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Hi There!

I manage the website for a law office that covers many geographical locations. For very specific niche content, we would prefer to create one piece of content and link to the various geographic locations where we would handle that topic instead of posting multiple variations of the same content for each specific geographical area.

If we put a button on these pages that has links to each location, will that have the same "link juice" effect to the pages we're linking that linking directly in the text would?

(example: the Where can we help you? button on this page : http://www.zdfirm.com/volkswagen-recall/)

Thank you!

I'm having two very frustrating issues with Moz:

1. The page grader tool is not 'connecting' the correct keyword with the correct URL. For instance, if I want to rank for Dallas Motorcycle Accident Lawyer and create page of optimized content at Dallas.Zdfirm.com/Motorcycle-Accident, Moz doesn't grade THAT page. It grades Dallas.ZDFirm.com which to no surprise rates as an F. This is happening with both web sites on this account so much that the page grader tool is not delivering any value.

2. My competitors keywords are not tracking properly. They are showing for "not in the top 50" for keywords that they are on the first page for. Again, this is for both domains on this account.

Thanks,

Brian

Trung is exactly right. You might as well pick any domain name and ask that question again.

Personally, I would try to differentiate myself from my competition with my domain name to some degree.

You're probably not looking at a quick fix any way you slice it but here's what I would do:

1. Create a new Google Plus Local page for the Dickerson address.
2. Claim/Create as many listings as possible for the Dickerson address
3. Create a landing page on the client's site for both addresses
4. Link each Google Plus Local page to the location specific landing page you created

I think you do those four things, you'll be fine.

So here's what I would do: Follow Google's instruction and use their disavow those bad links.

Link Detox produces the file that Google requires to disavow links. Perhaps your old SEO sent it to you? Anyway, I would get that file, browse through it and make certain that those links are indeed bad or at least questionable, and then follow the steps in the article to remove them.

This eliminates the hassle from emailing 15k webmasters requesting they take time out of their day to remove your link. SEO Snobs may frown on such a 'baby with the bathwater' approach, but desperate times call for desperate measures and it sounds like the next steps for you if you don't take action, would be to close your business. Working from that as a worst case scenario, this is exactly what I would do.

That is a really tough, but all too common story. I definitely would not start over on a new brand if that's the case. Would it possible to switch from Brand.com to brandwidgets.com? Just wondering.

Either way, before I scrap the domain or hire this high priced company, I would check these guys out: http://www.linkdetox.com/plans-pricing/. You obviously are smart enough to use Moz so I think this tool could help you disavow the bad links. It would take a while to see the results but using a tool like this to get rid of bad links would be the first step I take before you pay a kings ransom to a firm (assuming you cannot afford) or (gulp) shut down your business (<------don't do this!!).

p.s. I'm always a little skeptical when people push a product on me so for the record, I in no way benefit from the product i mentioned earlier. There are plenty of competitors who do what they do as well.

This is a complicated question because there's a sliding scale of directories out there. On a scale of 1 to 10, with one being 'getting you penalized' and 10 being 'increasing your rankings', I would put the Yahoo directory (the $299/yr one) at an 8 or so.

The yahoo directory is a rare example of a directory that is of value despite it being paid but for the most part I would steer clear of paid inclusion directories unless they have a true logical value, i.e. customers going to the directory to legitimately find a web site or business.

Short answer: Probably not.

Long Answer: Google wants you to use to use your service categories to describe what you ARE rather than what you DO. In other words, you ARE a Bakery. Customized birthday cakes is something you DO.
So if you want to go down this path of creating custom categories and corresponding landing pages, you can and you may even achieve short term results, but I would not recommend. That's just too much work and risk in my opinion.

I would stick with trying to achieve local results for the opportunities that exist in your 'core' category and try to obtain organic serps in the service categories.

Without knowing the URL or the competitors, obviously we have to guess. My money is on they probably have a weaker domain authority and less authoritative links than their competitors. If you want to share the url, I can give you more details, but that's my guess.

If money/time are at your disposal then

a) yes

b) yes

c) yes

If not, I would start with the disavow tool and work your way down. I would guess that 90% of your problem is the 2% toxicity and 71% suspicious. I would address that and put better content on my list of long term goals.

Has the robots.txt file been switched to nofollow recently? was it ever not there?