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Infographics done right make information more digestible. That tends to attract a lot of attention - especially if it's about a hot niche topic. For example, I'm a cycling fan - if someone did an infographic on the Giro d' Italia (a big bike race going on now) I'd be all over it. Put it in front of the right audience and it'll get re-shared a lot.

They're also helpful because there are lots of infographic directories/review sites out there. If you can submit your graphic to those, you gain some easy links.

If you then make the infographic embeddable, you can pick up a lot more links and re-shares as folks embed the infographic in their own blogs.

Creating a good infographic requires real expertise in data visualization. I strongly suggest hiring someone else to do it for you. Expect to pay $3,000 or more for a real pro. I've seen them offered for as little as $1,000, but generally those aren't data visualization folks - they may make something pretty, but it'll be hit-and-miss as far as a really great graphic.

If you are a good data person, then you might want to try creating your own infographic first. Use a tool like http://infogr.am/ . The worst case is that you have a sketch you can provide to a graphic designer to guide their final version. Best case, you discover you're an infographics artist at heart

Hope this helps!

You're in the business of managing lots of servers. You could easily write content about:

1. Security
2. Performance
3. Deployment
4. Testing
5. Log analysis

The list goes on and on. Write about your industry and your specialty - it'll get you lots of attention.

Hi Jan - I do see your site, #3, for the same article. That doesn't answer the annoying question, though: How does an aggregator outrank you?

While Floost has a higher domain authority (51 to your 35) the specific page on their site has zero authority or social shares.

The content that's helping them rank is the stuff that appears when you click the pull-down tab at the top of the screen.

I'm grasping at straws a little bit, but I wonder if your title tag is hurting you, just a little bit?

A couple of little things to try:

1. Put your title tag at the very top of your HTML.
2. Remove the " from your title tag, too.

See if that helps.

SEOMOZ crawls and updates their link index on a schedule you can see here:

http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/25141119/Linkscape Schedule

If this is a fairly new link, it may not have gotten indexed yet.

Also, note that page rank may have little or nothing to do with MozRank. Toolbar pagerank is notoriously inaccurate, and could be up to 6 months old. Plus, Toolbar pagerank doesn't reflect all the factors Google uses in PR calculation. And (as if that weren't enough) toolbar PR is based on a sort of Richter Scale - so a jump from, say, 4 to 5 could reflect a HUGE change, or a tiny one.

We normally focus on MozRank, instead.

I'm late to this particular party, but here's an approach that's worked for us  helped a friend in reputation management crises:

First, you need to get some indexed content for the phrase you're going to insert into suggest. I'll go with "Gibble Gibbet".

1. Add a page to your own site;
2. Or even better, find a phrase for which you already have indexed content.
3. Either way, get some Twitter/other social traffic going to ensure it stays indexed.

Now, you need to get some search volume:

1. Don't think of this in terms of directly generating search volume. Instead, think of this as a social engineering experiment.
2. Determine what phrase you want to show up in search suggest. I'm sticking with "Gibble Gibbet".
3. Create a test on a service like Amazon Mechanical Turk. Tell everyone involved you need them to tell you the first 2 results they see when they type in "Gibble Gibbet".
4. Send out the test to 5,000 or more people.

Depending on the term, the search volume around it, and the competition among different queries, this should get you what you're looking for.

Not that I've ever done this.

It was a friend of mine.

I'd go with the Gazebo Shop domain. The exact match domain isn't that great. If it were 'Gazebos.co.uk' I'd think differently.

Here's what I'd do:

1. Clean up the link profiles, first. At least a little. One thing I've seen is that if you set up a 301 redirect from one domain with low-quality links to another domain with low-quality links, that can trigger an algorithmic cluster$#@!*@.
2. When you rebuild GazeboShop.co.uk, try to maintain the same URL structure. If that's really impossible, then redirect old individual pages to their new equivalents wherever possible. Don't redirect individual pages to categories unless you must. I'm thinking more of user experience here - if I click on an old link to a product, I want the product, not the category page.
3. Launch the new site.
4. Redirect relevant individual pages on the exact match domain to relevant individual pages on the new domain.
5. Redirect category pages the same way.
6. Redirect the home page of the exact match domain to the home page of the new domain.

