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I think the ccTLD approach is better if you're going to build links to the new ccTLD domain.  It splits your domain authority between the two sites, but for many industries, UK people have a pretty good bias towards their own ccTLD.  The largest bias I've seen though is paying in British pounds vs. dollars.  In our experience, they really hate paying in dollars! If you go the subdomain approach, you can do all the same geotargeting stuff.  You can even do it for subdirectories (e.g. domain.com/en/ & domain.com/es/).

I am also wondering about this particular "warning" with an e-commerce site that naturally has many links because it's a large clothing catalog. I'd like to know where "too many links" falls in the seriousness of warnings. If it's really serious, we may consider reducing our navigation links, although we think they are fine the way they are for customers. I can see duplicate content being a big issue. I can see lack of title tags or descriptions tags being an issue. Where does "too many links" fall into the grand scheme? I'd like to know how to prioritize our SEO efforts. Thanks!!

I'm afraid I've seen issues with even decent quality directories. I have a client who originally published a print directory and then moved it to the web - they have relationships with all of the companies whose "products" they list (it's not a product directory, but that doesn't matter much for this discussion), they use unique descriptions, and they really focus on quality. Still, they've seen gradual declines, as the OEMs (essentially) rank higher and higher. I think Google is just starting to view the directory model in general with more and more suspicion. They'd rather land someone directly on a result or answer then go through what's essentially another search engine. That's not to say you're automatically penalized, but it's a tougher model to succeed at than it was even 5 years ago. I think, ultimately, you've really got to show some kind of unique value. If you're basically just listing other people's information, your chances of making much of a splash in the rankings aren't great these days.

It's cool.  Sorry, the point I was making is that irrespective of what you search for the page that is returned is http://www.refreshcartridges.co.uk/advanced_search_result.php (with nothing after the .php) and as such the search results page couldn't spurn multiple pages which could be indexed by Google.

There's always a risk anytime you migrate any URL. Generally we advise that unless you have a good reason, it's usually better in the long run to leave your URLs as they are. That said, there are many circumstances that warrant it. Most of the time, changing the URL to get a better keyword in the URL won't give you much of a boost, although it might help with click-through rates. Keep the following in mind: A "normal" 301 is expected to pass about 80% of it's original link juice Google and other search engines are fine at following a single 301 redirect, but a trail of multiple 301's strung together starts to get dicey. Each new 301 redirect in the chain further degrades link juice. Q. And what is a good length of time before removing the 1st-generation url? If I understand correctly, you want to know when to remove the 301 from the 1st URL? If there are links still pointed at the original, then it's wise to keep the 301 in place indefinitely, to keep your link juice flowing. That said, if there is a 301 on there now, it wouldn't show in analytics anyway, so if I am mis-understanding the question, please let me know. Hope this helps!

Hi Keri, Thanks for the message! We are getting double content warnings so I thought that the absence of a rel=canonical script was causing the double content warning. Appreciate the confirmation - that saved a TON of time. Cheers!

Great discussion here, guys! Just thought I'd pop in to add my 2 cents. Having a phone number in the title tag will not 'hurt' the business in any way, and is a not uncommon practice in Local SEO. The only possible negative to doing this would be that you would have less characters to devote to words as they are being devoted to the digits of the phone number. So, that's about the only downside of doing this. Just remember, the client should be putting a unique title tag on every page, so some of his pages might have a phone number in the title tag, but don't use it on every page. Be creative, varied and informative in each tag and you should not expect any negative outcomes.

If you're looking for something that you can run manually to get a list of outgoing links and their location (Which you could then use as a clean up list), you could consider Xenu Link Sleuth or Screaming Frog. I prefer Xenu, if only because it's what I've always used. In Xenu, once you run the crawl, sort the link addresses alphabetically and you should be able to scroll down past your internal links until it starts showing links to external domains. Right clicking on the link and hitting "URL properties" will show you the pages that the link is on. I am not familiar with anything that would run continuously or automatically, but that's not to say something doesn't exist. More on Xenu vs Screaming Frog: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/crawler-faceoff-xenu-vs-screaming-frog

If you are thinking of trying to fool Google into thinking you have published a "scholarly article" I wouldn't try it. It could backfire big time. Legit publications of that type are usually verifiable by any number of widely used sources such as Science Citation Index, etc. Google is going to look at who has links to your article title, and if it is not from a recognized source you could get slammed by the Goog.

if the content is of benefit to the user then include them in your navigation. Why are you blocking them in the first place, duplicate content?

Is there any chance you could email me your sitemap as produced by wordpress? info[at]pathfindermedia[dot]co[dot]uk I'll take a closer look at whats being excluded.

Hi, There's a few things you can do straight away. I'll assume you're trying to rank for' Windshield Repair' for your homepage and 'Windshield Repair Austin' and other keywords for each of the 'Service Area' pages. Add keywords to your alt image tags. Currently the main image is 'crack auto glass' which isn't great from a SEO or usability point of view. Make sure they are not just plugged full of keywords, but actually describe your site and the image. Rename the main image as 'windshield-repair-austin.png' or something similar (depending on page). Ensure the other images have a good naming structure too. Use the keywords on each page you're trying to target. E.g. for http://www.autoglassrescue.com/service-areas/austin-tx you'll probably need to use a play on words so to speak. Something like "We offer the best windshield repair Austin has to offer". That way the keyword 'Windshield Repair Austin' is in the exact order of wording (you currently don't have it at all on that page). Better use of H2 tags - be more descriptive and think of sub headings that describe your site a little better Avoid cannibalization - don't target  'Windshield Repair Austin' on both the homepage and inner page. Focus on 1 page for each keyword (i.e change page titles etc so homepage focuses on generic terms and inner pages on location specific terms). Get more links! http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autoglassrescue.com%2F You've got very few linking domains. Hope this helps!

_First of all, no need to submit reconsideration request if the content of the website is duplicate. Panda is an algorithmic penalty and therefore, there is no such need of sending reconsideration request, as it is applicable only for manual penalty. However, what I have assumed from your post is that you are concerned about the duplicate content thing. Yes, it is a matter of concern. Try to rewrite them and wait for Google to index them and your website will be okay._ _However, if someone else is copying your content, there is no reason to be worried about. The sites that are copying your content will be penalized and not the other way round. _

Great...thanks Sean for the response.  Just what I was looking for.

Thank you, Ryan. Looks like we're on the same page I'm going to relay this to my web developer.

Looks like you're filters work via POST method so you don't have much choice. There are no URL parameters you can block. rel="prev/next" is the way to go to index all images and pages without duplicate content.

"a friend of mine suggest me to nofollow all out going links in such postings. he added that it will help increase posts PRs and better search rankings." this is not true, nofollowing the link is simply throwing away that bit of PR and not passing it to the other site. Removing it as a hyperlink and simply showing the url as text or obfuscating the link are two ways of retaining your PR.

Strange thing: If I search [run a sweepstakes] it should be exact match but I see the 1300/800 you're seeing. If I search  run a sweepstakes and then use "match type: exact" I see the ones I posted, <10, <10. At any rate, Adwords tool aside, you can rank for this term although it depends on "how" you want to rank.  A page by itself will be hard.  The lower DA pages are all blogs (new content) and you're definitely competing with chron, ehow, etc. It's hard to give you specifics without knowing what you're trying to do, exactly.