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4 of 5 top ranking sites on google.com are truely 'more international' then we are so that might be the reason. So i need more links from non-norwegian / us-based sites to improve my rankings on google.com?

No, I would not recommend that. Keyword cannibalization becomes an issue when you have multiple pages on your site that target or focus on the same exact keyword phrase which results in pages competing with each other.

Using a legal analogy, there are those who make the laws (i.e. politicians along with lobbyists and interests groups) and then those who work to understand the laws in place and use that information to serve people (i.e. lawyers). That analogy may not be perfect but it is easily applied to this situation. As an SEO, I work to understand the policies and practices of search engines. I then utilize that information to help service the interests of my clients. If I was to spend any time on how I felt search engines should do things, I would lose a piece of my sanity. I try not to judge. Search engines have a lot of educated people who spend considerable amounts of time researching details and data which we do not have access to. I try to think positively in that if the results don't seem to make sense I presume there is a logical reason for it. That's my approach anyway.

Dear Brian, Unfortunately there are no ways to get such a report using any free tools in INTERNET. One of those software who are able to display Google Rankings with Google Analytics together is Advanced Webranking Report. Their new version 8.6 is able to pull out nice graphic reports from Google analytics. Also you can check this staff, it might help you to find what you are looking for: http://www.authoritylabs.com/ http://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/ http://raventools.com/internet-marketing-tools/serp-tracker/ http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/ Cheers, Russel

Just heard from a GeoEdge rep who says that they have proxy servers internationally (100+ locations) and a toolbar-based version as well, so sounds like it's worth checking out.

Hi Jason, Can you share your URL with us or give us a screenshot so we can take a better look at what is happening? Thanks!

Yes, you should definitely include the city name. A search for just "plastic surgery" is too broad and much less likely to pull up your particular business. When I type in "plastic surgery" in my search, not a single web page contains a local result for plastic surgery in the City I live in (although several of the paid ads show up locally). Local Places pages do show up for local businesses, but I'm assuming you're talking about pages on your website and not Google Places.

Maybe it's due to personalisation of your search (sequence of searches, login, location, google.tld etc) other than that just keeping it slightly random as Google tends to do with most things.

I think this is probably a good bet. I don't want to discount the search engines though. We have found some keywords that seem to have healthy search volume. An example of one would be something like "Ways to fight poverty". My idea is to have a non-branded site or blog post feature Vittana (among other great non-profits). When people search for "Ways to fight poverty" they'll learn about Vittana as well. I'd need to lobby our CEO to spend time developing these non-branded sites, however. Not sure if this is the best way to go. Also, we're probably going to get a lot of links from a blogger contest happening soon. Would be a shame if the only links we got said "Vittana"

Hi Nick, It certainly is best to avoid duplicate content like this. Duplicate content is very bad for a site's search engine performance. If you can avoid these duplicated pages being created altogether, that is the best option; however, there are things you can do to reduce and eliminate damage if they are unavoidable. You can redirect one page to another (most definitely with a 301 and NOT a 302), but if both pages have a usability function on the site, you can also use the canonical tag. More about this tag is explained here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html. The page you choose as your canonical page should be the one most important to the site / its business. Remember that the page you don't use as the canonical page will most likely drop out of the index. Cheers, Jane

Google Keyword data from the keyword tool is only updated on a monthly basis, trends data is updated more quickly. Another thing is that keyword tool data is an estimate, I have written a post on alternant keyword research ideas on the SEOmoz blgo recently: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/advanced-seo-keyword-research-tips-and-ideas-14216 Hope it helps

Thanks again!

Thanks for the information. How do you filter by exact match?

It seems to me from looking over a recent spreadsheet that the value previously populating exact match is now the broad match value

These are long-tail keyword domains.  Yes, I would allow them to expire and allow my competitors use them in a strategy that is ineffective.

Hey Ryan Glad you asked! Our competition formula uses On Site Factors (Keyword in Title, Description, URL, ...?)  -> is the page actually trying to rank for the term Page Competition Data (PA) Domain Competition Data (DA) I agree 100% with your example of a Wiki Page, that's why the DA part of the formula has only a very small influence on our competition value in comparison to the PA part. The reason why results 1-3 may show a lower competition average than 8-10, is because Google sometimes shows results, which don't appear competitive according to SEOmoz (eg. Videos, News, etc...) -> that's why we recently changed the default view in SECockpit to show the average competition over results 1-10. Don't hesitate to ask anything else!

Boxcarpress, It would help if there were a little more info, but I will take a stab at it. No, it is not a zero sum game. Think of each page as needing to be optimized for its keyword and then insure that the mechanism to get to it is in no more than about three clicks. While traffic from current customers can be good: If it causes a new sale, improves customer relations, allows them to be a repeat customer, etc. If you are building other pages for keywords not impacted by your current customer traffic, it will take longer to see a result unless it is around something that is highly searched. You must be clear that you are targeting keyword terms that are relevant to your business and are the queries used by those who use the search engines. So, If you keyword is applesauce, and current customers don't go to that for whatever reason, then you need to do keyword research around applesauce. If the best search is "how to make applesauce" in terms of your site and what people search for, you must make that page be optimized for that search: Correct title tag, url, H1, H2, etc. You must make sure the content is relevant to that search - if I want to make applesauce and land on a page with pictures of different brands of applesauce and no recipe, I am probably bouncing in 5 seconds. If you show a pot of applesauce simmering on a stove and a clear recipe beneath it, you likely have my attention. Keep the customer pages and keep working on the others. Hope this helps.

You can be fairly confident any automated method of moving through a website will be quickly discovered by Google. They are a multi-billion dollar company which employs many of the world's best educated and foremost experts on the topic. Live people have specific patterns and automated methods attempt to mimic those patterns and normally fail in a detectable way. If you want to try your hand at black hat SEO you are welcome to do such, but it is likely a waste of time, money and effort which could be directed towards providing your customers with real value.

ps adwords tool on exact mode did really well on a big site i just tested it out. but it may not do eveything you need it to .

Hi Eric, Yes, there is definitely a way to determine what pages your visitors are landing on and what search term they used to find it.  I'm going to assume you are using the new version of Google Analytics. Login to your respective Account and Profile Go to Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic This view will display phrases from search engines Under the graph there should be an option that states "Secondary Dimensions" 5) Click that then search for "Landing Page" A new column should show up and give you the answer to your question. I hope that helps!