Hope this helps,

Ian

It's the word 'cushion(s).' You use it 14 times in the first 3 paragraphs, and then at least 10 more times towards the bottom of the page. You need to reduce that quite a bit.

In your ALT attributes, you have a button that reads 'show details' but you then stuff the ALT attribute like this:

"Show details for [name of cushion] cushion"

That definitely counts as keyword stuffing.

Change the ALTs for those buttons to 'More details,' clean up the body copy and you should be set.

I prefer www, because folks will generally tend to use that version when they link to you. It's reflex.

But you can check this. Run Open Site Explorer for both versions of your domain.

If more people link to you using 'www' than non-www, use www and 301 redirect the non-www to www.

If more people use non-www, do the reverse.

As the underdog you can make the biggest splash!

Here's a formula that always works for me: Pick a topic that's on everyone's mind. Making sites run faster, for example, seems to come up a lot. Write a huge list of tips for speeding up your site, from server tuning to coding to database management.

Then, when you publish it, submit it to Hacker News, Inbound.org, StumbleUpon.com, Twitter, etc.

And, e-mail a link to the post to all of your customers, so that they can read it. It's a great service for them, so even if no one ever links to the article, you've built value with existing customers.

Make sure you have easy sharing buttons on the post, too, so that customers AND strangers can all tweet/like/stumble/vote for the post.

I will say this: It doesn't happen overnight. I wrote for years before I had my first big hit.

But every post you do that 'fails' now will potentially generate attention later. You're building an asset every time you publish.

Hi Ryan,

First question: Did you receive a warning notice about unnatural links? Google's been sending those out to most Penguin victims. I still see you at #1 for your brand name at:

http://portent.co/MDY6Qy

Normally with a Penguin penalty I'd expect to see you buried for your own name.

It's more likely you got caught up in an onsite, content-related update. Although there are some fairly suspect links in your profile, like this page:

http://www.hasenchat.de/chat-verzeichnis/index.html

It also happens to be your highest-DA inlinking page.

Well, you don't, if you don't want to do SEO. But if you do, then you'll have to generate content and demonstrate value above and beyond your competitors. Since they're generating content, you have to compete.

My rule of thumb: If the directory would be a great place to have a presence if Google didn't exist, then do it. Otherwise, I tend to steer clear, post-Penguin.

Hi lemonz -

1. Sounds like you tried this already, but: If there's any way at all to find out who was hired to build those links, or what service was used (if any), you can likely go to them and get most of the links removed, all at once.
2. What do those links point at? The home page, or something else? If they point at other pages on your site, and those pages don't have much other link juice, you might consider changing the pages' URLs and 404'ing the old ones. That would cause the social bookmarking links to fall out of Google's index (I think) and reduce the penalty.
3. Worst case, keep a detailed list of the links you've tried to remove, the reason it failed (no contact info, site owner refused to remove, etc.) and then send that log to Google with a re-inclusion request.

And, no matter which of these you do, try to 'bury' them with good links. That's always a good idea. Focus on the kinds of links, and link-generating content, that would make sense for a normal business doing normal marketing. That should help you improve your profile.

Hope this helps!

Are you sure this is a Penguin penalty? If so, the only fix is to find and remove all incoming links that appear even remotely spammy, and it doesn't sound like you've done this yet. Penguin is all about incoming links, not onsite structure.

A few immediate tips:

• Get rid of the stock photograph. It's a total turn-off, and the headline is obscured against the photo background. Try other images, or go for something simpler.
• Make the limited offer the main headline on the page.
• Use a separate landing page (not your home page) so that you can:
• Remove the navigation
• Reduce the brand and emphasize the offer.
• Check your writing. "Specialists" doesn't have an apostrophe, and if I'm going to trust you with my case, I need to know you're legitimate. Little errors reduce that legitimacy.

