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I agree with Lynn, 3-4 weeks is nothing and in those weeks Google can often change your position in the SERPs. If you still haven't seen anything in a couple of months then something may be wrong. Start working on your local brand awareness in the first stages of your strategy, then start to monitor local versions of your keyword (service in X), they are the most likely keywords to rank first.

Thanks so the http://www.relationshipsurgery.com/group/all link which you see when you click on the logo or on the "All conversations" tab should be nofollowed in favor of http://www.relationshipsurgery.com which shows the same posts? Or do I rel cononical the http://www.relationshipsurgery.com/group/all page?

Check out topic from a few months ago- http://moz.com/community/q/ecommerce-problem-with-canonicol-rel-next-rel-prev How old is the site? In my experience, I've found it best to first see how things are actually being indexed, which pages are showing up in SERPS, and what the user behavior is.

Hi, Check if you like the products descriptions at http://www.shirts4geek.com/ I got done at:  https://scripted.com/ All the best...

This can be tricky! Which platform are you on? Something I've had to deal with quite a bit and there's no single solution for all types of products. Ideally, you'd like to offer all of the sizes on a single page, assuming everything else is the same. So if I search "clear vinyl tubing", I'd rather see a listing result that says something like "Clear Vinyl Tubing - Various Diameters" versus a whole page of identical product listings and having to scan for the size. If your tubing is offered in different lengths, it might better to have a listing for each diameter and have the length selectable. Think of apparel products; they allow you to select colors and sizes. But in general, the platform and way you have things set up on the backend might dictate the best way to do this. Keep in mind product feeds (e.g., Google shopping), and make sure you can list and possibly redirect the variants correctly. (note: make sure the individual SKU's and/or MPN's are searchable)

Thanks Everett - sorry about delay in coming back to your response. This 301 issue was one if the things we were worried about (along with a ton of others) so we can at least be a little self-assured that we're prgressing on all fronts and not leaving a gaping problem that will continue to dog us. Cheers W

If you look at the Moz On Page Report that I linked to above, it'll give you specific instructions on other fixes you can do to optimize your page. Follow those guidelines on all of your pages, and you should do well.

Google determines what to display as the text may be more relevant to the search query compared to your meta description tag.

These look like simple broken links, often caused by using relative paths incorrectly or forgetting to include http:// when linking to a website (e.g. which will then make the link look like this to a spider http://www.yourdopmain.com/www.someotherdomain.com.</p> <p>In your case it looks like there are some HTML URL encoding issues too. <strong>%E2 %80 %9D</strong> is a string used to encode a right quotation mark, and <strong>%E2 %80 %9C</strong> is a string used to encode a left quotation mark.</p> <p>I'm going to assume that your content management system is adding this code, possibly when content is being copied and pasted from another CMS, word processing software, website builder, etc...</p> <p>You can fix it by replacing that code with a standard ASCII )   which will then make the link look like this to a spider http://www.yourdopmain.com/www.someotherdomain.com.</p> <p>In your case it looks like there are some HTML URL encoding issues too. <strong>%E2 %80 %9D</strong> is a string used to encode a right quotation mark, and <strong>%E2 %80 %9C</strong> is a string used to encode a left quotation mark.</p> <p>I'm going to assume that your content management system is adding this code, possibly when content is being copied and pasted from another CMS, word processing software, website builder, etc...</p> <p>You can fix it by replacing that code with a standard ASCII )

Hello Carl, Let us know how your fixes work out for you. Also, be sure to read these articles, which will give you a good idea of your options so you can choose the best one/s for your situation: Building Faceted Navigation That Doesn't Suck Faceted Navigation Whiteboard Friday Duplicate Content: Block, Redirect or Canonical Guide to eCommerce Facets, Filters and Categories Rel Canonical How To and Why Not Moz.com Guide to Duplicate Content If you feel you could use more help with this just let us know. Thanks!

Google have made some changes mid August so that you can only submit a reconsideration for Manual actions. From Search Engine Roundtable: "reconsideration requests only work for manual actions, not for algorithmic actions. So it makes sense that Google only allow you to submit a reconsideration request, which they are now calling "request review," under the manual actions. It will lead to less reconsideration requests for Googlers to review and the requests submitted should be more on target." See: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-request-review-reconsideration-17214.html

Dear Devanur, Yiannis, Thanks a lot for your thorough argumentation on this. There are a few competitors that use the folders in the URL for keyword spamming purposes and I definitely don't want to pursue such a strategy. As the authority is at quite a low level, I prefer optimizing the site structure right now instead of waiting another year. Especially as most pages don't rank to well currently. Again, thanks a lot for your help guys! Best regards, Martijn

