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Hoping someone can answer these questions. We've got some AJAX coding on our site too and I'm concerned it's going to cause a lot of indexing problems. The obvious answer is to see if you can find another way to build your site where it will be viewable, but often times (and in my case too) that isn't possible from a development standpoint.

Is it possible for me to get this site high in google with good links and quality content? I can't speak for the .nu domain specifically, but you should certainly be able to rank well in google if you build solid links and quality content. When you mention any random company name like "McDonald's", "Toyota", etc. you can add a .com after and arrive to the company website. The .nu domain does not have that kind of name recognition, but you can certainly build it. Your challenge will be not only building up your brand / site, but also ensuring everyone recognizes that your extension is .nu. There will always be a percentage of your visitors who will enter your website name followed by .com and end up on the wrong site. You should definitely take a look at the .com version of your URL before making a final decision.

Nope, you are not targeting that region and you don't care about localised results in south america so don't worry about it. The search engine would never know as long as you don't block one of their crawlers anyhow so... block away.

Good Answer and a great article on your site too! Kudos!

Ryan's point about localized search being drastically different.  So the real question is whether you offer products or services that require localized identification.  If so, having your initial local area in the domain will definitely not help your effort. As for the example of the New York times, they can get away with showing up when not searching for local specifics because they're one of the biggest sites with some of the highest SEO authority from 3rd party sites on earth.  So of course they can get away with it.  If you want to achieve the same (for non-local search phrases), you'll need to go to extreme lengths to build your site's SEO authority as well. Personally I'd say that if your site depends on local related search, you'd be better off with a domain that doesn't have the local aspect in the name.  Build out content in a locations funnel - starting with the geographic areas you determine to be a mix of the most important and some that are semi-important (and thus easier to rank for over time). That way, you can create individual pages (or ideally sections) that have each geographic location in the URLs.  This is much less challenging to get ranking for over time than the root domain being about just one location, because the root domain placement of a keyword is much stronger than a sub-folder. High quality SEO will be key in the geographic funnel.  Citations from other sites in each of those locations will be really helpful as well.

I tried what you suggested but it didn't work. I still have a few more things to try when I get back from vacation. Thanks for checking back with me.

Susan, Have not heard back from you. Does this help? Have you tried this method? Looking for additional insight?

Good Point. I'd suggest a canonical on the new pages as well as blasting them to the social media sites for a quicker turnaround.

Glad to hear it resolved. Sometimes patience is the only action required.

Good stuff! It seems that this issue is tripping a few people up. If this turns out to be the definitive solution be sure to update this thread - I wont be able to sleep until I know I've truly earned my first Moz Points! ;o)

All your answers can be found in Google Webmaster Tools. Google is who removed your site and they have all the answers. You will definitely need to log into your Google WMT account to resolve this issue. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ Why was my homepage kicked out from results, but not my internal pages? When Malware is detected, Google will take whatever action it deems necessary to protect their search results. If Malware was only detected on your home page, and the rest of your site is clean, then they may only remove the affected home page from the search results. How can I make my homepage appear again in the results? Step 1 - Ensure your page is free of malware Step 2 - Log into Google WMT then navigate Dashboard > Diagnostics > Malware. Run the diagnostic to confirm Google sees your site as malware free. There are many cases where a site owner believes their site to be malware free, but Google still detects an issue. Use their tools. Step 3 - One you have confirmed your site is fine then click "Request A Review". Google will then confirm your site is malware free and can remove any warnings they have placed on your site. Step 4 - Once your site is cleared, you can then submit a Reconsideration Request. Expect the process to take a month. The last time I experienced an issue it took a solid 3 weeks. From what I have heard that is better then average. Best of luck.

Mike, I agree with Alan that it is a serious issue that warrants some attention and planning. Worst case scenario, the expired pages return a 404 and you're missing a big opportunity to boost the rest of the site. Best case scenario, you 301 or link to category or cross-promotional pages to pass PR and visitors to the next most relevant page/category. The 301 would accomplish this, but like Alan said you run the risk of inadvertently creating redirect loops if there's no long-term planning for potentially thousands of pages and/or categories.

All things being equal, your SEO would not be be affected at all purely because of a host change. Let me clarify the "all things being equal" part: will your new server offer the same performance as the old server? As Cody suggests, if the new server offers better overall performance that would be good, and if it is worse that would be bad. will there be any downtime during the change? Ideally your should be able to make the move with zero downtime. Any downtime would obviously not be good. is your new server physically located in a significantly different location? If your current server is located in England, it can offer better local results for visitors located in England. If you then move your server to the US, your local SERP can be affected. there are many server settings which can impact SEO and performance. These can easily be taken for granted. If you use any form of shared hosting, you should try to thoroughly understand your current settings and ensure you are aware of your new host's settings. Webmasters are often surprised to learn about changes after they have moved.

Mag and Ryan, thanks for the replies.  That is what I thought as well when they brought this all up.  I did some research and didn't find anything.  I thought maybe I missed something and there was some new, better way to keep rank when changing URLs.

That's fine, I think in that case, they didn't really know why they did it, so it will certainly help them to know, that there's better options around. Thanks again for your insights and time, you helped me a lot with that one! Cheers, Chris

Would it be better to create sub-domains for those translations (same content, different language) or sub-folders? You can safely use either method. For the most part it is solely a matter of your preference. Neither choice has a SEO benefit nor disadvantage when compared to the other. If it was my site, I would choose to go with the subdomain approach as a means of separating the content. The site structure would be identical other then the prefix. It would be easiest to manage in my opinion. But who am I? How about listening to Matt Cutt's opinion http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/