After that, you need to get an A/B testing regimen set up, and start trying different combinations of imagery and writing to get the best result.

I've seen plenty, but I only remember the ones that keep their rankings

In all seriousness: I know it's hard, but you have to ignore competitors as far as spammy practices go. Google's far from perfect in detecting spam, even now, and their ability to rank may come from other factors. Even if it doesn't, you don't control that. It's frustrating as hell - believe me, I get it. But focus on what you do control: Your site.

I wouldn't do two sites - while there's still some argument about this, most international SEOs say that's no longer helpful.

I would:

1. Write localized English versions of your content for each region.
2. Use location markup and microformats on each page.
3. Use language markup per this post: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-markup-for-multilingual-content.html - even if you're using English, it can help to indicate regional dialect.
4. Try not to have 100% duplication. Be sure to re-write content to match local idioms, show the right pricing and shipping info, etc.

That should get you started.

Any chance we can see the site? Matt's completely correct regarding Bing Webmaster Central, I'd start there.

Also:

1. Submit an XML sitemap. Any errors that pop up during the processing of the sitemap will help you diagnose the problem.
2. Check your log files. See if BingBot or MSNBot show up in the logs. If they don't, then your site's not getting crawled.
3. Check robots.txt - any chance the site's outright blocking them?

Ooooh, that feels all wrong.

Seems to me .htaccess would block visitors that you may want. And while Google may obey the directive, they may also misinterpret a referrer-specific directive as cloaking.

If you want to get the same effect, here's what I'd do:

1. Change the page to which the offending links point. Have it say "This page is gone, but you can get the information you want here" and make that a link to a new page.
2. Set up your server to return a 410 code when folks visit that page.
3. Set up a new page with the old page's content, so folks can click from the old to the new, but visiting bots and browsers get a 410 code and dump the page.

That will get Google to de-index the page in a hurry.

Another option: Simply add noindex, nofollow to the targeted page.

But I like the 410 option, because that should break the authority flow and has the best chance of giving Google what it wants, short of removing the link.

Generally, I've found that folks coming from internet marketing programs aren't that well prepared. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be good employees! It just means the schools do a lousy job of prepping them.

When I interview them, I use the same kinds of questions I ask anyone: Basic logic stuff, HTML, communications abilities, etc.

But definitely never accept college-level training in 'internet marketing' as a sign someone's better-prepped. And if they're trying to tell you their certificate (whatever that is) is a sign of how competent they are, that's just a sign that they're still pretty naive. Not the end of the world, but they're still beginners.

When did you see the change? There were rumors of a Bing algorithm change on May 5th of this year:

http://www.seroundtable.com/bing-search-update-18525.html

On May 19th, Google rolled out the 'Payday loan' Panda update.

Also, what's changed on your site, if anything?

I think mobilemoxie may not be generating 100% accurate results. When I searched for "ixl.com" on my Android phone, your brand came up #1.

You're going to have to think very long term. Don't expect 1-2 weeks of work to do you any good at all.

Plan out a six-month content campaign, with topics, folks you want to contact about each new piece of content, etc.

At the same time, look to your onsite SEO. Make sure you're 100% within best practices.

This will take a sustained effort. The entire reason Google's doing things like Penguin is that they want sites to offer value to searchers. So make sure your site offers lots of value, in the form of content.

True TTFB is improved by changes to your basic server configuration, not a CDN. A CDN will improve delivery of static and cached files, but may not impact TTFB the way you need it to.

My gut tells me you need to look at:

• Database caching: Is your e-commerce system using it? The first hit on the database is a huge hit on performance.
• Memory vs. disk caching: Memory is faster
• SSL versus non-SSL for non-secure pages. SSL will slow performance and should only be used where security is an issue, like during checkout or on login pages.
• Server configuration: Is your database on the same server as your web server? That's a problem, if true.

I'd need to see the PHP redirect code. But in CURL it all looks OK.