Hi Maureen relating to what Keri was referring to on DA doing down. I see on my main site that for August in OSE my DA has dropped a couple of points but so have all the competitors I measure against.  My KPIs such as lead generation, inbound inquiries etc. have not dipped as a consequence. Like Thomas comments I tend to see subtle impacts on my site's SERPs when comparing tools such as MOZCAST but that is more a short term issue and generally they resolve upwards over the longer term - which is a better metric. David

Hi Paul, Yes, I see your problem. Following the link it was not obvious to me where I was on your site at all. I'd take a good look round at some of the industry leaders and see how they do things. Taking a look at Amazon isn't a bad start. They've got a great testing budget. (Word of warning though - don't automatically assume that what's working for someone else is going to work for you. Once you get the basics right you'll need to test.) The first thing I don't get are the products appearing at the bottom of the page. Why are you displaying "Random ADSL Modem and Router". I don't see how that helps the customer searching for router. I don't think they'll set out with the intent to buy a "random" router - at least not to start with) A "Featured" device also appears at the bottom - but I don't know why. Is it because it "Ships Today?" What confuses me here is that it also appears in the main listing with different shipping info "Usually ships within 24 hours". Which one is it? I think having these items appear under the list navigation is what's making it so hard to see the next/previous, 123 etc. You expect these to be at the bottom of the list. What's the default sort order here? It took me a while to see the drop down "sort by" option (possibly because of the recommendation feature graphics drawing my attention or the fact it's on the blue category title area. I see on the "sort by drop down" that it's "normal", but I don't know what that means?! It's best practice to give shoppers the ability to filter by price, customer reviews or age of the product etc. These mean I can order the list in a way that suits my intent and the things that matter to me as a shopper. If I'm shopping on price why make it so hard to find the cheapest / best value device! I'd really try to make this more obvious and move this into the list navigation at the top of the list. I think having the promo area between this drop down and the list isn't helping. Once I've selected a filter (price low-high) I want to see the results. I'm not interested in the "Browse by" navigation of the features promo. The first thing I need to do is scroll down past all that stuff. Can you hide the promo if there's a custom search order selected? On page 2 of the listing do you really need to display the Warcom recommends box again? I've already seen that and decided to ignore it. It's now just getting in my way and making it less obvious that I've navigated to the second page of the list. It would be nice to have the list navigation at the top of the list too - right under the category name so that it appears above the fold. Here you can clearly display the number of items in the category and the page you're on. This will instantly tell me how many options there are and that I'm going to need to page through or sort of find the device I want. I would make the list navigation stand out more - put it on it's own background colour to help people identify the navigation elements and make it bigger/bolder. You want it to be noticeable and easy for people to click through onto the next pages. (It can be tough for people to click on small single numbers - and try doing it on a touch-screen device!) The other thing that confuses me a little is that there are LOADS of products that are marked as "Best Seller" (all by 2 on the first page of the listing). They can't all be the best seller can they? What's the purpose of marking them as the Best Seller - having so many doesn't help me choose. "If everyone's buying that one I can't go wrong if I buy it too". I'd suggest carrying out a test marking only 1, 2 or 3 items at most as best sellers. If you want to get some real world evidence of how people see your site then using services like usertesting.com can be shockingly revealing! Good luck and hope this helps! Hope this helps.

I think this you're over-thinking it on this one personally.  I think that if you simply write the URL based on what you think will be most useful to your visitor, without making it over-complicated that you'll be fine. If there is benefit to be had, having the keywords there in a simple manner will give you that benefit, but you'll be spinning wheels if you spend too much time on it. I think you'd be fine cutting out words. We always cut unnecessary words out of the URL as you mentioned doing above simply to keep the URL's a bit shorter. I know it's cliche, but if you write the URL so it make sense to the visitor, without being over-complicated and spammy, then I think that's the best way to get whatever strength may be available to be passed by "the google machine".

Hi Everett, thanks a lot you your input! Holger

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Additional reference sources on this topic below: 31 things i need to see in your e-commerce product page 9 simple ways to write product descriptions Spruce up your product descriptions Smashing Magazine article

Thanks DP for the input!

I would use a 301. Reason #1 - Some of those profiles are going to have external links, as Robert stated in his reply. Reason #2 - A 302 will not remove the URL from the index like a 301 will. Over time you could end up with many more temporary redirects than actual pages, which may look pretty bad. I prefer not to bloat the index with URLs like that. In the event that someone comes back you can remove the 301 redirect with no ill-effect. If it has been in place for a long time (e.g. a year or more) the profile page may not get its pagerank back from those older links, which would be fine. Please also keep in mind that Google can choose to treat a 301 like a 404 if the content doesn't match up. This could easily happen with the situation you mention above. However, I don't really think there is any other option other than doing the 302. I'd  rather let it be treated as a 404 than a 302 if we're talking about user-generated pages here because they can get out of hand and bloat the index over time. eCommerce sites that have products coming and going all the time have similar issues. Imagine if every product a store ever sold stayed indexed for years after the product was no longer available. Even if users are redirected I don't think this is an ideal situation.