying a bunch of domains. Not only is this a bad approach, it can leads to Google being very unhappy with your brand.
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RE: Switching from .co to com?
This would be like any other site transfer. Do page-level redirects, expect a dip in traffic after you make the switch, and then monitor to see how well you recover and then determine what other action you need to take based on that information.
Here's an in-depth post that can help you out: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos
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RE: How Useful is this website for Linkbuilding
The directory appears to be in good standing with Google. Decent PR, lots of indexed pages, etc. You're safe creating a profile here, and if you're noticing competitors use it who are performing better than you in this space, it seems like it's something that's worth spending some time on.
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RE: Merging 4 websites into one for a new site release (301 question)
I use page-level redirects whenever possible. Better for Google and better for users. Besides that, sounds like you have a pretty sound strategy there.
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RE: Can we use different names in Google places for each location of a business?
You can try, but it'll probably be more a hassle than it's worth. Even if you're in the right, imagine syncing up all citations with your G+ account, then then Google decides to change your business name on their own, or they unverify you until you change the name. Sure, you might be able to talk a Google rep into reverfiying... until the next guy sees it and does the same thing.
Even if you're in the right. This might be an uphill battle not worth fighting.
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RE: Can we use different names in Google places for each location of a business?
Option B is fine for your locations that are urgent care, and for non-urgent care use option A. Don't add geos to business names in G+, they don't like it, it's against guidelines and they can unverify your listing or change the listing name themselves.
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RE: Odd scenario: subdomain not indexed nor cached, reason?
How long has it been since the change? Google will need weeks and week to recrawl and reindex all the stuff.
If it's been a while, this is one of those issues where we kind of need the URL. It can be a lot of different things, and sometimes it's a lot faster and easier if someone just gets in there and digs around.
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RE: Redirecting Canonical Hostnames
Yours is a little overcomplicated. Give this one a go:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com$1 [R=301,L]
Also, when you're writing horrid htaccess rules like this, this tool can be helpful: http://www.regexr.com/
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RE: Why is my website providing no feedback on the Open Site Explorer?
I'm referring to inbound links to your website. That's what Open Site Explorer shows you, but since your domain doesn't have much yet and it's all pretty new, it's not displaying yet.
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RE: Why is my website providing no feedback on the Open Site Explorer?
The website is not even a month old. This doesn't give a lot of time to collect data on links, or for links to be created to the website.
From the looks of things, it looks like this domain has very very few links. Data collectors like Moz will eventually find these when they refresh their data, but these kinds of tools are not real-time, and won't find every single link to your domain. So if there is like one link pointing to this domain, it's possible it'll take a while for bots to discover it.
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RE: How old is this Moz quiz?
It's pretty current. They released it a couple of months ago. It's a great learning tool and is still applicable.
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RE: Do H2 tags carry more weight than h4 tags?
Consider it this way:
H tags, in a perfect world, would always descend sequentially as content became more specific. So, the H1 and H2 would be more general than an H3 or H4. Also, those H3s and H4s should be inside of the H2s and H1s. This set up allows for more general "head" keywords in the larger H tags, and more specific information that supports the larger H tags to go in the lower H tags. This means you're target area should be in the largest H tag possible, with all subsequent H tags in the list supporting your main headline with proper content. I hope that makes sense.
So, yes. H2 > H4.
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RE: To 301 or not to 301?
Sorry, Google treats them as different URLs: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html
Play it safe and redirect. You probably don't need to do hundreds of individual redirects though. Try using Regex in the .htaccess file to solve your issue. Might end up being 2 lines of code in a rewrite rule.
You could also implement rel=canonical tags as an alternative.
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RE: How do I find my kml file?
Once the file is downloaded, open it with a txt editor. You should see your company's information and coordinates.
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RE: How do I find my kml file?
Usually it's at /locations.kml
The actual URL to the KML file is in the geositemap. You may not notice when you go to the URL, it's not an actual web page, it's a file that is downloaded when you enter the URL.
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RE: Whats wrong with meta title? In SERP it looks different.
You can alter your titles and see if that helps, but in the end it's a matter of seeing how Google is changing your titles and then creating a title that's a compromise between what you want and what Google wants. And even in the that case, Google might not listen.
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RE: Whats wrong with meta title? In SERP it looks different.
Matt Cutts covered this a couple months ago. Depending on the query you used, Google reserves the right to change the title based on what they believe would be better for users. Is it actually better for users? We may never know, but that's how things are right now. I linked the Cutts video below:
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RE: Local SEO Brand Name Question
My suggestion is to not add the geos. It's all well and good that the offline world might refer to it with the geo and you might not technically be going against guidelines, but it's still not something you want to risk getting flagged for, or have reps change without your knowledge, screwing up your citations. Then you'll find yourself on with the phone reps all the time trying to tell them how your situation is an exception.
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RE: Is my GeoSiteMap correct?
Nope, you're good. This is the style I use, and I've had good success with it. As long as your KML file is on-point, this should be fine. You're just telling the bots where the KML file is.
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RE: Are there any legitimate ways to do press releases?
I still find PRWeb safe to use and haven't experience any noticeable penalties.
Press releases are still safe to use, just not as link-building technique. You can still utilize them to get newsworthy information about the company out to the public. Distributing it on your website, some online place like PRWeb, and also sending it manually to larger publications that your information is relevant to can be very valuable.
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RE: Htaccess rewrite rule (very specific)
This should work out just fine. If you want to confirm that it is effective, you can backup the old htaccess, upload the new one, go to one of the previously 302'd pages and see if it 301s now. You can check this using the network tab in Chrome's developer tools.