Make 100% sure that your PHP code is set up with the lower case 'header' command, like this:

header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); header("Location: http://www.site.com"); ?>

Hope this helps.

No way. Google may care about DNS repoints, but that's something else entirely.

Google barely cares about shared IPs and 'bad neighborhoods' at this point - so I doubt the IP address matters. Plus, we have several clients using hardware load balancers that do exactly what you describe, and it doesn't hurt them.

If you have a list of the linking pages from which your SEO firm requested removal (and you should) you can use ScreamingFrog to crawl that list, with a custom filter set to look for your URL. It'll spit back a list of pages that still have your links on them.

I'd unselect it.

Thinking from a UX perspective: If I want to see an image, I want to see an image. I don't want to get redirected to the post itself.

And Google's imagebot won't be able to (or will refuse to) index the images for that reason.

Normally, on WordPress, I use one of the Lightbox plugins: Someone clicks the image and sees the full-sized version in a DHTML layer, without leaving the post. That lets you display the image on the same page, doesn't seem to hurt image indexation, and gives a good user experience.

One other note - you don't say, but if you aren't, you should create an image sitemap. There are a bunch of good WordPress plugins that can generate the XML for you. That's been a huge help for me.

I think the update you're concerned about it Penguin, not Panda. Panda dealt with onsite and content issues. Penguin dealt with links.

But, if you have legitimate links of this kind, listen to Dana. You're fine.

If you're going to redirect it, then take it down and set up a 301 redirect in its place. I may have misunderstood but that's what it sounded like you were planning to do.

A few possibilities. We just went through this:

1. If your site recently got hacked and delivered malware, Google may temporarily remove your site or push it down in the rankings. Assuming you fixed it, you should recover fairly soon.
2. Do you rank #1 for your own brand name? If not, you may be under a Penguin or Panda penalty. Did you get a warning message from Google regarding unnatural links?
3. Is the content on your site unique? (aside from the scrapers) If it's not, that can cause what you're seeing.

Hi Ausaf,

I wouldn't have the home page be the 404 page. Create a separate page. The odds of something getting mixed up are far too high.

Remove any links that are even remotely spammy. That includes all the links you have with 'classic radiator cabinets' as the link text - you're far too optimized to that term and Google's bound to pick up on it, if they haven't already.

A better rule is to make sure it reads well. Don't focus on ratios - that's a huge mistake.

That said, I do recommend that you:

1. Make sure you use the phrase that folks search for. If you sell 'running shoes', don't write about 'athletic footwear'.
2. Make sure your writing is structure and styled so that your key phrase fits in naturally: When you write, you shouldn't have to force the key phrase into the page. It should end up in headings, captions, etc. because it makes sense. If that's not the case, double-check that you're writing the right thing.
3. Check the grade level of your writing. I use http://www.readability-score.com/ most of the time. Grade level can impact bounce rate, which can impact rankings.

Hope this helps

Google specifically states that having a single site that responds to mobile versus desktop (aka - 'responsive design') will help you just as much. Plus, you won't have to build two sites.

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-seo-official-15264.html

Hi Alan,

First, a few things to consider:

1. Did your site actually get hit with a penalty? You talk about removing unnatural links. Was that just to be safe, or something else?
2. If your 1st site revision changed site urls and generated a lot of 404s, without proper redirection, you'd get the exact result you're describing.
3. Did you get new copy written for your 1st site revision? If so, and you didn't write it, take a few sentences from different pages and search for them, in quotes, on Google. Make sure they weren't plagiarized, because that would explain a drop in traffic, too.

All of that said, here's what I'd do:

1. **Definitely **work to improve engagement. Engagement is good for your business anyway, so even if it had zero effect on visits, you'd make existing visitors happier. And, Google at least rewards you because of the secondary effects of a great UX: More attention and citation, more positive reviews, fewer bounce backs, etc. And yes, there's some evidence Google rewards great UX, whether deliberately or as a side effect.

