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It may be too late for this, but this is a useful post about what to do if you know in advance you need to take your server down. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-handle-downtime-during-site-maintenance

You're welcome, glad I could help

Hey Tommy, thanks again for your response. I've read both those pages you linked too (sadly the example links are dead in the SEW site). From What I can gather on Google: "This document describes the use of the "NoFrames" tag to provide alternate content. If you use wording such as "This site requires the use of frames," or "Upgrade your browser," instead of providing alternate content on your site, then you'll exclude both search engines and individuals who've disabled frames on their browsers." This is obviously true, but my point is whether Google will index (or give any value too) replicated content that is in these noFrames tags. And from SEW: "Now we have some descriptive text that any search engine can read, not just those that support meta tags. Furthermore, we've created a way for them (and humans) to get inside the site." In this example the content they are putting in no frames is a reference to an index page, on the same site. It could well be viewed as a Black hat technique if the NoFrames is abused to try and rank for terms not in the iFrame as it wouldn't be seen by the user but would by Google. But for example it's not like the content has been made the same colour as the background to deliberately hide it, like a proper black hat technique. Basically "No Frames" is a tag that could be open to abuse, if Google does indeed index the "no frames tag" for anything more than links. so is Google likely to index it, giving the site the benefit of the doubt as it could be used innocently Thanks again for the links, I just don't think they get to the core of the situation.

Thanks for the answer. However I'm still unclear on a few things so I thought I'd give some further info: We actually have two XML sitemaps - one for our main site including our forums (this sitemap is generated/submitted by a ruby on rails plugin) and one for blog posts and static pages (this sitemap is generated by a Wordpress plugin). The sitemap which is appearing as a "Top URL" is the first one There are actually no links to our sitemap anywhere on our site - the only way Google knows about it is because we automatically generate and submit it to Webmaster I think the reason that it is appearing as a Top URL is because all of the page titles of forum posts are listed in the sitemap, and this is the only page where they are all listed on one page. So I think you are right about the 'simple algorithm' thing, but I think it's because of the frequency of the keyword in the sitemap, rather than because the sitemap is linked to from anywhere on the site (because it's not). This brings me to a related question - is it bad having two separate XML sitemaps, and should I be linking to them somehow from the site?

Thanks guys! I much appreciate your help. The issue reported on SEOMoz is in fact just a NOTICE and not an ERROR so I'm ok but maybe perfectionism is driving me mad. We don't normally do websites in plain html anymore but we wanted to try to see the results of that website and it's doing really well in terms of indexing the pages and being found but a nightmare to manage manually the pages and my guys are starting to ask for a dynamic version with a CMS to makes things easier when it comes to update pages. Thanks again! Alex

Hey, It really depends on what you're looking to do - are you wanting to actively trade via those other ccTLDs? For example - with your .co.uk; do you have the ability to offer your product in the UK? If so, then it's absolutely fine to set up as a separate site. However, if you're just going to replicate your current site you will need to do a little work to avoid that content being seen as duplicate. You can geo-target via webmaster tools see - http://www.seo-chicks.com/1463/geotargeting-on-the-same-domain-using-xml-sitemaps.html You can also implement rel-alternate hreflang via your sitemaps see - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/multilingual-and-multinational-site.html As Fidelityim says - I'd also recommend you including other signals e.g. Local phone numbers Local bricks and mortar addresses Local currency This helps the search engines understand where you're trying to target. Please note, that whilst this activity will help in terms of geo-targeting your content in order to actually rank in these countries you'll likely need to do some link building for each of these sites too. I hope this helps, Hannah

A quick search for "google webmaster tools reconsideration request" turned up this page that you might find useful. http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35843

Also, be aware that in this global economy, the IP does not always determine language (think travelers and expats). Be sure to keep an eye out on conversions and bounce rates on the redirected visitors. It shouldn't be a big issue, but it is something to keep in mind.

I'm not using any trick or gimmick. Just Wordpress with the Yoast SEO plugin. Not that many links yet either. Just boring product pages. I did take the time to properly research and categorize the content.

+1 to notifying Google through Webmaster Tools. However this may not solve your traffic problem so I'd probably get to work doing a little social outreach/linkbuilding as well if I were you.

Would it be possible to create a category page for the product type, and represent the models with expandable divs? If you have to maintain separate pages for models with unique feature sets (separate SKUs) one tactic you could employ is to rel=canonical the individual product pages to the main category page. Other questions: are the images unique: is the alt tag unique for each image, and filename?  Is there a distinctive SKU or model name which can be part of the canonical? I had a similar situation with an audio product manufacturer. Some speakers were sold as pairs, some as individual units, some where identical product information except for color. Our solution was a a change towards category pages, since for the most part that was better for retail partners discussing our products in general, and it was easier to handle the issues involved with product end-of-life.

This is a good idea to get a control over the pages... Although i am no smart but in the beginning years i played a lot with osCommerce and i can simply say that is platform is not SEO fitted. Zen cart is even a better option but yes if you give me a open choice i will go for your option!

If all 100 are like your example, eg. different /folder/ structure and different page name then unfortunately there's probably not an easy/automated way to generate the list of 301s. Having said that, if there's any patterns for the URLs you could try a rule geneator tool like this one: http://seo-website-designer.com/HtAccess-301-Redirect-Generator

It depends what they meant by "forward". Are they offering some sort of redirect or are they talking about, say, making your subdomain use a DNS CNAME to do it? If it's the CNAME, I'd not do it.