2. Look for lost links and repair them. Use OpenSiteExplorer and get the Top Pages report. Look for all pages that respond with a 404. Put those pages back (if you had that page before), build a page at that location (if you never had that page) or do a 301 redirect from the page URL to a 'real' page (the easiest fix).

3. Check site performance. Did site load speed take a huge hit with the new design?

4. Look at your log files. Go all the way back to before the 1st site relaunch. Compare Googlebot activity on your site from that period to now. What's changed? Is Googlebot getting trapped somewhere? Has crawl traffic dropped?

5. Finally, I wouldn't engage in old-fashioned link building. It's a terrible idea for a site with a low DA. If you want to acquire citations, you're going to have to do it by making customers really happy, offering great information and content, and generally offering a great experience.

I hope this helps. There's no easy answer here. You're going to need to take a very strategic approach, rather than focus on a single tactic, if you're going to make this work.

Ian

Yeah - if your webmaster got hit on the head.

301 redirects are totally doable on Apache, all the time. They're also doable on IIS.

They're set in the configuration file for each domain, or in the master config file, so site templates have nothing to do with the ability/inability to do 301s.

Any chance that 'impossible' means 'we don't have access to our own server'?

I would precisely describe the image. If it's a picture of a doctor taking someone's blood pressure, the ALT should be "doctor taking someone's blood pressure". Don't insert the brand name unless the image contains it, or the person in the image uses the brand and the text below it is their testimonial.

As long as your web site isn't hosted inside the DMZ it shouldn't have any huge effect.

There is one way a DMZ can affect SEO: If you have lots of folks at your office, all using the same shared public IP via a DMZ or other forwarding, and you all use a tool like the SEO Toolbar, you could start seeing CAPTCHA warnings from Google.

Oh, and if you are hosting your site inside a DMZ and haven't tunneled/forwarded it to its own, separate public IP, you should.

I can't say exactly why, but it's an unnecessary level of complexity that just makes my eye twitch a little bit.

My gut says put it on every page. From a local SEO standpoint that has to help, since it means more pages with location data on them.

I don't know any best practices though - I doubt there's a specific number of mentions that's better or worse.

On the contact us page itself, do what makes sense. To me, that means having the schema markup attached to both the footer and the 'main' address.

Because it does make sense, and it's not like you're shoehorning the content in there, you should be fine.

1. Compress images.
2. Clean up your HTML code, removing inline javascript and CSS blocks that are more than 5 lines to external .js and .css files.
3. Install caching for whatever platform your own - WordPress, etc.
4. Get your site up and running on a CDN. It's easy, and it makes a huge difference.
5. Turn on GZIP compression on your server or on the CDN.
6. Set up expires headers in the far future for 'static' files, so that browsers cache stuff.
7. Optimize the way your site (assuming it uses e-commerce or some kind of CMS) accesses the database. Preferably, use some form of disk caching.
8. Set up code caching, as well: Most languages have a way to cache compiled versions of the scripts executed on the site. For example, in php you can use the PHP accelerator.
9. Make sure the database and site are on separate servers.
10. Make sure you've got a good outgoing 'pipe'.

Hi Joshua,

It looks like you're redirecting from the 'www' version to the non 'www' version. The 301 redirect is set up just fine.

2 things to check first:

• In Google Webmaster Tools, do you have the preferred domain set to the 'www' version? That might cause this confusion.
• In robots.txt, you're blocking Google Image Bot from crawling that folder. Once, I saw an instance where that screwed up Googlebot as well, and removing the disallow fixed the problem.

Ian

My favorite is the "No, not like this" article.

You poke a little fun at yourself with a piece that says something like:

"Hi. Our name is SuperFry. Yes, SuperFry. There's a lot of confusion out there about our name. We blame ourselves. Folks have used Super-Fri, Super Fry, Super-Fri [list more here].

We appreciate the creativity, we really do. And we're sorry we created a name with so many spelling possibilities. But it's our name because [story of the name]."

Hope this clears things up,

John Doe
CEO
Super Fri SuperFri Super-Fri Super Fry SuperFry